Aurelius had become familiar with Mr. Tona’s style of teaching methods over the last 26 loops.

  Simply put, the man was someone who valued ‘independence’ in ‘guided settings’.

  In that line of thinking, Aurelius was reasonably sure that Mr. Tona had a plan in stranding him on this particular island, rather than in some western port. And he was reasonably sure that whatever that reason may have been, it was likely something to do with this particular room hidden on the island…

  “Do you recognise the emblem?” Aurelius asked, sighing deeply as he brushed the sand off of the trapdoor.

  “I may be 300 years old, contractor, but I have been sealed for 300 of them. So that should give you an idea of what the answer is.” Pultris replied lyrically.

  As Aurelius found the handle of the trapdoor, he suddenly remembered a key information.

  “Are there Bound Books protecting the space?” Aurelius questioned.

  “Yes. The particular book is for conditional entry, and it’ll kill you if you aren’t a pirate.” Pultris replied cheerfully.

  “Are you capable of breaking the Book?” Aurelius asked, immediately letting go of the handles, and stepping back in caution.

  “Already done.” Pultris replied casually.

  Aurelius nodded, quite pleased that Pultris was so proactive today, and lifted the trapdoor, sending the remainder of sand dripping down against its surface.

  The room hidden by the trapdoor was about the size of Sage Yeltz’s office with neat shelves of supplies, and several humming instruments in its center lying on the table.

  As expected, the island was likely a harbour for a small pirate crew, and they had likely dug the particular room out to store supplies.

  However, it seemed to have been untouched for a long time, given the amount of dust that lay on every corner of it.

  Hmm… They must have gotten captured, then. Aurelius mused silently, observing the dark gloomy room from the ladder.

  While the Commission decommissioned some safe houses after capturing pirate crews, they didn’t decommission all of them, especially if the resources it took were larger than the expected value stored in them.

  This island, therefore was likely one of those forgotten safe houses, that Mr. Tona had come to know of in his time as a bounty hunter.

  “Koff, koff.” Aurelius coughed, as he stirred up a large amount of dust into the air as he descended into the room.

  “Seems abandoned.” Aurelius said to no one in particular.

  The storage room was likely a safehouse of a pirate crew, one which had presumably already been caught.

  Pirates in Teotlcan had been around for centuries, and in the current era, pirates could be viewed as the pulse of the crime that beat through the undergrowths of Teotlcan.

  They were smugglers, drug distributors, human traffickers and miners and mercenaries when need be. They were the jack of all trades, able to take on any jobs for money, except their power rivaled kingdoms.

  Despite their degeneracy, piracy and its resilience against the law stemmed from their history.

  Piracy was a national endeavour in the previous era, as tools of sabotage and enrichment.

  An independent pirate organisation was simply impossible, given that the existence of magic demanded far too much resources to avoid surveillance and firepower in fending off against unhappy navies of opposing countries.

  However, over time, pirate crews lost affiliation with their sponsor kingdoms, as the kings and emperors they once collapsed in war and conflict, leaving these pirate crews with what was essentially state-level resources and the license for unimpeded business.

  Unfortunately, the consolidation of kingdoms in the tail end of the era of domination meant that pirates finally landed in the crosshairs of the newly formed coalitions and empires.

  The stability in the continents, and the increased demands for globalised trade, meant that pirates became nuisances that could theoretically be challenged.

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  This crackdown simply merged smaller pirate crews and medium pirate enterprises into what would become massive criminal corporations at sea, managed by strict bureaucracy, bribery and organisation.

  And the outbreak of the Greenwich War simply accelerated their transformation into modern pirates.

  The collapse of trade between continents meant that they couldn’t quite loot ships, and suffered losses of ships and men due to the Fae.

  However, pirates successfully pivoted their focus after the mid-point of the war, and started to use their mobility to loot the devastated ruins of besieged cities.

  And free from any sort of oversight, they amassed wealth and power, thriving as they created hidden fortresses at sea spanning islands and underground caves. And their fleets evolved into impressive navies fueled by magic and modernity.

  Since kingdoms and cities could no longer viably support their fleets due to the sieges of the Fae, many navies also just simply became pirates themselves, joining the existing organisations and creating a thriving mercenary and adventuring economy originating at sea.

  And despite the Commission’s efforts to stamp down on them directly after the Greenwich War, it proved impossible, and much too costly to wage war against the navies and magical fortresses of the sea, in the direct aftermath.

  And as time progressed, the Commission did succeed in ending the age of pirates, reducing their numbers down to record lows, but were unable to completely eradicate them.

  Pirates had advanced along with civilization, replacing their safe houses with underwater bases protected by advanced anti-divination charms, and crafted submarines and agile mid-sized ships scattered all over the vast oceans of Teotlcan.

  An archsage may be able to destroy an entire fleet at once with a simple spell, but to destroy the same fleet scattered over thousands of miles was impossible to do within a reasonable timeframe.

  And pirate companies had now developed to become well-organised enough to launch guerilla campaigns against the entire shipping industry and even against coastal cities directly.

  The political and economic costs were seen as completely untenable, especially given that pirates tended to be rather reasonable in their activities, not creating a significant visible loss for the parties involved.

  And the Commission and the continents had simply invested into piracy insurance, and security aboard ships rather than a frontal confrontation with pirates.

  But that didn’t mean that they completely gave up on putting their feet down against pirates.

  Bounties existed for numerous pirate related activities.

  Ranging from reports on pirate hideouts, sinking of a pirate ship, to simple bounties on the heads of influential pirates, the pirate hunting business was diverse in nature.

  “I guess I can’t quite cash this place in as a bounty.” Aurelius muttered, looking around the room and dusting off a label from one of the numerous crates on the shelves of the dingy room.

  He then proceeded to take his coat to wrap around his head, still coughing slightly from the dust everywhere.

  Then, pinching his nose, and closing his mouth and nose, Aurelius made a request to Pultris.

  “Clean this place up.” Aurelius demanded nasally.

  “...You could be more polite about it. Also, the magic you ask for is not easy for me with these seals.” Pultris replied, grumbling irritably under his breath.

  “Uhhuh, not quite my problem, creep. I know you’re capable of that much. Just do it.” Aurelius replied, rolling his eyes at Pultris’s complaints.

  The wind picked up all around Aurelius reluctantly after a few seconds of awkward silence, circulating into a thick, disgusting hurricane of dust all around the boy.

  Aurelius sat in the eye of the gale, his eyes shut as hard as he could, feeling stray particles of dust slamming against his cheeks.

  And within seconds, all layers of dry dust tore themselves off in films of abandoned gray and scattered themselves obediently all around into the pristine air of the island…

  “Koff, koff. I can’t believe that an angel can’t even do its job properly enough to keep the dust off of me.” Aurelius coughed, opening a narrow slit in his eyes to observe the aftermath of the magic..

  The magic was unfortunately not specific enough to shield him and his clothes from the dust completely, and there were now blotches of unpleasant dust coating him in parts of his body.

  “You are very demanding. I did the job, did I not?” Pultris complained, sending another gale of wind around Aurelius, this time, directly lifting the dust off of Aurelius’s skin and clothes, and dumping another round of dust into the tropic air.

  “Well, sorry if I have preconceived notions on the competence of literal demigods.” Aurelius retorted, scoffing at Pultris’s answer as he unwrapped the coat from his head.

  Looking around the room again, Aurelius finally noticed the lighting charm embedded in the ceiling.

  Climbing up the table to reach it, Aurelius poked and prodded at it, seeing if it was in working condition.

  And with a small infusion of mana, Aurelius was pleasantly surprised to find that it had simply run out of its stored mana, as the charm sent a small beam of light up into the small crystal next to itself to diffuse light all around the room.

  And Aurelius finally turned his attention to the instruments that were littered on the table.

  “Err, I don’t recognise any of this. Do you?” Aurelius asked.

  “One is for navigation, the other seems to be for anti-divination, and the complex one with the humming noise seems to be… an illusion charm.” Pultris replied, sounding slightly unsure of the last charm.

  “Illusion charm? Hiding what?” Aurelius asked curiously.

  “You can break it, and find out.” Pultris suggested.

  “...I could probably sell that for a few gold coins.” Aurelius replied haughty, looking closer at the humming charm that hovered slightly off of the arms of its holder.

  “Nope. The illusion spell is localised, and it can not be deactivated.” Pultris replied simply.

  Aurelius frowned at this.

  Localised charms usually traded off mobility for larger effects, such as area.

  This suggested that the charm likely hid something more than it seemed…

  Aurelius wrapped up his coat in his hands, and concentrating his soul, Aurelius prepared a simple martial arts technique to use against the stone.

  “Are you dumb? Do you want shards of crystal on the floor?” Pultris asked indignantly, making Aurelius pause momentarily.

  “Does it matter?” Aurelius asked irritably.

  “Haa… For the love of- You can literally just lift it out of its holder. The thing is a localised charm!” Pultris retorted irritably.

  Rolling his eyes, Aurelius approached the humming charm, and lifted the crystal.