Just like that, another five days passed.

  On the fifth day after they got to the Sticky Reefs, and the 16th day since they got to Talia, the new world they found themselves in, Dan was sitting on the bridge as he started considering their next course of action.

  The past five days saw many changes. For example, most of the people on the Voyager were already in tier 2. All in all, 25 of the Voyager's 34 crew members took that last step.

  It wasn't that easy to achieve, they had to start letting out 3 tenders from the 2nd day out. The list of all those who reached tier two was:

  Sam, Dan, George, Marcus, Old Raily, Luke, Leonard, Kathy, Francis, Linda, Ricky, Fleta, Hank, Keith, Robert, Diana, Freddie, Natalie, William, Mary, Rose, Jackie, Martin, Dex, Annie, and Arnold.

  Those who refused to go hunting were: Britney who was Luke's mother. Nik and his Wife Nancy. Raymond and his wife Ruby and finally Mrs Raily.

  Of course, there were also the two young girls who still hadn't got a system yet, Tiffany, Jackie's daughter, and Tracy, Dex and Annie's daughter.

  They weren't going to force those who didn't want to go down and hunt to do so, their wishes were respected and no one on the crew pressured them otherwise.

  The same couldn't be said for those who wanted to go hunting though, Dan stood there frozen as he watched Mary get into the tender with her husband William, who looked so defeated. He even started talking, wanting to say something to the grandmotherly figure, but one glare from her had him close his mouth. Just for that glare to turn to a warm smile as if what he had seen was just an illusion.

  All in all, their goal for getting to Sticky Reefs was complete, all those who wanted to grind for tier 2 had the chance to do so and many of their other goals were also done. They needed to consider what to do next.

  "Hey captain," Keith suddenly called him, dragging him from his thoughts, "I have something to show you."

  "Oh, what is it?" he asked as he stood up.

  Even after reaching level 11 and hitting tier 2, Keith still only had 1 skill under her belt, Mariner's Senses. The skill was the one she had linked to the Voyager, the tier up made its range 4 nautical miles, instead of the previous 1 nautical mile, and made her senses clearer.

  "This was a new thing," she said as she pointed to the screen, "Or might have been already happening and I only noticed it once my skill tiered up."

  "What am I supposed to be looking at?" Dan frowned a bit after looking deeper at the screen without noticing anything.

  "The dots, focus on the dots," Keith said. She then pulled out her phone and showed Dan an ongoing timer, which had 2 minutes remaining. "This seems to be happening every 4 hours or so, I don't know the exact period exactly, but it should be close to 4 hours."

  "What is it?" he asked, "So I know what I'm searching for."

  "A pulse," Keith answered, her eyes trained on the screen, "Every four hours or so, a pulse passes through this area. It's not something we can see, but all the dots are going to freeze once it hits. I've only caught it two times before, and I hoped to have someone else with me this time."

  Dan just nodded, deciding to keep watch and see if he could catch what she was talking about. Soon, the timer she had set reached zero, Dan strained his eyes as the ringing sound filled the bridge for a couple of seconds.

  Nothing came from it though, which Dan soon realised was to be expected, she didn't say the timer was accurate, just that the pulse happened every 4 hours or so. With that understanding, Dan kept his eyes on the screen, casually following the dots as they swam out there.

  Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.

  Then it happened, from further in the Sticky Reefs, all the dots in that area seemed to have frozen for a second before continuing with their swimming as if nothing was off. As Dan saw that phenomenon moving towards them, every dot it passed by freezing for a second, he got why Keith called the thing a pulse. The description was the most accurate way to put what he was seeing, a pulse coming from deep within the Sticky Reefs.

  "Okay, now that's weird," Dan said as he frowned, he found the phenomenon quite unnerving.

  "Exactly." Keith nodded. "I don't know what any of it means, but I thought that you needed to know about it."

  "Yeah, thanks for bringing it up with me," Dan said, his eyes still fixed on the screen.

  "It might be just how those stingrays are," Keith added, aiming to find an explanation, "Something innate that connects and has them react that way."

  "It is a possibility." Dan nodded slowly. "Anyway, I will bring this up with the others. It's good that all our goals in this area are complete, we can leave whenever we want, nothing is holding us here."

  "What is our next destination?" Keith asked, "What are we going to do next?"

  "We are good on all fronts," Dan said after thinking for a bit, "We have restocked all we might need, you might even say that we over-stocked. What we have should be enough for us to survive for a long time wherever we might need to go. I think we need to continue south, hit some hunting areas around those parts and continue growing."

  "That's a good general idea," Keith said, "But nothing concrete is there."

  "It's hard to make concrete plans with our biggest problem still not dealt with." Dan sighed. "Without fixing the problem of fuel, we can't really move freely in the oceans. If fuel wasn't a problem, we could even try our hands at heading to the Dynasty, or search for the Ocean Dwellers, maybe even try our luck in the Eastern Ocean. Unfortunately, fuel is still a problem, I'm even starting to wonder if hoping for the Voyager to get a skill that would let her use something else as fuel is just wishful thinking on my part."

  "Don't worry, Captain." Keith patted him. "I'm sure that we can find a way to deal with it. Weren't Linda and the others already looking into fuel production? We will be fine, even if there's no skill like that out there."

  "Thank you, Keith," he said as he brought his emotions under control again, "I'll go and talk to Marcus and the others about it, we might have to leave tonight, I don't like whatever what we saw was."

  ***

  Quinn looked again into the open waters, his mind going through all they knew about the new big fish out there.

  In the past few days, more and more information had surfaced about their target, the most important of which was that they were from neither the Alliance nor the Dynasty.

  Both their spies from those two powers brought back news that their target was the source of some big waves in their high-ups too.

  Quinn was mad that those two super-powers managed to realise that Admiral Kain had already lost the Supreme Captain Title. It was expected that there were spies amongst them, he just never expected them to be as deep as they were. But again, the spies they were getting their intel from were also just as deep as the ones they were plagued with, so he shouldn't have been that surprised really.

  Sighing as he massaged his forehead, Quinn considered again how messy this mission had turned. They had been operating under the belief that the unknown party didn't belong to either the Dynasty or the Alliance, but there was still a good chance that they were simply the secret weapon of one of those.

  With a new player joining in, he didn't want to think about what the world was going to turn to, the waters were chaotic just with the current parties out there.

  At that moment, they were closing in on Sticky Reefs, hoping to find any clue about their target. They had been circling those parts for the last few days, and the Sticky Reefs were one of the last few locations that they hadn't looked into. They wouldn't have even considered the area if not for some new intel they got while restocking.

  While restocking in Dannyport, they found out that a pirate crew that had been hiding around the Swarmers' territory had been destroyed a few days ago. Due to how the damage was consistent with Swarmers' attacks, and how close they had been to their territory, it was ruled as them getting too close and facing those demons' wrath.

  Quinn thought the same too, it was after all just something that came up while he was talking to a friend from the base at Dannyport. But then the news that the Dark Lady and her accompanying ship had signs of being attacked by Swarmers, even though they were hundreds of nautical miles away, and so far away from any of their known territories. Plus how it was suspected that their target might be the one that took down Howl's crew, a possibility came to Quinn.

  Well, actually two possibilities, choosing to ignore the one that pointed towards them having Swarmers under their control, it was too scary to consider, he instead focused on the second; what if their target too was hiding around forbidden zones?

  He might have been reaching with that, but it was a possibility. They would have had to take a look around Sticky Reefs anyway, so why not do a thorough job and put their best Detection and Recon skills to use and see if they were going to find anything?

  Part of him hoped that they would find the target fast, they had been away from home for a long time and his crew needed their downtime. While at the same time, another part hoped they would never face them, he didn't want to find out firsthand whether they really had Swarmers under them or not, especially if they turned out hostile.