Treasure Hunting System： The Ocean Conquerer

Chapter 539: Chapter 263: Determining the Target

「Day two, early morning.」

Everyone dispersed, each starting to act on their objectives.

First, Balazs took Jason to visit the homes of those from whom he had previously gathered information. Faced with Balazs inquiring once again about events from decades ago, they showed no impatience. After all, they were being paid.

Then, Balazs dispatched his deputy with Chadite to collect maps; naturally, funding was indispensable for this task.

With Balazs, a well-connected local, involved, their activities proceeded smoothly.

When night fell, everyone returned to the ship and gathered once more in the captain’s cabin. This time, it was for an internal meeting.

Chadite first took out a heap of various maps from her Pocket Ring. It was apparent that most of them were hand-drawn. However, due to the mapmakers’ varying skill levels, the quality of these maps differed greatly. The worst ones couldn’t even be recognized as maps and looked more like a child’s casual doodles.

Can these things really be called maps? What kind of shamelessness does it take to produce something like this?

Alka felt that even the maps he had sketched right after transmigrating were better than these.

”These are all the maps we could find,” Chadite said. ”They’re all of this surrounding area. Some are many years old, and there are a few duplicates. These maps mostly cover the inhabited islands in the vicinity. Islands with very small populations or no special resources don’t even have maps.”

At this point, Chadite sounded a little helpless.

”Moreover,” she added, ”the island chain system seems a bit different from what we thought.”

”What do you mean?” Alka asked, curious.

”The islands linked by the island chain aren’t fixed. Over time, some islands, especially those on the periphery, will permanently detach. New islands will also connect to Landmark Island, forming new chains and becoming part of the Broken Sea Region.”

”However, this process takes a very long time, typically starting at a hundred years. Fortunately, for at least the last twenty years, no new islands have joined, and no old ones have departed.”

Hearing this, Alka nodded; at least that was good news.

Otherwise, if the place they were headed to had coincidentally detached due to a broken island chain, wouldn’t that be terribly inconvenient?

I never expected the island chain to have such a characteristic.

It’s more like Landmark Island possesses some unique trait that latches onto passing islands.

But these are all just random guesses.

Alka refocused his thoughts, concentrating on the pile of assorted maps in his hands.

As he sifted through them, Alka removed at least half of the maps from the pile. These were either damaged, too poorly made, or excessively old.

Damaged or poor-quality maps couldn’t be recognized by the system. As for the very old maps, their usability depended on how much the depicted regions had changed. If the changes were too significant, they were unusable.

Minor changes, such as different building styles or expanded residential areas, generally didn’t affect usability. However, significant changes—like a town upgrading to a city, entire settlements relocating, a new city emerging, or major terrain alterations—would render an old map unusable.

For a map to be usable by the system, it wasn’t necessary for these areas to be meticulously detailed when the map was drawn. Simply sketching the island’s general outline, along with basic depictions of its woodlands, vegetation, and mountains, was enough to qualify it as a map.

Therefore, the simpler yet more accurate a map was, the longer its period of usability. Overly detailed maps, conversely, wouldn’t remain usable for long in Alka’s experience with the system. These were all insights Alka had gained from using the system over the years.

After sifting out these unusable maps, only four remained in his hands. This accounted for only about a quarter of the entire island chain.

Two of them were duplicates, differing only in the clarity of the drawing and the techniques used. Essentially, there was no difference.

In Alka’s vision, the island represented by the two duplicate maps surprisingly showed only one white dot. Judging from the map, this island wasn’t small, roughly a third of the size of Broken Island. Yet this island had only one small town with a population under 3,000, and the map itself was decades old. However, the changes weren’t significant, so it could still be used.

Beside him, as Alka examined the maps, Chadite began to share the information she had gathered about the islands they depicted.

”This island once had a mine. The people on it actually migrated from Southern Cross Island as miners. However, after the ore veins were depleted, many things were removed.

”The small town there is now inhabited by the descendants of those miners. There’s nothing special about it anymore.”

Alka looked at the details on the map and nodded.

Then, he turned to the next map.

This island was different; a town and several villages were clearly visible on it. It showed two blue dots and several white dots. Its size was moderate, slightly smaller than the aforementioned mining island, but it appeared to be much more habitable.

However, it wasn’t the island Alka was looking for. Chadite had already compared these maps before giving them to Alka; she hadn’t found any that matched what they were searching for.