"Last night, I had a strange dream. In the dream, Lecia and I held hands and transformed into a red butterfly, then flew and flew. The townspeople hit by the red glimmer from our wings also transformed into red butterflies. In the end, everyone became red butterflies and flew together."

"That is indeed very strange. What happened next?"

Shard asked curiously, while the golden-haired girl carefully forked up some bacon. The cat lying on Shard’s lap sniffed at it and suddenly opened its eyes:

"Then I saw Mia squatting at the top of the bell tower at sunset, and with one swoop, she swallowed us up."

"Meow!"

Mia suddenly pounced from Shard’s lap onto the table. Even if she wasn’t planning to steal food, she at least had to sniff at it. However, knowing the cat’s nature, Shard quickly grabbed her by the scruff and placed her back on his lap.

Dorothy smiled as she watched this scene, finding it quite enjoyable to see Shard play with the cat on a rainy day:

"What do you think this dream means?"

"Hmm... If you miss Lecia so much, don’t worry, isn’t it the new Day of the Red Butterfly this Saturday?"

Then he was rewarded with several minutes of Dorothy ignoring his ’dream interpretation’.

On Monday night, Shard brought back a wooden boat from the waters outside the island. After a day’s work yesterday, it had been fully restored aboard Megan and Audrey’s cruise ship. The repair did not rely on the power of time to mend the century-old wreck, but rather clever craftsmanship.

On this morning, Shard handed the cat to Dorothy and, carrying an umbrella, arrived at the cruise ship docked on the Duin River. Besides Megan and Audrey, Miss Sylvia was also present.

"Good morning, Shard."

The black-haired Space Witch greeted Shard and led him to the cabin of the cruise ship. Megan was standing in the innermost drainage compartment, looking at the restored small boat in front of her. Originally, her arms extended as if she was about to cast spells, but seeing Shard arrive, those two real arms quickly retracted:

"Good morning, Shard."

The purpose of restoring this boat was to find a way to manifest the soul of the boatman, thereby acquiring the key. Megan and Audrey restored the ship and even invited Miss Sylvia, who was supposed to handle affairs in the City of Glass, believing they had their own ideas:

"We don’t know if we can still summon the soul away from that island, but we have to try. So, we must recreate the environment that allowed this soul to appear, such as water and spatial chaos. Additionally, we should also try conventional methods of soul activation, which means reenacting what the boatman did in his lifetime."

She handed identical information to Shard and Miss Sylvia:

"I’ve checked, if there is no mistake, this boat belonged to Old Reno, the second-to-last boatman of Green Lake Town. He inherited the responsibility from his father and was in charge of ferrying in Green Town."

"Wait, that town is so big, how did they maintain contact between the townspeople and the outside world with just one small boat?"

Miss Sylvia raised a question, to which Megan replied:

"Of course, it wasn’t only reliant on this boat. Green Lake Town belonged to the Draleon Kingdom and had a daily large boat connection with Green Lake City. If the residents missed the 10 a.m. boat, Old Reno would take them to the lakeside. Sylvia, don’t assume that more than a hundred years ago the town was as prosperous as an ordinary town now. At that time, the wave of the Steam Revolution had just emerged; how much travel demand do you think the rural townsfolk had?"

"You said he was the second-to-last?"

Shard also raised a question.

"Yes, he disappeared before Green Town was abandoned, and it seems he rowed out alone and then sank into the lake. Later, his son became the new boatman in the town and also escaped from Green Lake Town that night. The descendants of Old Reno’s son are still living in Puhov Village by the lake. During the investigation, my girls found them and obtained this."

She displayed a rusty and simply designed silver pendant, resembling a ship’s anchor:

"This is their family heirloom, not made of pure silver. It’s said to have been passed down in the family since the Green Lake Town era. I’ve examined it, it’s just an ordinary silver ornament. Although it’s called a family heirloom, an additional 15 pounds was all it took to buy it; it might come in handy later."

"15 pounds..."

Shard again felt the witches’ views on money differed from his own. Bear in mind, Miss Mia Gold only sends 10 pounds monthly.

"Something’s not right," Shard said, "The shipwreck’s location is very close to the shore. Moreover, it’s impossible for the boatman not to know how to swim. I don’t understand, how did you say Old Reno died?"

Miss Sylvia finished reading the information and Megan’s plan, and couldn’t help but ask again, Megan shook her head:

"If you’re curious, you can ask him yourself later. However, I guess it has to do with the ancestor again. Although my grandfather destroyed the sealing ritual on the island, allowing the four of father’s generation to live outside the island, it seems that the ancestor was already preparing the matter of the thirteen keys before that. So, whether he knew what grandfather did or not, it’s still hard to say now... Let’s go, Sylvia, you brought that Relic, right?"

The small boat was moved onto the Duin River, and then Shard and the two Grand Witches boarded. This very primitive small boat needed oars to move, although the witches could make it move on its own, since it was in the city, Shard had to row.

To recreate the situation from back then, Shard rowed the boat from the city all the way to the river mouth, until entering Green Lake, which at times made him suspect that the two witches invited him just to row the boat. Fortunately, they were going downstream, so it wasn’t very strenuous.

After Illusion Technique enveloped the surroundings, the boat stopped on the lake surface. Megan dropped the troublesome umbrella, using an invisible field to keep the rainwater off the boat.

She nodded to Miss Sylvia, who then took out two metal puppets, back to back and sticking together.

Both puppets were palm-sized and roughly made, wearing buttoned coats, black boots, and hats. The metal puppets were identical in shape, the only difference being the color of their clothes and hats—one was entirely red, the other was entirely green. Although they obviously looked like metal products, they still seemed like cheap toys that Lecia and Margaret could never have seen.

Though the surface paint hadn’t peeled off, it already showed signs of aging due to time. And letters were engraved on the faces of two puppets which combined to form a complete sentence:

[Confusing the colors means confusing the world.]

"There are magnets on their backs, so they can stick together back to back."

Miss Sylvia explained:

"Keeper of Secrets Level Relic-[Red and Green].

The only detachable part of these two puppets is the hats. In normal state, the red clothed puppet wears a red hat, the green clothed puppet wears a green hat. At this time, as long as you place them with a certain amount of Green Spine Ore into a sealed container, they can be contained. But once their hats are swapped, the Relic Properties will take effect, causing chaos in the surrounding space. During this period, everyone who witnessed the hat-swapping process will intermittently see strange red and green lights in their vision. Once one kind of light stops flickering and remains for a long period, it means the relic has entered an uncontrolled state:

Red light persistently: gradually erases all entities in the surrounding space with the puppet as the center; green light persistently, the puppet activates, transforming into an evil object whose name I cannot say."

Megan stood beside Shard and added:

"This is a relatively dangerous Keeper of Secrets Level Relic, almost comparable to the bearer of Keeper of Secrets Level, [Secret Keeper’s Eye]. I remember it was Sylvia’s teacher who completed the containment around 15 years ago."

"Yes, when the teacher was still around, she often used this to train my Spatial Perception ability."

The black-haired witch reminisced, sighed, and then finally revealed the reason for inviting Shard:

"This relic is extremely prone to losing control. When the teacher was still around, she had the ability, similar to yours, to stabilize the surrounding space using an aura or domain. Though I also have a similar Arcane Technique now, Green Lake, this space is inherently fragile, no one can guarantee whether this relic will have other issues. So for safety, you must be present for us to use this relic."

"No problem."

For safety, Shard even removed the black Time Key and transformed it into [Yggdrasil’s Staff]. Miss Sylvia saw Shard use this angel-like wand weapon for the first time, but as they were doing serious work now, she didn’t ask too much about the relic’s origins.

Once Shard and Miss Sylvia both made their preparations, Audrey’s hand emerged from behind Megan and swapped the puppets’ hats, so that if anything happened, Megan could react immediately.

The hats of the two puppets were also fixed by magnets, so swapping them was very convenient. Once the swapping was completed, Shard just felt the rainy sky suddenly turn into darkness, then the inexplicable alternating red and green lights almost blinded him:

"Wait a minute, why did it become dark?"

"I don’t know either, but the relic hasn’t lost control... The effect of spatial chaos is about to begin, get ready."

Shard’s perception had already detected the power of Whisper Element confusing space, so holding the Yggdrasil’s Staff on the boat, he calmly waited with the two witches, Megan also placed the "Family Heirloom" at the bow.

The plan was fairly successful. In the spot intentionally left empty at the bow of the boat, although the red and green lights alternated flashing, the ghostly green soul shadow slowly formed and then bent over to pick up the silver ship anchor pendant.

The boatman really appeared.