When Fang Yi woke up the next day, he found himself in his room. Inevitably, he felt a bit dizzy and groggy, which was a natural consequence of a hangover.
"Yo~ Xiao Yi, up so early?" When he got to the deck, there weren't many crew members around. It felt like there was a thick fog all around, and visibility was extremely low.
"Where are we? Why is there so much fog?" Fang Yi asked in surprise.
It was quite rare to see such thick fog on the sea. Since the sea was vast, any bit of fog would usually be blown away. Generally, such thick fog only appeared near small islands.
"Not sure. Mr. Jabba just went to sleep. It was like this when we woke up!" Yan Long, a boxer with a spiky hairstyle and spiked gloves, shrugged and said.
"Ah? We've got to be careful of the reefs!"
Since thick fog usually formed near small islands, the presence of fog meant there must be an island nearby. Sailing randomly in such a situation could easily lead to hitting a reef.
"Bang!"
Just as Fang Yi finished speaking, there was a loud noise from the bottom of the ship. The whole ship shook, almost making Fang Yi and the others fall. They thought the Oro Jackson ship had hit a reef.
"I'll go down and take a look!" Seeing this, the merman Sambel said directly.
As a merman, it was the best way for him to go down and investigate.
"Brother Sambel, be careful!" Fang Yi went to the ship's railing and shouted to Sambel who had jumped into the sea.
He always had a feeling that something was off.
"What's going on?" Maybe the impact just now was too loud. Roger and Rayleigh came out of the cabin to ask.
Fang Yi quickly stepped forward to explain.
"It seems we've reached the vicinity of some island!" Rayleigh said with a faint smile.
Because of the fog, his judgment was the same as Fang Yi's.
But just then, Sambel, who had gone underwater, suddenly emerged from the water. Seeing the captain, he shouted anxiously, "Captain, there's an underwater volcano erupting around here!"
It turned out that the previous vibration was not because the Oro Jackson ship hit a reef, but the commotion caused by the underwater volcano.
Roger and Rayleigh glanced at each other. Without saying much, one ran towards the captain's cabin and the other towards the bow.
"Xiao Yi, wake everyone up!" Rayleigh, who was running towards the bow, shouted to Fang Yi.
"Yes!" Fang Yi also knew the urgency of the situation, so he ran towards the cabin without saying a word to wake up Jabba, the navigator first, because an experienced navigator was needed to take command in this situation.
Soon, after waking Jabba up from the cabin, Fang Yi noticed that the mist all around seemed to be getting thicker.
"Damn it! It's an underwater volcano. It seems it's about to erupt!" After Jabba came out, he immediately judged the current situation and took over the command of the ship, instructing the crew on what to do.
"Golan, can you see clearly ahead?" Outside the second - floor captain's cabin, Jabba shouted seriously.
"No! I can't see clearly at all. The mist is too thick!"
On the mast, the lookout Golam shouted back.
"This is really bad! If we hadn't spotted it, we'd probably have rammed right into the underwater volcano!" Jabba felt that the greatest danger since the establishment of the Roger Pirates was approaching.
If they made a wrong move, the whole crew might die here.
"Teacher Jabba! If we can't figure it out from above, can we determine the direction by the flow of the seawater?" Fang Yi, who was looking around on the deck, suggested to Jabba.
Although he knew something about navigation because of his life skill of sailing, he was definitely not as experienced as Jabba, an old - hand navigator.
"We can't be completely certain, but we have to try! Sambel, go underwater and check the direction of the ocean current!" Jabba thought for a moment and adopted Fang Yi's suggestion. After all, at this time, they had to try every method they could think of.
"Wangzai!" Fang Yi waved to Wangzai not far away and said, "Let's dive in. Then you try to sense where the volcano is!"
"Whine...?" Wangzai looked at Fang Yi puzzled. It didn't know what a volcano was because it had never seen one before.
"Come on, dummy! Just feel for danger underwater!" Fang Yi didn't know how to explain what a volcano was to Wangzai for a moment, so he could only use the simplest way to say it.
"Woof!" Wangzai understood what Fang Yi meant and barked once, telling Fang Yi to get ready.
Without saying a word, Fang Yi flipped over and rode on Wangzai. Then, with Wangzai leading the way, they jumped off the ship's side.
After entering the sea, because the seawater was relatively clear, the visibility was actually a bit better than on the ship, but not by much.
Fang Yi took out an underwater breathing pill from his backpack and swallowed it. Immediately, he felt much more relaxed. Even though there was seawater all around, he could still breathe normally.
Soon, after sensing for a while in the seawater, Wangzai pointed in the direction of the bow of the Oro Jackson. This action instantly made Fang Yi's heart skip a beat. So he patted Wangzai's head, signaling it to return to the surface quickly.
"Phew~ Teacher Jabba! Wangzai says there's danger ahead!" Fang Yi, who had emerged from the water, shouted directly towards the ship.
"Okay, keep it up. Let Wangzai guide us in the water!" Jabba came to the ship's side and shouted to Fang Yi.
"Okay!" Fang Yi nodded after hearing that and then patted Wangzai again, signaling it to dive again.
Due to the thick fog, without someone to guide the way, you wouldn't know if you'd changed course. You could put in a lot of effort, yet still end up on the same route. That's why Jabba just stopped the ship at first instead of wandering around randomly.
But now that Wangzai could locate the position of the volcano for them, they could use this to determine their own position. In this way, they could guide Jabba and help the Oro Jackson escape from danger.
"Boom! Boom! Boom!" Not long after they turned away, a violent explosion rang out. A column of fire shot up into the sky from the direction of their ship's stern, dispersing quite a bit of the surrounding thick fog.
"Phew~ If it weren't for Wangzai, today would've been a disaster!" Jaba wiped the sweat off his forehead and said with a smile.
However, Roger beside him still had a serious look on his face and said, "Jaba... I don't know why, but I always feel... things don't seem to be over yet!"
"What's that supposed to mean?" Jaba asked in surprise.
"That oppressive feeling is still there... It seems we haven't escaped danger yet!" Roger shook his head and said.
"Teacher Jaba, Wangzai says it senses danger from the left rear too! And the distance from us..."
"Boom! Boom! Boom!"
Before Fang Yi could finish speaking, an explosion suddenly occurred at the left rear of the Oro Jackson. The seawater surged more than ten meters high.
"Oh no... It's... It's an underwater volcanic group!" Jaba's face turned pale, and he said in disbelief.
"Think of a way quickly! What should we do now?" Roger grabbed the ship's railing as if to steady his body. Just now, there was a violent impact, and they were close to the explosion. As a result, the Oro Jackson almost capsized.
"Now we can only rely on Wangzai to show us the way! Although the fog has dispersed a bit due to the volcanic eruptions, we have no idea where there are volcanoes on the seabed!" Jaba shook his head and said.
"Sanbell, go help Xiaoyi. He's human and can't stay underwater long, and it's really dangerous down there now!" Captain Roger nodded and shouted to Sanbell, who had just come up from the sea because he hadn't been able to help.
"Okay, captain!" Sanbell didn't mind. He knew the situation and without saying a word, he jumped back into the sea again.
"Xiaoyi, go back to the ship. Leave this to me and Wangzai!" When Fang Yi came up again, Sanbell grabbed him and said.
"No! Wangzai says it senses danger from many places. You're not as proficient as me in communicating with it! I'll do it. You go to the bow and show the captain the way!" Fang Yi shook his head and refused.
Sanbell thought it made sense. This wasn't the time to talk about danger or safety. Even if Fang Yi stayed on the ship, if it was hit by a volcano, he'd be done for. So he accepted Fang Yi's suggestion and went straight to the bow of the ship to guide the Oro Jackson.
Just like this, Wangzai and Xiaoyi kept sensing danger in the sea, then used gestures to tell Sanbell the possible locations of the volcanoes, and finally he guided the Oro Jackson.
"Boom! Boom! Boom..." Volcanoes erupted one after another, but thanks to Wangzai's early warnings, the Oro Jackson managed to perfectly avoid them all.
"Only an underwater volcanic group of this scale could create such a thick fog! We really owe this to Wangzai and Xiaoyi this time!" Looking at the fading fog around them, Jaba couldn't help but sigh.
"Phew~ It should be okay now!
It seemed that after leaving the area of the undersea volcanic group, the sense of oppression in Roger's heart gradually diminished.
But at this moment, Sambel, who was leading the way ahead, suddenly changed his expression. He turned back and shouted to the ship, "Hold on! There's a volcano right beneath us, and it's about to erupt!"
Hearing Sambel's shout, Roger and Jappa changed their expressions and rushed directly to the ship's railing. They could already see that bubbles were constantly rising from beneath the hull.
"We're screwed!" Jappa's face turned pale as he murmured.
At this time, Fang Yi, who was at the bottom of the sea, was also extremely anxious and had no idea what to do. He watched as the volcano below was about to erupt, and he knew that the Oro Jackson would definitely not be able to leave this area completely in a short time.
This volcano was on the periphery of the volcanic group, not large - scale, and deep under the sea. At first, neither Fang Yi nor Wangzai felt its existence. Only after it showed signs of eruption just now did Wangzai sense it.
"Gurgle~~"
A huge bubble floated up from the seabed. Fang Yi knew that this volcano was about to erupt. Without thinking much, he waved his hand and took out the Bow of Shooting the Sun from his backpack. Then he got off Wangzai, told it to leave quickly, and dived towards the seabed himself.
"Frost Arrows..." Fang Yi quickly placed five arrows on the Bow of Shooting the Sun and shot them downwards continuously.
This was the only way he could think of at the moment, which was to use the Frost Arrows to freeze the surrounding seawater and buy time for the Oro Jackson to leave.
After all, the Oro Jackson was the work of Master Tom, the world's number one shipbuilder, and it was made of Adam Wood. As long as it wasn't directly hit by the erupting volcano, it should be able to withstand the aftermath.
"Splash..." Just when Wangzai was feeling anxious, a man suddenly emerged from the sea. It was Captain Roger.
"That idiot..." Seeing Fang Yi's actions and the powerful airflow that had already reached below him, Roger, the captain, knew that it was too late for him to catch up.