[Current Balance: 11,416,922,658 R]
---AUGUST 26, 1714---
A week had passed since Alaric t with Edward Kenway. After planting a Hiraishin marker in Port Royal, he teleported back to Havana and spent a quiet night in a modest inn.
[Money Withdrawal: 25 R]
[Current Balance: 11,416,922,633 R]
By morning, after a simple breakfast of fruit and bread, he took to the skies, heading towards Trinidad, then banking northwest toward Saint-Domingue.
Compared to Cuba, which at least had Havana and Santiago de Cuba showing so signs of proper city life, Saint-Domingue was still pretty raw, at least in terms of how built-up it was.
Alaric flew over settlents like Cap-Français, Limonade, Jacl, and Petit-Goâve. They weren't really towns yet, more like scattered outposts of colonial ambition, surrounded by vast fields. Even from high up, the plantation system was obvious, they were a patchwork of cultivated land carved out of the tropical green.
Saint-Domingue was the pride of France's Caribbean empire, a money-making machine fueled by sweat and blood. Sugar plantations stretched as far as the eye could see, worked by thousands of enslaved Africans. French soldiers and overseers were everywhere, their white uniforms were obvious as the colors were too different from the landscape, and their black powder muskets were always held.
Alaric didn't linger too long in Saint-Domingue, just enough to get the lay of the land, before heading back towards Jamaica.
He wasn't aiming for Port Royal or Kingston this ti. He was headed for Bahía de Manteca, or as he rembered it from the ga, "Long Bay."
Well, he wasn't quite there yet. He was still airborne, cruising effortlessly, enjoying the sensation of slicing through the clouds.
Seeing Long Bay approaching below, a stretch of coastline that looked remarkably familiar, he slowed and then stopped, hovering motionless in mid-air.
"…"
"Shinra… Tensei," Alaric muttered under his breath, then chuckled. "Heh… I could technically just buy the Rinnegan and actually do it."
He shook his head, dismissing the thought, and looked down.
The area below was thick with jungle, but nestled within it were small patches of settlents. Mayan, by the looks of their architecture and attire. There were maybe two hundred of them, going about their lives, but with an air of watchfulness, clearly ready for intruders.
What really caught his eye, though, were the massive, perfectly cut stone blocks that ford structures within the Mayan village. They looked out of place, too precise, too… advanced.
'Definitely Isu-tech,' Alaric mused. 'It seems like I'm in the right place.'
Alaric descended smoothly, landing with a soft thud on top of one of the huge, weathered Isu blocks. He spotted what looked like an entrance, a section of the stone that seed more like a sealed doorway than part of the ancient ruin. 'This should be it. The Observatory entrance. Only a Sage is supposed to be able to open this, if I rember right.'
He walked up to it. Instead of looking for a hidden chanism, he simply coated his right fist with a visible layer of crackling blue chakra. He drew his arm back and punched.
CRACK!
The stone door shuddered, and a network of fine cracks spread from the point of impact, but it held.
'Huh. Of course,' Alaric thought, a little surprised but also impressed. 'It's Isu-made. Tough stuff.'
'But it ain't tougher than the one at Thera,' He pulled his fist back again, this ti pouring a bit more power into it. The chakra around his hand flared brighter. He struck again, a solid, at-on-stone impact. This ti, the Isu stonework didn't just crack; it exploded inwards with a grinding shriek of tortured material. Fragnts of ancient, glowing rock flew, and the intricate chanisms within the doorway sparked and died with a sigh.
'I comnd the Isu for their knowledge, their craftsmanship is top-notch,' Alaric thought, stepping through the ruined entrance. 'But my chakra-based abilities are just too OP… even for them.'
He walked down a sloping passage, the air growing cooler. There was only one way to go. Soon, he erged onto a narrow stone bridge that spanned a chasm. ters below, an underground river flowed silently in the darkness.
He crossed the bridge with a casual stride. As he reached the other side, a heavy stone door ahead of him began to lift upwards with a smooth, almost silent hiss, revealing another passage.
Continuing on, Alaric climbed a set of stairs and finally entered a large, circular chamber. In the center stood the device he'd co for: the Observatory. A complex, golden, circular chanism, with a crystalline skull resting at its heart.
'From what I rember, this is a highly advanced piece of Isu tech that's capable of real-ti surveillance across the world,' Alaric thought, approaching the intricate device. 'A drop of blood is all it takes to activate it for soone else. Super high-tech for this era, or any era, really.'
The crystal skull sat on a pedestal in the middle of the golden rings. It had a small, square indentation on its forehead, clearly designed to hold sothing… the blood vials.
"How much money would I get from the System for this, I wonder?" Alaric murmured, reaching out to touch the cool surface of the skull and the surrounding golden chanism. "Ten million pounds? More?"
He focused his intent.
[Buy][Sell]
ntally, he pressed [Sell]. The Crystal Skull, an artifact of imnse power and untold history, vanished from its pedestal in an instant, without so much as a shimr.
A notification pinged in his mind.
[ 513,613,592 R] (Approx. £16,050,424 15s.)
[Current Balance: 11,930,536,225 R]
"Sixteen million pounds?" Alaric whistled softly, a grin spreading across his face. "Not bad at all. Definitely worth the trip."
"Now… I better get back to La Providencia before Kassandra kills …"
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