Chapter 188: Commission: A Commission from an Old Acquaintance

Chapter 188: Commission: A Request from an Old Acquaintance

That was all the book recorded about Juan. The rest was about other matters of the royal family, with no need to read further.

After analyzing it carefully, this passage proved quite useful.

First, it answered what "Pauca Oris Ananio" was—just as she had guessed, it was the name of the island with the Fountain of Youth.

Second, it helped Everly narrow down the possible range of the island's location. The Winton people said the island lay in the ocean south of Florida, and the history book added that it was northwest of Hispaniola. Though the general range was still vague, it was far better than the original span of tens of thousands of square kilometers.

Finally, a guess—not necessarily correct. Everly believed that the "church support" mentioned in the book likely referred to the church providing witches.

In 16th-century Spain, while the witch-hunt movement wasn't as vigorous as in other countries, the Inquisition still occasionally caught witches and burned them at the stake.

Juan desperately wanted to find the Fountain of Youth, but with the vast sea and countless islands, there was no way he could eliminate them one by one. When human effort fell short, people often turned to the supernatural for help. Perhaps his desire to find the island was so urgent that he came up with the idea of "borrowing witches' abilities."

Ferdinand was equally eager to use the Fountain of Youth to stay young forever. He agreed to Juan's request and, through some exchange of interests, obtained some witches from the church. These were the women mentioned in the history books—hooded in black cloth, escorted by the navy to Juan.

Witches are people favored by nature, each with unique abilities. One or more of them used their powers to help Juan pinpoint the island's exact location.

Everly checked astronomical records—there was a transit of Venus in 1521, confirming that even the year of the voyage was correct.

Unfortunately, Juan still didn't find the Fountain of Youth because he set out too early. That year's transit of Venus occurred on December 7th, and he'd departed early in the year, so naturally, he couldn't have encountered the island.

Everly suspected this was the witches deliberately misleading him.

In the poem passed down through the Barnes family, the second line clearly states the island surfaces on "the day of Venus's transit," showing the witches were well aware of the island's characteristics. So Juan's failure could only have been intentional.

They didn't want Juan to get the Fountain of Youth, so they deceived him, making him set out early and miss the island.

In July 1521, after searching fruitlessly, Juan landed in Florida, clashed with the local natives, and died tragically. Most of the soldiers who landed with him also died in the battle.

By then, the witches who'd set out with the expedition finally found their chance to escape. One of them stayed in Florida and multiplied, and her descendants became the Barnes family—the family that produced the Time-space witch Erica.

Makes sense, perfect sense.

Unfortunately, knowing this wasn't much use.

The only witch Everly knew was Natalie, the Cursed Witch.

That witch, having avenged her great grudge, was now off somewhere causing mischief, popping in and out of nowhere. Her Twitter account under the name "Cursed Witch" was thriving, with people who'd been bullied at school thanking @CursedWitch daily and sharing stories of how they'd sought Natalie's help and been saved. Over time, the account had almost become an urban legend.

The Cursed Witch specialized in curses and knew nothing about locating things. To learn the island's exact location, she'd need a witch skilled in location magic—and a powerful one at that.

After all, this was a trial island left by a deity. If any random fortune-teller could divine its location, it would really lose its mystique...

So could Rebecca's connections hook her up with a witch skilled in location magic?

Everly tried calling Rebecca. After hearing what Everly needed, Rebecca said she could try to find one, but advised not to get her hopes up too high.

"Witches are all pretty unique people, you know. They're rarely swayed by money. To get a witch's help, you usually need to earn their friendship first. I don't know many witches, but I can ask around for you, though I doubt most of them will agree to help..." Rebecca said.

Well, might as well give it a shot.

As the saying goes, don't put all your eggs in one basket. After asking Rebecca to help find a witch, Everly also asked the history professor to recommend more books about Juan, hoping to find more detailed info on the Fountain of Youth's location from other sources.

Time flew by as she studied and searched constantly.

During this time, Everly got several calls from Rebecca, all bringing bad news.

There were already few witches in the world, and most preferred to stay in seclusion, not wanting to get involved in the world's affairs. When they heard Everly wanted to find the Fountain of Youth, the few witches Rebecca knew mostly refused. The only one willing to help was a young witch who'd just awakened recently, with limited magical skill, unable to see through the mist surrounding the island.

"I'm really sorry, I just don't have the connections to find someone who can help you."

"Not at all, you've already helped me plenty. Thanks so much."

After hanging up with Rebecca, Everly let out a long sigh.

Things weren't going well on the witch front, and the research side wasn't going anywhere either.

After all, Juan was just one of countless explorers of that era. Historical records about him were scarce, and only "A Brief History of the New World" went into detail about the Fountain of Youth.

If she kept going in circles like this, when the transit of Venus arrived, she'd have to search the sea area between Florida and Hispaniola—do you know the straight-line distance from Hispaniola to Florida? More than 1,200 kilometers!

God, just thinking about it made Everly's head spin.

Could she really search such a vast area in one day? Or should she take a different path and find the people who bought the journal from Cody?

Those people took the entire journal, which might contain more precise info about the island's location.

But doing that came with a whole host of problems too. Everly had no idea who those people were, nor could she tell whether tracking them down would be dangerous. According to Cody, those people had barged into his home, pointed guns at his head, and taken his journal by a mix of buying and robbing. This showed they had some morals—but not many—and plenty of firepower.

Everly, flying solo, really didn't want to get into a conflict with a group like that...

Just as she was sighing all day over her stalled investigation, Everly logged into Twitter one day and found a private message in her inbox.

Everly didn't really use Twitter.

She didn't like sharing her life, nor was she interested in other people's lives. Plus, with Misha around, Misha would naturally tell her any gossip when the time came. So after registering this Twitter account, she basically only logged in when she needed to share the group's survey questionnaires.

That day, she didn't know why, but while scrolling her phone, she accidentally tapped the app and opened Twitter.

What's more, just as she entered her profile page, a little "1" suddenly popped up in the corner of the screen, signaling a new private message.

Everly tapped it open and saw a familiar account with a child mannequin avatar had messaged her.

[Cursed Witch: I heard you're looking for a witch skilled in location magic...]

Everly: !!!

Worried it might be a fake account, she deliberately clicked into @CursedWitch's account details and checked the follower count—over two million, so it couldn't possibly be fake.

And while she was doing all this, the other person sent another message.

[Cursed Witch: I happen to know a Star Chart Witch. Do me a favor, and I can get her to help you.]

Everly was surprised: [What do you need me to do? I'm just a regular person. I can't help you with anything too dangerous.]

[Cursed Witch: Find my client for me.]

With that, Natalie sent over a screenshot of an account.

[Cursed Witch: (Image)]

[Cursed Witch: Five days ago, this person privately messaged me, begging for my help. I felt her intense pain and resentment and accepted her commission. However, today, just as I finished my current work and was about to fulfill her wish, her presence vanished.]

[Everly: Her presence vanished?]

Not death, not disappearance, but "presence vanished." Combined with Natalie's immediate request for her to "find the client," Everly had a gut feeling this situation was unusual...

[Cursed Witch: Yes, I suddenly can no longer sense her. Even in death, lingering regrets and restless spirits remain as proof of one's existence, but my client has vanished—completely, as if wiped from this world with an eraser. No matter how I try to sense her, I cannot find her.]

[Cursed Witch: I'm curious—what kind of being would dare to lay a finger on what I've claimed... Investigate for me, track down where my client went, then call my name. I'll handle the rest.]

[Cursed Witch: Once it's done, I'll get the Star Chart Witch to help you.]

With that, before Everly could even respond, Natalie's avatar went gray.

She'd logged off.

As if she was dead sure Everly would take the job.

Everly: "..."

Well, honestly, she was pretty tempted.

Natalie was only asking her to find the person, not take down whoever was behind it all. As long as she gathered enough info, pieced things together, and reported back to Natalie, Natalie could do the fighting herself.

Of course, digging around could still get dangerous, but Everly had stockpiled quite a few self-defense gadgets over the years. If she got hurt, she had a panacea to chug; if she ran into a physical monster, she could summon the Sacred Tree Avatar. She might not be much of a fighter, but she was damn good at staying alive.

Maybe... she should just try looking into it first?

Everly exited the private chat, clicked into the search bar, and typed in the account name Natalie had sent her. Among a bunch of similarly named accounts, she found the one with the exact matching name and avatar.

Surprisingly, this account had posted a text update just minutes earlier, reading:

"My joints are all stiff, so annoying. Am I about to kick the bucket again..."

Made no sense at all.

Everly scrolled up, continuing to browse.

After scrolling through, she found this account, "@Biance" (Bianca), to be really weird.

The account owner seemed to be a college student, but she had few friends and didn't post much. In the two-plus years since she'd signed up, she'd only occasionally posted emo stuff or, like Everly, shared survey questionnaires for assignments.

But starting four days ago, it was like her account got hacked—she started posting every few hours, even through the night nonstop.

Looking at the content:

The first three posts read: "Not great, lacking exercise," "Luckily young, feels good," and "What a poor thing." Short, understandable yet not quite, leaving the reader puzzled about what the poster meant.

The later posts were more normal, at least fitting her college girl identity.

Like this one: "Bill Gruss is pretty handsome, I want to date him."

Bill Gruss was a rising male star with many fans in America, all obsessed with his deep chin cleft and perky rear. Though Everly always thought his chin looked like a miniature butt... ahem!

Then the next: "They put pineapple on pizza—how terrible!" It sounded exactly like a pizza lover, with nothing suspicious.

After several similar normal posts, Bianca would suddenly go off the rails, posting cryptic lines like "Already exhausted?" or "Ugh, so useless," then quickly return to normal posts.

This pattern had continued from four days ago until now. Roughly counting, she'd posted 73 times in those four days—more than her total posts over the past two years!