Ultimately, Hermes decided to restrain his hunger and weakly flew around the barren wasteland.

Since the sky was now clear, he could finally find out where he was.

'It should still be somewhere around here,' Hermes sifted through his belongings and felt a hard and intricate object in his hand.

"I told you I'd take care of it, Sophus."

This was the wooden sextant Sophus gave him as a gift hundreds of years ago.

It always helped him enormously in unfavorable situations, akin to his current predicament.

The sextant was a tool that navigators used to calculate their latitude relative to the equator.

Hermes put the lens of the wooden sextant to one of his eyes and calibrated the tool.

Then, he made the proper calculations of the sun's angle and elevation above the horizon.

Over the years, he mastered these calculations, and could now perform them mentally.

As he came to his final result, a soft gasp escaped from his mouth.

"I'm this far north?"

It was obvious that he was far from Qiantang and the East Sea only by observing the climate, but he didn't realize that man blasted them so far away.

"I wonder how Alexei-boy's doing?" Hermes' mood dampened down due to this conclusion.

On top of that, he was extremely hungry, and the luggage with all of their food was in Alex's possession.

However, using his enormous reserves of faith energy, he was able to sustain his flight and movement.

As he went in all directions and didn't find a single change to the snowy landscape, he almost lost hope.

Suddenly, he perceived a black and rocky patch in the distance.

"What's that?"

He flew in that direction and found out that the patch was actually an entirely different landscape.

The elevation was somewhat higher in this place, and Hermes felt like the ambient temperature was not as cold.

The best discovery he stumbled upon was...

"Moss!" In this endless snow, he finally found 'vegetation'.

This tundra was the only landscape that could persist in the dry and cold wasteland, but if he could just find an area with higher temperature and humidity, maybe there would be timber and cattle in that place.

Hermes landed in this place first and examined the ground.

This kind of black, ashy rock was familiar to him.

"There's a volcano around here?"

Next to Hepheastus' lava pit, the composition of the soil was exactly the same.

The presence of a volcano explained the higher ambient temperature and moisture in the air and the growth of moss as a result.

Since there was a volcano around here, there was bound to be a more thriving ecosystem closer to the mount of the volcano.

Hermes began his manual search and was joyful to find that it was successful.

More inland, the rocky black rock became greener and less ashy.

This wasn't in any way lush, but it was better than endless ice and snow.

Soon enough, he found a small woodland centered around a stream of water.

As there were trees, he could ignite a bonfire and cook some prey.

"At least the dry air has this advantage," Hermes laughed out loud.

Because of the low humidity compared to Qin, the timber easily caught on fire, and large flames blazed very easily.

Unexpectedly, another wolf pack approached him.

This pack was less docile than the one from earlier and immediately charged at him.

"Well, I have an excuse now."

His eyes flashed with the glint of a predator.

__________

-Mekong Delta, Nam Viet-

As they heard that knock, Binh and Chau stopped eating.

Worry and fear gradually emerged on their faces.

"What's wrong?" Alex frowned.

"It's the local warlords, they're here for the protection fee..." Binh replied.

Chau clenched her fists and interjected, "What protection fee? There have been no major skirmishes in this area for over a decade!"

"No one is opening the door? Well, I'm coming in!" The door burst open under the kick of that man.

His appearance became clear.

The man clearly lived a comfortable life, as his large body size was in contrast to the couple and the other fisherpeople around here, who had malnourished and skinny bodies.

He wore leather armor on his torso, and a heavy two-handed saber hung at his belt area.

The man's nostrils twitched, and he remarked, "Smells good in here."

He looked at the couple and frowned, "Why didn't you open the door sooner?"

"Lord, we were in the midst of eat-

"I don't care, the son of a warlord won't wait."

Then, his eyes turned to Alex.

For a split second, a greedy and disgusting smile appeared on his face, and he said, "You're housing a foreign man? Why didn't you alert my father? He needs to pay the living taxes."

"W-w-what l-living taxes, Lord?" Binh kowtowed to the armed man.

"Nothing much, just a big portion of his foreign merchandise, as he is clearly a foreign sailor."

The arrogant man thought Alex did not understand their language.

"Anyways, as usual, give over half of your weekly maritime harvest, and if you have any staple grains, we'll take a quarter of those," The man moved his finger up and down, while his other hand approached his saber, as a threat to the unwilling.

"Why should they?" Alex didn't bear to see the two kowtowing.

From their short time together, this couple was higher than everyone and didn't deserve to kowtow to a scu*mmy warlord's son.

The man's chin folded, and he stared in a strange manner at Alex.

He placed his hands on the two-handed saber.

Alex frowned.

His precognition showed that the saber then made its way to the heads of the two homeowners.

Fortunately, this guy was an average mortal, and Alex did not need to use any of his powers.

In a flash, he reached the former, and with a single light punch, the armor collapsed upon itself, and the man was thrown off into the river.

The currents were not strong at this time, so the arrogant man latched onto a pier and climbed back up onto land.

"Do me a favor and sleep."

The man fainted at his words.

Alex turned around and clicked his tongue when he saw the destruction he caused.

Half of the hut was destroyed, and the pieces of straw and badly-glued wood drifted off the currents of the river.

Inside the hut, the couple stared at him with their jaws agape.

Alex silently flew onto the other side of the river and cut down some trees.

Then, under the stunned stares of the two, he cut the trees into usable slabs of wood and built back the hut.

With his speed, he finished this very quickly.

"I need to go," Alex whispered to himself.

Before that, he would do the couple a favor.

"Binh and Chau?"

"Y-y-yes?"

"Where does this warlord live?"

Chau shakily replied, "On the coast, you'll find a temple with the symbol of a dragon eating an apple, that's where they inhabit..."

'For some scum to use the divine beast as a symbol, that's quite daring.'

"Thank you for everything, enjoy the fish sauce I made."

Alex flew away, and in the direction of the sea.