The next morning, after Lin Lan woke up in the soft embrace of Emden and Agir, the first thing he did was look out the window.
Well, as expected, the rain hadn't stopped—it was even heavier than yesterday.
After washing up, Lin Lan called Sun Dewang to send a large unmanned business vehicle with autopilot over, while also sending him the lottery software.
He stared at the torrential rain outside and the dim sky, feeling a sense of unease in his heart.
Originally, to avoid drawing attention, he had planned to only bring Agir, Nimi, and Akashi to the trade fair today.
However, he decided to have all the shipgirls, including Sui Qiong, change into civilian clothes and come along with him.
At worst, he could ask them to stay apart from him and pretend to be staff from the Tian'ou Group.
Better safe than sorry. After the incident with the Demon King's army commander, Bolt, Lin Lan had learned his lesson—he couldn't afford to be reckless in this other world.
Having flipped over in a ditch once, he certainly didn't want to go through it again.
Everyone agreed with Lin Lan's suggestion, especially the three little wolf girls, who were overjoyed.
After all, they had already experienced Akashi's lottery software yesterday, and were eager to see others suffer through it.
After waking all the shipgirls and having breakfast prepared by Roon, the unmanned business vehicle from Tian'ou Group stopped in front of the villa.
Just as everyone got on the vehicle, and Sui Qiong switched it to manual operation and started driving, Lin Lan, sitting in the passenger seat, suddenly heard a muffled thud.
"Is that... thunder?"
Lin Lan suspiciously cracked the window, and the cold wind rushed into the car, slapping his face.
The muffled sound grew louder—it was indeed thunder.
After closing the window, Lin Lan pulled out his phone and opened the news.
As expected, besides the top headlines about the attack on the Battleaxe Military Industrial Headquarters and the West Continent's ship equipment trade fair, the abnormal heavy rain in Yunhai City had also made the front page.
"Commander, can you use the Clear Sky Spell to disperse these clouds? Something about this rain feels off," Nimi, sitting behind him, suggested.
Hearing Nimi's words, Lin Lan slapped his forehead.
"Right! Why didn't I think of using the Clear Sky Spell to clear the clouds?"
It took Z23's reminder for Lin Lan to remember that he had this ability.
He had been so focused on battling and practicing with Prinz Eugen using his aggressive skills recently that he almost forgot he could make these ancient Liao Zhou magical items.
Though using the Clear Sky Spell too much could affect the local climate, it seemed like the perfect solution to deal with the current abnormal weather.
He immediately bent over in his seat, and with the magic brush and ink, he drew a Clear Sky Spell on the car's floorboard.
His actions drew the attention of the shipgirls in the car, as they had seen the power of this spell in the port area before.
"Akashi, give me a windproof lighter," Lin Lan said.
After taking the windproof lighter from the little merchant, Lin Lan opened the car window, stepped back a few paces, and lit the Clear Sky Spell.
However, even after the spell burned for several minutes, the sky outside remained stormy, with no change.
"Commander, your spell failed," U37 said, looking out the window and noticing that the clouds showed no signs of dispersing.
Lin Lan was also confused. What was going on?
He had used the Clear Sky Spell before with remarkable results. Why wasn't it working now?
Lin Lan raised his hand, and a blue water-element blade appeared in his hand.
"My brave power is fine... Could it be that I drew it incorrectly?"
Seeing Lin Lan deep in self-doubt, Agir laughed and said, "Why don't you just draw two more spells, Commander? Maybe there are too many clouds above, and one spell isn't enough?"
Lin Lan thought about it and realized that could be possible.
Though drawing a Clear Sky Spell consumed a fair amount of mental energy, for Lin Lan, who had fully restored his mental energy, this consumption was negligible.
He quickly drew two more Clear Sky Spells in the car, even asking Sui Qiong to stop the business vehicle on the side of the road, open an umbrella, and walk out to ignite them himself.
Since they had already entered the city, many store employees along the roadside saw this scene through the glass of their shops.
A young man in a white naval uniform stood beside the bus holding two paper talismans, lighting them in the pouring rain, muttering as though possessed.
A few seconds later, the young man, his pants soaked from the rain, hurriedly ran back into the vehicle.
"That's strange, why is this happening?" Lin Lan sat back down, looking extremely puzzled.
Sui Qiong had already restarted the vehicle, and the other Ironblood shipgirls tactfully refrained from mocking Lin Lan at this time.
Nimi gently patted his head to comfort him.
Even Deutschland, usually quick to tease Lin Lan, didn't say a word, instead sighing helplessly.
Poor creature. He finally had a chance to show off in front of everyone, and it ended in failure. Truly unfortunate.
As for Lin Lan, who was comforted by Nimi's head pat, he was absolutely certain that the Clear Sky Spell had been drawn correctly. Yet, in Yunhai City, it had failed.
At this moment, Ulrich, who had been silent until now, looked at the pouring rain outside and thoughtfully said, "Commander, is there a possibility that the rain isn't natural?"
"What I mean is, could the rain be man-made?"
Upon hearing Ulrich's analysis, Lin Lan's heart skipped a beat, and he inhaled sharply.
If the storm was man-made, then the failure of his Clear Sky Spell made perfect sense.
However, two questions immediately sprang to Lin Lan's mind.
The first question was, who had caused this storm?
Lin Lan could also create rain spells to bring about a localized downpour, but the problem was, he was a hero.
Not to mention how rare heroes were among transmigrators, the memory of making such items had been passed down from ancient Liao Zhou.
By now, Liao Zhou's Nine Islands probably no longer had these skills.
If they did, the Orlan Fleet wouldn't have easily taken so many detained laborers when they arrived at Liao Zhou.
The Teaching Nation must also have such rain-controlling magic.
But if such powerful mages were still in Orlan, they'd likely already been controlled by the Zhu Hai Commercial Association.
So, it couldn't have been the Liao Zhou people, nor could it have been the people of the Teaching Nation. The person responsible for the rain was becoming clearer.
The Sirens.
Lin Lan thought back to the large-scale operations in the game, where the Sirens had control over "weather controllers."
These devices could control the weather over a large area, creating hurricanes, storms, and fog to interfere with players' shipgirls.
Now that Lin Lan had confirmed that the storm was caused by the Sirens, the second question was: Why had the Sirens created this storm?
If the Sirens were preparing for an attack, the rain had been falling for almost a whole day, yet there was no sign of battle along the coastal areas of Yunhai City.
This didn't fit the Sirens' cold, ruthless, and efficient attack style.
Could it be that the Sirens were hoping to flood Yunhai City with the rain?
Lin Lan briefly entertained this idea but immediately dismissed it.
That was absurd.
Yunhai City was already on the coast, and as the most prosperous city on the West Continent, its drainage system was well-maintained by the Tian'ou Group.
The Sirens couldn't possibly be testing the limits of Yunhai City's drainage system, could they?
Uh... maybe the Purifiers would actually do something like that.
"Forget it, just stay cautious today. This rain is definitely the work of the Sirens."
Lin Lan couldn't figure out exactly what the Sirens were trying to achieve by causing the storm, so he decided to tell his shipgirls to stay cautious.
Soon, the vehicle entered the city's main roads and entered the central district of Yunhai City.
Surrounded by skyscrapers, even with the rain, the lights in these buildings remained on.
In Yunhai City, even a storm couldn't stop the workaholics from going to work.
After a while, Lin Lan saw, through the light drizzle, a crowd of people holding umbrellas, queuing up at the entrance of a luxurious building.
Luxury cars lined the road beside the building, showing that the underground parking garage had already reached capacity.
They had arrived at the site of the ship equipment trade fair.
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50 advanced chapters on p@t re on (.) com/SenatusTheta
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