Chapter 58: Chapter 41: Fleeing and Reporting, Sea Soul
Watching the mermaid in the surveillance cabin daintily picking at her food, Sariel felt a sense of relief and eagerly ordered the fleet to return to the city at full speed.
Just then, the ship’s radar issued an alert: "Four suspected treasure hunting ships detected approaching from the southwest and southeast!"
Sariel asked in surprise, "What’s going on?"
The captain, however, remained calm: "When lions are hunting, hyenas tend to linger nearby. These treasure hunting ships are probably here to clean up some valuable fish meat. Your privileges have been greatly depleted in this battle. Shouldn’t we let the fishing boats clean up the battlefield a bit to make up for the consumption?"
Lurking hyenas?
The butler reminded, "These treasure hunting ships are highly likely to intervene as NPCs! They’re waiting for us to be exhausted from battle to attack, and hidden powerful figures can’t be ruled out!"
Sariel, realizing the danger, decisively replied to the captain, "No cleaning up, the lion moves on and doesn’t chase the cunning rabbit, head back at full speed!"
The fleet moved swiftly, encountering more ships on the radar as Silver Port drew nearer, leaving Sariel on edge.
It wasn’t until the second fleet from Silver City appeared to intercept them, with victory sirens sounding as they communicated their success to each other,
that Sariel finally breathed a sigh of relief: "No intervening NPCs appeared! Could it be this whale was the intervening NPC?"
The butler said, "It’s also possible this whale’s surrender made the intervening NPCs aware of the strength gap and gave up intervening."
Sariel laughed, "If that’s the case, how should I thank this Shenqian kid?"
The butler chuckled, "Of course, by raising this divine-level whale well, ensuring it serves and maximizes its value for you."
When it came to upkeep, Sariel immediately felt overwhelmed; just one meal would cost 100 pearls... Is this the lavish side effect of a generous character?
But it doesn’t matter, capturing this mermaid exceeds the target for the SSS-level bounty task, restoring some Privilege Points. Exhibiting the mermaid in the aquarium to earn ticket revenue would also help. But for now, I can only borrow from friends...
Sariel had to greet in the group: "Dear angels and fallen angels—"
Gabriel coldly replied, "Sorry, I just received a big gift pack, and my Privilege Points are quite depleted."
Raphael laughed, "Me too."
Uriel: "I’m leading the monster siege group in Lost Paradise and can’t make it to Silver City."
Sariel was anxious, "I haven’t even said anything yet!!"
Metatron: "Sariel, didn’t you celebrate with the strongest gift pack?"
Sariel had to silently drop a million-dollar red packet: "Everyone—"
Raphael laughed heartily, "210,000! I’m the luckiest!"
Michael lamented, "130,000, not too auspicious a number!"
The crowd laughed, "Luck isn’t so good..."
Finally, after sending out ten million-dollar red packets and inciting quite the stir in the group, Michael reluctantly said, "Sariel, we can use our privileges to get you a few boxes of pearls, but it really can’t be a long-term solution. Once things settle, send it to the Sea of Creation, so it can fight, grow, and fend for itself there."
Sariel was startled, "That’s clearly the data dump! Full of random value monsters!"
Michael mused, "When the gods created everything, wasn’t it random? Remember, our goal is to give birth to true intelligence, even if it is born randomly."
Sariel had no choice but to say, "I have another festival mission to trigger a grand celebration. I need everyone to help send out invites and bring the star blossoms of the Five Great Cities to the Silver City docks to boost my Privilege Points..."
Raphael jokingly asked, "There are many professional players in Silver City, aren’t you afraid this festival will spawn a bunch of powerful players?"
Sariel chuckled, "I’m quite afraid. I’m afraid of them fighting each other to the bitter end!"
Everyone laughed heartily.
...
April 3rd, 12:00 AM.
After three hours of sleep, Chun was awakened by Aileen: "We’ve arrived at the docks of Silver Glory City."
Oh?
Without having the time to check out the dock bustling with colorful flags and loud drums, Chun’s first task was to check the leaderboard, noticing his rank had dropped from last night’s 16,000 to 230,000. Excellent, none too surprising given the soul stripping from a small account, which conveniently explains the drop, attributing it to the plague decreasing attributes and exile lowering reputation and such.
Aileen was amazed, "Fafnir has arrived! The star blossoms of the Five Cities are all here."
Sure enough, Chun saw the five beauties, each adorning splendid dresses, vying for attention at the dock podium, each unique; they’ve been featured prominently since the open beta, so Chun lacked genuine interest.
Great, Fafnir’s visit to witness the capture of the whale personally must be quite a feeling?
Then the entire audience erupted in thunderous applause as the legendary second in the world, Sariel, elegantly disembarked, flanked by the dazzling "Sword of Privilege" glowing with divine artifact-level brilliance.
Chun knew, though having arduously mastered a slew of life physical strength over the past two days, it hardly mattered before him—a single slash would suffice.
Then Sariel gallantly bestowed a hand-kiss greeting upon the five ladies—especially during the moment of kissing Fafnir’s hand, a blaze of jealousy burned in Chun’s heart! Life’s tragedy is having one’s ultimate goal effortlessly clutched in another’s hand... thankfully she wore gloves.
Cannons fired city-wide!
——Silver Glory City Announcement: Player Sariel successfully completed the task to secure the Silver Route and initiated the festival celebration, which will last a day. All resident players of the city will receive a festive Lucky Blessing, enhancing recovery from consumption.
Meanwhile, Chun also received a notification:
——System Notice: Congratulations! You’ve received a day’s worth of Silver City Festival Blessing effects.
Holy shit should I even thank you?
At this time, the citywide channel was filled with players from various countries cheering and offering their congratulations, as Sariel on the podium raised both hands high to receive the deserved praise.
But at this moment——System announcement: Wanted! Treasure Hunter reports the escape of Plague Exile Chun.
Chun’s vision was suddenly hit with a red flash——System prompt: Warning! You are in danger, and your soul-wandering state is about to be forcibly awakened. Your escape has been publicly reported, and your reputation has decreased by 30,000.
Holy shit? How was my small boat discovered?
At this moment, the previously jubilant ceremonial scene erupted into laughter among players. Chun could clearly see Fafnir’s expression turn noticeably unnatural for a moment. Does she feel such disappointment?
Aileen said solemnly, "Get ready, like waking from a nightmare."
At this moment, the voice of the Mermaid also came through: "Warrior, are you leaving?"
Chun was anxious: "My lord, this is a forced departure."
The Mermaid said: "I’ve recovered much of my strength now. First, I’ll bless your journey, take these Four Sea Souls. They will grant you power..."
As she spoke, the Tuna Soul from the Sea of Whale Souls, the Shark Soul, the Sea Emperor Crab Soul, and the Giant Ray Soul rose and surrounded Chun. The scene suddenly advanced rapidly at a thousand miles per second...
——System prompt: You received the enhanced blessing of the Mermaid. The "Sea Race Personal Guard" skill allows you to use the power of Four Sea Souls to enhance yourself or strengthen your ship. Using Sea Souls will consume Physical Strength or Mana. You can temporarily command a wise sea creature to fight for you, with the success rate related to the power comparison between both parties. You can only command once a day.
Tuna Soul: Enhances swimming ability; swimming or sailing speed is increased with the extra boost from the Wind Tide Barrier.
Giant-tooth Shark Soul: Enhances swimming ability; agility in swimming or sailing is increased, water combat attack power is increased and grants a Slashing Effect with bleeding.
Sea Emperor Crab Soul: Enhances swimming and water combat abilities; defense blocking is increased and gains a Shift Barrier to deflect enemy attacks. Collision damage of the ship is greatly enhanced and gains a Slashing Effect.
Giant Electric Ray Soul: Enhances swimming and spellcasting abilities in water, enables use of an Electric Shock Barrier, paralyzing and electrifying enemies entering the barrier’s range. It also provides some resistance to Electric Series Magic.
...
Holy shit, this Sea Race Personal Guard might be a Divine Skill, right?
Chun suddenly opened his eyes!
Everything before him was still a dizzying blur.
——System prompt: You received a bonus attribute from drinking special Tapioca Burn, temporarily increasing your Physical Strength limit by 168%, increasing recovery speed, and resistance against fear, tremors, and cold. Negative statuses include blurred vision, unsteady movement. Estimated duration: 1 day.
——System prompt: You received the Silver City blessing effect, enhancing recovery and luck.
Holy shit! Such a strong boost from a century-old brew, it compensates for the weakening caused by the Plague!
Aileen suddenly became vigilant: "Sound Wave Radar activated!"
Chun re-entered infrared instrument mode, finally able to "see" the surrounding clearly—it was a... Pirate Ship? No, the announcement said it was a Treasure Hunting Ship! But there’s little difference, with treasure they hunt it, without they rob.
The next moment, objects were flying rapidly on the radar!
Aileen hurriedly took control over the body: "Roll away!"
——Thump, thump, thump!! Suddenly a few crossbow arrows embedded themselves on the planks of the ship.
——System prompt: Congratulations! With your exceptional wisdom and Lucky Blessing, you successfully enhanced the Sound Wave Radar’s effect, gaining Radar Warning capability, passively parrying and dodging ranged attacks.
Holy shit! This Lucky Blessing is really useful, isn’t this the skill the Bat Boss used to dodge rocks at the time?
But this isn’t the main point. The main point is that such a large ship has enough firepower to turn the small boat into a porcupine, with nowhere to dodge!
Aileen said: "Use the Sea Souls granted by the Mermaid to strengthen the small boat!"
——System prompt: You’ve infused the Tuna Soul, Giant-tooth Shark Soul, and Sea Emperor Crab Soul into the boat, giving it Sea Soul enhancement!
The small boat turned its head in place, causing waves to surge, and suddenly began to speed like a speedboat!
Chun’s Physical Strength, replenished by drinking, emptied more than half immediately!
Does it consume that much physical strength? Chun quickly took out the 5 bottles of Stamina Potion left from the last sewer battle and downed one to quickly replenish.
At the same time, this burst pulled away from the Pirate Ship quickly, making it difficult for the crossbow arrows to hit, so they immediately started firing cannons!
Chun kept his eyes on the radar, several green-marked shells on the radar were evidently safe and couldn’t hit, but a red shell was extremely threatening—the small boat skillfully twisted with great agility! Perhaps it was also due to the Sea Emperor Crab’s Shift effect, as the shell veered off unnaturally!
The water sprayed sky-high, narrowly dodging!
At this point, the small boat further distanced itself from the opponent’s artillery position, while the opponent’s larger ship began to turn slowly in pursuit.
Chun was anxious, what the hell, I’m just one man in a small boat, and I have the Plague, is this necessary? Unless the Treasure Hunting Ship found out I have Magic Gold on me?
Aileen said: "The only option is to paddle back to Plague Island, they definitely won’t dare to come ashore."
Although with the Silver Blessing, Chun was still unsure: "Do I have enough Physical Strength?"
"You can deactivate other Sea Souls and adjust the usage of the Tuna Soul, just now we were using the Tuna Soul at full speed, now we can lower it."
That’s the only way, as long as the small boat doesn’t make sharp turns or similar drastic maneuvers, it should hold up.
Luckily, the skill proficiency in Sailing Technique rose sharply, making the awaited moment come at once——System prompt: Congratulations! You are blessed by the Tuna Soul and Lucky Blessing, your Basic Sailing Technique upgraded to level 4, rewarding you with the achievement: Weight Capacity +1, Physical Strength +1. Extra achievement reward: Life +1.
So that’s it, the Sea Soul can also assist me in leveling up!
Having witnessed the power of the Sea Souls, Chun was also taken aback by the Mermaid’s generosity! He didn’t even complete any task, and under normal circumstances, he would never have gotten such rewards. So was this a big package left by the second person for himself? If he hadn’t intercepted it, that second person would have become a dragon entering the sea!
Thinking about intercepting another big player’s loot, and the fact that this was the world’s top-level big player, while the incident happened in this part of Silver Sea, Chun again felt chill on his scalp and his heart raced, would they trace it back to me? It’s too suspicious, they must check me out! But no evidence? But does this matter need evidence? As long as there’s suspicion, it’s equivalent to being convicted.
The only way might be to act more foolishly and divert their attention! For example, this so-called escape might appear really foolish to outsiders, right?
Chun also remembered Fafnir’s disappointed expression from earlier, feeling somewhat apologetic. But in reality, it’s a good thing. To fool everyone, you first have to fool your own people, to avoid being intercepted by high-level players and exposed...