Chapter 346 - The Battle under the Sea
The Mermaid gave Ding Ning a supercilious look and showed disdain toward his greedy thought.
“By the way, could this Spiritual Crystal of Water be at your use? How about I give it to you?”
Ding Ning suddenly remembered that the Mermaid had a totem of water as well. The Spiritual Crystal of Water should be useful to her, too. Thus, he threw the crystal to the Mermaid without hesitation.
There was a strange emotion in the Mermaid’s bright eyes. She asked calmly, “If you give it to me, what will you use to get spiritual energy? Besides, your sister is also a cultivator related to water; the crystal will be at her use as well.”
Ding Ning scratched his head and answered casually, “It doesn’t matter that my sister and I cultivate more slowly, as long as you can recover as soon as possible. After you recover, you can help me. Moreover, there are Spiritual Crystals of Water of low grade, aren’t there? Is there any problem for Luoxue to use these Spiritual Crystals of Water of low grade?”
“No. The only difference between crystals of different grades is that they contain different amounts of Spiritual Energy of Water, and the essence of their energy was all pure.”
Looking at Ding Ning’s side face with a blank expression, the Mermaid said in a soft voice, “I can keep this crystal for you. It’s the power of faith instead of spiritual energy that I’m in need of to recover. So, this crystal is useless to me.”
“Well, alright, keep it for me then,” Ding Ning said with disappointment.
He was expecting the Mermaid to recover soon so as to help him look for other totems.
The Mermaid glanced at Ding Ning with a complicated feeling before transforming into a tattoo on Ding Ning’s arm.
Ding Ning withdrew Tri-colored Fire in pleasure and collected three Spiritual Crystal of Water of low grade in his Mermaid Space, thinking to himself, “There must be many jellyfishes that have swallowed Spiritual Crystal of Water in this sea. If I can find them all, I’ll be really rich.”
After glancing around, Ding Ning swam toward the direction in which the purple jellyfish came from and thought that since the jellyfishes were social animals, the Spiritual Crystals of Water might lie in their lair.
Ding Ning tracked the trace of the jellyfishes along the way in excitement, and it took him a good half an hour to see another five blue huge jellyfishes.
Ding Ning followed behind them afar, and thanks to the blue light the jellyfishes gave out, which was like the lighthouse in the dark, Ding Ning did not worry that he would lose his target.
After wandering around for another half an hour, the five jellyfishes suddenly leaped forward and disappeared from Ding Ning’s sight.
Ding Ning, who had been searching for the herbs that were rare on the earth while following the jellyfishes, cheered up. He was finally at his destination. He fastened his steps quietly toward where the jellyfishes had disappeared from.
Along the way, Ding Ning got to know how powerful these jellyfishes were. Wherever they passed, there was nothing left. Every creature these jellyfishes met along the way all ended up as their foods. If it was not that he had so many trump cards, he would not be these fishes’ match.
There was a huge black rock where the five jellyfishes disappeared from, and Ding Ning guessed that the rock should be the bottom of the deserted island. After passing a turn, Ding Ning entered a block of open space. However, he was dumbfounded by what he saw and almost wetted his pants.
In front of his was a huge and deep trench, the bottom of which was at least one thousand meters below where he stood. He could not see what there were in the trench for it was too dark and distant down there.
What scared him was that the whole trench was dotted with blue, dark blue, purple-blue, and purple light spots, the number of which he estimated to be hundreds of thousands. There were even over one hundred purple spots, which were actually purple jellyfishes with Spiritual Crystal of Water of the highest grade.
Though Ding Ning did not have trypophobia, the thought that the trench was full of huge jellyfishes and that over one hundred of them were purple jellyfishes made his scalp pins and needles and his heart tremble.
“What the hell is this? Is there a mine of Spiritual Crystal of Water? Otherwise how could here be so many huge jellyfishes? This is just too scaring.”
Despite that Ding Ning had Tri-colored Fire, the jellyfish buster, he beat a retreat and the muscle on his calves cramped when he thought there was a gathering of hundreds of thousands of huge jellyfishes.
However, human being’s greed was always the strongest force to push society forward. Ding Ning, who believed that fortune lay in danger, would not retreat without getting anything since he had made it there.
While he was racking his brains for a way to solve these jellyfishes in batches, he suddenly felt a huge water current, which would appear usually when a huge group of fishes passing by, about one thousand meters away behind him.
If Ding Ning had not learned of the ability of the jellyfishes, he would not take the situation seriously because few creatures could spot his traces.
However, after the accident that he was besieged by jellyfishes, he realized the Mermaid bubble was not that almighty. He did not know if there would be other creatures that could spot his presence like the jellyfishes.
Therefore, he dived downwards quickly and stayed away from the water current. However, when he looked from afar, goose bumps broke out over his skin and his hair stood on end.
He started to feel lucky that he was cautious enough to stay away from the water current, otherwise, he would have been a dead man now.
It was a group of python-like numbfishes as many as tens of thousands. To be exactly, they were a little different from the normal numbfishes.
On the one hand, these numbfishes were much bigger than normal ones, and the smallest one among them was over five meters long while the leading fish, the largest one among them, was over then meters like a python. On the other hand, these numbfishes had a pair of feelers at the corner of their mouth, and at each tip of them was a pair of meat-balls, which emitted electric light every several seconds.
Though Ding Ning was hundreds of meters away from them, the electric current conducted by the water struck him and made him numb and tremble all over. Those who did not know the situation would think that he had epilepsy.
Fortunately, this group of huge numbfishes was swimming so fast that they drew further and further from Ding Ning quickly, and until then, Ding Ning regained his senses with his hair standing on end. Nevertheless, dark blue electric sparks burst out of his body from time to time, making him suffer unspeakably.
Ding Ning’s turned green in pain. “What the hell! It is really fu*king dangerous under the sea. These numbfishes must have undergone variation. They could produce electricity as much as a power station.” Ding Ning cursed to himself.
Ding Ning’s expression changed quickly. He was not willing to leave without any gains, yet, he was afraid to lose his life by encountering numbfishes, which were much fiercer than jellyfishes.
However, this group of numbfishes was coming at the jellyfishes. Were these fishes going to fight for territory?
Thinking of this, Ding Ning took a deep breath. He patted himself on the chest to nerve himself and decided to take a look afar. If these fishes were really going to fight each other, he might be able to gain some benefits from it.
Thus, Ding Ning followed behind the numbfishes in secret and in fear, diving toward the bottom of the sea. However, he dared not to stay too close from them and kept about a thousand meters away from them. Like jellyfishes, the numbfishes were glinting and were most easy to lose.
While sneaking downwards, Ding Ning found that there were a dozen of groups of numbfishes apart from the one he followed, which made him surer about his guess.
“Come on, fight each other. It will be best for me that both of you get defeated and wounded... no, both of you get killed; by then, I’ll be exhausted with collecting Spiritual Crystals of Water.” Ding Ning thought to himself in pleasure while watching these groups of numbfishes come into blows with jellyfishes from afar.
.
The jellyfishes had spotted the numbfishes from long ago, and the scene of hundreds of thousands of jellyfishes moving together was really splendid. They created countless powerful jets as their bells pulsated, and their huge tentacles waved like wildly dancing snakes. Without making any warning, they launched attacks toward the numbfishes.
“Bravo! Brave fishes! Fight them since you are unconvinced.”
Hiding behind a rock, Ding Ning grinned when he saw the scene.
Obviously, the numbfishes were fully prepared before they came. What would one feel when seeing hundreds of thousands of numbfishes each released an electric current at the same time? Countless electric currents, like lightning, formed a terrifying electric net and lit up the dark seabed as bright as day.
Ding Ning had not expected himself to get an electric shock even when he was hundreds of meters away from the numbfishes. At the moment, he even felt that he could smell his flesh burned, and realized there was a huge difference between the electric shock released by tens of thousands of numbfishes and hundreds of thousands of numbfishes. Even if he was about one thousand meters away from the numbfishes, he still got hit and shivered fiercely.
He was so frightened that he drew about one thousand meters backward with all his strength before he got paralyzed, and finally, he no longer felt being struck by the electric current any more.
Still frightened, he wiped the heavy sweats off his forehead. “Oh my God! This is just too dangerous. No one could be these numbfishes’ match. These jellyfishes are done.”
When he calmed down, he watched the fight attentively and found that these jellyfishes were really powerful that they could bear the electric current much better than Ding Ning.
Under the net of dense electric currents, only several hundreds of blue jellyfishes got burned and floated in the water with their belly up.
It seemed that numbfishes could not release electric currents continuously and needed to take a break after releasing every electric current. During the time they were taking a break, they were put at a disadvantage.
It looked that it was not the first battle between the jellyfishes and numbfishes. The jellyfishes launched another attack immediately. Countless terrifying huge tentacles reached deep among the numbfishes and paralyzed them with their toxins before eating them.
As for the purple jellyfishes which were more than one hundred, they tore some numbfishes apart directly with their tentacles. Blood spread all over the sea and blurred Ding Ning’s sight.
In the bloody water, faint electric sparks flashed again and became brighter and brighter. Though the blood in the water did not dissipate, terrifying electric sparks filled the whole sea with countless dead jellyfishes floating in the water.
Ding Ning shuddered at the bloody scene. These sea creatures were too horrifying, but fortunately, normal warriors could not make it here; otherwise, even if it was a warrior at the realm of Real Martial Arts, he would die here as well.
It seemed that the warriors at the realm of Real Martial Arts could be really powerful on the land and were at the top of the food chain, but if they encountered these terrifying fishes, they would become their foods in no time.
There were such powerful creatures even at the inshore trench. One could imagine how powerful the creatures at the canyon deep in the sea would be.
At the moment, Ding Ning was full of gratitude toward the Mermaid, without whose bubble, he would not be able to wait there to gain some benefits from the fight but have been crushed into a meat pie by the water pressure.
However, at the moment, under the Mermaid’s help, he was able to catch a glimpse of a corner of the mysterious sea and gain great benefits.
It might be extremely dangerous under the sea, yet, there are countless treasures lying there.
Taking some medicinal herbs recorded in Compendium of Precious Herbs for example, they were extinct on the land but were seen everywhere in this sea. It was already a rewarding trip since he had obtained these herbs, let alone that he had also gained some Spiritual Crystals of Water.
Compared to its usage for cultivation, the usage of the Spiritual Crystal of Water of helping plants grow was valued more by Ding Ning. After all, medicinal herbs were a kind of plant as well.
For this reason, Ding Ning had come there to try his luck at the risk of his life, to see if he could get more Spiritual Crystals of Water.
If he had enough Spiritual Crystals of Water, the medicinal herbs he planted would be able to grow much faster than those others planted, which meant a lot for a traditional Chinese physician like him.
Ding Ning kept a close eye on the battlefield, but the bloody water blocked his sight so that he could not see which side got an upper hand for the time being.
In actual fact, he hoped it was the jellyfishes that got an upper hand. After all, he was confident to defeat those jellyfishes. As for those numbfishes, he did not even dare to approach them as he could not bear the terrifying electric currents they released.
He did not know when the fierce battle would come to an end. Countless dead numbfishes and jellyfishes floated under the sea, and bloody mist, which never seemed to break away, covered half of the battlefield, which made Ding Ning unable to get a clear sight at the battle.
Ding Ning drooled over the dead numbfishes, which were great food ingredients. Once cooked, these fishes would be really tasty.
Ding Ning decided that when he collected the Spiritual Crystals of Water, he would collect these numbfishes as well and store them in his Mermaid space, which had been reformed and could keep everything inside it fresh form over one hundred years.
Ding Ning murmured to himself that it was a shame to waste so many food ingredients while imagining plates of delicious golden roasted numbfishes. At the thought, he could not help but slobber.