Chapter 104: Green Pearls
Cillin followed the gray cat and swam to the bottom of the river.
With his current physique, he could dive underwater without relying on a mask to breathe and endure the water pressure for a long time. Therefore, when some of the people on shore saw Cillin jumping into the river just like that without wearing any protection suit, mask or even utilizing a mini submarine, they were stupefied. This might just be a river, but it was deep enough to stop many people in their tracks.
The deeper they went, the lesser the light that penetrated the water. At the beginning, there were still some lush water plants on the stone walls, enabling some plant feeding fishes to forage for food nearby.
But as they swam deeper, the water plants grew fewer and their surroundings turned darker. The change in the environment also caused the killing intents hidden within the darkness to become sharper than before, capable of causing both fear and anxiety. However, Cillin and the gray cat felt neither of these emotions.
Cillin did not need an underwater searchlight to see. With just a speck of light, he could see everything around him as clear as day, and this light source came from some glowing bivalves attached on the stone walls. The bivalves were utilising this magical-looking light source to attract their preys. It was possible that the energy ores’ presence in this place was what caused the bivalves to evolve a special sucker to become attached on the walls.
It would be a mistake to treat them as normal bivalves. Horizontally, these bivalves could stretch between one to five meters. Moreover, Cillin saw clearly that there were some barbed teeth hidden within the bivalves’ shells. When a prey closed in on the bivalves, their sharp teeth would sink into the prey’s body and cling on with deadly persistence. Coupled with the shell’s clamping force, there should be very few prey who could escape after falling into their trap.
Cillin turned his head, and discovered that the stupid cat had gotten itself sandwiched by a bivalve except for its hind legs, a tail and a fat ass.
Knowing that there was no one around here, the gray cat immediately turned angry and transformed its entire head into mechanical form – the enlarged type no less – and swallowed up the entire bivalve. Then it transformed back into a little cat once more.
Not far away, there was a fish almost ten meters long that was eying this area covetously, ready to sprint in and capture its prey. When it saw this scene though, it immediately turned tail and ran away.
Looks like the animals here are all pretty smart.
The gray cat shook its head looking very unhappy to be sandwiched earlier. It had only gotten closer because of its curiosity, and just as it thought that the bivalve’s flesh looked tasty enough to take a bite, it was already caught between the shells. Turning around, the gray cat swam two steps forward, paused, and spat out a green colored bead. It was a thing inside the bivalve.
Cillin caught the pearl before it sank to the bottom.
A pearl?
Cillin looked at the green pearl. While he couldn’t sense any energy reaction from it, it felt full of life energy. It obviously could not shine on its own, and yet it reflected the bivalves’ glow at the side and gave off a fantastical sheen.
“What’s that?” Even underwater, the gray cat’s speech was not impeded whatsoever.
Cillin made a hand gesture. It was a hand gesture that the gray cat was familiar with: money. So he means that this thing is worth a lot of money!
Now the gray cat wasn’t in a hurry to seek out the energy ores. After closing in on the pearl and giving it a sniff, it undulated its limbs and began searching for the pearls along one bivalve after the other. This time though, it didn’t act stupid to approach the bivalves directly. They might do no damage, but it was still very catbarassing to be caught that way.
“Nothing here, nothing there… Oh, there’s one here, but it’s too small…” Any bivalves with green pearls in them would be swallowed whole by the gray cat directly before it spat out the pearl after the act. Eat bivalves, save precious. Later on, the gray swallowed all of the bivalves with green pearls inside them before spitting out the pearls all in one go for Cillin. These were items that it could use to repay its debt. It didn’t take long for the gray cat to finish its patrol. Cillin counted the pearls and found that they numbered twenty or so in total. There were many bivalves that did not have green pearls in them, not to mention that most of these pearls were pretty small. There was only five big ones in total.
Cillin kept all the pearls in his leaf-patterned ring. This was the gray cat’s personal effects, but they were now his after they were used to repay the cat’s debt.
After beckoning to the gray cat, the duo continued to dive deeper towards the bottom. As they dove further, Cillin could feel clearly the energy ores hidden within the rock layer. Perhaps the reason he could sense the energies was because his genotype had evolved to Rank A under the effects of the red-and-black energy ores. Previously he had said nothing, and it was the gray cat who guided everyone to the ores from beginning to the end. But in reality, Cillin himself could sense the energy ores as well. It might not be as clear as the gray cat’s, but he did have a concrete sense of direction. Not even the gray cat knew about this.
The Sixth Squad only needed the gray cat to be the being that could sense the energy ores. This way, the gray cat’s importance could be made more prominent, and its status within the team could be elevated as well.
“Ah, it’s here it’s here it’s here! But the quality will get better if we go deeper.” The gray cat dove straight down to the bottom.
Cillin did not stop either. It was only when he was close to the river bottom that he finally stopped. The quality of the energy ores here was already pretty great, and although there were more deeper down the river, there was no need to go there.
“Go and absorb them. I’ll watch out for you!” With its back facing Cillin, the gray cat stared excitedly at the huge, lumbering body swimming towards them from the faraway darkness. This guy here seems pretty tasty!
Cillin tore open the solid rock on the outside directly with his bare hands, gradually revealing a palm-sized object that was glowing with green light.
Cillin put his hand on it; the factors inside his body already rioting for the ore. The second Cillin unlocked the shackles, the energy inside the ores began to pour madly into his body.
The changes that occurred when he absorbed the energy was similar to last time. What’s different was that the green energy ore could incite the chips to generate the best memory point that stimulated the human body to recover its vitality with incredible efficiency. What that meant, was that if Cillin’s life was in danger, this memory point would become active and trigger his self-recovery to become much greater than before. The effects would also be a lot better.
This time, Cillin’s absorption had ended pretty quickly. When he opened his eyes, there was already a hole where his palm was touching. Sigh. Let’s put this blame on the cat as well.
On the surface, Shawton read the data collected by the scanner put into the hole that was borrowed by the gray cat and said nothing. However, the fact was that he could hardly contain the joy that was bursting inside his heart. They had finally seen the gentle light after suffering in this stifling stagnancy for such a long time.
Splash –
A huge dozen meters long fish with dark green patterns on its body jumped, no, was tossed out from the river and onto the shore. When the group got a closer look, they discovered that the fish’s tail was missing, or it would have to be at least twenty meters long. The fish continued to toss and turn on land even after it was tossed to the surface, and its wound were bleeding profusely with green blood.
The gray cat jumped out of the water and charged straight towards the fish, laying on top of its body and crunching down on its half-eaten meal. As long as the fish was still alive and its flesh was still fresh, then it was going to eat as much as it could before the fish expires (T/N: SAVAGE!).
The bizarre scene and distinct size discrepancy of the one cat and one fish caused everyone to feel a shudder up their spines. Everyone had their own guesses as to whether Cillin was the one who tossed this fish into the air or something else, but since the top priority right now was to mine the ores, no one attempted to explore their questions further.
Once Cillin went upshore, he explained to Shawton about the situation beneath the river, “The bottom of the river is this big fish’s domain, so we’ll probably have to utilise some underwater tools this time.”
“Mm. Thank you for the hard work. Get some rest, and we’ll go to the next stop about an hour later.”
The larger specialised underwater tools were all on board the starship, so Shawton needed to set up some things.
Cillin walked up to the large fish. The gray cat’s feeding speed was like swarming locusts passing through a field. The big fish was no longer struggling too much and was at the brink of death.
Cillin cut open the fish’s stomach and looked inside it.
“What are you looking for?” The gray cat licked its mouth and stopped eating. If there was time, it was going to go catch another fish and eat it directly in the river before coming back up.
“Something.” Cillin continued to search without lifting his head.