Requirements

"A giant sea fish, and four people died?"

At Arlong Park, Arlong and his pirate crew had just returned after seven days of raiding at sea when he heard from Hachi that they had lost four Fish-Men.

Arlong glared at Hachi and angrily asked, "I told you to stay behind and protect this place. What were you doing?"

Hachi scratched his head and said, "I only found out afterward. I went into the sea and tried to catch the fish. I injured it, but it got away."

"You got injured by a mere fish?"

Arlong glanced at the bandages on Hachi's hand and coldly said, "Kuroobi, Chuu, follow Hachi to where the fish appeared. Go into the sea and kill it."

"Yes."

Kuroobi and Chuu headed for the harbor under Hachi's lead. Watching the three of them leave, Nami could not help but grow tense.

"Nami, why are you so nervous?"

Arlong suddenly looked at Nami beside him.

"I..."

Nami was startled by Arlong's words. Looking at him, she opened her mouth, but how could she dare say that she was nervous because she feared Kuroobi and Chuu would kill that sea fish?

"You're useful to us. As long as you honestly work for us, I won't do anything to you."

Arlong narrowed his eyes at Nami before saying, "So you don't need to worry about anything."

Hearing that, Nami let out a breath. Arlong had thought she was afraid of him.

Nami softly said, "I-I'll do my job properly."

Arlong nodded and asked, "How are the sea charts coming along? It's been a month since I told you to map the currents in this area. Aren't you done yet?"

Nami looked at Arlong and said, "The changes in the currents here are far too complex. Measuring them requires not only the Lagrangian Method, but also the Euler Method. The Lagrangian Method requires buoys, while the Euler Method requires fixed-point monitoring. Either way, it takes a long time and observations at regular intervals."

"What are you trying to say?" Arlong did not understand a word she was saying and asked directly.

Nami said outright, "Because the currents here are unpredictable, the buoy method works best when following a small boat, while fixed-point observation requires observation sites. Both require going out to sea. But there's a sea fish in the water now, one even Hachi can't defeat. I simply don't dare go out to sea, and I'll need someone to protect me."

"So you need to go out to sea, but there's a sea fish in the water."

Arlong nodded and said, "Mm. Kuroobi and Chuu have already gone to deal with it. After today, that sea fish will be gone."

"And one more thing."

Nami's eyes shifted as she looked at Arlong and said, "If you want me to measure the currents and weather changes in other waters, I'll need to personally go out to sea. The Lagrangian Method and Euler Method both take too much time and effort. There's another method called Shipboard Current Measurement. You take a ship out to sea, measure the ship's absolute speed and direction relative to the seabed, as well as its relative speed and direction through the seawater, and then calculate the speed and direction of the seawater's movement relative to the seabed."

"What the hell?"

Arlong looked utterly bewildered. Just as Nami was about to explain, Arlong impatiently waved his hand and said, "You mean you need to take a ship out to sea, right?"

"That's right." Nami nodded.

Arlong looked at Nami and said, "Then the next time we go out on the Spab, you can come with us."

"But whenever you leave, you're either attacking villages or collecting protection money. I don't want to go with you." Nami said unhappily.

Hearing that, Arlong snorted and asked Nami, "If you don't take our ship, how do you plan to get out to sea?"

"Merchant ships, cargo ships, either will do."

Nami looked at Arlong and said, "You shouldn't be worried that I'll secretly run away."

"Of course not."

Arlong looked at her with a sinister smile. "If you dare run, I'll kill your family, your friends, and the villagers in your village."

Hearing that, Nami was filled with rage, but she did not show it. She shrugged and said, "So, Boss Arlong, do you agree?"

"Mm, but we'll talk after you finish the sea chart here."

Arlong agreed to her request, but added, "Also, you're too young. It'll be difficult for you to go out to sea alone right now. I don't want my future Surveyor dying out there, so I'll find someone to protect you."

"Hachi."

Nami immediately called out, repeating, "I want Hachi to protect me."

If she truly had to choose someone, Nami would rather choose Hachi. His personality was relatively straightforward, and he was simple-minded, making him easy to fool.

"You and Hachi seem to be quite close?" Arlong raised an eyebrow and asked in some surprise.

Nami coldly said, "Because Hachi is different from you."

"Different? He's a coward. He's quite strong, yet he refuses to take the initiative against humans."

Arlong snorted and said, "When you go out to sea, let him go with you."

Nami nodded, very satisfied with the result.

She had to go out to sea. Although she needed to do this to complete Arlong's work, more importantly, if she wanted to save up one hundred million Belly to save the village, drawing sea charts alone would never be enough.

She had to steal, cheat, and rob to accomplish that.

For the village, Nami was willing to do anything.

After leaving Arlong's side, Nami climbed upstairs on her short legs and returned to her room, where she eagerly picked up her telescope and looked toward the harbor.

Hachi stood on the shore, Kuroobi floated on the surface, and Chuu was underwater.

There were no signs of battle yet.

Nami prayed that the sea fish would not run into them, that it would definitely swim far away.

On the seabed, Xia Qiu swam through the deep ocean toward the distance.

He stayed close to the seafloor, but his massive body was extremely conspicuous. Everywhere he went, all the fish scattered in a panic.

Whoosh.

Xia Qiu accelerated and caught up to a fish.

The fish was around three meters long, with an elongated, laterally flattened body, a narrow pointed tail, and a sharp head.

Most importantly, it had a spiny dorsal fin.

A Spiny Fish.

Spiny Fish were limited in size, usually less than a meter long. Only in this world could they grow to three meters.

Xia Qiu immediately lunged forward, clamped it in his jaws, crushed it, and swallowed it.

Then he continued swimming farther away and deeper down.

Spiny Fish lived between two hundred and three thousand five hundred meters below the sea surface. The waters Xia Qiu was currently in were roughly three hundred meters deep.

Xia Qiu was searching for Octopus, cuttlefish, and squid.

All three belonged to Phylum Mollusca, Cephalopoda, and Coleoidea.

Octopus belonged to Octopoda, while cuttlefish and squid both belonged to Decapodiformes, which included Order Teuthida, Spirulida, Oegopsida, and others.

Cuttlefish generally referred to Order Teuthida and were also called inkfish, while squid generally referred to Oegopsida and were also called spear squid.

Octopus and cuttlefish were benthic creatures accustomed to living on the seafloor. Octopus were temperate soft-bodied animals with high requirements for seawater temperature and salinity, while cuttlefish were accustomed to living in the deep sea.

During their spring and summer breeding season, both Octopus and cuttlefish came into coastal waters.

During autumn and winter, and once their young had grown to a certain extent, they would head into the deep sea.

As for squid, they generally lived in the upper and middle layers of shallow waters, moving vertically over a range of a hundred meters. Most squid swam in waters around twenty meters deep, but they were generally quite small.

The larger the squid, the deeper the waters it inhabited, such as giant squid and Colossal Squid.

It was already winter. Xia Qiu would have a hard time finding Octopus or cuttlefish near the coast. Their numbers were pitifully low, and even the occasional one he ate was less than a meter long.

As for squid, they were few in number and small in size.

Xia Qiu had eaten many of them, yet he had not grown any tentacles.

Xia Qiu was not sure whether it was because the small number he had eaten did not provide enough Evolution Energy, or because he simply could not evolve tentacles.

Thus, Xia Qiu swam toward the deep sea, intending to catch larger cuttlefish, Octopus, or squid.

He opened his mouth and emitted Ultrasound, probing the distant waters below and detecting many fish.

So big.

Three thousand meters away, Xia Qiu discovered a giant sea fish. Its body was long and narrow, roughly fifty meters in length.

It looked somewhat like an eel or Hairtail. Although it was long, it weighed less than Xia Qiu and was far weaker in combat.

There was no need for Xia Qiu to fight it. Even if he killed it, he would not be able to eat all of it, and it would instead attract more sea fish.

So Xia Qiu took a detour and continued downward.

The water grew deeper and deeper, soon reaching around four hundred meters.

Suddenly, Xia Qiu detected a signal. Four hundred meters diagonally below him was a creature. The returning sound waves indicated that it had a soft body, with frequencies similar to the cuttlefish and Octopus he had eaten.

At the same time, it was around twenty meters long, with a huge head and many tentacles, drifting up and down.

It should be his target.

Thinking that, Xia Qiu charged directly at it.