The Ocean is Deep

Shane did not entirely follow Tom's rules.

After sailing with Tom to a certain spot in the ocean, setting out fishing nets together, rigging fishing rods, and patiently waiting for an entire morning.

Looking at the still empty fish bucket, Shane stood up.

Tom seemed to sense Shane's intention, sighed, and offered a word of advice.

"The seawater is very dirty, and getting it into a cut will make it worse."

Shane's response was to rip open the bandages on his body, gesturing to Tom at the scar on his chest that now bore only a pale pink trace.

"Thanks for your concern, Tom, watch me go down to the seabed and catch a few big ones back for you."

Then Shane tapped the tips of his toes lightly, and his body slowly flew up and away from Tom's small fishing boat.

He dared not step with too much force; although he had obtained a few rare days of leisure, Shane was long accustomed to getting used to and improving his enhanced strength during combat.

Without a suitable opponent now, and with his strength suddenly increased by more than half, if he didn't control himself with a little care, a casual kick might shatter the small fishing boat Tom relied on for survival.

Flying to a distance of about two or three meters above the water's surface, Shane stretched his arms, took a deep breath of the fishy sea breeze, and plunged headfirst into the dark blue ocean.

When the cold seawater enveloped his whole body, Shane instead felt a burst of refreshing coolness.

The physique of a Viltrumite allowed him to worry not about water pressure and oxygen deprivation, and the gloom of the deep sea was no different to him than broad daylight; where his sight reached, the scales of swimming fish gleamed in the dim light, their trajectories as clear as if slowed down several times over.

This speed is much slower than the targets in the training camp.

Shane muttered inwardly, his body sinking slightly as he chased after a school of passing mackerel not far away.

He deliberately slowed his movements, and when his fingertips were about to touch the tail fin of the fish on the very edge, that fish twitched its tail and darted out abruptly as if pricked by a needle.

The entire school of fish instantly scattered in all directions, leaving only a string of bubbles ascending in the water.

Shane froze for a moment, then frowned.

Clearly he had already made his movements extremely light, and even deliberately reined in the aura around his body, so how had he been detected?

Shane refused to believe it; even in both lifetimes, he had never gone out to sea to catch fish, but he had been able to live well on Viltrum while achieving stellar grades.

Mere low-level creatures of Earth.

Turning his head to survey for a while, he locked onto a solitary-swimming grouper.

This fish had a stout build and swam in a slow, leisurely manner, looking thoroughly clumsy.

This time, Shane slowed his heartbeat, approaching slowly like a lurking hunter.

When he was less than a meter away from the grouper, he reached out abruptly, his fingertips accurately snapping toward the fish's body.

Yet the moment his fingertips were about to touch the scales, the grouper suddenly exerted force, its slippery body twisting as it drilled right out from between his fingertips, even stirring up a puff of silt that blurred his vision.

"Damn it."

Shane cursed in a low voice, brushing away the silt before his eyes.

Failing twice in a row, Shane somewhat doubted whether his mastery over his strength was still not skillful enough.

His strength had surged twofold after recovering from severe injuries, and he had yet to fully adapt to this change.

He hadn't felt it while deliberately reigning it in at the fishing cabin, but perhaps right now in the sea, he was simply too relaxed.

He closed his eyes to calm his mood and locked onto his target once more.

This was a medium-sized yellow croaker, its swimming trajectory gentle, seeming not to sense any danger.

Shane was exceptionally careful this time, suppressing his strength to the absolute minimum and gently gathering his fingertips around the fish's body.

The touch was cold and slick, and just as he wanted to apply a little force to steady it, he heard a "swish" sound as the yellow croaker whipped its tail, breaking free from his palm with a layer of mucus and leaving behind a hand full of wet slipperiness.

Failing three times in a row, Shane's patience remained ample, but his heart's pumping still involuntarily increased with a bit more force.

A trace of restless heat welled up in his chest.

In the training camp on Viltrum, he had never stumbled on such "low-difficulty targets."

No, these weren't low-difficulty targets at all; in Shane's view, this should have simply been a game.

"Hold still!"

No longer deliberately suppressing his speed and strength, his body rushed forward like an arrow released from a string toward a slightly larger sea bass ahead.

The sea bass seemed to sense fatal danger, fleeing in panicked acceleration, but its speed still looked ridiculously slow in Shane's eyes.

Seeing that he was about to catch up, Shane reached out fiercely to grab it.

This time, the moment his fingertips touched the fish's body, he heard a crisp "crack" sound as the sea bass's spine was snapped directly, its body instantly going limp.

Fresh blood seeped out between his fingers, dispersing into the seawater.

Looking at the lifeless fish in his hand, Shane stared at it for a moment, then tossed it away casually.

His gaze swept toward the deeper recesses of the ocean, where a massive dark shadow was swimming slowly—a tuna.

That tuna was well over a meter in length, estimating to weigh at least eighty pounds, and it swam with steady power.

Shane's body sank abruptly, charging fiercely toward the tuna like a cannonball.

This time, he didn't even plan to reach out and grab it, intending only to use his body to force the target to a stop.

A muffled "bang" was exceptionally clear in the quiet deep sea.

His shoulder slammed solidly against the tuna's body, and the immense impact instantly shattered the tuna.

He could even clearly feel the sensation of bones breaking, a feeling he had experienced more than once on other Viltrumite opponents.

The next second, the tuna's blood gushed out like a fountain, rapidly forming a thick fog of blood around him and dyeing his vision dark red.

Shane hovered in the center of the bloody mist, looking down at his own hands, and suddenly smiled helplessly.

These hands could clearly tear apart the hulls of spaceships traversing interstellar space, and smash hard cosmic meteorites.

It seems I have been influenced by Viltrum's culture in ways I didn't notice.

He stayed in the deep sea for another half an hour, no longer rushing for quick success, but slowly groping to master the scale of his strength.

When his fingertips touched a fish's body, he would first feel the slipperiness of the scales before gently adjusting his force.

Yet even so, a few fish were either crushed by him or seized the opportunity to escape.

It wasn't until an hour later that Shane finally grasped a little bit of the knack.

He held his breath, cautiously clamping down on two small, unnamed silvery-white sea fish, ensuring the force was just enough to trap them without harming their lives.

Yet right as he was about to surface, one of the fish suddenly began to struggle, and he instinctively applied a bit more force, only to hear a "crack" as the fish's head was crushed directly by him, blood flowing all over his hand.

Shane stared at the fish in his hand and sighed helplessly.

He gave up on continuing to try, clenching the sole remaining fish that was still relatively intact, and with a shift of his form, he rapidly ascended toward the surface of the sea.

The moment he broke through the water's surface, he shook the water droplets from his head, breathed in deep lungfuls of fresh air, and lifted his eyes to see Tom sitting on the fishing boat, holding a fishing rod and looking at him calmly.

"How was the catch?"

Tom's voice carried a hint of a smile, his gaze landing on the fish in his hand that had been squeezed somewhat out of shape.

Shane curled his lip slightly, tossing the fish into the empty bucket on the fishing boat, his tone carrying a trace of unwillingness.

"The fish here are too sensitive, and... I haven't gotten used to Earth's gravity yet."

Tom smiled, put down the fishing rod, picked up a bucket beside him, and scooped up some seawater to pour into the fish bucket.

"Fishing doesn't rely on brute force; just like how you understand your enemy on the battlefield, here, you have to understand the ocean."

Shane leaped up into the sky, lifting his head to feel the sunlight spill across his skin, twisted his waist and spun around, transforming into a blur to shake the moisture completely dry from his body.

Landing softly, just as he steadied himself on the fishing boat, Tom's voice came out of nowhere.

"Do you want to become a superhero?"