Fish Knowledge

This was the most common way to deal with Fishmen. Most of Liu Zhi's previous battles had involved going straight for the Tentacles on their faces.

But as an elite profession among Fishmen, they naturally knew their own weaknesses. Starting from Tide Warriors, they consciously strengthened their Tentacles. When Liu Zhi's blade came down, the Fishman puffed out its mouth, and the two Tentacles beside its lips sprang rigidly straight, like two hard spikes embedded in its face.

Liu Zhi's strike was actually bounced back.

Taking advantage of Liu Zhi's failed attack, the Fishman thrust its harpoon forward. As it stabbed out, it felt as though waves were pushing it from behind.

But Liu Zhi had not spent his days fighting Fishmen and his nights dissecting them for nothing. To prevent pursuit by that so-called competitor, he had devoted all his energy to finding ways to deal with Fishmen.

Faced with the harpoon already stabbing toward him, Liu Zhi neither dodged nor retreated. Instead, he charged forward, raising his left hand and scattering a cloud of white powder that enveloped the Fishman's entire body.

The powder was quicklime Liu Zhi had collected casually. While studying Fishmen, he had discovered that the mucus on their bodies reacted strongly to quicklime. If a normal person got a faceful of quicklime, they would at most go blind, but a Fishman might catch fire outright.

The same thing happened now. As the quicklime landed on the Fishman, white smoke rose from its body. The mucus on its scales turned like volcanic mud, cloudy and constantly bubbling.

Naturally, this strike robbed the Fishman's thrust of its force. Seizing the chance, Liu Zhi curved his scimitar and slashed at the Fishman's body.

Originally, Liu Zhi had intended to test the blade technique he had developed specifically for Fishman scales.

While dissecting Fishmen, he had discovered that attacking against the direction of their scales allowed him to shave them off like descaling a fish. However, he had never used this move on a living Fishman and was unsure whether it would work. With such a good opportunity before him, Liu Zhi had no intention of letting it pass.

To his surprise, when his blade landed on the Fishman's scales, it slid in with astonishing ease. He had not felt anything like this since first facing Fishmen.

Instead, he had felt this kind of easy penetration during his previous fights against pirates.

In the next instant, Liu Zhi understood. He had discovered the Fishmen's greatest weakness: quicklime could not only destroy the mucus on their bodies, but also soften their scales.

With that realization, Liu Zhi's attacks sped up. He kept chopping at the Fishman, testing every spot he had previously been unable to cut through in battle.

As he swung, Liu Zhi silently blamed himself. He had focused only on dissecting Fishman corpses and failed to consider the differences between dead Fishmen and living ones. It seemed he needed to bring some things up for testing. He could not afford to face that competitor in the end only to discover that his research on Fishmen was too one-sided, perhaps even wrong.

As a result, Liu Zhi lost focus for a moment and struck a little too hard. One slash took the Fishman's head clean off.

Then a "ding!" sounded by Liu Zhi's ear.

Before Liu Zhi could examine the message that had appeared, Black One-Eye came up from behind and slapped him heavily on the shoulder. "You've really got it. That was a Tide Pilgrim!"

"Who knows if that's true or not?" Liu Zhi said with a smile. "By the way, can you have the brothers hold off on releasing more Fishmen for a while? That fight scared me badly. I need a breather."

"Of course. I need to have someone investigate too, see whether there are any other Tide Pilgrims mixed in there. Hahaha!" Black One-Eye laughed as he left.

After finding a corner and sitting down, Liu Zhi finally had time to inspect the message that had appeared.

[Ding! Through long-term analysis and research, you have mastered Fish Knowledge of marine life. Current level: 1.]

[Fish Knowledge Level 1: Master the various information about fish and easily determine their strengths and weaknesses. (Note: fish include intelligent Fishmen and merfolk.)]

[Description: Knowledge gained through killing and dissecting Fishmen. Grants a great advantage when killing Fishmen.]

Liu Zhi blinked. Was this a passive skill? Could it be that he had learned Magic Knowledge and Necromantic Knowledge the same way?

Just then, one of Black One-Eye's men called out, "What about it? Are you ready?"

"Yeah, get yourselves ready. I'll be right there."

As he spoke, Liu Zhi rose with his scimitar in hand. At the same time, his left hand began making preparations. He intended to test everything he had researched about Fishmen during this period. After all, once today was over, Tortuga Port would not be able to find so many Fishmen to serve as his test subjects for quite some time.

Before, he had not known better and had only experimented on Fishman corpses. Now that he knew, he naturally would not waste the chance.

Watching Liu Zhi pull out all kinds of items from behind him, Black One-Eye's subordinates were stunned. They could tell that everything was meant specifically for dealing with Fishmen. Just how deep was Liu Zhi's grudge against them? He had spent money to come here and kill Fishmen, and had even specially researched all this.

But none of them said anything. Once Liu Zhi was ready, they released the next batch of Fishmen.

This time, Liu Zhi took out something that looked like a Throwing Net. It appeared to be woven from fishing line, with a large number of stones hanging around its edges. When the Fishmen rushed toward him, Liu Zhi flicked his wrist and threw the Throwing Net.

Just as he had expected, after entangling a Fishman, the Throwing Net rapidly tightened, constricting harder and harder until it even snapped some scales.

Liu Zhi then charged forward and tossed several small beads onto the ground with his left hand. This too had been designed specifically for Fishmen. Fishmen walking on the seafloor usually stepped either on sand or reefs, so their feet were adapted for that. Relatively slippery ground made them much more likely to fall.

After that, Liu Zhi tested the items he had brought one after another—specialized oils, poisons, and corresponding attack points.

For every ten Fishmen he killed, Liu Zhi stopped to record what he had gained from the test in a notebook. Judging by his appearance, he was working even harder than he had over the previous few days.

At first, Black One-Eye paid no attention to Liu Zhi's actions. But as he watched, he grew more and more alarmed. He had not expected Liu Zhi to have gone this far.

In the end, Black One-Eye thought for a moment and said to Liu Zhi, "Say, have you been free lately? Tortuga Port is planning to clear out the Fishmen nearby, and they need professionals."