The next day at noon.
The sun over the Salt Sea was terrifyingly intense. "Scorching" was certainly an apt description.
The exposed skin of Reilo and his companions had developed red spots to varying degrees. Uncle Luo Ji had gotten off relatively lightly, while Reilo was already feeling uncomfortable from the rash. But Lulu had it worst of all. The girl, who had grown up in the snowy mountains, had tender, snow-white skin that was now peeling in large patches.
Reilo knew the damage was caused by sunburn and ultraviolet-ray sensitivity. They had smeared a mixture of plant sap and mud over their skin, which had brought some relief, but there was no doubt that this place was unsuitable for them to stay in for long.
After walking along the beach for quite some time, Reilo, who was leading the way, spotted something.
"There's a stretch of rocky ground up ahead. It must have formed from volcanic lava many years ago. Shall we go take a look?"
From a distance, a vast expanse of black rock cut off the beach, making it stand out starkly.
"Okay."
Lulu answered, while Uncle Luo Ji wiped the sweat from his forehead. He glanced in the direction Reilo had pointed, then continued walking in silence.
Even while traveling, Reilo didn't waste a moment.
As he walked, he took out a magnifying glass and focused the sunlight onto a coconut shell in his other hand, examining it closely.
The light focused by a mere ten-centimeter convex lens was an infinitesimal fraction of all the sunlight the Cosmic Starry Sky released. Yet even borrowing such a tiny measure of the Cosmic Starry Sky's power—the power of the Law of Truth—was enough for Reilo to set the coconut shell alight with ease.
Sweat ran from Reilo's forehead and dripped from the tip of his nose.
To glimpse the whole from a tiny part!
At that moment, Reilo seemed to see, in this insignificant natural phenomenon, a terrifying scene: himself turning Bubble Technique into a convex lens hundreds, thousands, or even tens of thousands of times larger, focusing the sun's rays. He had caught a glimpse of the power of the Law of Truth of the universe.
"The Cosmic Starry Sky..."
Murmuring in wonder, Reilo felt his heart fill with longing and anticipation. After taking a deep breath, he put away the magnifying glass and tossed the coconut shell aside.
They had only just reached the scorched rocks when Lulu let out a surprised cry.
"Huh? What's that?"
A small, blue octopus with black stripes was hiding beneath a coconut shell by the water. Reilo went over to take a look, and his expression changed.
"Be careful!"
Reilo practically shouted, startling Lulu, who had been about to approach.
He pulled out a glass beaker as if facing a great enemy, almost holding his breath. With a quick movement, he covered the small blue octopus in the water with a pop. Only after securing the creature as a specimen did he let out a breath of relief.
Carefully, Reilo sealed the beaker.
"This is a Ghost Corrosive Octopus. It can release a terrifying corrosive toxin. If someone is infected and doesn't receive treatment in time, their bones will slowly dissolve into liquid. It's an extraordinarily horrible way to die!"
Lulu covered her mouth and stared wide-eyed. Reilo's words had clearly frightened her as she imagined the bones inside her body slowly melting away.
After observing the Ghost Corrosive Octopus for a while, Reilo looked rather pleased.
The Ghost Corrosive Octopus wasn't particularly rare, and it was only a spirit creature, so it couldn't be exchanged for elite points. But it was an ideal specimen for studying and observing poisons.
After this brief interruption, Reilo put the specimen away, and the three of them continued onward.
The black reefs had been worn by the seawater until they were as sharp as blades. Algae had gathered in the crevices, and Reilo occasionally crouched down to collect samples with a cotton ball, placing them in glass bottles. This left Lulu and Luo Ji even more baffled by the profession of mages.
After all, in the eyes of most mercenaries, mages were all nobles who tinkered with strange specimens or alchemical materials in their laboratories. What mage would stick his backside in the air and poke around in rock crevices like Reilo?
But that was because Reilo was a first-year student on his very first expedition.
He wasn't strong enough to obtain specimens of advanced lifeforms, and what he lacked most right now was foundational knowledge of Evolution's Profound Meaning. He therefore needed a large number of basic biological specimens to build his understanding of biological evolution.
About two hours later.
Reilo had collected several basic specimens along the way. But now, a series of muffled, low croaks from nearby caught their attention, like the deepened version of a toad's croaking.
"What is that thing?"
Lulu spotted the strange creature from far away.
Reilo spotted it too: a creature with a huge black shell on its back. The shell was about a meter long. Strangely, its head looked like a toad with a pair of antlers. Its white chin bobbed up and down with each "croak."
Reilo frowned. The Star Core gave no indication, and he had never seen a creature like it in any book.
When the unknown creature noticed the three of them approaching, it seemed to sense a threat instinctively and tried to crawl back into the sea, but it moved incredibly slowly.
Woof, woof, woof!
Qiu Hei instinctively judged that the creature lacked the threatening aura unique to Magical Beasts. His Magical Beast bloodline instincts took over, and he treated it as food, lunging at it first.
"Watch out!"
Reilo shouted. The slow-moving shelled creature turned its head and suddenly opened its mouth, firing a water bullet.
Smack!
Qiu Hei dodged the water bullet, but it struck the black reef beneath him, blasting a hole the size of a bowl into it!
"A Magical Beast!?"
Lulu cried out in alarm.
Qiu Hei was startled too. Sensing a great threat by instinct, he cautiously retreated to Lulu's side. Luo Ji and Reilo also instinctively took half a step back, shocked and wary.
To punch a hole that big in the reef, its attack power had to exceed ten degrees!
Yet after spitting out the astonishingly powerful water bullet, the black-shelled creature seemed even more terrified. It struggled to keep crawling toward the seawater.
"No, there's no energy fluctuation!"
Reilo studied the creature closely. Its black shell was covered in bumps, and he could just make out many strange little holes at their tips. Suddenly, he realized something...
"Bubble Technique!"
A transparent bubble floated toward the shelled creature. It didn't fire another water bullet as Reilo had expected. The bubble burst above its head. The attack was weak, so it only made the creature shake its head before it continued fleeing toward the sea.
At last, Lulu had seen this mysterious mage, Reilo, cast the fabled magic spell. Her eyes had sparkled with anticipation, but the result left her gaping in astonishment and confusion as she stared at him.
Reilo came from a commoner family and didn't feel the least bit ashamed about "letting Lulu down." Without so much as changing his expression, he said, "Catch it. It can't fire any more water bullets!"
Still doubtful, Luo Ji and Lulu slowly approached the creature.
Sure enough, the creature only grew more and more panicked and made no effective counterattack. The two of them gradually grew bolder.
A moment later.
Just as the unknown creature was about to escape back into the sea, the three of them worked together to carry the enormous beast back.
"Ah-ha! So it can only use magic once!"
Lulu tilted her head at the big creature and giggled.
The shelled creature let out frightened "croaks," and Uncle Luo Ji couldn't help kicking its shell. Lulu turned to Reilo and asked curiously, "How did you know it could only use magic once?"
Reilo leaned in to study the mutated creature, his eyes shining as if he could already see it becoming an eternal treasure in his Specimen Room, dissected beneath his scalpel. He explained, "That water bullet wasn't magic cast using an Energy Crystal. It drew water from the sea and compressed it into a water bullet using a special physiological structure inside its body. That's fundamentally different from a Magical Beast's power!"
To put it simply, if this creature were a Magical Beast with an Energy Crystal inside it, it could use the crystal's energy to keep firing water bullets at Reilo and the others. Instead, after firing one water bullet, it had to return to the sea and use its shell to draw in and compress more water before it could fire again.
In other words.
If they let the big creature get back into the sea, where its shell could absorb plenty of water, the threat Reilo and the others faced would be almost equivalent to that of a Magical Beast without an Energy Crystal.
Reilo chuckled and continued explaining. "There once lived a creature called the Pistol Fish in the tropical rainforest of a small principality named Slodekland. Its greatest ability was firing a high-pressure water bullet that knocked creatures off branches over tropical rivers and into the water, where it could eat them."
Reilo stroked the big creature's shell as he explained to Lulu and Luo Ji, examining the largest biological specimen he had collected so far.
"The Pistol Fish is completely extinct now, and it only exists in specimen catalogs. When I saw this big creature fire a water bullet just now, I almost thought it was a Magical Beast too. But then I realized there wasn't any energy fluctuation at all. In other words, it had no Energy Crystal, so I thought of the Pistol Fish."
Watching Reilo's hand tremble as he stroked the creature's shell, his eyes filled with intense excitement, Lulu and Luo Ji felt as if he were about to drool. He wasn't looking at a shell—he was caressing the skin of a beautiful young woman!
Seeing this, Luo Ji and Lulu, who had just been admiring Reilo's knowledge, couldn't help shuddering. They truly couldn't understand a mage's odd habits. Even Qiu Hei, who had been bouncing around energetically before, now looked at Reilo with fear in his eyes. He tucked his tail between his legs and hid behind Lulu, afraid the man might stroke him just as he stroked the big shell.
It was no wonder Reilo was acting this way.
The moment he confirmed the creature wasn't a Magical Beast, he had thought of his Bubble Technique.
If he could apply its ability to compress water bullets to his Bubble Technique, wouldn't that instantly multiply its attack power several times over?
Completely immersed in his delight, Reilo ignored the creature's struggling cries and dragged it straight toward the shade beneath a distant coconut tree.
Seeing this, Luo Ji and Lulu couldn't help feeling sorry for the innocent creature.
Perhaps because of his hunger for knowledge, Reilo wasn't particularly strong, yet he dragged the nearly fifty-kilogram creature by himself without showing the slightest sign of fatigue.
"But the high-pressure water bullets this creature produces are far more powerful than the Pistol Fish recorded in the catalog. For a level-zero creature to manage something like this is an incredible discovery. I really want to see what kind of physiological evolutionary secrets it holds. Hahaha!"