This salvage operation lasted two days. Over those two days, Ye Yuan found five such "stones," keeping two for himself and handing over three.
Aside from the large one he handed over the first time, the other two were only about the size of a baby's fist.
This was the final dive. Afterward, the vessel would return. Ye Yuan still went down alone, and after two days, the frogmen had come to greatly admire his diving skills.
The military worshipped the strong. As long as you were strong enough, everyone would respect you.
This time, Ye Yuan headed straight for the thousand-meter-deep waters. A small school of fish approached him head-on. Their appearance was terrifying, and Ye Yuan immediately recognized them as a rare species discovered only in recent years: Giant Mouth Fish.
During his school years, Ye Yuan had few hobbies. He spent all day in the library reading, and information about countless marine creatures had long been etched into his mind.
Giant Mouth Fish: Their bodies were entirely black, with light-producing organs on the barbels beneath their jaws, as though they were grinning wickedly at people. Their mouths were extremely distinctive, lined with dagger-like teeth, and could open as wide as 120 degrees.
Their mouths could open so wide because they possessed a special skeletal structure. The connecting bones between their skulls and spines were exceptionally flexible and could spread into an obtuse angle. This was the first complex, flexible cranial joint discovered by humans in nature.
This type of cranial joint could only be found in five species of Giant Mouth Fish. By comparison, the bony joints between the heads and spines of other fish were small or extremely small. It was precisely because of this special skeleton that they could swallow relatively large prey. They were therefore among the most dangerous fish in the deep sea.
They were mainly distributed throughout the warm waters of the Atlantic Ocean, Indian Ocean, and Pacific Ocean, as well as waters such as the South China Sea and East China Sea. They generally lived in deep waters between 200 and 1,000 meters.
Even Ye Yuan felt his scalp tingle at the sight of the Giant Mouth Fish. They were not easy to deal with. He immediately accelerated in the opposite direction. Ye Yuan might have been formidable underwater, but there were too many of them. He understood that even ants could kill an elephant.
Only after getting away from the Giant Mouth Fish did he clearly see his surroundings. It was an enormous field of underwater reefs, with reefs of all sizes rising and falling in succession. Ye Yuan used his perception to probe the reef field.
To his surprise, he discovered a natural cave within the reef field. Its entrance was huge, at least two meters across. Yet Ye Yuan found that his ability could not sense what lay inside.
This was the first time Ye Yuan's perception had failed him beneath the sea. He arrived at the cave entrance. It was pitch-black inside, and he could see nothing. Ye Yuan took out the military dagger Xu Hang had given him and slowly swam into the cave. The passage slanted downward.
After swimming several dozen meters, Ye Yuan felt as if something were watching him. The hairs on his back stood up. He had never felt such a sense of danger before. Then a massive black shadow charged at him from ahead. Ye Yuan hurriedly fled toward the cave entrance, rushing out at his fastest speed.
When he turned around, he saw an enormous sea serpent.
Sea serpents were marine reptiles with small heads, thin and long necks, and flattened tails. Their nostrils were at the tips of their snouts and had valves. Sea serpents breathed using their lungs and the vascular-rich mucous membranes in their mouths. They often rinsed their mouths with seawater to absorb oxygen from it.
But the sea serpent before him clearly overturned Ye Yuan's understanding. Ordinary sea serpents were only two to four meters long, and the longest one Ye Yuan had heard of was around eight meters. Yet this one was at least ten meters long. Not only was it long, but it was also incredibly thick. Its body was cylindrical, with a diameter of at least a meter.
Could it be a mutated sea serpent? Ye Yuan wondered.
While Ye Yuan was still marveling at the sea serpent, it charged at him furiously. Ye Yuan dodged its frontal attack, raised his military dagger, and viciously stabbed it into the serpent's body. To his surprise, the dagger could not even pierce its outer skin.
How am I supposed to fight this? I can't even break through its defenses. As Ye Yuan thought, he dodged the sea serpent's repeated charges. When he evaded another attack, the serpent's tail swept sideways and struck him directly, sending him flying through the water with tremendous force.
The sea serpent's tail had hit him squarely in the back. Ye Yuan immediately lost all feeling in his back, and his movements slowed considerably. He quickly put distance between himself and the sea serpent.
At that moment, Ye Yuan wanted to use the Fishery Space's ability to send the sea serpent inside. Once it was in there, he could deal with it however he wanted.
After all this time, the sea serpent had grown even more ferocious. It opened its huge mouth and charged at Ye Yuan again. Ye Yuan dodged the attack, and as he passed by the sea serpent, he reached out and touched its body. With a thought, the sea serpent was instantly sent into the space.
But the instant the sea serpent entered the space, Ye Yuan's head began to ache terribly, like the dizziness caused by overworking one's brain. The sensation lasted a long time before gradually fading.
Is my ability still insufficient to put something that huge into the space?
Ye Yuan thought about it, then found a reef twice the size of the sea serpent and tried again.
The reef did not react at all. It seemed he would need to be more careful in the future. Not everything could be stored inside; he currently had no way to put overly large objects into the space.
That sea serpent had actually contributed 10,000 points to Ye Yuan, something he had never expected.
Host: Ye Yuan Points: 58300/80000 Strength: 26 Speed: 16 Endurance: 21 Title: Intern Fisherman (Aquatic Creature Affinity +11) Fishery Space (Beginner): Accelerates the growth of creatures in the fishery. Points can be exchanged to alter creature appearances. Points Mall (Intermediate): Points can be used to exchange for items in the mall. The currently available items are as follows...
After checking his attributes, Ye Yuan saw that after several days of training, his strength, speed, and endurance had each increased by one point.
With the sea serpent's points, Ye Yuan's total had also reached 50,000. Once he returned, he could exchange them for a few more robots. Although this trip had been somewhat dangerous, the rewards were still quite good.
After resting briefly beside the reefs, Ye Yuan swam toward the cave again. Since there had been such a huge mutated sea serpent inside, perhaps there was something good within.
When he reached the cave entrance again, Ye Yuan was even more cautious this time. He truly feared that another huge creature like that might suddenly appear. He carefully made his way into the cave.
After reaching the depths of the cave and confirming there was nothing else inside that could threaten him, he finally began examining it.
The cave was enormous, as large as a basketball court. Natural reefs surrounded it, and there were no living creatures inside. What shocked Ye Yuan most was that more than ten of the "stones" the military was looking for lay scattered across the ground.
The largest one was the size of a washbasin, while the smallest was only the size of a fingernail. Ye Yuan put most of the stones into the space, leaving only two fist-sized ones in his net bag.
Ye Yuan guessed that these stones had all been left behind by the sea serpent. Perhaps the sea serpent had mutated because of these stones.
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