Yang Yi crushed the shark's eyeball beneath him with brute force.
It let go in agony, but Yang Yi did not spare it. Gripping its burst eyeball, he hauled it up and smashed it into another shark.
Yang Yi's strength was now as high as 8. Even his fists could easily crack these sharks' skulls.
But Yang Yi was no reckless brute. If he could beat them one-sidedly, he would not casually resort to close combat-at least not now!
Yang Yi exerted his right arm and sprang up, nimbler than a monkey, landing straight on the yardarm.
"From now on, it's my turn only!" Yang Yi's expression was cold as he aimed the dark muzzle at the Devil Sharks below.
Bang!
A Devil Shark was blasted straight into two halves.
"What happened?" Su Na looked at Yang Yi in disbelief.
One second, Yang Yi had been on the verge of death. The next, he had turned the tables and killed his attacker, instantly reversing the situation.
So extraordinary...
Su Na's gaze grew hot and ravenous as she watched Yang Yi, as though she wanted to devour him alive and examine him inside out.
Her gaze was so blatant that it made Yang Yi uncomfortable.
He brushed it off casually. "Nothing much. I unlocked a new talent."
"I see." Su Na did not press him.
Even if she had, Yang Yi had no intention of explaining.
This was his trump card, an immensely powerful one that could let him turn the tables and kill his opponent at a critical moment!
And the talent's side effects were deadly too, leaving him weakened for a full 24 hours!
So the fewer people who knew, the better.
Meanwhile, Su Na also felt some lingering fear.
Her sanity had just plummeted by over 20, and she had almost failed to resist the urge to dissect Yang Yi with her dagger.
Fortunately, Su Na had held back in the end, and her sanity had stabilized just above 50.
Su Na, don't rush. Hold back. Yang Yi is special. Observe him slowly...
She silently admonished herself.
Yang Yi had no idea what that madwoman Su Na was thinking.
He took out the Holy Water, drank two-thirds, and poured the remaining third over his wounds.
It worked well, and the wounds soon stopped bleeding.
He took out his Flintlock again, aimed, and fired. One misfire, one shot, and another shark died.
Unable to bite either of them, the sharks grew frenzied, and some joined in gnawing on the mast.
The others began eating their dead companions.
But the mast was the sturdiest timber on this Ghost Ship. It was thick, and the sharks' mouths simply were not big enough to destroy it anytime soon.
Still, the risk remained.
It all depended on whether the mast broke first or the sharks died first!
Only thirty-odd uninjured sharks remained. Yang Yi thought his chances were very good!
"Wait, you don't need to shoot anymore!" Su Na suddenly stopped Yang Yi.
"Why?" Yang Yi turned to look at her.
"Look, the Cystic Spiny Puffer's toxin is taking effect," she said, pointing at a shark with an arrow in its eye.
This shark was probably the first one she had shot. It lay crooked on the deck, no longer moving.
Soon, its corpse was also torn apart and eaten by its companions.
Yang Yi understood instantly.
"Cannibalism is very common among insects.
"That's why some insecticides deliberately delay death, letting the insects crawl back to their nests before dying. That way, one dose can wipe out an entire nest."
Su Na explained.
"I see." Yang Yi nodded, pulled the trigger, and killed another shark.
"But won't shooting speed up their deaths even more? The bullets don't cost anything anyway!"
"Suit yourself. Just leave me one intact," Su Na replied.
A dozen or so minutes later, the sharks finally all died, not a single one left.
Shark corpses covered the deck, filling the air with the smell of blood.
In his weakened state, Yang Yi took ages just to climb down the mast.
He only had 15 vitality now. He had to take it easy; one fall might leave him dying, followed by kicking the bucket.
Su Na had come down long ago.
She picked out the largest, most intact shark corpse and cut it into pieces on the spot, ready to pack it into her Treasure Bag.
"We're rich! This should be enough for about seventy gacha pulls!" Yang Yi's eyes lit up.
Back when he played mobile games, pulling for characters had always been his favorite part.
With many games, he deleted them as soon as he finished his pulls.
"Shall we split them fifty-fifty?" Yang Yi looked at Su Na.
"You do the pulls. I only need one shark."
Su Na spoke indifferently, seemingly uninterested in the gacha.
"What a shame. Then I suppose I'll reluctantly do your pulls for you!"
Unable to wait, Yang Yi began cutting up the Demon Hammerhead Shark corpses on the ground.
He cut up a batch and did a batch of pulls, and the corpses gradually disappeared.
In total, he made 72 gacha pulls.
There had been 74 Demon Hammerhead Sharks altogether. Su Na had dismembered one, and another had become emergency rations.
To avoid accidentally poisoning himself, Yang Yi had specifically chosen the first one he had blasted in half.
Fortunately, the other sharks had not eaten it, so it could serve as food.
Once he finished, Yang Yi checked their course and the map again. Only after confirming there were no major problems did he look beneath the gacha machine.
Seventy-two glowing orbs lay there.
He had not opened a single one, intending to save them up and open them together.
What would be inside?
Full of anticipation, Yang Yi began opening his gacha rewards.
[You obtained 1 unit of steel]
"What?"
[You obtained 200 Conch Coins]
"..."
[You obtained 5 units of wood] [You obtained 5 units of stone]
"This is driving me nuts!"
Yang Yi hurled the piece of wood onto the deck.
It slowly disappeared, transferred into storage.
Was this what he, Yang Yi, was short of?
Where were the relics?
Where were the treasures?
At least give him some accessories!
As he continued, Yang Yi gradually grew numb and stopped expecting anything.
The rewards were mostly basic resources, including fresh water, steel, wood, cloth, and even crystal.
There were also twelve loaves of black bread, five sausages, three watermelons...
Perhaps the Devil Sharks were too weak to compare with the Siren and the Drowned Dead.
Or... perhaps his luck was simply too terrible.
After opening everything, Yang Yi had only obtained three decent items.
One fine, one good, and one common.
[Name: Low-Tier Fire Element] [Type: Consumable/material] [Quality: Fine] [Description: Can alter equipment's attributes, granting it the power of fire.] PS: Equipment can be altered repeatedly. The attributes from the most recent alteration take precedence.
[Name: Red-glowing fishing net] [Type: Tool] [Quality: Good] [Description: Can be installed along the side of a ship to catch fish unfortunate enough to pass by. However, this fishing net gives off an unsettling red glow that ordinary schools of fish avoid at all costs. This red glow... you should have seen it somewhere before.]
[Name: Sharkskin swimsuit] [Type: Treasure] [Quality: Common] [Description: Increases swimming speed by 25% and reduces stamina consumption while swimming in water. It can easily make you a swimming champion!]
Yang Yi put the three items away.
This abysmal drop rate reminded him of some less-than-pleasant memories.
But soon, a possibility occurred to him.
Could submitting too many of the same monster cause the gacha drop rate to plummet?
The more he thought about it, the more plausible it seemed.
The system might be trying to encourage players to kill more monsters they had never encountered before.
Testing this conclusion would be simple too. He only needed to have someone else do a pull.
He put the idea into action at once.
Yang Yi brought over Su Na, who was still amidships, and handed her a fin to try a gacha pull.
This Devil Shark had originally been set aside for food, but with plenty of black bread now, there was no need to risk eating raw food.
"Give it a try," Yang Yi urged.
If Su Na got a good drop, it would prove Yang Yi's conclusion correct: repeatedly submitting corpses of the same monster caused the drop rate to plummet.
If Su Na did not get a good drop, then perhaps it was purely down to luck, and his earlier luck had simply been too good.
Su Na tossed the fin straight in and turned the gacha crank.
Golden light suddenly shot from the octopus head's eyes, and even its tentacles turned gold.
"Wow! A golden legend!"
Yang Yi felt as though he had heard a hallucination.
A golden orb emerged from the octopus head's mouth, and Su Na picked it up...
"Is this... the difference between the blessed and the luckless?"
Yang Yi flushed red. For the first time, he felt that this game was unfair and brimming with malice!
Before you continue