Lin Yuan had figured that Lilia could respawn endlessly and had some combat ability of her own, so bringing her into the underwater world would be useful whether as a helper or as bait.
He had not expected things to turn out somewhat differently from his expectations.
"You have a fear of seawater?"
Lin Yuan looked the puppet girl over in disbelief, never having imagined that she would have such a strange problem.
"Oblivious Captain, haven't you noticed that I've been standing on the water this whole time? As soon as I get in the water, I get dizzy and weak. I can't muster any strength at all."
The corner of Lin Yuan's mouth twitched. Of course he knew Lilia stood on the water as though it were solid ground, but he had never imagined this was the reason!
Logically, a mysterious being like Lilia should have been summoned from the Main Sea or even a world farther below. Going underwater should have been like going home!
And not only could she not enter the water, but her coffin could not stray too far from her either. Lin Yuan's plan to take the coffin along as a mobile recovery station had fallen through as well.
Forget it. Free stuff really is unreliable, crew members included.
Lin Yuan grumbled inwardly, then dove alone, preparing to hunt magical creatures in the world twenty meters below.
Fortunately, this little interruption did not affect the overall situation. Lin Yuan had no trouble hunting on his own; at most, he would just be a little less efficient.
Come to think of it, just what kind of being was Lilia? A magical creature? A supernatural creature?
An ability like endless respawning was simply absurd, yet her own combat strength was very low. Why would such a strange phenomenon exist?
Why had that mysterious wooden box with his name carved into it summoned her?
The more Lin Yuan thought about it, the more mysteries there seemed to be.
Before he knew it, he had reached the world twenty meters below.
The moment he entered it, he felt a powerful jet of water rush toward him!
Caught off guard, he was blasted several meters away.
His body's durability also dropped to 9950/10000.
This was no mere current. It was practically a water cannon!
At the same time, the "hull submerged too deep" warning began sounding again, and his durability began to decrease slowly.
Fortunately, his durability was as high as 10,000 points, so this little bit of damage was nothing at all.
He steadied himself and looked in the direction the water jet had come from.
It was a flat-bodied strange fish with a fleshy fin growing from its back like an antenna.
Just as Lin Yuan looked over, the strange fish's fleshy antenna-fin bent down and pointed at him from afar.
A jet of water appeared out of thin air in front of Lin Yuan, knocking another 50 points off his durability and pushing him several meters away again.
Unlike the human-faced strange fish from before, which had used something like a spell to drag Lin Yuan underwater, this one was a ranged fighter.
He just did not know how it fired water cannonballs through its fleshy fin.
Magical creatures really were magical.
But Lin Yuan had them beat.
"Competing with me in ranged attacks? Have you got what it takes? Steel Harpoon!"
Lin Yuan could not be bothered to waste words on the water-cannon fish. He skewered it with a single shot.
This strange fish had even less vitality than the human-faced one. Lin Yuan did not even need a follow-up attack. After the harpoon pierced it, it flopped twice and stopped moving.
Lin Yuan reeled in the harpoon, putting the strange fish into storage along with it.
"Storage's almost full. Once I get the Explore the Sea blueprint this time, I'll open all the shell treasure chests and sell off all the useless materials."
As Lin Yuan planned, he swam toward another strange fish over a hundred meters away.
The strange fish at this depth all had their own territories. Even if the original owner died, the other strange fish would not come to seize its territory.
This saved Lin Yuan from being surrounded, though it meant he had to swim over to the other strange fish himself to hunt them.
Lin Yuan did not swim very fast. He guessed it was because his engine compartment was still empty. His current swimming speed was only on the faster end of ordinary human ability.
But that worked out just right. His harpoon took five minutes to recock after every shot, which was just enough time for him to swim to another strange fish several hundred meters away.
The strange fish at this depth were all about equally strong. He repeated the same method, fired the steel harpoon, and harvested another peculiar-looking strange fish.
When he reached the third magical creature's territory, however, Lin Yuan ran into a problem.
This magical creature was not a strange fish, but a peculiar shellfish.
Its shell was about the size of a person. He did not know what material it was made of, but it shone and looked incredibly smooth.
And it was indeed just as slippery all over as it looked.
Whether he used the steel harpoon or his own fists, his attacks slid off to one side, making it difficult to inflict any meaningful damage.
Of course, Lin Yuan could also ignore this thing and keep searching for his next target.
But just then, he recalled what Research Institute 3154 had said earlier.
"The abilities of magical creatures are not their own. They draw on the power of this sea."
"If that's the case..."
Lin Yuan held the shellfish up and swam straight toward the surface.
Along the way, the shellfish seemed to sense that something was wrong. It shook its body several times, trying to break free, but Lin Yuan caught it again each time.
Before long, Lin Yuan burst out of the sea with the shellfish.
The moment it left the water, the sheen covering its shell immediately vanished, leaving an ordinary calcareous shell.
Lin Yuan punched it, easily breaking through the shell.
After breaking its outer shell, Lin Yuan found another silver shell treasure chest inside the large shellfish.
"So that's how it works. Magical creatures are worlds apart in strength depending on whether they're in the sea or out of it. That might come in handy later."
Lin Yuan nodded, then dove again, intending to get two more magical creature corpses in one go.
On the nearby sea surface, Lilia had watched everything Lin Yuan had done.
"Weird Captain. He suddenly burst out, smashed a shellfish, then dove back down. What's he doing?"
Her little face was filled with confusion. She tilted her head, then suddenly thought of a possibility-
Could something underwater have affected Lin Yuan and driven him mad?
Although the creatures in the shallow sea were pathetically weak, her captain was no powerhouse either.
Maybe he really has fallen victim to something without realizing it?
Lilia felt that, as a crew member, she had to show some concern for her captain's physical and mental health.
She looked at the water beneath her feet, thought for a moment, and reassured herself:
"The shallow seawater should be fine!"
With that, she let her body sink, dropping straight into the water.
The coffin beside her followed Lilia underwater as though connected to her by an invisible rope.
"Huh, this is quite a bit better than I expected."
Although Lilia still felt uncomfortable, she was neither dizzy nor weak.
But when she looked down, she discovered that Lin Yuan was descending even faster than she was. He passed straight through the thirty-meter boundary and was still going down!
"Captain? Captain!"
Lilia called out, but Lin Yuan turned a deaf ear to her cries.
It was not that Lin Yuan was deliberately ignoring Lilia. He was caught in a tremendous crisis.
When he smashed the shellfish and dove underwater again, the very first thing he saw was that enormous dark shadow in the depths beneath his feet!
The shadow's form remained indistinct. Only its two eyes seemed to possess some magical power that allowed Lin Yuan to see them with perfect clarity.
As their gazes met, Lin Yuan suddenly felt a weight beneath his feet!
It was as though an invisible chain had locked around one of his ankles.
Then tremendous force surged through the invisible chain, dragging Lin Yuan straight down, closer and closer to that dark shadow!
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