Seeing the mysterious dark shape draw closer and closer, seemingly heading straight for him, Lin Yuan took a deep breath and floated quietly on the surface, waiting.
There was no point in running in this boundless sea. He could not possibly outswim a sea creature.
He might as well fight the mysterious creature.
Even so, Lin Yuan could not help growing nervous.
His stats were high, but they were only numbers, after all. Having never been in actual combat, he still felt uncertain.
The dark shape drew closer and grew larger.
Then, just over a hundred meters from Lin Yuan, when its actual outline was about to become visible-
The dark shape suddenly vanished without warning.
The eerie, heart-pounding pressure that had appeared along with it also disappeared without a trace.
"Huh?"
Lin Yuan dared not let his guard down and stayed afloat where he was, waiting and waiting.
But a long time passed, and everything remained calm, as though it had all been his imagination.
After thinking for a long time, Lin Yuan finally gritted his teeth, plunged headfirst into the water, and swam down!
He was going to seek out that dark shape himself.
He simply could not rest easy without figuring out what had just happened.
Strangely enough, the seawater here was incredibly clear, with visibility reaching several hundred meters.
Before entering the water, Lin Yuan had already looked below the surface. There was nothing there.
But when he actually entered the water and opened his eyes, he was astonished to find schools of fish everywhere around him!
Palm-sized fish with red and white stripes, ribbon-shaped fish as long as his arm, and strangely shaped fish he had never seen before swam around Lin Yuan, a vibrant scene of life flourishing all around.
These were all species Lin Yuan had never seen before, though even the largest were no more than a meter long and did not look dangerous.
But how had these fish appeared out of thin air?
Curious, Lin Yuan reached out to touch a rather dopey-looking, big-headed fish beside him.
It tried to swim away, but its movements were clumsy. It had only just turned around when Lin Yuan caught it by the tail.
The big-headed fish struggled desperately, but Lin Yuan could not even feel the force of its struggles.
Compared with Lin Yuan's strength of 100, this unlucky fish's strength was negligible.
"This fish is real."
Though the fish had appeared out of thin air, the sensation of holding it could not be faked.
Curious, Lin Yuan returned to the surface and lifted the big-headed fish out of the water with him.
"It looks nice and plump. It should be edible... huh?"
Following the foodie tradition, Lin Yuan was pondering the questions of "Can I eat it, does it taste good, and how do I cook it?" when he suddenly noticed something wrong.
Looking down from the surface, he could see straight through the clear water. Where were the schools of fish?
What...?
Lin Yuan immediately frowned slightly.
After thinking for a while, he lowered the big-headed fish back into the water.
The fish began struggling again once it entered the water, and Lin Yuan could see it perfectly clearly through the surface.
He loosened his grip, and the fish immediately swam away.
But then something strange happened.
Almost the very moment the fish left Lin Yuan's palm, its entire body gradually became transparent. Its form faded like a phantom, disappeared, and finally vanished without a trace.
Lin Yuan reached into the spot where the fish had disappeared, but there was nothing except seawater.
He immediately plunged into the water and opened his eyes again.
The big-headed fish was fleeing in a panic, and the other schools of fish had reappeared as well.
The big-headed fish swam very slowly. Lin Yuan remembered clearly that its position was exactly where he had just reached into the water from above.
He could neither see nor touch it from above the surface, but once he entered the water, he could do both?
Interesting.
Above and below the surface seemed to be two different worlds.
Only by entering the world beneath the surface could he see the creatures in that world.
It sounded unbelievable, but this seafaring game for everyone was already unbelievable enough.
Lin Yuan's intuition told him his guess was probably right.
Of course, some questions still required further study. For instance, was which world he occupied determined by the position of his head?
Was Lin Yuan able to bring the fish above the surface because of his special nature as a ship, or were the two worlds inherently connected?
Most importantly, even in this underwater world, Lin Yuan still could not see the enormous dark shape from before.
What exactly was it?
Why had Lin Yuan been able to see it from above the surface earlier?
He had a feeling that the dark shape had already set its sights on him.
At that thought, Lin Yuan gritted his teeth and continued diving.
He simply could not rest easy without finding out what it really was.
But to Lin Yuan's surprise, after he had descended only another ten meters or so, another strange change occurred.
This ten-meter depth seemed to be a boundary.
He could clearly still see those small fish swimming merrily below, but as Lin Yuan paddled his arms and legs, the schools of fish faded and vanished again.
At the same time, other fish materialized out of thin air around him.
These fish were much larger than the ones he had seen before. Even the smallest were nearly two meters long, and some of the larger ones were four or five meters long.
And unlike the endearing, harmless-looking little fish from before, most of these newly appeared large fish had sharp, pointed teeth. One look told him they were not to be trifled with.
After repeatedly testing the ten-meter boundary a few times, Lin Yuan finally confirmed that the "ten-meter depth," like the "surface," was a boundary between two worlds.
So there was more than one underwater world. They were layered!
He just did not know whether there was a new layer every ten meters. If so, who knew how many worlds could be hidden beneath this unfathomably deep sea!
This seemingly unremarkable Paradise sea region had finally begun revealing its mysterious side, and even this tip of the iceberg was already astonishing.
Just then, a shark over two meters long seemed to regard Lin Yuan as prey and rushed toward him.
An idea struck Lin Yuan. Wanting to test his strength, he held his left arm across his body and let it bite down.
Thud.
Though it had bitten Lin Yuan's arm, the sound was like a blade chopping into wood.
Lin Yuan felt no pain. He glanced at his panel, and his health was still 10000/10000.
It seemed his passive ability, Wooden Armor, had taken effect. This shark's teeth were not enough to break through his defenses.
At the same time, he swung his right hand and smashed it hard into the shark's head.
A dull sound rang out underwater. The shark's skull caved in, and bright red blood gushed out. It clearly would not survive.
This was the effect of 100 strength. Even underwater, where his movements were hindered, he could still easily kill a shark with a single blow.
Having experienced his strength firsthand after the panel fusion, Lin Yuan felt considerably more at ease.
This was the power of stats!
Feeling that the large fish in this layer posed no threat to him, Lin Yuan flung the shark's corpse aside. Without looking at the large fish drawn to the corpse, he continued diving.
After he crossed the twenty-meter boundary, his surroundings changed again.
The large fish disappeared, and new shapes appeared.
But the newly appeared shapes were not larger. Instead, they varied in size and shape.
Some could hardly even be called fish.
They stayed far apart from one another, as though each had its own territory.
Lin Yuan swam toward the nearest shape. Once he drew close, he discovered that it was a strange fish about a meter long, with a deathly pale human face.
The fish also noticed Lin Yuan's arrival. Its human face broke into a chilling smile, and a long tongue slipped from its mouth, like a hanged ghost from a supernatural tale.
The bizarre sight immediately sent a wave of discomfort through Lin Yuan.
Just then, the system notification sounded again.
[Warning! "Lin Yuan" has descended too deep! Hull durability will be deducted based on depth and time!] [Beginner tip: To explore the underwater world, please first modify your hull for the corresponding depth.]
Startled by the system notifications, Lin Yuan no longer spared the strange fish any attention and hurriedly swam upward.
But strangely, no matter how he paddled his arms and legs, the distance to the surface never seemed to shrink.
It was as though the surface rose along with him as he swam upward.
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