Sinking Bone Giant Squid

Hu Mang looked at Old Zhu in surprise.

What's wrong with this guy now?

He's gone. What will happen to all the kids on this ship?

"Old Sha will be watching, and after a day of training, these kids roughly know where they can and can't go, especially since this is on the outskirts of the Dragon Blood Tide."

Old Zhu added.

"I came here to make a fortune from Dragon Blood Tide, not to babysit."

Hu Mang glanced at the other person up and down, realizing it was a spur-of-the-moment decision, and laughed.

"That performance during the day, it really captivated you?"

Old Zhu chuckled and honestly admitted, "That's right. If that old Azure Cloud Zi can go to the center of the Dragon Blood Tide to get good stuff, why can't I? I don't want to go through a once-in-a-decade fortuitous opportunity and only earn a delivery fee."

"If it were just me alone, I would accept it. There's no other way. To explore the core area, two Golden Core cultivators are the minimum requirement, and Old Sha also has to control the smuggling ship. But I have you here, brother. Don't think I didn't notice. That Golden Core Divine Sense from earlier today, you were the one who detected it, weren't you?"

"I don't want to delve into your true identity, but whatever it may be, you wouldn't be unhappy about making money, would you?"

"How do you intend to divide it?" Hu Mang asked bluntly.

"Whoever catches it keeps it. If it's a large catch that two people work together to catch, then it's all split 50/50, regardless of who contributed more or less."

"Okay, shall we leave now?"

"Of course, the bigger the waves, the more expensive the fish; the more frequently unclean things appear, the greater the probability of a baby being born."

Hu Mang nodded, and soon, in the darkness, two figures transformed into streaks of light and headed directly towards the core area.

Hu Mang already had some idea of going to the core of the Dragon Blood Tide.

He discovered after a day of searching that scavenging things on the outskirts is basically pure luck.

At most, the scope of his gains was wider than that of the other Foundation Establishment cultivators.

There's not much difference in essence.

The truly good stuff is kept in the heart of the Dragon Blood Tide, reserved for the most capable.

Besides that, there is another very important reason.

Nighttime is when filthy creatures emerge from the seabed, and he happens to Yin Eye the ability to see these "filthy things" clearly.

Good eyesight increases the chances of spotting treasures.

Ordinary Golden Core, unless they also cultivate the Ghost Path, would find it difficult to match his vision.

In addition, he also had the two-piece bedding set that the old security guard had given him earlier.

So, to Old Zhu's astonishment, Hu Mang changed into a security guard uniform and pulled out a flashlight in mid-air.

A pair of Yin Eye and a flashlight are a perfect match!

With the flashlights blazing, the "dirty stuff" floating in the seawater had nowhere to hide wherever the beams passed.

Three zhang ahead, a grayish-white, misty remnant soul was drifting along the seabed.

From a crevice in the rocks on the left, a palm-sized "Yin Snail" slowly extended its tentacles, its shell densely covered with fine, mosquito-like lines of resentment.

When the flashlight shone on it, the resentful patterns seemed to writhe as if they were alive, trying to crawl into the Hu Mang's pupils along the beam of light; the Yin Eye pressed down coldly, and the patterns on the shell instantly froze, shrinking back into the crevices.

Further away, a huge mass of "Corpse Sha" resembling a rotting jellyfish was drifting from the direction of the sea eye. Inside the mass, dozens of overlapping human faces could be vaguely seen, their mouths open and silently screaming.

The beam of the flashlight swept over it, and the cloud of air receded as if it had been scalded, revealing something that had been hidden beneath it for a long time—a grayish-white bone flute half-buried in the mud and sand. The flute body gleamed with a very faint spiritual light, and under the analysis of the Yin Eye, one could directly see the remaining amber-like ointment inside the flute tube.

With a swift movement, Hu Mang snatched the Root Bone flute from his hand.

"Essence Oil Bone Flute, a good omen," Old Zhu praised.

What is Essence Oil Bone Flute?

It doesn't sound like a very serious thing.

According to Old Zhu, this thing is a vengeful spirit, a sea ghost, or some other dirty thing at sea. It uses the sound of a flute to attract fishermen at sea and suck their life essence. Over time, as more life essence is absorbed, a thick layer of life essence residue is left on the bone flute.

It sounds more like a corpse oil bone flute.

"This stuff is a hundred times more precious than corpse oil," Old Zhu shook his head.

"The greatest use of this item is to repair cracks caused by permanent depletion of vital energy. It is especially useful for repairing permanent wounds caused by certain harmful Devil Cultivation Method practiced in the demonic path. In some underground markets, a small piece of this essential oil can be exchanged for ten times its weight in high-grade Spirit Stone."

"Interesting."

The Hu Mang muttered to itself, played with it for a moment, and then tossed it into the storage box it had just acquired.

Inside the storage box were many marine goods salvaged by the old cultivator, including a piece of ancient coral reef, a treasure no less valuable than ambergris or lightning-struck driftwood, because its surface was covered with a cluster of "dragon horns".

Soon, after rounding a huge reef, the beam of the Hu Mang's flashlight pierced through the Yin Qi and swept across a patch of black mud at the bottom of the reef; the Hu Mang reached in and, inserting its five fingers into the mud, pulled out a fist-sized, silver-gray metal block, heavy and dense in texture.

It's another sunken ingot, in excellent condition. Crucially, it weighs over 30 jin (approximately 15 kg), making it the largest piece of "sunken iron from the seabed" that Hu Mang has ever salvaged.

He stuffed the sunken silver ingot into his Storage Bag and continued onward, the beam of his flashlight sweeping back and forth across the sea. He soon found several more scattered pieces of bone—they looked like the ribs of some kind of large sea monster. Each one was as thick as an arm and about two to three feet long. The bone was dense and had a pale yellow, oily sheen on its surface.

Excellent keel material, just a bit too small to be used as the main keel of a ship, but it's perfectly fine for a secondary keel.

The successive gains made Old Zhu a little restless.

He hadn't expected that the unassuming old-fashioned flashlight in the other party's hand would be so useful, even more effective than Golden Core cultivator's Divine Sense.

The Golden Core Divine Sense is interfered with when it encounters filth on the seabed, as if it were specifically designed to detect filth.

Fortunately, being close to the core area of Dragon Blood Tide, the frequency of shipments was much higher than in the outer areas. Soon, Old Zhu also managed to obtain a dragon scale the size of a washbasin. Most of the scale had already turned golden, so it wouldn't be an exaggeration to call it a dragon scale.

Old Zhu happily accepted it, saying he would have it made into a top-quality heart-protecting mirror.

However, Hu Mang quickly stopped him, his expression somewhat serious.

"How?"

"There's a sinister sea monster, the size of a small mountain, on the seabed ahead."

"Then we'll just avoid it, what's wrong with that?"

The old-fashioned flashlight not only had the ability to search for evil spirits, but also seemed to have the effect of repelling them. So when they encountered some dangerous sea monsters on the way, they would first use the light to drive them away, and then the two of them would rely on their Golden Core speed to go far away.

But this time seems a little different.

"On one of the creature's tentacles, there seemed to be a black pearl, emitting an eerie glow..."

The Hu Mang described the sea beast's shape in detail: its body was the size of a small mountain, each of its tentacles was wrapped with broken ship planks and rusted anchors, and the inside of its tentacles was covered with barbed suckers, with a tiny, eerie eyeball the size of a grain of rice embedded in the center of each sucker; the ink it spewed was not black, but solidified, lifeless Spiritual Qi.

"It's the Sinking Bone Giant Squid! The thing on its suckers is the Nether Pearl, which is a great treasure that can stabilize the three souls and seven spirits!" Old Zhu's eyes gleamed with eagerness.

Although Hu Mang didn't know what the Nether Pearl was, he knew very well that even with the current level of technology at Heavenly Gate, they could only modify things like the Golden Core, which were "tangible but intangible," and could not penetrate into the realm of the soul.

Hu Mang pondered for a moment, "I have an idea..."

After listening, Old Zhu looked hesitant.

However, considering the incredible detection capabilities of a flashlight, he nodded.

"Okay, I'll seduce him."

Sea monsters are a disgusting presence for all cultivators who travel along the sea routes.

It can't even be called a demon, because it has no Yao Qi at all. It is a giant monster that grows from a sea creature absorbing the Spiritual Qi and moisture from the depths of the sea.

This monster is enormous and incredibly strong, but it has no intrinsic value. Besides eating, it has no other hobbies. Its favorite activity is attacking fleets and absorbing all Spiritual Qi -related substances on the cargo ships to make its body even larger.

Even its meat is hard to eat.

The Sinking Bone Giant Squid is a type of sea monster, but this particular Sinking Bone Giant Squid with Nether Pearl hanging from the core of each of its suckers.

At this moment, as its suction cups slowly writhed, the light of the Nether Pearl grew brighter and brighter. Wherever the light shone, whether it was sea monsters or ghosts, they were all transformed into rolling Yin Qi and absorbed into its body. Mixed with the enormous Spiritual Qi brought by the Dragon Blood Tide, its size grew larger and larger.

Old Zhu hovered above the water, his hands gripping the bone knife tightly, his gaze fixed on the huge shadow beneath the surface.

He took a deep breath, then suddenly raised the bone knife high above his head. A dense layer of watery spiritual light suddenly shone on the blade, condensing and compressing on the edge, eventually transforming into a blade aura several meters long.

"Oh!"

He roared and gripped the sword with both hands, slashing down fiercely. The water-colored sword energy detached from the blade, cleaving through the sea like a crescent moon and plunging straight into the water.

Wherever the blade's energy passed, the seawater was neatly split in two, forming a brief vacuum rift, before it slammed into one of the Sinking Bone Giant Squid's tentacles.

Pfft--!

A dull cutting sound came from underwater.

The tentacle was cleaved open by the blade's energy, leaving a deep, bone-revealing wound. Grayish-white flesh rolled back, and a thick, foul-smelling, dark green fluid gushed from the wound.

The Sinking Bone Giant Squid immediately emitted a painful sonic wave, blasting the sea surface apart. The next moment, one after another, huge tentacles as thick as pillars shot out, and in an instant, this sea surface seemed to grow into a fleshy forest.

Without a word, Old Zhu Unity of Man and Saber, transforming into an even sharper blade of light, and slashed towards the "forest".