Chapter 24: The Bath Tub Attacks |
The Deep Sea Monster Fish, a sailor cabin.
Cang Xu awakened once again.
“Hic…that feels better.” Cang Xu sensed his mind was clear, no longer was his head heavy and aching.
The cabin’s magic formation was still shining.
“How long was I asleep?”
With this question in mind, Cang Xu left his cabin.
In the cockpit, he saw Zi Di, who answered his question.
“You were out for three days.” Zi Di replied.
“Only three days?” It was shorter than Cang Xu expected.
“In that case, how is the situation?” Cang Xu asked.
“It’s going smoothly. Come see.” Zi Di indicated to him.
The wall had many magic images on it, showing the scene of the six pirate ships on the sea.
On the flagship, the dragonman youngster was making a tour of it.
Zong Ge was conducting training on another pirate vessel.
One of the sails had been damaged by attacking magic beast seabirds, so Tripleblade nimbly climbed the mast and cut down the rope holding the tattered sail.
Lan Zao was elsewhere, teaching the fisherfolk how to swab the deck.
Cleaning the deck seemed like a minor job, but it was actually very important.
If there was a storm and the deck hadn’t been cleaned enough, the sailors would slip easily and fall into the ocean, consigning them to death.
Zi Di presented the screens, “We have awoken all of the villagers and allowed them to use their physical labor to earn their freedom.”
“We also incorporated the pirates after confirming that these ones have not seen our true identities, they were all beaten by the swordsman guards. Many people were frightened by our alchemy arrows.”
The pirates could be said to be disloyal.
Or perhaps, it could be said that these pirates were usually only loyal to their own benefits.
Between surrender and death, there was no choice for them.
Cang Xu nodded, some of his worries were alleviated.
The structure of the group was good.
The survivors’ ranks had swelled by almost twenty times, very few of the newcomers were worth trusting.
Therefore, they could not wholly rely on either the fisherfolk or the pirates.
These two groups of people viewed the other as enemies, making it easier for the survivors to control them.
“As for Da Zhao and his men, they have been put to sleep. We used their own medicine.” Said Zi Di.
Cang Xu coughed, “These people are all top-notch test subjects. What about the tower spirit?”
Thos who saw the survivors’ true identities would doubtless die.
The ghost girl’s face blossomed with a smile, “Thanks to your method, the captain disguised himself as War Merchant and succeeded in deceiving the tower spirit.”
“We not only obtained all of its information, we also subdued the tower spirit.”
“The tower spirit is in the alchemy cabin, directing the yellow crab alchemy puppets to refine things for us.”
Cang Xu flashed a smile, and he impatiently asked, “How wonderful. Can I take a look at the data?”
Curiosity was one of the traits of an outstanding magician.
In addition, Cang Xu was also a scholar with his own academic aspirations.
“3”
“Of course.” Said Zi Di. “However I am currently driving the alchemy ship, you’ll have to go to the alchemy cabin on your own. Your authority has already been elevated by the captain to level 3, you can interface directly with the tower spirit.”
Cang Xu then took his leave.
Upon seeing the tower spirit, he smoothly looked through the data in the crystal ball.
But not long after, he grew hesitant and returned to the cockpit.
“2”
Just as he was about to ask, Zi Di had already spoken, “You want to ask whether this is all of the data? Of course not. It is a portion of it, only a level 2 authority can read it all.”
Cang Xu frowned and began to mutter to himself.
Zi Di watched the necromancer, noticing that his face did not have even a hint of grievance or indignation.
After all, War Merchant’s data was something the survivors had gained together, yet the captain and Zi Di had restricted Cang Xu from reading it in its entirety.
“So, does the restricted content concern the Bloodcore?” Cang Xu asked, although he was using an inquisitive tone, he seemed very certain.
“Correct.” Zi Di nodded, then asked, “Why do you believe that?”
Cang Xu laughed silently, “There were many obvious clues.”
“In the tower spirit’s database, there was not a single detail related to the Bloodcore.”
“The Bloodcore was on the third floor of the control tower, while the divine artifacts were on the first and second, this signifies the Bloodcore is more important than them.”
“In addition, our Lord Captain personally took away the Bloodcore from Mystifying Monster Island for himself.”
After pausing for a moment, Cang Xu continued, “The Bloodcore should be the key to War Merchant’s artificial magic beasts.”
“No, not just the magic beasts, but also the mutating beast people.”
“The Lord Captain was transformed into a mutated beast person, therefore he has an inseparably close connection to the Bloodcore outsiders like ourselves cannot even imagine.”
“If my guess is correct, the Bloodcore’s function should be related to bloodlines?”
Zi Di nodded again, “Indeed.”
The artificial magic beasts ha many kinds of mixed bloodlines, something the mutated beast person, the young knight, had demonstrated many times publicly when he “mutated”, these were all clues.
After obtaining the ghost girl’s affirmation, Cang Xu’s conjectures seemed to be validated, causing his expression to grow faintly excited, “After living and dying on Mystifying Monster Island, we agreed that we would use the divine artifacts to redeem ourselves.”
“But now, you two have decided to hide any information related to the Bloodcore.”
“This proves that this information is more important than the divine artifacts, the benefits involved are too great, thus you cannot easily trust others with it.”
“So much so that the empire would pay any price to seize it, and kill anyone who could speak of it!”
“Don’t tell me, don’t tell me that it…”
“The Bloodcore can alter a person’s bloodline?!”
Cang Xu was rarely emotional, but now he was expressing his openly.
His eyes gazed at Zi Di, his eyes exposing his strong eagerness and nervousness.
Zi Di gradually grew grave, she was about to speak when the Deep Sea Monster Fish’s alarms suddenly rang.
The two were forced to cease their conversation, their gaze now fixed on the magic images.
A pirate ship suddenly appeared in a magic image.
Zi Di and Cang Xu turned glum.
“Rou Zang!”
“Why is he here?”
“How did he follow us?”
The six pirate ships were sailing past a barren island, when suddenly, a magic ship suddenly ambushed them from behind the island.
This was a multi-deck ship, it had no masts and now sails.
The bow was smooth and round, like the head of a gigantic whale surfacing from the ocean.
The hull was immense, and three times the size of any of the pirate ships.
The ship’s main building was a five story tower. The sea breeze was strong, but the top of the tower was lost in haze and water vapor, none could see it clearly.
——
These distinct characteristics, along with the ship proportions and the floor sized pirate flag proclaimed its identity – Rou Zang!
“It’s, it’s Rou Zang!”
“It’s the Bath Tub, Rou Zang has come to kill us!”
“Retreat, retreat!”
The survivors were in commotion, most of them were panic-stricken and unable to do anything.
Zong Ge grasped his hands together and looked with tiger eyes, “Is it using concealment mist?”
Rou Zang had been famous for many years for his vicious power, information about him was spread widely.
The information said that the Bath Tub had a gigantic bath tub on top of it. The bat tub was a gold level alchemy tool, if enough invisible medicine poured from it, the bath tub could produce an enormous amount of invisible mist.
A steady stream of invisible mist could hide the Bath Tub and turn it invisible.
Besides hiding the Bath Tub from eyesight, it could also hide the ship’s aura and other qualities.
Of course, the Bath Tub was still physically there when invisible. Therefore, when the Bath Tub sailed through the ocean and stirred up the waves, it would create a phenomenon people could observe.
But this time, the Bath Tub had ambushed them after motionlessly hiding behind a barren island.
The invisible medicine Rou Zang must have been of high quality, it actually concealed the ship from the Deep Sea Monster’s scanners.
The Bath Tub stormed at them with astonishing speed.
The dragonman youngster’s troops were very passive, the situation was far from good.
The distance between each was too close, they could not bombard them.
“Should we retreat?” Zong Ge’s eyes narrowed, he was actually hesitant.
The half beastman did not fancy his chances against Rou Zang and the Bath Tub.
When a battle qi cultivator became a gold level, their battle strength would soar.
Rou Zang was no recently promoted gold level, he was a renowned and longstanding peak gold level!
The most sensible tactic was to retreat, abandoning the pirates and fisherfolk they just recruited to stall the Bath Tub and give the survivors time.
Zong Ge was an expert in military strategy, iron and blood were in his nature, thus he would not miss these troops.
What made him hesitant was this: if they dove into the sea and escaped into the Deep Sea Monster Fish in front of Rou Zang, they wouldn’t be able to conceal their movements from him.
The Bath Tub was obviously also equipped with detection methods.
If they were noticed, the Deep Sea Monster Fish would suffer considerable damage dealing with Rou Zang.
Extraordinary people lead the world, not extraordinary things.
Although the Deep Sea Monster Fish was also gold level, and had two gold level cannons, it was just an object in the end.
Rou Zang was nimble, he could use tactics to break through.
If the alchemy ship was breached, even with the combined efforts of the swordsman guards, Zong Ge, and the young captain, it would be hard to withstand Rou Zang.
Besides, the Deep Sea Monster Fish had many riches that could not be lost.
Even if they repelled Rou Zang, the divine artifacts and other things would be exposed, and the survivors would inevitably be hunted. If the incident on Mystifying Monster Island was exposed, the pursuers would not only be pirates, it would also be the far more formidable imperial navy.
“Calm down!” The dragonman youngster quickly left the captain’s room to stabilize the situation and morale.
“Sail at top speed, we aren’t far from Snake Rat Island.” The Dragonman youngster roared.
But before he could finish, something strange suddenly happened.
A pirate ship mutinied, it was one the former pirates ad seized control of.
The survivors didn’t have anyone on that ship, and although the fisherfolk on it wanted to resist, the pirates on board were screaming, “Do you want to die? Surrender or die!”
The fisherfolk of Stone Egg Island wavered, then surrendered as their will to fight crumbled.
The pirate ship quickly changed directions, and sailed towed the Bath Tub.
For a moment, the others were stunned.
