Chapter 14: The Young Captain’s Future Path |
The young captain was in the middle of cultivation.
The young captain greatly treasured the moments when he could freely and calmly cultivate.
Mystifying Monster Island had been an exceptional whetstone that had sharpened his resolve and assiduousness.
He did not cultivate in the captain’s room, for it was too small and hard to practice in.
This was the meditation chamber.
Although the meditation chamber was built for magicians, the Deep Sea Monster Fish didn’t have one for battle qi cultivation.
The young captain only used it because it was spaciously empty and was shielded from external disturbances.
White River battle qi.
This kind of battle qi was famous for being straightforward, mild, and for having universal compatibility, thus it was used extensively throughout the empire.
With every punch the youngster swung, the battle qi within him increased a bit. His efficiency was not too high nor too low as it flowed like a stream through his body.
A magician replenished their magic power by meditating, while battle qi cultivators typically recovered their battle qi through exercise.
Battle qi came from the cultivator’s physical strength and body. The more one exercised, the more internal energy was used, and the more heat was created.
Battle qi cultivators used exercise to produce battle qi, and the principle behind both agreed.
“Every type of battle qi has their own tempering method, none are alike.”
“White River battle qi’s most suitable method is swimming. In a large river, when the battle qi cultivator moves against the waves, they will have produce their battle qi the most efficiently.”
“Currently, I don’t have such an environment for the time being.”
The young man both cultivated and reflected.
The Deep Sea Monster Fish was traveling through the ocean depths, there were no moving currents, and the water pressure was immense, the environment was quite different from a river.
These days, the young captain had grown quite familiar with White River battle qi.
As for why he chose to cultivate this battle qi, or anything else pertaining to his battle qi, his memory was completely blank.
The young captain was soon dripping with sweat.
Feeling his exhaustion, he decided to rest and balance himself out.
After a short time, the young captain began to cultivate again.
This time, he practiced battle arts.
Hundred Needle Wind!
The rapier in his hand thrusted forth like a hurricane.
Silver battle qi was sprinkled within it, creating dazzling silver white light.
Swish, swish, swish, swish…
The point impaled the air, creating a phenomenon.
The noise grew louder as White River battle qi was swiftly expended.
Not long after, the youngster stopped.
He gasped for breath as his azure eyes revealed his unwavering determination. His golden hair was sticky from sweat.
The arduous work out was both exhausting and satisfying, and had alleviated much of his stress.
Although he was getting ever farther from the perilous Mystifying Monster Island, the youngster was still under immense pressure.
On the one hand, his future was hard to foreseen, to achieve redemption was a difficult challenge.
On the other hand, there was also internal pressure coming from amongst the survivors. The youngster wanted to unite and support these people, and to lead them, power was the best option.
Simply showing kindness to others seldom begot respect.
The martial spirit existed deep in everyone’s heart.
Zong Ge’s cultivation had surpassed the young captain’s.
Of course, one’s cultivation was a single factor in determining true combat strength.
“My only battle skill is Hundred Need Wind, I have no others. In this aspect, because of my memory loss, I need new ones.”
“The White River battle qi is no match for Zong Ge’s Iron Blood battle qi.”
“The artificial magic beast transformations also cannot be used.”
After leaving Mystifying Monster Island, the young captain tried many times.
To sum it all up, transforming into those artificial magic beasts under a normal environment would only bring trouble to him. The artificial magic beasts had an immense flaw, and without the protection of the magic prohibition, they could crumble apart.
Every time he transformed into them, the youngster would injure himself.
Seeing it was a dead end, he could only stop after taking a dip.
If it went on long enough, the components of life would collapse, and he would’ve died on the spot.
“Fortunately, I still have my dragonman form.”
The Flame Dragon King bloodline had created a new powerful card in his hands.
The dragonman form was extremely formidable!
The dragon head increased his perception of sight, sound, and smell immensely.
A body of dragon scales was an outstanding shield.
Dragon claws were natural weapons.
Dragon muscles had tremendous strength and endurance.
Besides the physical, there was also the racial magics.
Dragon Roar, Dragon Might, and Blazing Dragon Breath.
After turning into a dragonman, the bloodline also provided knowledge of these three racial magics, allowing for the young captain to learn of them.
The youngster simply didn’t have an appropriate location to try out these techniques.
Of course, the dragonman form also had its limits and restrictions.
Firstly, it did not have the complete Flame Dragon King bloodline. In the future, the youngster needed to hunt all kinds of flame dragons if he wanted to supplement and complete the true bloodline.
Before then, although it was a legend level bloodline, it could not display legend level strength.
Secondly, the dargonman youngster was still at the silver level.
As for why, the youngster was puzzled for a time.,
He had absorbed many artificial magics beast bloodlines on Mystifying Monster Island. Then when he had transformed, he could immediately change into a bronze level, iron level, and silver level being.
According to that, after he had absorbed the Flame Dragon King, he should’ve become a legend level being.
However, after Zi Di had beaten the tower spirit and successfully extracted some of War Merchant’s data, the young man’s query had been solved.
Zi Di was the first to obtain the data, and had hidden about 3% of it from the others, only revealing it all to the youngster.
The concealed content had to do with the Bloodcore.
The data told them that the Bloodcore could transform one’s bloodline, that is, altering the framework of life.
The final result of the transformation was doubly restricted by the subject’s original bloodline and life level.
That was the truth.
For example.
Take the artificial magic beast, the monkey tail brown bear, it is an iron level magic beast. The monkey tail brown bear was unlikely to break through into the silver level, thus that was the monkey tail brown bear’s bloodline limit.
When the young captain, a silver level lifeform, transformed into the monkey tail brown bear, his life level would exceed the monkey tail brown bear’s bloodline limit. Thus, he would be restricted by the bloodline, and the youngster would transform into an iron level monkey tail brown bear.
When the young captain used the Flame Dragon King bloodline to transform, his life level (silver) was lesser than the bloodline’s level (legend). Thus, he was restricted by his own life level, and would transform into a silver level dragonman.
To put it briefly, it was like how it was determined how much water a cask could hold, by measuring the shortest plank.
“As a result, I need to improve my strength, both through absorbing powerful bloodlines and by raising my life level.”
In terms of bloodlines, the Flame Dragon King bloodline was legend level.
Despite its incompleteness, it had about the same bloodline concentration as a flame dragon prince.
But the young captain was still a silver level, and for him, this bloodline was more than enough.
To increase one’s life level, there are three methods.
They were the three orthodox gates.
Battle qi, magic, and divine spells.
Divine spells required belief, as belief produced the divine power needed to improve one’s life level.
Magic used magic power and external energy to shape the body.
Battle qi cultivators nurtured their bodies to unearth the potential within.
No matter which one was used, all of them needed lots of time. It was long process to trigger a qualitative change and allow one to jump up a life level.
“I should choose a battle qi type that is better than White River battle qi.” The young captain planned.
White River battle qi was a silver level battle qi type, it was too limiting.
It was incompatible with the Flame Dragon King bloodline, and even subtly conflicted with it.
White River battle qi was close to the water and light attributes, while the Flame Dragon King bloodline was purely of the fire attribute.
“In addition to this, I also need many battle skills.”
“I shouldn’t transform into those magic beasts, rather I should retain my human shape as much as possible.”
“Beast forms need lots of practice to grasp.”
“Beast forms have few battle skills, they are very rare.”
“Humanoid forms have an abundance of battle skills and well developed refinement systems.”
Regardless of whether it was humans, elves, beastmen, dwarfs, goblins, or others, these races were all humanoid shaped.
The young man understood how the road to the future should be walked.
It was also worth mentioning that after Zi Di defeated the tower spirit, she also obtained many battle qi techniques and battle skills.
As a magician, War Merchant had gathered this knowledge on instinct.
At the same time, he was also seeking inspiration from this knowledge so he could break his artificial magic beasts from their shackles.
Afte resting enough, the youngster was about to continue his cultivation when Cang Xu’s voice came from the Deep Sea Monster Fish, “Lord Captain, a situation has appeared.”
Several days ago, Cang Xu had discovered this new feature while controlling the magic ship.
The alchemy ship had convenient speaker installations, allowing one to transmit their voice and quickly communicate.
The young captain halted his cultivation.
Cang Xu knew he was cultivating and was unlikely to rashly trouble him.
Using his captain’s authority, he immediately understood what was going on.
He quickly summoned Zi Di and Zong Ge.
Including Cang Xu, these four were the survivor’s leaders.
The four quickly assembled in the cockpit.
On the wall, a magic image showed a mournful battlefield.
Blood dyed a wide expanse of seawater.
Human corpses sank into the ocean, along with the sporadic splinters of ships.
A battle had just concluded here, or to be more precise, a massacre had.
Everyone quickly made out that most of the dead were ordinary people.
“The murderers should be a pirate group.” Cang Xu surmised.
This speculation had clear evidence, for among the dead, there were also the corpse of pirates.
The corpses had kerchiefs that displayed a skull, dirty black fingernails, flimsy sackcloth clothing, long tubular leather boots, muskets, machetes, and other things that were the typical hallmarks of pirates.
“These were not passenger ships, only some fishing boats.” Said Cang Xu.
The young captain went cold, and his voice was gloomy, “No prisoners, these dregs!”
Zong Ge was ashen.
He had served in the army and his hatred for all bandits went bone deep.
“We should go.” Zi Di warned.
Fierce shoals of fish were rushing over because of the reeking scent of blood.
It was a feast for them.
After confirming there were no survivors, the young captain issued the order to sail onwards.
“This isn’t good.” Cang Xu said after examining the ocean map, “The closest habitable island is Stone Egg Island.”
“The dead are likely to be from Stone Egg Island.”
The young captain’s heart sank, and gave the order without the slightest hesitation, “Full speed ahead, we are going towards Stone Egg Island.”