132: Chapter 132 A Generous Reward for the Army Wins the Commander's Hearts (3)

He traced a line on Su Qingli's nautical chart with his finger—from the Abyss Mouth to the very end of the rift on the northeast bank, and after finishing, he tapped the end of the rift with his finger.

"Have Gu He lay a layer of that green toxic miasma of his on the reef at the exit of the rift—it doesn't need to be too thick, just enough to raise the water temperature by half a degree will suffice.

The moment the black fish smell the change in water temperature, they will shrink back—but with the school of fish pushing up from behind, they won't be able to retreat very far.

There is only one way out—to scatter to the left and right.

Set up a fishing net on both the left and right sides—not to catch fish, but to block them.

The mesh must be large—block them, but do not kill.

After the school of fish hits the net, the strongmen pulling the nets will drag the net openings toward the Deep Water Zone to the north—once the school of fish is led back to the cold water layer, they will stop moving upward."

Lu Changyuan looked at the line Leng Feng had drawn for a while. Then he nodded.

"Within three days—the toxic miasma and fishing nets at the exit of the northeast bank rift must be in place. Arrange the personnel yourself—this is the first order from the Blue Moon Grand Commander."

"Understood."

The crowd on the Pier slowly dispersed. The cavalrymen carried their Spirit Stone bags and walked toward the shed area—those with families found their loved ones in the crowd.

Wei Chuan's wife stood on the jetty holding their child—the child had woken up, and its little hand reached out from the cloth pouch to grab a handful of morning mist.

Wei Chuan placed the Spirit Stone bag into his wife's hand—the sound of the Spirit Stones colliding was very light, like seashells clinking in a cloth bag.

Lu Changyuan rolled up the underwater map on the table and tucked it into his sleeve. He glanced at Su Qingli—she was writing the final entry of the Spirit Stone accounts at the end of the public treasury's monthly settlement.

Her fingers pressed on the ledger for a moment—her fingernail pressed a tiny crescent-shaped mark into the paper. Then she set down her brush.

"Young Lord—the public treasury's accounts for this month, I have balanced them."

Lu Changyuan flipped over the Jade Slip he had tucked into his sleeve. On the back of the Jade Slip—the 1,500-zhang ice cave marked by Leng Feng was still emitting an extremely faint, pale blue cold light.

Last night, after Su Qingli finished copying the entire contents of the Jade Slip, Lu Changyuan had re-read Leng Feng's note on the back: '1,500 zhang—Ice Cave. The ice layer is extremely thick; Divine Sense below the Golden Core stage cannot penetrate it. Behind the ice, there are suspected to be several high-aged cold-attribute Spiritual Qi plants. Do not attempt to retrieve—leave a mark and return later.'

Do not attempt to retrieve—the words left by Leng Feng. Now it was his turn to retrieve them.

"I am going to the Cold Dragon Abyss." Lu Changyuan tucked the Jade Slip back into his sleeve, "No need for anyone to follow—I will go down alone.

There are still leftover Water-avoiding Talismans from the Sword Ray Cavalry—Su Qingli, draw a new one for me. As for Gu He—have him prepare a dose of defensive medicine that can be used underwater for me."

Su Qingli looked up at him. She did not ask why he was going alone—she just looked at him for an extra moment. Then she took out a blank Water-avoiding Talisman paper from the drawer and began to draw the talisman.

When Lu Changyuan entered the water from the Pier, the sun had just climbed to the waist of Qixia Peak.

He was wearing the second-grade Water-avoiding Talisman that Su Qingli had just drawn—the Array Pattern on the talisman paper was finer than those of Leng Feng's squad, so fine that the naked eye could only see a layer of extremely faint blue net-like lines clinging to the surface of the paper.

Su Qingli had said nothing while drawing this talisman—she had re-read all the waterway data marked by Leng Feng in the Jade Slip and added an extra half-circle of temperature-control Array Patterns to the Water-avoiding Talisman.

The water temperature at 1,500 zhang was nearly 40% lower than at the Abyss Mouth—ordinary Water-avoiding Talismans could withstand the water pressure but could not block the cold.

The defensive medicine given by Gu He was stored in a small cloth bag—the bag was tied to Lu Changyuan's waist.

The medicine had been freshly prepared by Gu He before dawn: a small pinch of dark brown powder. Gu He called it "Ice Water Combustion Agent"—a name he had just made up on the spot.

It was actually made by grinding the dry powder of a type of deep-sea fire coral and aged root shavings of rot-bone grass in a three-to-one ratio, then adding three drops of oily seaweed juice scraped from the shallows on the west side of the reef area.

Upon contact with water, the powder would release an extremely pungent, spicy odor—the odor could spread to about thirty zhang away underwater.

Gu He's original words were: "It won't burn anything to death—but any sea beast that smells it will think there is a volcanic fissure nearby spewing sulfur. The sea beasts in the Desolate Sea fear sulfur the most—sulfur means an underwater volcano is about to erupt."

Lu Changyuan pressed the Water-avoiding Talisman against his chest. The Array Pattern on the talisman paper lit up—a circle of pale blue Spiritual Qi light radiated from his chest, forming a thin layer that clung to his skin around his body.

He stood on the edge of the Abyss Mouth reef for a breath—then leaped into the water.

After the water surface closed above his head, the noise of the seawater pressed in from all directions.

When not in the water, standing on the Abyss Mouth reef, it was inaudible—but once in the water, the muffled sound of Spiritual Qi pushing outward from the deep water became a constant low frequency in his ears.

Once every ten breaths—the rhythm was consistent with the Spiritual Qi pulse of the black turtle egg.

Each pulse pushed out a wave of extremely faint, dark green Spiritual Qi light—after the Spiritual Qi light dispersed in the water, it dyed the surrounding water area into a translucent, dark color.

Downward. Four hundred zhang. The light spots of the black fish school had already risen to near three hundred zhang—looking up from Lu Changyuan's position, there was a dense patch of gray-black shadows moving slowly about one hundred zhang above his head.

The black fish school was circling—forced by the Spiritual Qi pushing outward to a depth where they could not go any higher, they could only circle within a fixed water layer.

The circling speed was not fast—every fish was drifting along the direction of the water current, drifting to the edge of the water layer and then turning back, like a flock of birds trapped in an invisible cage in mid-air.

Nine hundred zhang. The black turtle egg grotto. Lu Changyuan turned sideways in the water and glanced toward the grotto—the dark green Spiritual Qi light at the grotto entrance was brighter than yesterday.

The sludge outside the crack in the eggshell had mostly dissolved—the crack revealed its original length, about two feet or more.

The grayish-white mucus seeping out from the edges of the crack was thicker than yesterday—the Spiritual Qi released after the mucus dissolved in the water dyed the water about twenty zhang around the grotto entrance into a mass of dark green light mist that was constantly spreading outward.

The Spiritual Qi pulse was still once every ten breaths—but the force of each pulse pushing outward was greater than yesterday.

He could feel the outer layer of the Water-avoiding Talisman tremble slightly in the water pressure fluctuations—the water waves pushed out by the Spiritual Qi hit the surface of the talisman, which was more urgent than simple water pressure fluctuations.

Leng Feng's copied Jade Slip vibrated gently in his sleeve—the Jade Slip resonated weakly with the Spiritual Qi remaining on the eggshell when it approached the black turtle egg.

Lu Changyuan pressed the Jade Slip tight. He did not stay at this layer—the black turtle egg was not in today's mission.

One thousand two hundred zhang. The snake-like creatures in those honeycomb holes on the reef wall were still there—just as Leng Feng described, their bodies were translucent, and the bones inside their bodies emitted an extremely faint, grayish-white cold light in the dark water.

They did not react to the Spiritual Qi light of the Water-avoiding Talisman—the heads of the snake-like creatures were buried in the holes, with their tails exposed outside.

Lu Changyuan glided past a position two zhang away from the outside of the holes—the snake tails swayed gently in the flowing water, without turning.

One thousand five hundred zhang. Ice Cave.

The location marked by Leng Feng on the Jade Slip was very accurate—seen from the outside, the entrance of the Ice Cave was mostly sealed by thick ice, revealing only a narrow slit less than three feet wide on the right side.

The surface of the ice layer emitted an extremely faint cyan light—the light emitted from within the ice layer itself, permeating outward from deep within the ice wall.

The cyan light formed ripple-like patterns in circles on the ice surface—the patterns spread outward from the center of the cave entrance, becoming denser the closer they were to the entrance.

This was the residual Spiritual Qi light accumulated from the long-term breathing of the Spiritual Qi plants on the inner side of the ice layer—every time the Spiritual Qi plant breathed, it released a wisp of extremely faint Spiritual Qi, and the Spiritual Qi condensed into Spiritual Qi light patterns on the ice surface.

The density of the patterns meant that the Spiritual Qi plants were at least several decades old.