Chapter 349: Lying in the sands, laying in the port
‘So by fix you meant…whatever made Fourth Uncle able to punch a pit of glass into existence through sheer brute force?’
[Yes.]
‘Huh…how did you know what to change on his formula though?’
[Found the formula he was cultivating in the library and then I found out that it was actually a derivative of another formula that got lost to time because of some bad blood between two rivals sects. All I got from it was that someone was a sore winner.]
‘Ah…knowledge degradation is weird.’
=THANK YOU!=
‘Huh?’
‘Uh…even if it gets proven wrong later?’
=WE MUST ARCHIVE OUR SINS IN ORDER TO LEARN FROM THEM!=
‘Huh…fair enough.’
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‘Okay…was that the art or was that me?,’ Zhen Xi asked himself as he stared at his diamond fist and the pit of glass directly before him.
He was going to try and throw another punch without using the art this time, but the sound of his fellow clansmen and caravneers stirring caused him to pause.
‘Uh oh….I should probably get outta here.’
While Zhen Xi wasn’t actually guilty of anything, he felt compelled to bail from the area and double back to the camp, more specifically his own bed.
Perhaps it was paranoia, but he didn’t want anyone to know about his newfound powers…yet.
‘We still haven’t bury the hatchet with those main clan guys and I know fair well the old saying about talents getting assassinated for no good reason…that said, maybe I’m too old for that to be an issue?’
Luckily for Zhen Xi, nobody except for one person managed to see him sneaking back to his bed like a guilt ridden teenager. Granted, that one person had a vested interest of making sure no one else saw him too.
‘Okay…let’s spread some misinformation.’
Zhen Liu was understandably concerned, but merely rolled his eyes before deciding to hear her out.
‘Alright, what’s the plan.’
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“Hey, did y’all hear thunder last night, or was that in my head?”
“Yeah we did. There was like a whole ass conversation about it too, what were you doing?”
“I am a very heavy sleeper.”
“Huh…that explains some things…anyways, yeah, running theory amongst the branch clan members was that it was giant eagle beast flying by, while we think it was a battle to the death gone awry.”
“Why not both?”
“Uhhh…huh…maybe? All we know for sure is that there is a small pit of glassed earth over there as proof something happened. We just don’t know what.”
“Really?! Holy shit!”
The caravan was abuzz with activity as several members of it attempted to figure out the exact reason why there was a sonic book the night before, and why these was a medium sized pit of glassed earth right by the caravan.
Right now, there were two to three ideas prevailing around the camp as to why there was an explosion of thunder last night, followed by an unknown pit of glass.
The first was that a bird type aether beast must have flown right pass them at an incredibly high speed. While nobody could agree on what kind of bird, they just knew it had to be fast.
“I’m telling you guys, it was probably a Storm wind Albatross, those things got wings that stretch really, really long.”
“Pfft! No way man. Ain’t not albatross reaching the speeds necessary to glass the desert. Only things I can think of that can do that are Sandstorm Hawks and maybe Black Sparrows.
“Oh come off it!”
The second idea floating around was that they were in the same area as a fight to the death between high level fighters, and that sudden explosion was the signal for some kind of turning point.
“Only time I’ve heard explosions that loud is when Aether Kings go toe to toe with one another.”
“Oh please, like you’ve seen Aether Kings fight.”
“Damn straight I did! Remember that duel between the Pearl Scale Emperor’s kids a while back?”
“That doesn’t count, that was barely even a sparring match!”
As for the last idea floating around, it was essentially a mash up of the previous two, someone got way in over their head and attempted to hunt something that was completely out of their power range.
“You remember that guy who said he was going to hunt down a grade four Hill Crusher Dragon Bull a while back? Whatever happened to him?”
“Splattered against a boulder I think?”
“Really? I thought I saw him at a tavern last week, missing an arm though.”
“Oh shit.”
The funny thing about these three ideas that have been floating around the carvan was that they all originated from a single source, and he was absolutely talking out of his ass…not that anyone actually knew that…
Besides, the ones who did know the truth of the matter didn’t have any reason to disprove these rumors anyways.
‘Huh…so people think my little display from last night was either a hunt gone wrong or a duel to the death…works for me, not sure where that came from though!’
‘Whelp, adding that to my big book of Isekai rules: When lying about a situation, think of your audience.’
Regardless of the truth of the matter or what people of it though, this little incident boiled down to being a fun bit of conversation for the carvaners until they finally reached Pearl Tusk Harbor.
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[Hold up…I just realized something very important,] Hurricroak suddenly stated, [can any of us swim?]
[That’s…random…,] Frosttusk noted.
[What brought this on?,] Nepherage followed up.
[Okay, so you know how our lord is about to go to Roaring Tide, right? Via a big ass boat to cross the ocean?]
[Right.]
[And like, Roaring Tide is like covered in a shit ton of rivers, swamps and other water-based features?]
[That’s…what…the books…say…]
[So there’s a really, really high chance we may have to fight someone who is accustomed to water combat so…can any of us swim?]
[I…can…just…freeze it…]
[Underwater though?,] Hurricroak pointed out.
[I mean…no offense Hurricroak, but aren’t you part frog and part crab?]
[Well, yeah, but have you seen the way frogs and crab swim? Ain’t no way I’d be able to keep up with a dude if he’s moving around like a shark or a fuckig…octopus. Plus, I’m electric and pretty sure mixing water and electricity is a bad idea.]
=If y’all are worried about underwater combat, do not worry we have arts for that. Just need to wait for the next book keeping session and have our lord swap in the skills.=
[Well, there ya go.]
[Oh yeah…is this technically a deus ex machina?]
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‘Welp, I can now confirm that in at least the two worlds I have been a part of, the ocean is blue,’ Zhen Liu thought to himself as he stared pass the harbor and towards the ocean’s horizon, ‘and that port towns will definitely always sell fresh seafood.’
“Get your fresh fish here! We got fresh Striped Tilapia and Ripper Eel for a low, low price!”
“Check out these Opal Oysters! Not only are they sweet, but if you’re lucky, you can get yourself a nice opal too!”
“Grilled squid here! Get your grilled squid here!”
After about another day of travel, the caravan reached Pearl Tusk Harbor without so much as an incident. However, there was a bit of an incident when they finally got to Pearl Tusk Harbor.
Apparently the ship they had initially planned to take to get to Roaring Tide got into an accident and had to be in drydocks for repairs. It wasn’t anything too major, but it was enough that their trip back was delayed by about a day.
Thankfully, they still had plenty to do in town.
“Damn, when one was the last time we’ve been here?,” Zhen Lao asked his brothers.
“I think it was like…two years back?,” Zhen Jin answered, “You think that seafood pasta place is still here?”
“Gods I hope so.”
One of the downsides about living in an in-land frontier town was the lack of delicious fish and seafood, technically.
There were some species of desert dwelling beasts that were essentially crabs, lobsters, shrimps and some weird fish, but they always had this mildly dry taste to them regardless of prep.
So for the first time, in a long time for some, the people of the branch clan got to enjoy proper seafood that came out of the ocean for once.
‘I wonder if takoyaki is a thing in this world…’
