Chapter 617: Saleen’s Luck (Part 2)
Translator: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio
Pan turtles were never very fast creatures, but after it had been modified the s.h.i.+p was able to travel very quickly on the sea. Most pan turtles also had poor eyesight and often crashed into reefs. Luckily their sh.e.l.ls were thick and heavy so the reefs would end up being crushed upon impact. Grade-8 beasts often did not have to care too much about what was ahead of them.
Saleen’s pan’s turtle alchemical boat was the same. There were many sea creatures, but since this was not the oceanic ice block, all the powerful creatures were in the deep sea. When the alchemical boat sailed over, all the low-level beasts had already escaped.
On both sides of the alchemical boat’s lounge were crystals where one would be able to observe what was happening on the outside. Everyone on board possessed considerable abilities and even the least skilful were at least beginner-level swordmasters. Aini brought along fifty of his best bodyguards on board in order to receive his parents. They were all the men he had at his command.
Even Aini’s parents were impressed by this boat.
“Saleen, are you selling high-speed merchant vessels?” Lanny was able to estimate the speed that this boat was traveling just by looking at the sea water on the outside. If merchant boats could travel at this speed, there would be no need to fear pirates anymore.
“Auntie Lanny, the Clyde clan do not have many s.h.i.+ps, I suppose.”
“Yes, the Clyde clan usually operated on land for our businesses.”
“Not only were there pirates at sea, there were also the combat vessels from Alchemy City and Cloudflow empire to worry about. I would have gone into it if this business was worth doing. Lex has no lack of materials, craftsmen nor money.”
“I knew it.” Lanny most certainly already knew about this. It was just that the profit margin for maritime trade was very high as boats could transport many more goods and could travel much faster compared to wagons. This was a huge temptation for all merchants. Back then, Viscount Gugger of Ceylon City was able to maintain one of his cities after borrowing one of his father-in-law’s boat for smuggling.
Ceylon City did not have much to tax for and Viscount Gugger also built up a reputation for providing duty-free and food. They managed to survive solely on maritime trade.
Saleen saw that Lanny was a little disappointed and laughed, “I did promise Aini that I will give him a good s.h.i.+p.”
“You are a good kid,” Lanny smiled as well. A good boat was worth at least one-hundred-thousand gold coins. To own a fleet of boats, one would have to spend millions of gold coins and that was why most could not afford to partic.i.p.ate in maritime trade. Most people with that kind of wealth would have built themselves a castle and hired some peasants instead.
“What’s that?!” Something flew past like a flash, but Cuisi managed to catch a glimpse of small black dot.
“Flying fish. Only the Eastern Sea has them.” The winged skeleton had spent countless days on the sea and was extremely familiar with all the sea creatures.
“There is money on the flying fish’s back.” Cuisi’s eyes was able to see the demon dimension’s magic parasite in complete darkness. These parasites were the size of the tip of a needle and were as long as a grain of rice. Flying fishes were one-yard long and even though they were a distance away, Cuisi still managed to see their unique characteristic.
“Haha!” The winged skeleton began to laugh. “Master, this is a money flying marlin. There is a bone that is half a yard long from their spine to the spike on their head. You can use it as a weapon. These creatures travel in groups and there should be at least tens of thousands within the next one-hundred miles.”
“How many can you catch?” Saleen asked the winged skeleton.
“It is difficult to catch them alive because they are flying too fast. It is also impossible to try and breed them because their range of activities are too wide. During summer, they will swim to the north and can reach as far as oceanic ice block. During winter, they will swim to the south for close to ten-thousand miles. They are not creatures that can be bred in a pond.” The winged skeleton knew what Saleen was thinking.
“Not even as bonded creatures?”
“Master, this type of beast’s level is not too high or low and will be useless as a bonded creature. Even if you kept it as a bonded creature, it will not be able to reproduce.”
“Uncle Fellet, the three of us shall hunt them as much as we can.”
Once Saleen heard that this creature could not reproduce, he did not think further. Anyway, only Cloudflow had a large-scale operation in place to breed these beasts while the other empires only had small-scale ones. If there were tens of thousands of money flying marlins nearby, it would be easy to kill one to two thousand of them. That would be sufficient to arm a regiment. The bone on the money flying marlins was even better than metal as a weapon.
The main weapons used by Qin include the long spear, but the biggest problem was that it was difficult to pull them out once they have been pierced into an enemy’s body. On the other hand, these bones of the money flying marlins could be pulled out easily.
It would have been suicidal if the money flying marlins used the spikes on their heads to attack other creatures and were not able to pull them out easily otherwise.
The pan’s turtle alchemical boat slowed down. The spirits of the dead that had been resting were all woken up by the winged skeleton and released to patrol on the sea. Saleen, the winged skeleton, and Fellet were all on the boat’s deck and Saleen was observing with his elemental eye.
The surface of the sea was misty, but that did not affect Saleen’s vision. He searched left and right, but did not manage to discover large schools of fish for the time-being. An intense battle had occurred here in the past involving Eastern Sea Allied Armies and all the beasts had been scared away leaving behind some metal back seagulls circling in the air in hopes of corpses floating onto the surface. These seagulls were not daring enough to attack live creatures.
“Uncle Fellet, to the north!” Saleen’s elemental eye caught a glimpse of a large school of money flying marlins. There were at least ten-thousand of them.
The winged skeleton was the first to fly up. The spirits of the dead released from the alchemical boat had received more information and all three pairs of wings on the winged skeleton’s back opened fully and produced a violent whizzing sound. The winged skeleton flew quickly to the north-east direction to drive the marlins towards the boat. It was still dangerous to try and hunt these marlins when there were so many of them gathered together.
A bony spike protruded out of the head of the money flying marlin and it was extremely sharp. This was the marlins’ main weapon. Some of the more powerful marlins were even able to cast short-range spells from this bony spike. If one tried to stop these marlins from where they were going, it was as good as standing on an open field and being attacked by ten-thousand archers.
The only difference was that the amount of damage that archers could cause was limited. As long as the arrows did not land on any crucial parts, a mage usually would not die from arrows. If one was pierced by the money flying marlin, it was equivalent to a gaping hole created by a long spear and one would lose blood quickly and the wound would not be able to heal.
The winged skeleton did not wish to be attacked by ten-thousand flying fish. He made sure that he was high enough above the marlins before releasing grade-7 creature’s coercion. Money flying marlins were not of high levels and the highest was only grade-4, which was not even comparable to red krills. Their physical attacks were extremely powerful.
The winged skeleton was employing a method commonly used by magic wolves when they hunted. Drive the target into an area where they would be surrounded or killed.
Saleen and Fellet has already caught up from behind. The winged skeleton drove hundreds of money flying marlins towards Saleen. They tried to dive underwater.
Fellet was a sorcerer so he could cast spells even while flying. Due to safety considerations, he only cast a low-level spell; ice arrows.
Every ice arrow was a yard long. Fellet’s water element spells were quite powerful. The ice arrows were gathered close together and every one of them could kill off the money flying marlins. Even if the arrows did not strike crucial locations, the ice arrows also had freezing abilities that would reduce the marlins’ resistance and drop them into the sea.
There were spirits of the dead that were patrolling the sea and they would try their best to collect these marlins and hand them over to the winged skeleton. The winged skeleton did not attack but only continued to drive small pockets of flying fish away from the school of marlins so that Saleen and Fellet could kill them.
Saleen was having some difficulties. He was only a grade-6 mage so he was taking quite a bit of risk by casting spells while flying. He was still able to use some special spells like eye of lightning.
Saleen flew amongst the fog and released eye of lightning on those marlins that had been separated from the rest. Within ten yards, the marlins would have no resistance to the attack. They would be paralyzed once struck by the lightning and would fall into the sea.
After his eye of lightning had advanced, Saleen no longer had the trouble of temporary loss of sight and could use it continuously. He was now able to have slight control over the intensity of the lightning. Using it against creatures that were grade-4 and below, such as these money flying marlins, he only required lightning of low intensity to paralyze them.
The spirits of the dead that were dwelling in the sea would charge forward to kill these paralyzed marlins before pa.s.sing them over to the winged skeleton. The speed at which Saleen was killing the marlins was almost comparable to Fellet’s.
Not before long, Saleen and Fellet had already killed more than one-thousand money flying marlins. The winged skeleton also no longer had the energy to drive the marlins towards them anymore because the school of marlins were already swimming further away towards the north.
The money flying marlins’ corpses and their blood floated on the surface of the sea. The winged skeleton’s s.p.a.ce equipment could not store too many items so Saleen approached the sea and stored them in his G.o.ddess’ necklace instead. At the same time, he ordered his twenty-four lightning dragons to eat up the flesh, but not the bones.
Time pa.s.sed much more quickly in the necklace compared to the real world. These small lightning dragons now possessed huge appet.i.tes and Saleen did not want the flesh to go to waste. The three of them returned to the pan’s turtle alchemical boat after the winged skeleton returned to Saleen the hundreds of marlin corpses that he had kept initially. Standing on the deck, the wind carried with it the heavy smell of blood. Carrion birds other than metal back seagulls also appeared in search of flesh, but on this rare occasion did not find any.
Saleen used elemental eye to observe his surroundings again to ensure that there were no combat vessels nearby before returning to the cabin with Fellet.
“The beasts of the sea are able to provide resources, but it’s a pity that I do not know where to find a more complete beast map,” Saleen said regretfully.
“You can buy one at Alchemy City. I heard that Alchemy City has maps that has collected up to ten-thousand types of sea beasts and each beast has at least ten types of transformations.”
“Is it very expensive?”
“Extremely. You cannot make a copy of it after you buy either and you need to sign a bond.”
Saleen did not mind. He intended to collect fees after he has built a library in Metatrin City too. There was a price to knowledge and while he did not intend to set very high fees, it was Alchemy City’s right if they wanted to sell their maps at a high price.
“But you are lucky. As long as the bones of these marlins have not been damaged, they can be refined into decent equipment,” Fellet said.
“Uncle, you have a share too,” Saleen said with a smile.