Peng Peng swallowed a mouthful of saliva as he looked at the densely packed Frigid Snowy Ice Arowanas in the lake. A voice in his heart nagged at him constantly, filling him with a sudden wicked thought. "Catch one and eat it! Since there"s no one here but me, no one will ever know even if I ate one!"Peng Peng continued scattering the feed in a mechanical manner, his expression conflicted.
After a long period of mental struggle, Peng Peng still sighed heavily and shook his head. "Although I"ve fallen to such a state, I still don"t want to become the kind of person I despise."
Having made up his mind, Peng Peng completely dispelled all his stray thoughts and focused on feeding the Frigid Snowy Ice Arowanas.
The Frigid Snowy Ice Arowana was a Variant Demonic Beast and was rumored to have a trace of the Ice Dragon race"s bloodline in their veins. Their meat was extremely nutritious and the energy contained within it had great healing properties; it was said to be good for healing hidden injuries. Who knows, it might even able to reconstruct his damaged dantian! However, Peng Peng was unwilling to fall to the level of a thief.
As he continued throwing more arowana feed into the lake, more and more Frigid Snowy Ice Arowanas appeared, churning up ma.s.sive ripples on the water surface.
Seeing the water splas.h.i.+ng high, Peng Peng hurriedly retreated a few steps. The chilling water from this Frigid Spring Lake was not something a person like him who had lost his cultivation could endure.
It would be a real tragedy if one of the arowanas closer to him suddenly smacked its tail against the water, drenching him. At that time, he wouldn"t even have the time to cry.
"Eh? What"s going on?" Peng Peng who was now standing a reasonably big distance away from the lake and throwing food in suddenly felt a strange occurrence!
The arowanas in the lake seemed to be in a state of panic. They completely disregarded the food on the water and were thras.h.i.+ng about wildly as though they had sensed a formidable natural enemy of theirs. In the confusion, some of the arowanas began swimming towards the bank Peng Peng was standing on.
"Pa, pa!"
Two Frigid Snowy Ice Arowanas completely lost their sh*t and jumped out of the water, flopping wildly in front of Peng Peng.
Slight waves appeared on the surface of the water, seemingly originating from deep within the lake. As he peered over nervously, Peng Peng saw a ma.s.sive shadow emerging!
"Bam!"
"Ss! What the h.e.l.l is this?!" Peng Peng inhaled a breath of cold air sharply and dropped the sack of arowana feed. His face was green with disbelief.
A colossal beast had appeared within the lake. It"s entire body was pitch black; a coat of s.h.i.+ny scales covered every inch of this beast"s body, clearly reflecting the fear on Peng Peng"s face. This ma.s.sive creature took up a third of the huge lake in just a mere moment!
Peng Peng hurriedly scrambled into a dark corner as he observed the beast stretch its body in the water.
Huge waves and tall splashes accompanied every movement of this gigantic beast. As the water flew out of the lake, some of it splashed terrifyingly close to where Peng Peng was hiding. The ground would begin to freeze into solid ice wherever the water landed!
"HOU!"
An exceedingly dominating roar sounded out as the beast rose out of the water. Peng Peng felt his knees go soft and he very nearly knelt down in fright!
Seeing the ma.s.sive beast turn around, Peng Peng felt that it looked strangely familiar. "F*ck! Could this fellow also be... a Frigid Snowy Ice Arowana?!"
As soon as this idea appeared, he was unable to suppress the thought. Upon closer observation, this colossal fellow was obviously a black Frigid Snowy Ice Arowana magnified numerous times over!
Because of the dominating look of its head and the color of its scales, Peng Peng had not made the a.s.sociation right away.
But now that he was sure of his deduction, he could tell that this beast was likely a Frigid Snowy Ice Arowana which had lived for G.o.d knows how long. Even the entire lake of Frigid Snowy Ice Arowanas was probably nothing but its descendants!
"How many Spirit Stones would such a huge Frigid Snowy Ice Arowana fetch?"
Peng Peng"s eyes sparkled brilliantly, as though he was looking at a mountain of Spirit Stones. A small Frigid Snowy Ice Arowana was worth at least a few thousand Spirit Stones. This huge fellow on the other hand... the energy within its body must definitely be exceedingly shocking! Probably even a piece of its flesh could fetch a heavenly price!
At the same time the gigantic Frigid Snowy Ice Arowana was letting out its roar, a short old man within the sect was hammering down on a sword embryo with an over-36-thousand jin large smithing hammer!
His every move was filled with an enchanting rhythm, causing others who saw it to be in awe. Every strike of the hammer produced a strange symphony which resonated with the hearts of listeners.
"Ding!"
"Dang!"
A slight pause suddenly appeared in the old man"s movements. Following that, the hammer landed with great force, smas.h.i.+ng the sword embryo which was about to reach the level of a G.o.dly weapon into pieces!
An agitation which seemed to contain either excitement or hatred appeared on the old man"s face as he muttered in a fanatical tone. "Dark Jade Snowy Dragon King, you"ve finally shown yourself again! HAHAHA!"
His maniacal laughter reverberated around the smithy, but the old man had already disappeared. His speed was fast to the point where not even his shadow could be caught with one"s eyes!
50 years ago, when he was still only a lowly miscellaneous disciple, he had fallen in love with a female outer court disciple of the sect.
That day, he was the person in charge of feeding the Frigid Snowy Ice Arowanas. As the task was rather dangerous and he had not returned despite it being rather late, the female disciple had gone down to the lake to look for him. Unfortunately, the Dark Jade Snowy Dragon King had appeared at the very same instant and she was swallowed by the beast in a single gulp!
The Frigid Spring Lake was unfathomably deep. Although Yan Zhan had become stronger and stronger throughout the years, he was still unable to dive to the bottom of the lake.
Just like that, 50 years had pa.s.sed! Yan Zhan had even thought that the beast would never appear again. But because of the longing in his heart, Yan Zhan had set up a small formation over the lake, so that he would be notified if any large tremors occurred!
The moment the formation was triggered, Yan Zhan had rushed in the direction of the underground cave to slay the savage beast!
Having roared to its fill, the Dark Jade Snowy Dragon King turned to lap up the arowana feed on the water surface, its long whiskers floating gently beside its mouth.
As it ate, one of its whiskers agilely extended to the sack of arowana feed which Peng Peng had dropped in his panic. The whisker wrapped itself around the mouth of the sack and slowly brought it to its mouth.
After dumping everything into its mouth, the Dark Jade Snowy Dragon King was still not satisfied. This amount of food was only barely enough to fill the cracks in its teeth!
Its two lantern sized eyes slowly swiveled to land on Peng Peng who was s.h.i.+vering in the corner.
"Plop!"
A silk-thin fis.h.i.+ng line suddenly appeared out of nowhere with a piece of meat dangling on its hook. It made a tiny sound as it landed in the lake.
Seeing a piece of meat deliver itself to its doorstep, the Dark Jade Snowy Dragon King did not even think twice before swallowing it, hook, line, and sinker. The beast had never even seen a hook before in its life, so it naturally did not think much about it. Then, as if it had never been disrupted, its two long whiskers continued extending towards Peng Peng who was now as white as a sheet of paper.
"Roar?"
The Dark Jade Snowy Dragon King suddenly felt a strange restrictive force appear out of nowhere, gripping its body. Sensing the uncomfortable restraining force, it let out a curious roar.
As time pa.s.sed, it began to feel its strength growing weaker and weaker. About 80 to 90 percent of its total strength had already disappeared! Finally beginning to panic, the Dark Jade Snow Dragon King roared furiously and began to dive deeper into the lake!
This Dark Jade Snowy Dragon King had an extremely powerful body. Even the restrictive force from the Grade 2 White Jade Fis.h.i.+ng Rod was actually unable to fully restrain it!
Bei Feng had an extremely ugly expression on his face. Although he was only looking at a leopard through a tube, he could well imagine that this beast was definitely quite ma.s.sive! [1]
Sensing the tremendous force traveling through the rod in his hands, Bei Feng had no confidence that he would be able to reel the beast in.
But the force tugging at him from the rod was still within the realm of his ability to resist. When the System was upgraded, Bei Feng felt that the capabilities of the rod as well as its ability to reduce the weight of the "fish" must also have been improved.
A Grade 1 Purple Bamboo Fis.h.i.+ng Rod could reduce the amount of force to 10 percent. In other words, an object that weighed 10 jin would only be a mere 1 jin in Bei Feng"s hands! The only question now was, how much force can this White Jade Fis.h.i.+ng Rod nullify...?
[1] ED/N: An idiom, it refers to failing or being unable to see the big picture.