Chapter 100 To The Deep Sea For Training
Thump! Another physically unfit one fell to the ground, panting away like a bull.
Five minutes later…
"Stop!" Fu Lulong could no longer be bothered with not being able to back down. So what if he managed to catch up with that man? He was after all a Taekwondo black belt 1st dan, but he wouldn"t have the strength to bash the man up even if he was right in front of him now.
A few of the strong men"s legs suddenly turned to jelly when they heard the command from their leader. They sat right on the wheat field and stuck out their tongues like dogs during summer, huffing and puffing.
"This...this...chap, he must be on the provincial track and field team, and...and he must have been some long-distance running champion…" One of the man mumbled as he gazed at Chen Fan getting further and further away.
"Come on, come chase me!" Chen Fan said as he gasped for air with both hands supporting his knees. He had continued running for more than 1,000 meters before turning back to look at the ten men who had become small black dots. After resting for more than ten minutes, Chen Fan walked a few hundred meters to the highway and waited for half an hour before he managed to get a cab. He did not bother picking up the BMW parked at the airport and took the cab straight to Bolan Gardens.
"h.e.l.lo, w.a.n.g Bing, come get my car key from Bolan district and drive my car back from the airport." Chen Fan dialed w.a.n.g Bing"s mobile phone as he laid in the bathtub. He did not ask w.a.n.g Bing along when he sent his parents off with the car, and he ended up being chased such a long distance by more than ten strong men.
Other than being in the wrong, the biggest issue was that Chen Fan was unable to fight with those twelve men barehanded, unless he took out a knife. However, there was another extremely serious problem. The other party was an investor with powerful backing and was highly-influential in Hong Kong. If he called the police, Chen Fan might even be put behind bars for up to two weeks for just pus.h.i.+ng him, not to mention stabbing him with a knife.
The government focused on and cared for investors. Chen Fan didn"t have any confidence in playing games with him, unless he used underhanded methods. Wait till I make tens of billions. I"ll also get myself the t.i.tle of an investor. I shall see who
dares to lay a finger on me then. If I just show slight displeasure toward a person, there would be someone dealing with him immediately without the need for me to take action. I wouldn"t be such a good-for-nothing like today! I didn"t even dare to fight back after being chased this way! Chen Fan couldn"t help but fantasize in the bathtub.
After w.a.n.g Bing took the key and drove the BMW back, Chen Fan had him drive himself to the old house to get the "ghost moon incense" before dismissing him. Chen Fan drove to the s.h.i.+pyard by the sea, controlled the electric eel to swim to the ravine in front of the s.h.i.+pyard before throwing the ghost moon incense into the water for the eel to swallow.
After getting back into the car, Chen Fan s.h.i.+fted his thoughts onto the eel. The overall physical fitness of the electric eel improved greatly from the previous time it swallowed the piece of white ghost moon incense. Chen Fan wanted to see what the effect of this dull-looking piece of ghost moon incense would have this time.
The feeling this time was similar to the previous time. When the ghost moon incense dissolved and entered into the bloodstream, the electric eel felt warm all over and was extremely comfortable. After waiting for a while, the eel did not experience any other significant changes. It twisted its body and swam lazily toward the faraway reef.
The twenty meter wide hole among the reefs had been dug forty meters deep by the electric eel. More effort was required the deeper it got. The soil needed to be transported faraway for disposal so that the ocean currents could wash them away.
After getting into the hole and resting the eel"s head on the seabed, Chen Fan retracted his thoughts and started the car engine. He drove back to Bolan district and laid down in a comfortable position before s.h.i.+fting his thoughts over again. The electric eel was Chen Fan"s backing. He could live better only if his backing became stronger.
Chen Fan"s goal was very simple. His goal was to train the electric eel"s pressure resistance so that it could go to extremely deep areas in the sea to catch ghost hair jellyfish. He could then get ahold of its poisonous sac and use it to strengthen the eel.
After two hours, the ghost moon incense in the eel"s body had significantly reduced, and it would probably dissolve completely early next morning. Since there were no other changes, Chen Fan had the electric eel continue to dig for two hours before it fell asleep, both mentally and physically exhausted.
Early next morning, Chen Fan immediately s.h.i.+fted his thoughts onto the electric eel after was.h.i.+ng up. He s.h.i.+fted the electromagnetic induction to the eel"s stomach and did not discover any signs of the ghost moon incense. It seemed like it had already been completely absorbed.
After moving its body around carefully, Chen Fan found that the eel"s strength and discharge only increased by a little, unlike with the previous white ghost moon incense where the increase was very obvious.
"Oh well, guess we gotta take it slow," Chen Fan exclaimed as he controlled the eel to swim toward the deeper part of the ocean.
Oceanic trenches were one of the most magnificent geographical features underwater. They were long and narrow depressions with steep walls at the bottom of the ocean, and more than 2,000 meters deeper than adjacent seabeds. Chen Fan"s destination was very clear. It was the s.h.i.+men Trench which was thirty-two nautical miles northwest of Zhongyun. The over seventy nautical mile wide and two hundred meter long oceanic trench was discovered by the Ocean No. 6 research s.h.i.+p in 1993. Its deepest point in the center was more than 4,000 meters, and was the perfect place for the electric eel to train on pressure resistance.
Chen Fan"s training method was very simple, which was to just dive all the way down into the deep waters. Every animal has an instinct to adapt to the surroundings, adjusting its body accordingly after a change in environment. Chen Fan planned to monitor what type of changes the eel"s body would undergo after reaching the deep sea. He was especially concerned whether the pituitary gland would secrete any strange substance in order to adjust the body to fight against the seawater pressure. Thereafter, Chen Fan would be able to locate the secretion area and then use weak discharge to simulate the pressure-resisting cortex; like how the pituitary gland had been simulated to encourage the growth of cortex.
The electric eel only took over forty minutes to travel thirty-two nautical miles to reach this place. There were two ways that living creatures fight against pressure in the ocean. One was using the pressure of their own body fluids to maintain a balance with the seawater pressure. The other was purely using their body endurance to counter the seawater pressure.
Both methods had their drawbacks. The first method only allowed living in the deep sea and not floating to shallow areas, otherwise the body would explode due to an imbalance between the internal and external pressures. The ghost hair jellyfish is such an example. The second method is very demanding on the body.
Although it allowed the survival in environments of different pressures, it was extremely difficult to reach the deep areas of the ocean. It had to be mentioned that even if a tank was placed three or four thousand meters deep in the sea, it would be squashed into a discus.
Since eating the ghost moon incense the day before, Chen Fan still did not know the pressure depth the eel could now go to. He could use the current opportunity to test it so that he could have an idea. The electric eel breathed out a huge row of air bubbles before diving head down toward the deep sea.
s.h.i.+men Trench was a V-shaped oceanic trench with sloped edges around thirty degrees. After diving to a depth of 600 meters, the electric eel reached the gentle slopes. At 600 meters, the seawater was already totally dark. The electric eel could only use electromagnetic induction to sense the surrounding. Other than being a little slow in movement, the electric eel did not feel any pressure from the seawater.
With its belly close to the gentle slope, the electric eel swam slowly downward. At the depth of about 900 meters, the surrounding pressure was like an invisible, big hand gently grabbing the eel"s body.
Ten minutes later, the eel already reached the depth of 1,200 meters. The surrounding seawater pressure wrapped tightly around the eel"s internal organs like penetrating mercury, squeezing them forcefully. Huff! Chen Fan could clearly feel the strong pressure produced when the electric eel breathed. Within fifty meters of the eel"s electromagnetic induction, the entire area was in total silence except for the eel"s breathing sound. The silence was akin to that of a death zone without any signs of life, with a terrifying air around.
Ten seconds later, the electric eel broke the silence as it continued swimming toward the deep waters. Chen Fan could feel that pressure on the eel"s body increase with each additional meter downward. At 1,300 meters, Chen Fan finally succ.u.mbed to the excruciating pain from the eel"s body.
Chen Fan controlled the eel to insert its four claws tightly into the ground to prevent its body from sliding down the slope before s.h.i.+fting the electromagnetic induction onto the pituitary gland. He wanted to observe how the pituitary gland would adjust under the deep water pressure. If a human being stays for a period of time at the Tibetan Plateau where the air is thin, his body will adapt to the surrounding; the pituitary gland will secrete a special hormone to significantly improve the function of the lungs. This also applies to the electric eel in the deep sea, except that the organ doing the adaptation is different.
However, the adaptation process takes time. Chen Fan could only grit his teeth and wait patiently for the pituitary gland to undergo changes. Ten minutes later, Chen Fan had the urge to give up. There was no obvious change in the pituitary gland and the bones of the eel seemed to have started to crack.
Twenty minutes later, the eel started tearing either from the pain or from the seawater pressure. Thirty minutes later, Chen Fan felt that his thoughts were at the verge of breaking down. He could even feel that the eel"s internal organs were going to rupture.
The only consolation to Chen Fan was that the wrinkled tissue, at fifteen degrees of the lower left corner of the watermelon-size pituitary gland, had slowly started to become active, secreting a type of white collagen hormone unknown to Chen Fan.
"This should be it!" Chen Fan simply recorded down the position so that he could control the eel to swim to the shallow waters. Otherwise, the eel might die vomiting blood if it stayed for another few minutes.
Chen Fan controlled the eel to release discharge from its body and removed his thoughts from the pituitary gland to the dark sea waters. Suddenly, Chen Fan felt as if his heart had been shot by a Barrett anti-materiel sniper rifle. "Ghost!"