"Gluglug gluglug, glugluglubglub... glubgluglub..."
What's all this gibberish about?
Does he have to learn fishman language now too?
Lin Jun felt his mushroom life was being entangled by language problems.
The fishman made muffled bubble sounds while deftly pulling its harpoon from the wall, and using the harpoon's tip to pry off several of the hardest bone spurs from the shell creature's body, apparently planning to take them back as materials.
After finishing this, it dove back into that concealed passage, showing no signs of driving away the Puchi fish following behind.
The passage wasn't long, quickly leading to an empty stone chamber that was clearly not the destination.
The fishman barely paused, skillfully finding another seemingly seamless stone slab and diving into a new passage.
It wasn't forcefully pushed open—rather, when the fishman touched it, the passage opened on its own.
Just like that, the fishman constantly traversed through the interlayers and secret passages of this massive underwater structure.
Along the way, Lin Jun discovered quite a few remnants of battle and strange corpses similar to the shell creatures.
Those corpses all had roughly humanoid outlines, yet randomly possessed characteristics of various marine creatures.
Some had giant scallops protruding from their shoulder blades, some had tentacle arms like octopi at the ends of their limbs, some had lower bodies that were directly twisted shrimp tails or crab legs... they were like crude creations randomly pieced together from different marine creature parts.
The only common point was that what seeped from their wounds was that pale blue blood.
This made Lin Jun have to start thinking about a question: This world shouldn't have Cthulhu, right?
That kind of terrifying existence whose essence couldn't be understood, where ordinary people would go mad from deep contact—just thinking about it scared Lin Jun.
The fishman seemed to be fighting these seafood monsters, but the purpose of battle clearly wasn't for food, otherwise it should have at least torn off that shell creature's pincer from earlier—there was obviously a lot of meat inside.
They even encountered a dangerous situation midway.
Just as the fishman poked its head out from a secret opening, it came face-to-face with a squad composed of five differently-formed seafood monsters.
The fishman reacted extremely quickly, abruptly retreating and closing the secret door.
Outside, dull impacts and scraping sounds immediately came. Those monsters pounded and pried at the exit for quite a while, but ultimately couldn't open the passage and could only leave resentfully.
Although traversing between passages was safe, judging by this, the fishmen's situation didn't seem good—they had to hide even in their own dungeon.
Finally, the fishman brought the Puchi fish back to the hidden domain belonging to their tribe.
And Lin Jun once again met an old acquaintance fish.
"We meet again, Lord Puchi."
The fishman sage Gulgulu sat upon a throne naturally carved from mottled coral, carried by two strong fishman warriors, coming before the Puchi fish.
This wasn't putting on airs—its legs had disappeared from the knees down, the cross-sections covered with thick keratinous layers.
Besides this, it still looked the same. Its skin was the indigo of deep seas, covered in wrinkles, and a pair of bulging fish eyes calm and peaceful—looking like a show-off.
Worth mentioning, after not seeing each other for a year, this guy had already risen to diamond level. The speed could be said to be quite fast.
But at this moment, Lin Jun's attention was no longer on the old fishman's level.
Lin Jun's perception locked firmly onto the staff the other held.
It was a staff with a peculiar design.
The staff's main body was polished from luminescent coral unique to the seabed, flowing with pale blue soft light.
However, the staff head was inlaid with a completely different segment of pitch-black metal.
It was precisely this segment of black metal that, in Lin Jun's panel view, actually had a panel:
[Divine Artifact: Ocean Scepter (Incomplete)]
A disabled diamond-level fishman holding roughly half of his own divine artifact?
And this thing was right next door?!
Lin Jun suddenly regretted not coming here to visit earlier.
Surveying the fishmen gradually gathering around, Lin Jun even felt somewhat expectant.
Come on, show your evil side! Capture these Puchi fish and fiercely sacrifice them to your deity!
Although Puchis didn't have things like "gazes," the fishman sage Gulgulu still seemed to sense something.
It lowered its head to look at the staff in its hands, its voice still calm: "If Lord Puchi wants this staff... giving it to you is possible. However, not now."
"What do you mean?" Lin Jun asked suspiciously.
The old fishman didn't answer directly, but gently waved the staff in its hand.
Several seemingly solid stone walls around the room suddenly opened secret passages, then quickly restored.
Clearly, the fishmen's ability to freely traverse passages in the dungeon was closely related to this staff's power.
"We temporarily still need to borrow its power to resist those enemies invading the sanctuary." Gulgulu slowly said, its fish eyes looking at the Puchi fish. "After the crisis is resolved, if Lord Puchi wishes to take it, please take it."
The subtext was for him to help them eliminate the invaders, then give him this divine artifact as payment?
Logically it seemed to make sense, but would anyone really be willing to use a divine artifact as payment?
This wasn't some scrap fragment. Judging by its completeness, it was probably at least one-third or even one-half!
Just casually promising it like this?
Besides, how did this fishman determine he could help solve the enemy problem right now?
And if it just meant literally that after the fishmen solved the invaders, they'd give Lin Jun the divine artifact...
Stop joking—Lin Jun was a mushroom born from heaven and earth's spiritual energy. He didn't have a fishman dad.
Or was it just trying to use the tiger to swallow the wolf, borrowing the Puchis' power to solve the invaders then cross the river and demolish the bridge?
To be fair, if that were really the case, Lin Jun would actually find it... much more reasonable and much more reassuring.
However, as the saying goes, one doesn't strike a smiling fishman.
The old fishman had at least issued a task involving a divine artifact in a proper manner. Lin Jun wouldn't immediately turn hostile and snatch it.
After all, Lin Jun didn't urgently need to use this thing either—it was purely his collector's obsession acting up.
Temporarily setting aside the divine artifact matter, Lin Jun explained his purpose for this visit.
"Siphonworm crystals... and mermaid tears..." Gulgulu's fish eyes slightly rotated, as if searching through memory.
"Whatever you need, feel free to ask. Weapons, magic crystals, even potions that can regenerate severed limbs—I can get them all." Lin Jun expressed his willingness to trade.
The old fishman nodded, emitting a string of low gurgles, summoning another relatively young fishman.
They communicated in that rapid, muffled language for a moment, then the young fishman quickly swam away.
About ten-plus minutes later, it returned carrying a large basket woven from tough seaweed, filled with dark red crystal fragments.
"Lord Puchi," Gulgulu gestured for the fishman to push the basket before the Puchi fish, "we do have siphonworm crystals here. If these aren't enough, I can also tell you the location where they're stably produced—you may take them yourself as you wish. As for mermaid tears, there are no mermaids living in the sanctuary."
The old fishman didn't propose any exchange conditions, seemingly planning to just give these materials to Lin Jun directly.
A Puchi fish slowly approached the coral throne. The fishman guard nearby, seeing this, wanted to step forward to stop it, but it had barely moved half a step when the surrounding water flow trapped it.
"Be honest with me—what do you want to get from me?" Lin Jun always felt this old fishman was being unnaturally nice.
Gulgulu slowly shook its head, its intent still stable without fluctuation: "I merely made a... judgment that I believe is more beneficial for the fishmen's survival."
"Survival, huh..." Lin Jun was noncommittal about this answer. "Fine! You wait for me."
...
At the same time, Lin Jun's voice sounded in the minds of the Mushroom Garden's core members.
"We've got work! Undersea adventure, catching seafood by hand—anyone volunteering?"
Louisa, Norris, Hunt, Spark... all stopped what they were doing and began asking for details in the mycelial network.
Only Little Black, sleeping in a pile of shiny things, smacked its lips, rolled over, and knew nothing.
(End of Chapter)
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