Adam took a breath, and jumped.
The water swallowed him whole.
It was thick, grimy, and foul, clinging to his body as if it were alive, trying to crawl into every wrong place. The sensation was instantly unpleasant.
How can anyone live here?
Then it clicked.
Of course... They’re monsters.
Once he adjusted to the suffocating filth, Adam began to swim downward. To obtain the soul pearls, he had to reach the very bottom of the stagnant body of water. There was no shortcut.
He kept swimming.
And swimming.
At so point, he realized just how deep the pool actually was, it was far deeper than he’d assud from the surface.
The darkness thickened around him, pressure building steadily against his body.
Still, there were no monsters.
All the Sirens inhabiting this pool had all rushed to the surface earlier, only to be butchered by him before they could ever retreat back to their domain.
As he descended further, a stray thought surfaced.
It would’ve been nice to kill a few of them down here.
The idea amused him.
Fighting the Sirens underwater, where they should naturally be superior, would have been interesting. No footing. Limited movent. Their true ho turf.
The euphoria would be worth it.
Lost in his own thoughts, Adam suddenly noticed sothing.
A faint glimr.
Light.
It shimred weakly through the murk, catching his eyes like a distant star.
Adam focused and swam toward it, strokes growing more deliberate.
He had reached the bed of the stagnant water.
Adam finally reached the source of the glimr.
Holding his breath, he hovered just above the floor of the stagnant pool and stared.
Soul pearls.
They lay clustered together, faintly luminous, embedded in the silt like stars trapped beneath mud.
This was the reason Adam was here in the first place. The reason he had left his ho and traveled all the way to this sector.
All of it...
For this natural resource.
Adam didn’t bother scanning the rest of the pool. He didn’t need to. Soul pearls always ford in a single location within a body of water.
That ant the ones in front of him were the only soul pearls this pool held.
No more. No less.
He reached down and gathered them quickly.
The mont his fingers closed around the pearls, he felt it.
A tug.
It was light, subtle and almost imperceptible.
But Adam noticed.
He had developed an acute sensitivity to anything related to the soul, especially his own.
The sensation wasn’t painful. It was more like recognition, as if the pearls were brushing against sothing that already belonged to them.
A smile tugged at his lips as he held his breath.
It’s good to reconfirm my journey here won’t be in vain.
With the pearls secured, Adam kicked off the pool bed and began swimming upward, pushing through the murky water as he made his way back toward the surface.
Adam broke through the surface of the water.
He hauled himself out and stepped onto dry land, the swamp air hitting his lungs as he took a deep breath. Mud slid off his boots as he straightened, then he opened his hand.
The soul pearls rested in his palm.
Here, under the sunlight, the sa light that hadn’t reached the pool bed fully, he could finally examine them properly.
There were twelve in total. Bead-shaped, smooth, each one containing sothing like pale blue mist swirling gently within, as if alive.
Soul pearls were considered common grade natural resources.
But for soone like Adam, who hadn’t even stepped into the official ranks of a martial artist yet, they were extrely effective.
Still...
I’ll need more.
Adam closed his hand and slipped the pearls into his storage ring without hesitation.
With that done, he set off again.
The details from the tablet were still fresh in his mind, layered neatly atop the instincts he’d already developed.
He adjusted his direction and headed toward the nearest gathering, the one having both a high concentration of Sirens...
...and more soul pearls waiting beneath the water.
Adam moved from pool to pool.
Each one was the sa.
He destroyed entire Siren communities, their silent screams swallowed by the swamp as he carved through them without rcy.
Death followed him from one stagnant body of water to the next, and beneath each pool, he collected the soul pearls waiting at the bottom.
The rewards ca in two forms.
The pearls.
And the satisfaction of watching the Sirens die.
As his exploration continued, Adam didn’t encounter a single clan heir. That was understandable.
He’d entered first and gained a massive head start. By the ti the others made aningful progress, he’d already cleared multiple areas.
Still, a thought lingered.
It still baffles that heirs from mid-tier regions would co all the way to a low-tier region just for resources.
At first, he’d found it strange. He’d initially assud he was the only one who’d reserved the Sirens’ Swamp. Discovering that Martial Clan Heirs had also reserved access had co as a surprise.
Now, thinking about it more carefully,
It felt off.
A sudden thought crossed his mind as he headed toward the next pool.
Could it be... they’re after sothing else?
It was just a suspicion. Nothing concrete. Adam had no proof, no confirmation. And rather than letting his attention drift toward speculation, he chose the smarter option.
Focus.
I ca here for soul pearls, the heirs can play whatever gas they want.
A small smile curved his lips.
But if my hands are forced... I’ll have to join in and see what all the commotion is about.
Still smiling faintly, Adam continued his search, vanishing once more into the depths of the swamp in pursuit of his goal.
However, Adam had no idea just how close his speculation was to the truth.
Every single clan heir who had co to the Sirens’ Swamp incursion was here for one reason.
An exquisite natural resource.
The Water Lily.
The news had surfaced barely a week ago, circulating quietly through the upper echelons of the mid regions martial clans. It never reached public channels, and it never passed through official Mission Hall records.
From the mont the information appeared, it was deliberately kept under wraps, sealed tight to prevent the Mission Hall from catching even a hint of it.
Because once the Mission Hall knew, the resource would no longer belong to the heirs.
It would beco regulated.
The information itself sounded almost too good to be true.
A Water Lily appearing in a low-tier region’s incursion was borderline absurd. But no matter how slim the chances were, not a single martial heir could afford to ignore it.
Because the Water Lily wasn’t just rare.
It was priceless.
For a martial heir, it represented the most important opportunity they could hope for, a massive boost to the chance of awakening a special talent.
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