The tunnel wasn’t very long, but Su Qing was surprised to find the cavern below was like a maze, with one opening after another. Following the stirring of the Vine Seeds, she passed through tunnel after tunnel until she finally arrived at the edge of an underground pool.
There was no light in the cavern. Using her flashlight, Su Qing could see that the water in the pool wasn’t murky, but its dark color suggested it was quite deep.
Standing by the water’s edge, Su Qing felt the stirring from the Vine Seeds at its strongest. She narrowed her eyes at the pool. ’Could the thing the Vine Seeds need be at the bottom of this pool?’
’Well, whether it is or not, I’ve co this far. I might as well go down and see.’
With that thought, Su Qing dove headfirst into the pool.
Although the weather outside had begun to warm, the underground pool was still bone-chillingly cold. Su Qing quickly wrapped a layer of green mist around herself, dispelling the frigid sensation.
Suddenly, a fish lunged, attempting to bite Su Qing’s arm. She dodged aside just in ti. The fish bit down on empty water, and Su Qing could actually hear the sound of its teeth clacking together.
’Jeez, how badly did it want to bite ?’
Su Qing took a closer look at the fish. Except for its head, its entire body and tail were transparent, its skeleton clearly visible. The head, however, was crimson. Its mouth was large, lined with two rows of incredibly sharp teeth.
And the pool was full of them. In just a few monts, twenty or thirty fish had attacked her. However, as a Fourth Rank Wood Ability user, dodging their attacks was effortless for Su Qing.
The fish weren’t large. Seeing them swarm her relentlessly, Su Qing grew impatient and flicked them away one by one, sending them flying. She then dove deeper. Fortunately, once she reached a certain depth, the fish disappeared.
At the sa ti, however, she grew wary. In the depths of the pool, not only were the transparent, red-headed fish gone, but there were no other fish to be seen either.
Aside from the seaweed swaying with the current and an underwater cavern, there was nothing else.
This felt abnormal. The pool wasn’t so deep that the fish couldn’t reach this level. That could only an one thing: there was sothing down here that the fish avoided like the plague.
The stirring from the Vine Seeds grew stronger and stronger. Su Qing’s gaze fell upon the underwater cave entrance.
It was dark and forbidding.
Su Qing didn’t act rashly. She took a pebble from her storage space and flicked it forcefully toward the entrance.
CLANG! The sound of the pebble hitting rock was especially clear underwater. As the sound rang out, a long tail suddenly whipped out of the cave, slamming down viciously where the pebble had landed.
Su Qing narrowed her eyes. ’A water snake?’
’Judging by that tail, it must be a big one.’
Without hesitation, Su Qing imdiately flicked another pebble, striking the snake’s tail hard.
Instantly, Su Qing felt the surrounding water churn violently as wave after wave rushed toward her.
Then, a water snake nearly as thick as a bucket shot out of the underwater cave, its mouth gaping viciously as it lunged at Su Qing.
Su Qing narrowed her eyes. ’Damn, this snake is huge. I wonder how many years it’s been living in this pool.’
Seeing the water snake charge at her, Su Qing pushed off the water and dodged to the side, evading its attack.
The snake might look ferocious, but in Su Qing’s eyes, it was no different from a little garter snake. After all, this creature was nothing compared to the mutated plants she had faced in the apocalypse of her past life.
Enraged that its strike had missed, the water snake turned and attacked Su Qing again.
With a nimble dodge, Su Qing landed on the snake’s back and sent a stream of gray mist toward it.
Sensing danger, the snake began to thrash wildly in the water, trying to throw her off. But Su Qing gripped its skin tightly, staying firmly seated on its back. No matter how much it struggled, it couldn’t dislodge her; it only succeeded in exhausting itself.
Under the influence of the gray mist, the water snake grew drowsy, its movents becoming sluggish.
Su Qing sent another dose of gray mist into the snake, and it fell completely unconscious, its entire body sinking to the bottom of the pool.
Watching the water snake fall to the bottom, Su Qing made no further move. She had no intention of taking its life; after all, she was the one who had intruded on its territory.
Having dealt with the snake, Su Qing turned her attention to the underwater cave entrance. After a mont’s thought, she swam up, caught one of the transparent red-headed fish, then dove back down and tossed it into the cave.
The fish, finding itself inexplicably thrown into the cave, swam around the entrance for a while. It didn’t seem to like it in there and quickly swam back out. However, nothing attacked it. Su Qing breathed a silent sigh of relief. It seed the creature that kept the fish away from the depths was, in fact, the water snake.
The transparent red-headed fish swam around for a bit, then seed to spot Su Qing and charged at her excitedly, trying to take another bite. In the end, it was once again flicked away.
With the danger neutralized, Su Qing swam into the cave entrance.
The underwater cavern was completely different from the pool outside. Not only was the water temperature different, but the seaweed growing here was also unlike that outside the cave.
The water inside this underwater cavern was warm, a stark contrast to the bone-chilling cold outside. No wonder the transparent red-headed fish hadn’t liked it in here; it probably couldn’t adapt to the temperature. Besides the water temperature, the seaweed in the cave was a riot of color. Red, orange, yellow, green, cyan, blue, violet—every color of the rainbow was present. So plants were small and delicate, others had long tendrils that swept through the water, and so even emitted a faint, fluorescent glow, creating an exceptionally beautiful scene.
Thanks to the glowing seaweed, the cave didn’t feel so dark and gloomy.
Su Qing didn’t know what was attracting the Vine Seeds, so she could only search slowly, bit by bit. She felt through one clump of seaweed and parted another, admiring the rare underwater scenery while secretly sensing the reaction of her Vine Seeds.
The water snake was as thick as a bucket, and it had moved freely within this underwater cavern, which gave so idea of the cave’s size. Su Qing searched for a long ti before finally, in an inconspicuous corner, the Vine Seeds in her Bagua Pool began to throb wildly.
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