Jiang opened and closed his mouth but in the end he just closed his eyes and nodded.
Remainig silent.
The awkward situation between them persisted but instead of remaining hung up on it Yin decided to focus on the task ahead.
Yin kneeled down and inspected the pond. There was no life left in it; all that was left was a deceptively calm pond with no visible life in it. She frowned.
This had been her only chance at the ring of a millennium carp. Even if she had not been comfortable with the thought of killing one for the sake of a spirit ring, it was sothing she needed to survive, and she would have done it.
"Maybe I should just go with another spirit stone and hope my luck strikes gold," she said. "I guess there is a possibility."
Still, she doubted that she would have the devil's first-tir luck, similar to her first spirit ring, ever again, if at all, there was even the lightest chance she would get not only the correct suitable age but also the right spirit beasts.
The odds were one in a billion. If at all.
"There..."Jiang said. "...is maybe there is another way."
She turned around. Still hurting inside, even though it shouldn't be this much, she had co to no losses. She kept telling herself that over and over.
"Another way?" She tilted her head.
"Well....it's not a human thing...but...sotis when spirit beasts are killed and their rings are not taken, they linger." Jiang explained and Tang Yin nodded before pointing out.
"These spirit Rings they can only be absorbed by their killer."
"Maybe a carp survived." Jiang suggested sounding highly sceptical. "We could dive."
"We go down." Tang Yin nodded and then put her hand into the cold water. "It's worth a shot."
"Millennium Carps are spirit beasts with ntal powers...their rings linger a lot longer, and most of them that lived here were quite old." Jiang muttered. "To old to end like this."
"I agree." Yin said. "No one should end like this."
Jiang then sat down on a nearby stone. "Damn." He ruffled his hair, and Tang Yin agreed with him. Damn.
Damn indeed.
"Here I thought, it might, just might be easy for once." Tang Yin felt her voice crack. "Well, never mind, I'll find a solution I alw..." She stopped in her tracks. "Say, how deep is this pond?" She turned to Jiang. "How deep?"
Jiang looked at her. "Not very. I an, we can see the ground and everything."
"But you never tried it out, did you?" She asked, and he shook his head. Indeed, he had never tried it out, and why should he?
The only thing that would have done was disturbing the caps rest.
"This water, this light." Tang Yin muttered and then started to unravel her clothing. "Turn around, I will try out how deep this is."
Jiang, blushing, turned. "What the hell are you planning on doing? That is a Pond for God's sake."
"Maybe not just that." Yin said and cursed, trying to get into her swimming trunks. It was difficult with just one arm.
She took a look at her bikini top and, not wanting to go through the trouble of putting it on, decided to stay with her sports bra, dipping her toe into the water.
It appeared even colder now then when she had tested with her hand.
"Damn, this is cold," she cursed, and indeed, the water was icy.
Extrely icy.
She put her foot in deeper, clenching her teeth; it was like an ice bath. But her foot sank in, and as she went to her knees, one foot on the ground, the other inside the water, it went deeper and deeper with no bottom in sight. "This Pond is a lot deeper than it looks."
Jiang turned around. "What do you an?"
"This Pond is really, really deep, see." She pointed at her subrged leg. It was like from the shore point on it went downwards, straight, and this was most likely incredibly deep. "It's an optical illusion."
"Yeah." Jiang looked first at her, then at the pond. "But it may only be a few tres as the deepest point. I can hardly imagine it to be too deep."
"You said it yourself, these Carp were old," Yin said. "There were quite a few, but as small as this looks, how would they have survived if this were really moderately deep as it appeared to be? Old spirit beasts usually grow farly large. The water is crystal clear, it's a mountain spring after all." She pulled her leg out of the water; it was slightly blueish from the cold.
"The light from the flower and plants, the bioluminiscence, it causes an optical illusion. Of course, I could be wrong and it may just be a few tres, but with the light here, and the fact that light travels down so deep through the water, and it is illuminated until the ground by corals. It is similar to technical trick used in painting, to make sothing seem deep. You can do it the other way around too I guess, just never seen it before."
"The pond may be hundreds of tres deep," Jiang concluded, and Yin nodded. Yes it could be extrely deep.
"Old spirit beasts have a consciousness, they are clever. They always stayed at the top to make it seem like the pond was shallow while in fact it could be extrely deep." Tang Yin looked into the water. "A self protectio chanism would make only sense, considering how hunted the millanium carp are."
"Not shallow, but deep." Jiang kneeled down. "Land spirit beasts and spirit masters wouldn't dive deep. They prefer the land. No one would suspect it to be deep, or second guess it most likely."
"Exactly, and how many spirit masters would spend ti to think about optical illusions. I am farily certain outside of combat applications very few do."
"Deep deep down, where normal land spirit masters would never look," Jiang muttered. "But the water is so old you will cool out, maybe even freeze to death before you can find them."
"I have a lot of spirit power, I can stay down there for like an hour and not run out of energy to keep myself alive," she muttered. "I have been practicing for shark swimming. It's coming in usefull sooner rather then later it appears."
User Comments
0 comments from readers