Chapter 22: A Drop in the Sea
Shi Xuan came to the town and asked people how to get to Tianhua Sect, and the information he obtained was that Tianhua Sect was still thousands of kilometers away from here, and even the most powerful family here could not send him there, and he could only go two thousand miles away. Shi Xuan was a little speechless, this Tianhua Sect was too far away, this was only the southwest of this continent.
And even if it is thousands of miles away, the transportation price is extremely expensive, Shi Xuan is shy at the moment, the money on his body has cost a lot by boat before, and the rest is given to Grandpa Fan. At the moment, he still has money there to travel to distant places.
Fortunately, he learned that several major families were recruiting skilled mercenaries to go to some islands in the sea to collect spiritual materials, and they could earn a lot of money from them. Shi Xuan also decided to go, otherwise he wouldn't be able to travel for so much money just by hunting.
The Song family, a powerful family in Canghai Town, has been in business for countless years again, and has a large number of mercenaries in their hands to do things for them, and Shi Xuan finds the place where they recruit mercenaries and is ready to try his luck.
In a courtyard of the Song family in Canghai Town, a lot of mercenaries have gathered at this moment, these days the Song family is going to sea again, and they urgently need powerful mercenaries, once they successfully complete the task, they will get a lot of commissions, Shi Xuan can take a risk after many considerations.
Shi Xuan walked into the courtyard and squeezed in, and at this time, a thirty-year-old Song family steward appeared on the stage, he looked at the bustling mercenaries below and said: "Thanks to everyone's support, my Song family will go to sea again in the next few days, and I urgently need some powerful mercenaries to assist, and there will be a heavy reward after the matter is completed, and I think everyone knows the reputation of my Song family for many years." ”
"Dare to ask Steward Song, what are your requirements this time?"
"Recently, White Shark Island has been rich in production, and we are going to go there, but the danger has increased a lot, so this time we are asking for people whose strength must be at least at the fifth order of the Xuan Mai Realm," Steward Song said.
"Fifth Order of Xuanmai Realm? This, Steward Song has such high requirements this time", someone under the stage asked.
"It's not that you haven't heard of the notoriety of White Shark Island, this is also for the sake of your lives, if you don't have enough strength to go there, you can only give your life in vain," Steward Song said calmly.
Many people under the stage shook their heads and walked out of the courtyard, this time the requirements were too high, many people could not reach it, the crowded courtyard was deserted in an instant, and in the end, there were more than a dozen people left here.
"Dare to ask Steward Song, and start leaving in a few days?" Shi Xuan asked.
"Look at the weather, you can do it in three days, you can wait at the dock in three days, and now those who want to participate come forward one by one to sign up", Steward Song looked at this Shi Xuan, and suddenly froze, and found that this was still a twelve or thirteen-year-old child, but when he saw Shi Xuan's second-order spirit armor, he felt that this was a master.
Under the stage, the mercenaries inquired about going to sea and left one after another after completing the formalities.
According to Shi Xuan's requirements, he went to the town to buy a lot of related items, bought some standing elixirs, and bought a set of equipment specially used for diving, this set of closed equipment has a spiritual weapon that can breathe underwater, this spiritual weapon needs to consume a spiritual material called water spirit stone, which continuously provides the required spiritual energy for people who collect underwater.
This kind of water spirit stone was expensive, and Shi Xuan, who was shy in his pocket, had to sell the first-order spirit forging equipment he used before and exchange it for gold coins to buy it. Because of the shipwreck last time, he had some shadows in his heart, and he prepared some water spirit stones.
He was reluctant to go to sea by boat, but he had to scrape together enough money to get enough money, and he had to take the risk of taking on such a high-commission task, or he didn't know when he would be able to make up the money.
After getting the underwater equipment, Shi Xuan put on and tried to dive underwater, after several attempts, he successfully dived into the bottom of the sea hundreds of battles deep to collect some marine spiritual materials of low value, in order to go to sea this time, he had to make full preparations.
Three days arrived in a blink of an eye, Shi Xuan came early on the dock, it was already crowded with people, many distant ships docked, the laborers were busy loading and unloading, and many passengers were also up and down.
Shi Xuan squeezed for a long time to find the Song family's ship to go to sea, and waited there for a while, the mercenaries who had signed up before arrived one after another, and after everyone was together, they boarded the ship and set sail.
Put it on, in addition to their dozen mercenaries, there are also many ordinary boatmen and some children of the Song family, and the one in charge is still the Song steward that day, and he thinks that his strength has reached the Ning Yuan realm now, and he is the strongest here.
Shi Xuan could feel that the strength of these mercenaries was not weak, but they had not reached the Ning Yuan Realm, and Shi Xuan's strength of the seventh order could also be regarded as an upper-middle level.
Many mercenaries were talking about this mission in twos and threes, and one of the ten people sat on the deck looking at the sails in the distance, looking at the magnificent sea, the boundless sea was a sight he had never seen before.
At this moment, Steward Song came to his side and carefully observed this young man.
"This little brother is really courageous, and he dares to haunt the sea at a young age," said Steward Song.
Shi Xuan came back to his senses and looked at Steward Song who greeted him, "I'm going to go to a distant place to train, and I urgently need a sum of money in my hand, so I have to take this risk."
"I really envy you young people who can do a lot of things you want to do, at my age I can only be busy running around for the family's affairs, if I can have half of your talent back then, I guess I can also enter some powerful sects to develop, it's really a creation and a trick," Steward Song sighed.
Shi Xuan also knew that it was indeed a mediocre talent to enter the Ning Yuan Realm in his thirties.
"If I had a choice, I would like to spend my life in peace and security, staying in Hongyanling and holding my family, but too much pressure makes me have to move forward, and I have no choice", Shi Xuan thought a lot.
"How do you feel about the sea?"
"The waves are magnificent, boundless, this ship is like a drop in the ocean, and human beings are like ants," Shi Xuan replied.
"I've never been to Hongyan Ridge, and I've heard that there are magnificent 100,000 mountains and rich spiritual mines," Steward Song asked.
"I guess when you get there, you will miss your hometown immensely, where there are boundless barren and miserable mountains that are unstoppable", Shi Xuan looked at the man.
"My name is Song Jifeng, and I am a steward of the Song family, and I am responsible for the task of this ship," Steward Song took the initiative to introduce.
"My name is Shi Xuan, a person from Jiahe City, and I am going to go to the mainland," Shi Xuan introduced.
The two chatted speculatively and talked for a long time, passing the time of boredom at sea.
Shi Xuan learned a lot about White Shark Island from Song Jifeng's mouth, where there are more than 30 kinds of marine spiritual materials, some can refine cherished elixirs, some mineral materials can forge spirit armor, some can make talismans, some can engrave formations, and the things produced here are all famous marine specialties on the mainland.
Many merchants from the distant mainland came all the way here to buy, and the Song family made a fortune from these spiritual materials.
Shi Xuan listened carefully to Song Jifeng's introduction of various spiritual materials for him, many things Shi Xuan had never heard of, as the so-called threesome, there must be my teacher, and Shi Xuan could be regarded as having gained a lot of knowledge.
Along the way, the weather is still clear, the wind and waves are calm, which is also considered lucky, the most afraid of going to sea is to encounter bad weather, completely rely on the sky to eat.
White Shark Island is not close to Canghai Town, it takes a day and a night to reach, Shi Xuan spent the night on the ship, the ship moving forward in the faint light under the starry sky, and there are experienced boatmen on board, who can find the right course according to the stars in the sky.
After a night of sailing, they had long since moved away from the mainland, disappeared into the sea, and now could only see the endless sea.
They also passed some islands on the way, but did not stop.
Shi Xuan felt the breath of the ocean on the deck, a wisp of wind blew, and some birds in the sky that he had never heard of swept by, huge and incomparable, Shi Xuan estimated that the beast could take a cow away.
Along the way, Shi Xuan even saw some huge sea beasts following the stern of the ship, their huge bodies were very scary, and their hideous teeth were enough to shred a wild boar.
As the ship went farther and farther, the birds in the sky became more and more arrogant, and several lightning birds flew over the ship several times, trying to make a move on people, and everyone began to be on guard.
Some boatmen come to the giant crossbows, ready to shoot at some threatening birds.
Not long after, a huge owl beast flew towards the big ship, it had reached the fourth order, its huge wings rolled up the wind, and several weak boatmen on the ship were directly lifted away and fell into the sea.
"Everyone be on guard, the crossbow is aimed and fired," Song Jifeng shouted from above the conning tower.
Several ship crossbows have aimed at the huge beast, swishing several huge arrows shot at the beast, but the beast deftly avoided, several shots all failed, the beast approached a very dangerous position, at this moment the beast roared fiercely towards the ship, a gust of wind formed, a cyan vortex formed on the ship, many weak people were directly swept away by the gangfeng, the powerful mercenaries ran the exercises one by one to resist the raid of the gangfeng, after a while, the gangfeng weakened, Shi Xuan saw the opportunity, jumped down, came to a heavy crossbow, three heavy arrows were full, it would have taken three people to pull the crossbow, Shi Xuan was directly full, and the three arrows swished together, and the owl beast that was preparing to cast the spell again suffered a heavy blow, two arrows were bounced away by its hard feathers, and a heavy arrow successfully hit its chest.
The beast was completely furious, and it shook the feathers all over its body, and the feathers that were as hard as iron formed a flying feather hidden weapon in the sky in its strong wind, and delivered a devastating blow towards the entire ship.
Many people showed their blades to defend against the blow of the flying feather, Shi Xuan used the dragon to resist the flying feather with all his might, he took the opportunity to pull the bow again, the three arrows were as fast as lightning, and the owl beast was directly pierced, the beast swayed and fell into the sea, the flying feathers in the sky finally ended, some people with low defense had many feathers stuck in their bodies at the moment, bleeding all over their bodies, and some people on the boat who knew how to heal were dealing with them for them.
Song Jifeng ordered the boatman to use a huge harpoon to salvage this huge fourth-order bird, you must know that the spirit core of the fourth-order bird is an expensive spiritual material, the fire eye golden toad spirit core that Shi Xuan obtained in the Tianyan Rift Valley before is only the third order, and the spirit core of the fire python has not yet evolved to the fourth order.
This bird is powerful, if it weren't for the heavy crossbows on the ship that are specially designed to deal with it, these people are really not its opponents, and this time it is thanks to Shi Xuan's astuteness that he successfully seized the opportunity to shoot it, so that many weak boatmen were able to save their lives.
After some trimming, Song Jifeng said: "This time Brother Shi Xuan has made the first contribution, and there will be an extra reward when he returns to land", Song Jifeng said to everyone. This time, everyone watched Shi Xuan's play, and no one objected.
Now everyone is on alert, there are still some lightning birds hovering in the sky, and some stronger mercenaries replace ordinary boatmen to pull crossbows, ready to shoot at any time.
After some confrontation, the lightning birds finally retreated, and the crisis was resolved.
Everyone was a little tired and resting on the deck, when an island rose from the sea level in the distance, and White Shark Island finally approached their destination.
Everyone on board, except for the ordinary boatmen, began to put on their diving gear and prepare for the mission.
White Shark Island, the largest island in the surrounding hundreds of miles, has a clear spring on it, which can provide supplies for people, the big ship successfully docked on the edge of the island, the mercenaries and the children of the Song family all got off the ship and prepared to go into the sea to collect spiritual materials, and someone was responsible for counting the spiritual materials they collected, so as to facilitate the recording of everyone's contributions, the higher the contribution, the more commissions.
This set of diving equipment was a bit heavy to walk on land, but it was much more comfortable when it reached the bottom of the sea, and under the leadership of Song Jifeng, everyone began to dive to the bottom of the sea to find spiritual materials.
Shi Xuan swam to the depths like a big frog, the closer places here have long been picked up, he swam directly to the farther places, under the sea, not as choppy as the sea, it seems extraordinarily calm, Shi Xuan looked at a lot of various fish from his side, all kinds of corals and marine life on the bottom of the sea are very complex.
Shi Xuan remembered the spiritual materials described by Song Jifeng, and searched carefully, he held Xue Liang's knife in his hand to guard against the surprise attack of some fierce sea spirit beasts.
The spiritual materials here are relatively rich, and it didn't take long for Shi Xuan to collect many spiritual materials, many of which were high-level spiritual materials, and he even found a huge mussel, and unearthed a few colorful pearls from it, which is a good spiritual material, and many pills need to be added to it.
At this time, the mercenaries had long been scattered everywhere, looking for spiritual materials, and some of them were unlucky and directly encountered a powerful spirit beast raid, not far from Shi Xuan, a Song family disciple provoked a strong snapping turtle, which was enough to have third-order strength, that person originally found a third-order spirit grass, and was happily preparing to dig it, but he didn't notice that he was targeted by a snapping turtle, and one of his feet was bitten through.
Hearing the shout, Shi Xuan swam there to raise the big knife and fight the snapping turtle, and successfully rescued him, in the water Shi Xuan's fire spirit skills were useless, he could only rely on his strong melee ability to fight the snapping turtle hand-to-hand.
This guy's attack was not very strong, but a hard turtle shell made Shi Xuan suffer, and his Seven Slashes of Breaking the Sky and the huge power of the second-order fist gloves failed to break his hard defense, and Shi Xuan's tiger mouth was shocked to blood.
"Damn, if I don't pick up your turtle shell today, even if I lose", Shi Xuan was also angry.
With his extremely fast speed, he continuously launched attacks on the powerful snapping turtle, and the snapping turtle saw that it could not cause effective damage to Shi Xuan, and it couldn't run, so it could only retract its head and rotate its body to form a huge vortex to block Shi Xuan's attack.
The two faced each other for a long time, and even though Shi Xuan's strength was strong, he couldn't use the fire spirit skill to deal with it, nor could he solve his vortex, so he could only give up hunting this snapping turtle.
Seeing that Shi Xuan was looking at it helplessly, the snapping turtle stretched out its head, squinted at Shi Xuan, and then slowly walked away, as if laughing at Shi Xuan's inadequacy.
The more Shi Xuan looked at it, the more angry he became, he really couldn't help him, he could only watch it leave arrogantly, Shi Xuan was speechless, he could only dig up the third-order spirit grass on the ground, and dragged the injured Song family disciple back to the island, at this moment, this Song Jia disciple trembled all over, his face was pale, his left foot was completely bitten off by a snapping turtle, and the doctor on the ship treated him.
Shi Xuan handed over the spiritual materials he had collected, and the person who specially recorded them couldn't even close his mouth when he saw the spiritual materials that Shi Xuan had collected.
Shi Xuan looked at the guy who had been bitten off his leg and shook his head for a while, he had to make all kinds of preparations when he came here. That snapping turtle's defense was amazing, even Shi Xuan's strong attack couldn't help it, and he couldn't avenge him.
Shi Xuan went into the water again, looking for spiritual materials, everyone had a good harvest at the end of the day, and when it was getting late, Song Jifeng counted the number of people and found that three people were buried at the bottom of White Shark Island, no one knew what spirit beast raids they encountered, and a few people were raided, but they were strong and successfully escaped, and several people were also injured to various degrees.
Song Jifeng is very indifferent, he has encountered too many situations over the years, and he has long been numb, and this commission is not easy.
They had not yet reached their goal, so they had to spend the night on the ship and then go to sea again the next day.
The next day, the sun rose again from the sea level, everyone was busy again, Shi Xuan continued to explore the area from yesterday, and when he was about to go back to hand over the spiritual materials for lunch, a low-lying undersea basin attracted his attention, he swam all the way down, several third-order spirit grasses in the basin appeared in his sight, he was carrying a knife and preparing to dig, at this time a fierce sea snake attacked him, Shi Xuan reacted quickly and avoided directly.
The sea snake has the strength of the third order, its body is thick, and its huge tail immediately throws Shi Xuan far aside, and Shi Xuan raises his knife to defend it.
This guy was a huge lightning bolt towards Shi Xuan, Shi Xuan's hair was about to be blown up by him, and his whole body was numb.
"Damn, why are there so many fierce spirit beasts in this ocean, not to mention the huge size, the attack methods are so perverted", Shi Xuan complained.
Shi Xuan urged his combat boots to approach quickly, and the two launched melee attacks, Shi Xuan's exquisite knife skills cut out a few cuts in the tail of the sea snake, and the bright red blood stained a large area of sea water red.
"It's good that your body is not as hard as a snapping turtle", Shi Xuan saw the bleeding sea snake.
The sea snake realized that this guy was strong in close combat, and began to spit out a few poisonous mist to cover, quickly opened the distance, and one after another powerful electric shock techniques hit Shi Xuan, Shi Xuan was so shocked by him that his whole body trembled, Shi Xuan approached several times to interrupt its casting, and the two were anxious again.
Shi Xuan slashed towards its huge head, but nothing was left except a spark, "It's to hit the snake and hit seven inches, my father taught me", Shi Xuan slashed at the snake's seven inches several times, and finally cut it into serious injuries, and the sea snake desperately swam towards a submarine cave.
Shi Xuan would not give up the prey that was about to arrive, the smell of blood on his body close behind him, Shi Xuan almost vomited.
Swimming through a dark underwater passage, Shi Xuan was a little scared in his heart, and just as he was about to give up, he suddenly entered a huge cave, half of the cave was flooded by the sea, and half of the space was exposed to the water.
Walking out of the sea, Shi Xuan was finally able to use his powerful flame spirit technique, he caught a cold in this cave, and at this moment, a frightened eye not far away was looking at him.
"Animal, you should run away, there is no way out now", Shi Xuan looked at the sea snake with no way out, his hands were sealed, and a huge flame hand grabbed the sea snake alive and calcined, and it was dead in a while.
Shi Xuan dug out his spirit core, this was a rare thunder spirit core, he didn't plan to hand it in, the thunder spirit core was extremely rare, it was not easy to obtain, he was ready to stay and use it himself.
Shi Xuan looked at this cave, and he suddenly found a dry skeleton of a human race lying on the ground in the far corner.
Shi Xuan walked closer to observe, he expected that this should be an adventurer who came here to venture and die. Next to the bones, his spiritual weapon had long been decayed, but a strange piece of ancient jade had caught Shi Xuan's attention, and he picked up the ancient jade to examine it carefully, it was beautifully carved, like a divine dragon, and a few words were engraved on the other side: Sea Tide Temple.
Shi Xuan was taken aback, what is this, why does he dare to call it the Sea Tide Temple, what is this divine dragon, is there really a legendary dragon clan in this world?
Dragons have always been a false legend, no one has ever seen a real dragon for thousands of years, many people have seen most of them snakes, they have some ancient dragon blood, many people mistakenly think that it is a real dragon.
But the dragon on this piece of jade is lifelike, giving Shi Xuan an extremely realistic feeling, this piece of jade is of excellent quality, you must know that it still exudes spiritual light after so many years, and even the aura of this skeleton has decayed, which has been at least a thousand years.
"Where did this person get the jade, and where is this Sea Tide Temple?, is there a real dragon in this world?" Shi Xuan asked continuously, but no one could answer him.
He wanted to get more information, but this person was about to turn his bones into ashes, and nothing else was left, and Shi Xuan couldn't get more information.
He carefully collected this piece of spirit jade, preparing to unravel the puzzle in the future.
At this moment, lunch had already started on the shore, and Shi Xuan had not returned.
Song Jifeng was worried: "This kid's strength is so good, it's not like a short-lived elephant, is there something wrong, it's a pity that he is a good seedling."
Just when everyone was talking, Shi Xuan broke through the sea and appeared in front of everyone.
"I was worried about you, you came back, I thought something happened to you?" Song Jifeng said.
"Thank you Brother Song for worrying, I encountered a difficult sea snake, and I fought with him for a long time before I escaped, and I almost couldn't come back", Shi Xuan didn't want to say it all.