52: Section 52

[Congratulations! You have obtained: Class Experience +410, Sea Beast Remains *20, Sea Beast Meat *45, Exquisite Pelts *12, Breath of the Undead *4!]

The system notification arrived right on time.

But Su Ming couldn't spare a moment to look at it.

He had underestimated the power of the Noble Phantasm's release and overestimated the strength of the crimson guard!

The power of 'Blazing Flame: That Which Incinerates Even the Gods' was beyond doubt, but because it was the crystallization of a Grand Heroic Spirit's lifelong concept, its transcendent weight was too much for Su Ming's current base Constitution of 14 points to handle, even with the crimson guard acting as a buffer.

Indeed.

Su Ming had suffered a backlash!

At this moment, he was like a drowned corpse, drifting with the waves... with no other choice!

He was in pain everywhere!

It was the kind of pain that felt like tendons tearing and muscles dissolving!

Even more frustratingly, his stamina had long been exhausted in that previous 'Sure-Kill' move!

Right now, he didn't even have the strength to take out a recovery potion from his inventory.

But...

The system notifications didn't care about any of that, blindly spamming the screen.

[Ding!—]

[Detected that the player has successfully hunted a Sea King.]

[Comprehensive Achievement: Wild Hunt (Phase I) has been reached.]

[Congratulations! You have obtained: Class Experience +400, Comprehensive Network Gold Coins +50, mysterious fishing rod (Blue), Hook of Remains (Green), Workbench (Blueprint) *1.]

His mouth twitching slightly, Su Ming really wanted to curse.

Comprehensive Network!

I'm happy you're giving me achievement rewards, but I really don't like the timing of your spamming!

Can't you have a little situational awareness?

I'm not doing much better than a quadriplegic right now.

The good news was that as a player, Su Ming's recovery capabilities were still quite formidable.

Only ten minutes passed.

Su Ming recovered a bit of stamina, and his internal injuries improved slightly—at least they weren't as torturous as before.

He immediately took out recovery potions from his inventory and downed several bottles in a row.

With the help of the alchemical potions, Su Ming's recovery speed increased more than tenfold.

Another ten minutes passed.

Su Ming had thoroughly recovered; aside from a slight lack of stamina, there were basically no major issues.

With a thought, he opened the crimson guard's self-diagnostic system.

Yes.

The previous burst had caused collateral backlash even to the crimson guard; while there was no major structural damage, minor breakdowns were everywhere.

Fortunately, the Angel had built nano-self-repair components into the crimson guard prototype.

During the twenty-odd minutes Su Ming spent playing dead, the crimson guard was also rapidly self-repairing.

He immediately activated the anti-gravity field and stumbled to his feet from the surface of the sea.

Looking around, Su Ming finally realized something.

The midnight rose had also been affected and was currently paralyzed on the sea two or three kilometers away!

"A Noble Phantasm's release is still too authoritative..."

With a sigh of emotion, he sent out a ripple of Gathering, squeezing out and collecting all the loot.

Once finished.

Su Ming made several successive leaps.

He returned to the deck.

Then, he fully activated Creation, intending to first restore the completely stalled midnight rose.

But after glancing at the harvest in his inventory.

Su Ming changed his mind.

[Sea Beast Remains *20!]

[Exquisite Skeletons *18!]

[Exquisite Pelts *12!]

[Sea Stone *125!]

Yes, it was the existence of these materials that made Su Ming change his mind.

Since the Creation Skill was already active anyway.

He might as well do it all in one go; it wouldn't be much trouble to upgrade it at the same time.

Thus, the Creation Skill, which had been activated simply for its repair properties, followed Su Ming's will in the next instant and leveraged the miracle known as Creation!

The pure white glow became increasingly holy, even the sea breeze passing through became gentle, and the turbulent sea quickly began to calm down over the following moments!

Finally.

Five minutes passed.

A brand-new midnight rose came into view.

[Vessel: midnight rose (Azure)]

[Category: Mana Sailboat]

[Attributes: Durability +35, Stability +25, Speed +20, Magic Resistance +10]

[Effect ①: Mana Propulsion]

[Effect ②: Deep Sea Pump-Jet (Speed increases by an additional 80%)]

[Effect ③: Autopilot]

The twice-modified midnight rose maintained its basic form, still possessing that elegant yet steady, expansive yet majestic appearance from before.

If one had to point out changes...

The ship's keel and main frame had used Sea King skeletons as replacements, causing the ship's performance to skyrocket.

And the Sea Stone at the bottom of the ship provided the midnight rose with a +10 Magic Resistance bonus!

Furthermore.

The sail structure had been replaced by exquisite Sea King pelts.

Combined with the iterative upgrade of the pump-jet structure.

The current midnight rose could reach an exaggerated top speed of 110 knots!

"This speed, tsk tsk, I'm afraid it might actually fly off the surface of the sea."

Unexpectedly.

Midnight immediately debunked him:

"That is not possible, Master! The structure of the midnight rose does not conform to the design layout of a ground-effect vehicle; no matter how fast it goes, it will not fly. Instead, the risk of it disintegrating or falling apart will increase exponentially."

Su Ming's face darkened.

Have you heard of hyperbole?

Damn it, the line between Artificial Intelligence and Artificial Stupidity really is paper-thin!

But he couldn't exactly pick a fight with a bunch of code.

"Set sail, Midnight! By the way, tell me if anything else happened just now."

He was originally just trying to change the subject.

But to his surprise!

There actually was!

"Yes, Master! A News Coo was blown away by the storm just now. According to the data Master entered into the database, the News Coo species will be very fond of hating Master in the future."

Uh...

Admittedly, News Coos were indeed very petty.

It's not like the Ge Men did it on purpose.

With the insignificant interlude over, Su Ming finally felt at ease and began to organize his recent gains.

Strictly speaking.

Between the mob drops and the achievement rewards.

There were only three things truly worth paying attention to.

mysterious fishing rod (Blue)!

Hook of Remains (Green)!

Workbench (Blueprint)!

Chapter 59: mysterious fishing rod! Unexpected Harvest

[Item: mysterious fishing rod (Blue)]

[Category: Daily Necessities]

[Attributes: Tenacity +10, Mystery +2]

[Effect ①: Never Empty-Handed]

[Effect ②: Fishing for Mystery]

Yes.

Just two item effects and two basic attribute bonuses could actually reach a Blue-tier evaluation!

At first glance, it clearly seemed to be overvalued.

But Su Ming didn't think so.

He was happy—so happy that he couldn't wait to cast a line!

Never Empty-Handed, as the name implied, even if he didn't catch a fish, the hook would definitely not come back empty.

As for what else could be caught besides fish.

The system didn't say.

It wasn't that it couldn't be evaluated, but rather that there were too many possibilities.

It was clearly a jab at how anglers can catch anything except fish.

But Su Ming wasn't an angler; to him, this effect was purely a random lottery. Anyway, he had the Gathering skill and the Resource Recycling talent.

He couldn't lose either way.

But...

Mystery +2 was different!

Fishing for Mystery was even more extraordinary.

Mystery +2 was equivalent to adding a layer of unknowable filter to Su Ming!

That's right, in the Comprehensive Network system, Mystery meant the Unknown!

By the same token!

Fishing for Mystery was equivalent to fishing for the Unknown!