Chapter 441: Guaranteed Second-Class Merit

The Arcane Chorus can, according to Gao De's will, play a form of music that deceives any creature that hears it.

That creature must engage in a mental resistance against Gao De.

If it fails the resistance, it will be deceived into friendliness toward Gao De for as long as it can hear the music and for one hour afterward.

Any hostile action toward the creature will immediately break this friendliness.

A common stinking salamander, of course, stands no chance against Gao De's mental strength of 186.

Thus, under the effect of 【Arcane Chorus+】, it is now emitting friendly signals toward Gao De.

Gao De went to such lengths precisely to avoid exploiting the creature's vulnerability by attacking it now.

He cast 【Mage Hand+】, gently stroking the salamander's ugly head with a spectral hand, as if petting a small animal.

But only "as if"—for the stinking salamander reeked terribly, and its slimy surface was disgustingly foul.

So Gao De could only make contact via 【Mage Hand+】, never with his bare hands.

He needed contact not because of any peculiar preference, but because his next spell required touch casting.

As magical energy surged, another spell model was activated.

【Beast Bond+】: If a creature is friendly toward you or charmed by you, regardless of its intelligence, a mental link can be successfully established.

【Arcane Chorus+】 and 【Beast Bond+】 are linked.

The stinking salamander, made utterly friendly by the former, established a mental link with Gao De without resistance.

Through the link, Gao De could exchange simple information with it.

"Where is your nest and your companions?" Gao De transmitted the question through the link.

This was his goal.

The stinking salamander is a social creature; he could use this one to quickly and directly locate its lair for a full purge, saving immense time and effort instead of conducting a Ditanshi search like now.

The stinking salamander's intelligence was low, but Gao De's question was simple, so he immediately received its response.

"Head that way," Gao De pointed to a direction for Sha Ma and said, "Let it lead; you just follow."

The "it" Gao De referred to was the stinking salamander he had deceived.

At this moment, it was thrashing its tail fin violently against Gao De's boat, as if saying, "Your Excellency, this way."

After a brief moment of stunned silence, Sha Ma seemed to realize: Gao De's methods were superior—he had used supernatural power to control this vicious water beast.

He gritted his teeth, finally gathering courage, and rowed the boat to follow the stinking salamander.

One oar cut through the ink-green water, bubbling up a string of green bubbles, each carrying a nauseating stench.

The two men aboard showed no reaction.

Sha Ma had been born and raised here; he was long accustomed to the smell, feeling no discomfort.

Gao De, too, had gradually grown accustomed to the odor, plus a bit of endurance.

【You are breathing air laced with extreme stench and trace toxins. You are adapting to this air. Your immunity to toxins increases by 41.1%. Your body's organs improve their ability to digest, metabolize, and expel toxins by 45.9%. Your tolerance for odors increases by 1.2%.】

Yes, in Marko District, simply breathing was equivalent to poisoning yourself—and this toxin was even triggering Gao De's body, already partially immune to Open-Vessel Tincture, to adapt and evolve again.

Under the guidance of this "salamander traitor," the boat drifted toward a corner of Marko District.

As they went deeper, the water grew thicker, and patches of phosphorescent slime began floating on the surface.

These slime patches clung with tiny debris—rotten aquatic plants and unidentifiable fragments—swaying gently with the current.

At that moment, the "salamander traitor" stopped swimming and thrashed its tail fin violently, splashing water.

Simple emotions and information surged directly into Gao De's mind through the mental link.

This was its nest—but most stinking salamanders had gone out to forage and would return only after eating their fill.

Moreover, a new batch of hatchlings had just joined last night; they must now gather food for the young, likely for a long time.

The earlier information was normal, and Gao De paid it no mind—but the latter part, "hatchlings," was clear enough, yet "joined" made him frown.

Why "joined"?

Shouldn't it have been "born" or "hatched"?

His first thought was that the stinking salamander's low intelligence caused imprecise expression, leading to ambiguity.

But as a "mathematician," his rigor compelled him to verify: "Are these hatchlings your own offspring?"

The next instant, another stream of information came from the salamander's consciousness.

Gao De's eyebrows lifted slightly, his expression shifting subtly.

Yet outwardly, he showed no anomaly—he had already activated 【Detect Magic+】, gazing at the water's surface.

Through the murky water, Gao De saw countless magical auras beneath.

These auras glowed with dim, emerald-green light, like countless tiny will-o'-the-wisps flickering in the water, occasionally one glowing brighter.

Such weak magical auras must be the stinking salamander hatchlings.

With these water beasts, there was no such thing as "old, weak, women, or children."

Gao De's mind stirred—he didn't care whether they were hatchlings or not. He pointed a finger toward the water, and a spark of magical light ignited at his fingertip.

【Blade Burst+】: You instantly generate a ring of translucent blades that sweep your surroundings.

After being enhanced by Wind Spirit Moon Shadow, the center point of Blade Burst+ is no longer limited to the caster but can be any point within a 20-foot radius.

Gao De chose the center point precisely where the magical auras were densest.

In an instant, a powerful magical surge spread beneath the water's surface.

The murky water, previously calm, suddenly churned violently; an invisible force began stirring beneath.

A ring of translucent blades shot outward at incredible speed.

The stinking salamander hatchlings, hidden beneath the water's dark hue, had been lying peacefully, waiting for food and growth.

Now all such hopes were shattered.

The ring of translucent blades rippled the water and swept directly through their bodies.

No limbs were severed, no blood or viscera splattered.

Because 【Blade Burst+】 dealt the most prestigious type of damage: force damage, bypassing all physical defenses to strike the essence.

A faint halo appeared around each hatchling's body, then their forms began to twist and warp.

Their once-soft bodies, crushed by invisible force, contorted grotesquely, like crumpled paper.

Moments later, fine cracks spread across their bodies like spiderwebs.

Inside them, something was being slowly disintegrated by an invisible force.

Finally, with a faint "pop," every hatchling lost life, floating to the surface like dead fish.

It seemed long, but it all happened in an instant.

To Sha Ma, it looked like this young Sea Sentinel mage merely pointed his finger forward—and the next moment, the calm water boiled as if it had been set to a rolling boil.

Immediately afterward, countless stinking salamander corpses surfaced, each body twisted.

The sudden sight made his heart jolt violently, leaving him shaken.

"Don't be alarmed," Gao De soothed.

The stinking salamander's maximum rank was only first-tier; these hatchlings were negligible—even with Blade Burst at only six degrees, it was more than enough to obliterate them.

Of course, one spell couldn't clear the entire area—some hatchlings lay outside Blade Burst+'s radius, and a few adult salamanders with brighter magical auras had stronger vitality and survived the attack.

Gao De had no intention of letting these survivors escape.

He reached out with his right hand.

A brilliant arc of lightning, like a nimble silver serpent, shot instantly from his palm.

【Lightning Lure】.

Lightning Lure was a single-target spell, but under the water's superb conductivity, it instantly became an area-of-effect spell.

Zzzt! zzzt! zzzt!

The lightning surged through the water like an invisible net, engulfing every surviving stinking salamander.

Their bodies convulsed violently under the current; their skin blackened, and life was swiftly extinguished.

Even adult stinking salamanders were merely bottom-tier first-tier creatures—deadly to ordinary people, but insignificant to a proper first-tier mage.

The reason this task had so troubled the Sea Sentinel mages and made them reluctant to accept it was simply that no one wanted to enter the water.

But for Gao De, he could complete the mission without ever stepping into the water.

First, use 【Detect Magic+】 to locate individual stinking salamanders; then, leverage the taming spell 【Arcane Chorus+】 and 【Beast Bond+】 from the Snowguard's arsenal to strike directly at the nest; finally, attack with 【Blade Burst+】 and 【Lightning Lure】, which excels in aquatic environments.

With this combo, even a second-tier mage might not outperform Gao De.

This is the advantage of a deep spell repertoire.

A sufficiently deep spell library allows Gao De to always select the optimal spell combination for any situation.

Though most stinking salamanders in this nest were now dead, Gao De did not leave.

Because the ones he destroyed were mostly hatchlings; nearly all adults were out foraging and not in the nest.

These adults were the true threat to the lives of Marko District's poor.

At this point, the task became simple.

Gao De told Sha Ma to anchor the boat here.

What he would do next was wait and ambush.

Kill one salamander as it returned.

No need to fear being overwhelmed—he had ample time to restore mana, effectively treating the salamander nest as an unpredictable "spawn point."

He waited like this—from morning until sunset.

At first, only one or two salamanders returned sporadically.

After midday, the number returning to the nest gradually increased.

By evening, they became scattered again.

The entire ambush process unfolded without any unexpected incidents.

The combat power of these stinking salamanders was utterly negligible.

Gao De roughly estimated that today he had slain about a hundred adult stinking salamanders.

The juveniles numbered nearly two hundred.

This was already a very objective figure.

Of course, completely wiping out all these water beasts was unrealistic.

Because these stinking salamanders possessed extraordinary vitality and were oviparous; their eggs could be found anywhere in the waters of the Marko shantytown.

You wiped out one batch, and soon another batch would appear.

The Sea Sentinels understood this well, so their strategy was to first launch a large-scale purge of the Marko area, reduce the overall density of water beasts, then conduct regular "expulsion maintenance" to ensure the beasts wouldn't overrun the area again.

Gao De was well aware of this; looking at the hundred or so stinking salamander tail fins collected on the boat, he was satisfied with his results.

Tail fins served as proof for reporting achievements.

To purge water beasts, you had to remove a specific body part from each beast as evidence—otherwise, who could verify whether your reported kills were real or fabricated?

"That's enough for today. Tomorrow I'll return to purge the magic octopus. Meet me at the same spot tomorrow morning—I'll pay you the same reward. Any problem?" Gao De asked.

"No problem, no problem," Sha Ma nodded repeatedly.

Having witnessed Gao De's entire purge operation today, he now felt nothing but awe and respect for him.

He never imagined that this seemingly young man, Gao De, was in fact the most skilled and astonishingly efficient among all the Sea Sentinel mages sent to purge water beasts in the Marko area.

"But now, I need you to take me somewhere else," Gao De added.

"Huh?" Sha Ma was momentarily confused.

"Just follow it," Gao De pointed to the salamander he had been continuously sustaining the 【Mystic Chorus】 on, keeping it friendly.

Creak.

The sound of a wooden door opening and closing echoed.

Under the dim glow of the setting sun, Gao De stepped across the threshold into a room that looked no different from the other shacks, his gaze sweeping the surroundings.

In response to his cautious inquiry, the "Salamander Traitor" revealed a crucial piece of information: the juveniles had not hatched from eggs—they came from this very shack, not far from the adults' nest.

Even the creature itself had originated here.

Upon learning this, Gao De immediately understood:

These water beasts plaguing the Marko area for so long were not natural—they were man-made!

This instantly stirred Gao De's excitement.

Opportunity! A great opportunity!

Purging water beasts was an ordinary mission, earning only the lowest-tier Third-Class Merit.

Double reward meant Third-Class Merit × 2.

But if these beasts were deliberately bred and released to harm people, the entire mission's nature changed completely.

To use an imperfect analogy, it was the difference between seizing drugs and arresting drug traffickers.

The latter's merit far surpassed the former.

If he could uncover the mastermind behind the Marko area's water beast infestation, given the severity of the crime, its wide-reaching impact, and his own strength, he was guaranteed at least a Second-Class Merit!

(End of Chapter)