Chapter 47: Feather of the Great Demon

In the water, a slender figure darted swiftly back and forth.

On the reef, a crab waved its twin claws to bolster its imposing presence.

After two quarter-hours, the figure rapidly surfaced to breathe, exchanged air, and returned beneath the waves.

"Activity duration extended to roughly two quarter-hours."

Liang Qu estimated the time and felt a surge of excitement in his heart.

In his previous life, the extreme record for holding one's breath underwater was twenty-four minutes, achieved only while completely motionless with an extremely low heart rate, a state akin to "turtle breathing," which was already one in a million.

Yet he could easily go half an hour without breathing even while swimming fast and consuming oxygen rapidly, a completely inhuman level that not even a Wu Shi could achieve.

"Rough perception range has increased to ten meters, while the detailed perception circle is five meters; the range has expanded significantly, and concealment is stronger. Unless a fish is within one meter, it simply cannot detect me."

The larger the perception range, the greater the scope of water control; within the detailed perception circle, controlling water is as easy as moving one's own arm, so expanding the perception range equates to enhancing water control abilities.

Liang Qu spread his five fingers, and under the manipulation of his will, invisible water currents shifted into various forms upon his palm.

He manipulated the water flow to form a vortex in his palm; the smaller it became, the faster it spun, shrinking from half a person's height down to the size of a human head.

Even so, achieving a water blade capable of cutting remained a distant dream.

Initially, Liang Qu believed that developing a water blade would be an extremely powerful move, but later discovered this was not the case; it was a skill with a very poor cost-to-benefit ratio.

The force of the water currents he could control was approximately three hundred catties, which could be compressed to erupt within ten liters of water, meaning thirty catties of force per liter; while this sounded decent and was more than enough for manipulating objects or catching fish, it fell short of a water blade by a hundred thousand miles.

A low-pressure water blade of thirty megapascals could only cut foam or wooden boards, and even that required applying three hundred kilograms, or six hundred catties, of force on a single square centimeter.

To cut flesh required at least fifty megapascals, while cutting steel required one hundred megapascals, often necessitating the mixture of fine sand.

It was completely impossible.

Mixing razor blades and steel needles into the vortex might yield some lethality, but the cost would be prohibitively high; in this era without mechanical processing, grinding out thousands of blades by hand over a few minutes was an immense task.

Liang Qu suspected that even a Cyan-grade Ze Spirit Gibbon could not purely compress water flow to form a water blade; only a Purple-grade Ze Spirit Water Wang Yuan could manage it.

But if one could reach such a level, it would be better to simply compress with raw force and crush the enemy with water pressure alone.

Unless the Ze Spirit undergoes a transformation at a certain stage, unlocking usable skills.

Regarding this, Liang Qu felt there was something to look forward to; he could faintly sense that after the fusion rate broke through fifty percent, the Water Monkey Ze Spirit would bring about some additional changes.

As for how to control blood, Liang Qu also had some ideas and clues, and had even attempted it once.

In the martial arts hall, he successfully countered an attack by controlling the attacker's blood to flow in reverse.

Unfortunately, the blood he could currently control was limited to the most concentrated area of the heart's aorta; even the spleen was beyond his reach, as although it stored much blood, it was not concentrated, being distributed entirely within tiny blood vessels.

Furthermore, Liang Qu noticed that when he met Cao Shixiong Hu and Cao Shixiong Xiang, he could not sense the flow of blood in their hearts within his perception circle.

Without perception, natural control was impossible.

Had Cao Shixiong Xiang not yet broken through the Blood Gate? Was it due to the first three gates? Did the Skin Gate have the effect of blocking his perception?

For now, it remained unknown.

Liang Qu had even wondered if he could control his own blood to achieve an effect similar to Luffy's Second Gear, but he had not dared to put it into practice.

It was too dangerous; one slip could easily lead to disaster, and if it actually worked, it might even shorten his lifespan.

He practiced martial arts and fished to live longer and better; playing with such things was not worth the loss.

He communicated with the Ze Cauldron.

【Cauldron Master: Liang Qu】

【Refined Ze Spirit: Water Monkey (White) (Fusion Rate: 49%)】

【Water Ze Essence: None】

【River Favor: None】

【Dominating Water Beasts: Taihua Crocodile, Six-Whiskered Catfish, Stone Crab】

【Evaluation: The Water Monkey Ze Spirit originates from the great Lord of Huai and Wo; activation is incomplete, a trivial figure with a weak fate.】

After absorbing the Red Blood Perch, the Ze Spirit fusion rate had reached 49, nearing the halfway mark; even the final evaluation column had changed, no longer stating "insufficient activation" but "incomplete activation."

Above the White-grade Ze Spirit Water Monkey lay the Cyan-grade Ze Spirit Gibbon, the Purple-grade Ze Spirit Water Wang Yuan, and it was not even impossible to reach the higher layer of Whether Wuzhiqi.

Currently, Liang Qu could only control the blood of ordinary people, yet initially he could not even control that; continuing to ascend, the future held great promise.

In two months, he had gone from an orphan on the verge of starving to death to a true disciple of a Grand Wu Shi at the Tiger-Hunting Realm, and in a few more days he would break through the Skin Gate to become a true martial artist; Liang Qu was already fully satisfied.

Come the summer tax in May, would that tax collector still dare to kick his measuring bucket?

With a sense of satisfaction in his heart, Liang Qu manipulated the water flow for a while; after familiarizing himself with his abilities, he began to check on the growth of the lotus roots.

He had always been trying to cultivate the treasure plant lotus root, snapping off sections to plant elsewhere, but unfortunately none survived, all rotting in the water, wasting many treasure plants for nothing.

It seemed they could only grow in the nearby waters, which made Liang Qu constantly want to dig up the silt to see if something was buried beneath, yet he feared that there was nothing underneath and that the treasure plant taking root was merely a coincidence; in the end, finding no treasure and losing all the lotus roots kept him from attempting it.

The treasure plant with healing effects had played a huge role in Liang Qu's growth; the physical depletion caused by long-term starvation at the very beginning was slowly replenished by the lotus root, otherwise nothing would have gone so smoothly.

Previously, apart from the main few parts of the crab monster, Liang Qu had smashed the remaining shell and buried it in the silt to see if it would help the lotus root grow.

Currently speaking...

Nothing could be seen; the crab shell was too hard, and even after being smashed, it did not decompose easily. Three days had passed, and it remained exactly as it was when buried.

After making a round and confirming that the damage inflicted by the crab monster previously had not affected the lotus root's growth, Liang Qu began clearing away gravel to expand the growing environment for the lotus.

Having finished everything and about to surface for air, he suddenly spotted a speck of light glowing in the darkness ahead, shaking and approaching, which was extremely strange.

Yet the directional sense within the neural link told Liang Qu that the two beasts were also there, likewise approaching rapidly, as if chasing each other.

"Holy crap, these two guys, they wouldn't have led something they couldn't defeat over here, would they?"

Just as Liang Qu turned to flee, thoughts such as "hot," "burning," and "cooked" suddenly transmitted from the mental link with the two beasts.

It was not quite what he had imagined.

Liang Qu stopped and decided to watch first.

Only upon getting closer did he realize the two beasts had not brought an enemy, but rather a glowing object, and the manner in which they brought it back was extremely bizarre, tossing it back and forth with their foreheads.

The fat catfish would receive it and butt it to the immobile one, and the immobile one would receive it and butt it back to the fat catfish.

The strong sense of déjà vu made Liang Qu think of how he passed a roasted sweet potato back and forth between his left and right hands.

The two beasts arrived before Liang Qu and dropped the glowing object, a huge red feather that slowly sank to the bottom.

Liang Qu raised an eyebrow.

This was...

A feather from the Fire Bird Great Demon!?