Chapter 571: Lali, Fishing

In the Mage Tower near the Netheril River in Rodney Territory.

Rodney Lord Aozikaer was watching the six ships in the projection slowly turn around and head north again with his butler. Aozikaer's expression was indifferent, but the butler spoke up at this moment:

"My Lord, should we send men to pursue them, and then—"

The butler did not finish his sentence, but he swung his hand downward heavily and made a vicious expression. This action could not help but make Aozikaer frown, and his tone grew a bit colder:

"Lali, mind your status. Don't bring the style from over there to me! Do you want me to immediately have a conflict with the south so that they will be satisfied?!"

The butler Lali was slightly stunned, his expression slowly restrained, becoming expressionless again, even with a kind of formulaic humility, "My Lord, Lali will always listen to my Lord."

"Hmph—"

Aozikaer ignored the butler's words, gave a cold snort, and left the monitoring room. As for Lali who remained behind, he waved his hand indifferently, canceled the monitoring projection, and then faded into the darkness.

……

On the other side, Xia Duo ordered the fleet to turn around and return to the previous territory. After resupplying and resting in that territory named "Nelson", they set off again.

Afterward, when passing through Rodney Territory, they did not stop at all and passed through at full speed.

Not long after, they left the Nether Core Region, which is commonly known as the "Inner Land" in the Nan Jing, and continued to sail against the current for three days. After passing a river fork, they entered the southern section of the Netheril River.

From here on, all the way to Maihete Lake where Xia Duo prepared to fight the murlocs, it was all downstream.

Along the way, Xia Duo continuously cast 【Eye of the Sky】 to conduct "aerial photography," then transferred it to a projection, and on this basis, simplified and abstracted it to form a relatively concise and clear map, and finally used 【Transcription】 to draw it onto parchment.

Because the range of "aerial photography" is very large, one map is often enough for the fleet to travel for a day or two. The simplification and mapping process is not complicated. In his spare time, Xia Duo can also conduct some simple spell experiments.

Although there is no Spell Laboratory on the ship, being far away from Seventon and not having to worry about being monitored at all times made his mindset much more relaxed, and his research efficiency was greatly improved compared to being in Seventon.

During this period, he contacted Niya every night through a Communication Magic Tool, either talking about what he saw and heard along the way or talking about trivial matters. Of course, most of the time they were discussing how to crack Feierde's Spellbook.

……

Twenty days later, Xia Duo heard the sound of alert commands coming from outside the cabin in the captain's room, and he knew that Maihete Lake had arrived.

After passing Maihete Lake and a short section of upstream travel, it would be the Wolfburg River. The fleet could sail downstream all the way until reaching Savile Territory, or Daxia Territory, or even merge into a Basin Lake further south.

As soon as Xia Duo opened the door, he saw First Mate Lusi walking toward him. He first bowed, then reported: "My Lord, ahead is Maihete Lake. Should the fleet slow down?"

"Slow down, notify the ships in front to slow down as well!" Xia Duo prepared to let the fleet stop here for two days, wait for him to clear out the murlocs, and then continue south.

While Lusi was sending signals to the front via a Bone Whistle and flags, Xia Duo also sent an alert notification to the four low-level Mages on the ships in front via a spell.

Before long, the speed of the entire fleet slowed down, and Xia Duo also walked to the bow. Maihete Lake was right in front, and he could already clearly see the vast lake surface.

When he previously cast 【Eye of the Sky】 to draw the map, he had already seen the full view of Maihete Lake. The lake surface was roughly an irregular circle with a diameter of about four or five li; it was still quite a large lake.

At the very least, if the current Daxia Territory were thrown into it, Maihete Lake could completely accommodate it.

……

Soon, the first ship in the fleet sailed into Maihete Lake, followed by a series of whistles with high and low pitches, passed from one to another, until it reached the Lucky Owen at the very back.

First Mate Lusi, who was accompanying Xia Duo, immediately interpreted the signal coming from the front, "My Lord, other ships have been discovered ahead, and the quantity is only one."

"One ship?"

Xia Duo remembered that when he cast 【Eye of the Sky】 the day before yesterday, he did indeed see a ship in front of the fleet, but he didn't pay much attention to it at the time. Although there were not many ships from the Inner Land to the Nan Jing, there were not none.

At that time, he only thought it was an ordinary cargo ship heading to Savile Territory. Now that two days had passed, the other party was still lingering in Maihete Lake, which forced Xia Duo to pay attention.

"Ignore them, keep our people alert!"

"Yes."

……

When the entire fleet entered Maihete Lake, Xia Duo also saw with his own eyes the ship lingering in the lake. From afar, he seemed to be able to see figures moving on the deck from time to time.

Xia Duo just took a look and didn't pay much more attention. He was considering how to clear out the murlocs. Sit and wait for them to come over? Or find some bait to attract them over?

Or perhaps cast a spell to find them and then kill them directly at their lair?

Considering that the fleet had so many people, the food on the ships only allowed them to stay here for at most three days. If the reserves in the Personal Space were added, they could barely stay for two more days.

With such constraints, Xia Duo immediately made a decision.

"Let the ships in front move closer and stop, and we will move closer too!"

First Mate Lusi immediately obeyed the order.

At the same time, Xia Duo ordered people to take spare oars and keep hitting the water surface, hoping to attract the murlocs this way. If the murloc corpses killed by the fleet before were still there, it wouldn't be so troublesome now.

Through the corpses, it would be easy to find their lair, and even if he didn't kill them directly, he could set things up calmly.

"It doesn't even need corpses, some fresh blood would do!" Xia Duo muttered.

On the way before, he had carefully asked the soldiers on the ships. The murlocs just wanted to climb the ships, but before they could succeed, they were either stabbed to death by Long Spears or shot to death by crossbow bolts.

Even that suspected murloc Spellcaster was hit by several arrows and then sank into the water. According to the habits of murlocs, they basically left no intact corpses.

Hmm—

Xia Duo seemed to have thought of something. He immediately called Lusi and ordered: "First Mate Lusi, call a few crew members who are good at fishing to come out and fish."

"My Lord, you are—" Lusi was a little puzzled. Someone had caught fish on the way before, and there was very little fresh food on the ship. He had even specially made a bowl of fish soup and sent it to the Lord, but the Lord didn't want it. Could it be that he wanted to eat fish now?

Xia Duo didn't know what Lusi was thinking, but the other party's puzzled look was very obvious. He didn't hide it and said directly: "I want fish entrails to attract the murlocs, go prepare quickly!"

"Oh!" Lusi nodded quickly, "Yes, my Lord!"

Watching Lusi's hurried figure leaving, Xia Duo actually didn't have much confidence in his heart. He wasn't entirely sure whether fish entrails could attract murlocs; he just associated it with the rumor that murlocs liked to eat the corpses of their own kind.

Murlocs should also count as fish, right?

Should be, right?