Inside the cave, Yu Xinglan entered the left-hand tunnel and returned to his starting point through the right. He had explored the entire cave. Apart from dead ends, there was only this circular passage.
At the junction lay a small chamber. A stone door was set into one wall, flanked by two merfolk statues. The tridents in their hands crossed in midair, like silent sentries.
Swimming closer, he noticed that one statue's gaze was fixed on a particular spot on the opposite wall.
Following that gaze, he found a protruding stone. He pulled it, and the cave shook violently. Behind him, the stone door slowly opened.
A stone treasure chest stood in the center of the room beyond. Beside it, another spinefish watched him menacingly.
Every spine along its back rose as it slowly approached the entrance. Just before it reached the doorway, mechanisms on either side activated, and the stone walls began closing in toward the center.
When they separated again, the spinefish had been flattened like a sandwich filling. Several glittering drops appeared on the ground.
That was a useful warning.
Yu Xinglan carefully examined his surroundings. Finding a triangular recess in the floor, he placed the triangular gem inside. Golden lines of light spread from it onto the walls on either side, covering them like climbing vines.
The trap deactivated, and the chest opened automatically. A pearl bracelet lay in the center of a velvet cushion.
Unlike the jeweled ornaments the merfolk had given him, which were purely decorative, the bracelet had additional effects and belonged in the equipment panel.
But when he clicked to inspect it, both its name and its skills were replaced by question marks. Without being able to see its effects, he couldn't equip it either. Helplessly, he put it into his inventory, where a thumbnail appeared.
He made two more circuits of the cave and found nothing else, then opened the player forum.
A new batch of trending threads had replaced the old ones. He browsed through them.
[Good news! Found out how to get skills!]
He opened the thread. The original poster wrote:
ChokingDownNutrientSolution: [Does everyone know how you get skills?]
ChokingDownNutrientSolution: [It's actually really simple.]
CheesyBystander: [OP, could you get to the point faster?]
OvernightPasserby: [OP, it's been three minutes. Where are you?!]
SeaLionSpectator: [May OP stay single for eight years for this bait.]
ChokingDownNutrientSolution: [Hey, hey! Don't rush me! Here's the thing. A friend of mine has been playing nonstop since launch. I'd say he's definitely one of the higher-level players in the game right now.]
ChokingDownNutrientSolution: [My point is, he just reached level ten and automatically unlocked a skill.]
ChokingDownNutrientSolution: [So my theory is! Skills are linked to level!]
CheesyBystander: [Thanks for sharing all that nothing, OP.]
SeaLionSpectator: [May OP's first pregnancy produce 108 babies.]
ChokingDownNutrientSolution: [You people!]
Wen Li stamped his foot in irritation, his elven ears red with anger. Puffing out his cheeks, he grumbled, “What is wrong with them?!”
Ji Yunzhou stopped and looked at the elf whose name read [ChokingDownNutrientSolution]. “What's wrong?”
ChokingDownNutrientSolution showed him the forum. “Captain, look at them!”
Ji Yunzhou smiled. “They're joking. Don't take it to heart.”
He had been grinding levels since launch. A highly skilled fighter, he had drawn the beastfolk race, with its high Strength and Agility, giving him a major advantage in fighting monsters. He had quickly reached level ten.
On reaching level ten, a new skill had automatically unlocked in his skill panel: [Sword Blade].
After activating it, a slash of his weapon would send a blade of condensed mana traveling onward along the path of his attack.
Having comforted his teammate, he picked up his greatsword and cut down another monster.
Leaving the cave, Yu Xinglan organized his inventory. He decided to follow the forum's advice and level up first.
Beyond a stretch of coral, countless giant clams lay in the sand. As though welcoming him, the nearest opened its shell, exposing its flesh and a pearl the size of a head beside it.
Just before his hand touched the pearl, the shell snapped shut with a bang. Fortunately, he had been wary from the start and pulled his hand back in time.
The pearl clam opened again. Its flesh thrust straight out from beneath the shell like a tongue, trying to coil around him and drag him inside.
He dodged, a weapon appearing in his hand: the trident from the merfolk statue in the cave. Though he couldn't put it in his weapon slot, he could still hold and use it.
The trident pierced the clam's flesh. Pale blue fluid dispersed like mist through the water. Sensing danger, the clam tried to retract its tongue, but the trident had already wedged its shell open.
Yu Xinglan thrust hard into the shell. The clam's health bar emptied, and it turned into a large pearl.
His experience bar rose. Though pearl clams were easier to kill than the spinefish he'd encountered earlier, their levels were high, and they gave plenty of experience. Grinding them was extremely efficient.
Using the same method, he killed several more.
When he picked up his twenty-third pearl drop, a new-skill notification appeared in the lower right corner. He had finally reached level ten.
Contrary to his expectations, the first skill he unlocked wasn't a magic skill. It was a party buff.
[Song of the Deep]
[Increases all party members' attributes by 20% for 30 seconds. Cooldown: 60 seconds.]
When he activated it, he began humming without conscious control. The voice was his, but its notes sounded more ethereal. The lilting song carried a beguiling power, just as its name suggested, as though it rose from the deep sea.
Under the song's effect, his maximum HP increased slightly. He opened the player panel and found all his attributes boosted.
Small white plus signs flashed beside Intelligence and Charisma, indicating points available from leveling up.
To prevent extreme stat builds or allocations inconsistent with a race's design, The Lower Realm automatically added one point of Constitution with every level. At even-numbered levels, the system also assigned a random attribute point; at odd-numbered levels, the player received one point to allocate freely.
For merfolk, however, both random and freely allocated points could only go into Intelligence or Charisma. By level ten, Yu Xinglan's Charisma had increased from 35 to 40. Not a single random point had gone to Intelligence.
At present, Intelligence was clearly tied to mana—the blue bar, as everyone called it—while Constitution governed the red bar. The other attributes were easy enough to understand. But did increasing Charisma make him better-looking?
He touched his face. It didn't feel any different.
He put all four remaining free attribute points into Intelligence and closed the panel. His mana increased by forty.
At level ten, the experience from killing pearl clams was no longer particularly impressive, so he stopped grinding.
He wanted to sell the large pearls and other drops in his inventory, or trade them for a suitable weapon. The trident would do in a pinch, but since it couldn't be equipped in the weapon slot, it still dealt only the basic damage calculated from his Strength, exactly the same as his bare hands.
So he returned to the merfolk city.
As soon as he entered, a new message appeared in his quest panel, adding an instruction beneath the existing quest.
Find the queen and complete the trial.
The merfolk queen seemed to know Yu Xinglan would come. She sat on her throne in the castle, her chin propped on her hand, quietly watching him.
When he approached, she waved a hand. An attendant left at her command and soon returned with another merman.
The newcomer looked familiar: blue hair, blue eyes. A closer look revealed that he was Yu Xinglan's only friend.
[GonnaGetRich] jumped at the sight of him. He hovered in the doorway for ages before reluctantly shuffling inside.
Once both stood before the throne, the queen sat upright, a gratified smile on her face, which looked no older than fifteen or sixteen.
“My people! I knew you wouldn't disappoint me!”
The moment she finished speaking, their vision went black. When they could see again, they were no longer in the castle's main hall. A closed black doorway stood before them. It had no handles, but the doors opened inward of their own accord.
“Step through and complete my trial!”
The queen's voice sounded beside their ears. The two stood facing one another, wordlessly in accord, then walked through together.