Chapter 25: Exploring the Outer Realm

That strange feeling flashed by, and when Sykes tried to recall it, he couldn’t remember anything.

“Scott, welcome to our team. Let’s all go to the exchange post to have a look later~” Huahua naturally suggested, turning his head to look at his temporary partner.

“Actually, I’m a game streamer. Do you mind if I start streaming now?”

“It’s okay, don’t mind me,” Sykes shook his head.

Only then did Huahua open the stream room, changing the title from the long-hanging “[Sea Realm Dungeon First Kill]” to “[Daily Life with a New Partner].”

As soon as the stream room opened, viewers who received the notification flocked in.

[Huahua, long time no see. Why did you start streaming so late?]

[He just streamed earlier, it was the magic test. Those who came late can go watch the recording.]

[Did no one notice the title? What new partner?]

[That gray merman? Looks like a new face~]

[It’s over. After getting used to the looks of the 123 team, I actually find this new player unremarkable.]

[Person in front, don’t be such a lookist, okay? To be able to join the team and be acknowledged by Huahua and the others, he must have his own abilities.]

[Isn’t the 123 team good enough? Why is there another one?]

[Where is he unremarkable? Isn’t this just the appearance of an ordinary person?]

[He looks so much like a boy-next-door. He probably isn’t very old, right? Huahua, have you changed careers to abducting minors?]

“This is a new player who has temporarily joined our team, named Scott. Old Li picked up this little cutie while he was out chopping wood,” Huahua replied to the bullet comments one by one.

“Those talking about looks, shut up. If I see it again, you’ll get the mute package.”

“Why did he join? I’ll keep you in suspense for now. You’ll all know when the time comes.”

“Don’t worry about the age issue. After all, Sea Realm‘s slots are only open to adult players. It’s true that he’s not very old. Come and say hi to everyone, Scott.”
Huahua waited for the bullet comments to quiet down before calling his new partner over.

The merman didn’t expect to be invited to interact at all.
He looked towards the camera and slowly raised his hand to wave.
“Hello, everyone.”

[Does anyone want this little gray merman? If no one wants him, I’ll take him away first. You guys can chat slowly.]

[srds¹, he’s really so obedient and cute!]

Everything that happened in the sea couldn’t escape Sykes’s eyes.
He could naturally see those bullet comments, and a question mark slowly rose in his heart.

‘Obedient and cute, who are they talking about? Me?’

The rainbow farts following the trend on the bullet comments gradually increased, making the merman a little embarrassed, and he shifted his gaze to another place.

Huahua saw his unnaturalness and stood in front of the camera with a grin.
“Next, let’s play a new game!”

“Remember the compensation gift pack the game gave out before? That’s right, the exciting gift pack opening session is about to begin!”

As he spoke, he turned his head to look at the other three people.
“Have you guys opened yours? Why don’t we open them together?”

Yan Shuangwen and Old Li shook their heads and took the gift packs into their hands.

Sykes urgently poked Ella and then, as he wished, took out the same gift pack from his backpack.

Huahua held the gift pack in his hand high up.

“The moment to witness a miracle!” he shouted, closing his eyes and suddenly opening the treasure chest.

When he opened his eyes again, he saw a booklet-like thing land in his hands.

[《Mind Magic—Blinding Spell》]

“This is… a skill book!!” Hua Yibing’s eyes widened.

The bullet comments in the stream room were quiet for a moment, then grew explosively—

[I don’t believe it! You lucky dog!] said someone who was passionately typing.

[Does Mr. Hua also have a day when his luck turns around??] said someone who was doubting life.

[Sir, times have changed. I’m going to buy a lottery ticket right now.] said someone who was taking a different path.

[Person above, wait for me.] said someone who was blindly following the trend.

[It’s actually a skill book. I’m sucking in the luck, sucking in the luck!] But this was the most common one, XD.

No matter what the bullet comments’ reaction was, it couldn’t affect Huahua’s current mood.

Heaven knows he could only ever get the guaranteed prize when he pulled cards.
If he was unlucky enough to encounter a double-card UP pool, he would only ever pull the duplicate one, and then silently shed the tears of an African.

As such an African, he hadn’t experienced the joy of pulling cards for a long time.

And today, he, Hua Yibing! It was time for his suffering to end and his luck to turn around!

The merman was also a little surprised.
He contacted Ella in his mind.
“Did you do it?”

[This player’s drop rate is within the normal range.]

Over there, Old Li and Yan Shuangwen also opened their gift packs.

However, neither of them got a skill.

One got 1000 reputation points, and the other… a stone?

Huahua looked at his roommate’s rare stunned look and burst out laughing.
“Haha, Yan Er’mao, you have your day too!”

He laughed so hard he couldn’t stand up straight, using his hand to support himself.

“Scott, look at yours. Don’t worry, it can’t be worse than that guy’s.”

Sykes silently opened the box, and by the way, instructed Ella not to adjust the probability—such a random lottery result was quite exciting for a fish.

The packaging box disappeared into specks of light.
His hand felt heavier, and a…

Sykes recognized it.
This was one of the weapons he had used in his youth.

Compared to other weapons, this bow was not so shiny, but its shape was very smooth.

Although it looked very similar, the material of this bow was indeed not silver, but the branches of a tree called a silver fir from a certain small human island in the extreme south.

The wood, which had a faint silver sheen, was finely polished into the shape of a bow.
There were no extra patterns carved on it, only a few magic circles imprinted at the bottom.

‘It’s actually this one?’ Sykes thought.

“You can get weapons from treasure chests?”

Old Li looked at this weapon, which looked very cool at a glance, with envy, then looked at his own nouveau riche golden machete.

The machete flashed a golden light in response, as if to say, “What, you got a problem?”

‘No, no.’

Old Li stuffed the machete back into his backpack.

“Only Scott and I got good things. I don’t need to say who the team’s lucky koi is, right?” Hua Yibing laughed heartily with his hands on his hips.

A faint smile also appeared on Sykes’s face.
For the first time, he felt the joy of a lottery game—

‘No wonder Ella chose to change the maintenance compensation into a lottery. It seems it has also learned something useful from the human side.’

With a thought from the merman, the dungeon stage in the quarry underwent a small change.

Later, when the first brave player painstakingly passed the first few stages according to the guide, then fumbled through the next few stages blindly, and finally bribed the little red fish to win the big snake’s favor.

He finally reached the reward floor, which was the lord’s study.
But before him, a very familiar summoning interface rose up—

[Please click the summon button to randomly obtain an initial skill.]

[Warm reminder: Shouting your heart’s desire before summoning has a chance to be heard by a fated book~]

A large summon button appeared in the bottom right corner in response.

That player pondered for a moment.

“Open Sesame!”

Then with a ‘smack’, he pressed the button.

The bookshelf: “…”

The quaint bookshelf suddenly bloomed with a soft white light.
In a daze, the player felt as if he had seen the real world of knowledge—in the vast night sky, each book was like a star in the heavens, suspended in mid-air according to a certain pattern.

Then, a high-spirited shout came from the silent starry sky—

“Open Sesame!”

Then came endless echoes—

“Open Sesame—pen Sesame—pen Sesame—pen Sesame—”

The skill books seemed to be startled and trembled in unison.
Then the starlight burst forth, and one was actually shaken off.

The falling book flew over leisurely, seemingly unaware of anything, and was sucked in front of the player by a pulling force.

[《Inspiration Magic—Open Door Spell》]

[Note: Because of the strong desire in your heart, you can turn anything you see into a key to open a treasure, (only applicable to doors with keyholes).]

The player: “?”

Regardless of how the players who had gone overboard with the gacha were feeling, the second closed beta of Sea Realm was finally proceeding smoothly, and the application of magic was also in the process of exploration and improvement.

The players had already formed a fixed action process—first, confirm their magic attribute through a test, then team up to clear the dungeon, and obtain their first skill in the dungeon.

Because the first-clear team’s guide only had the first few stages, and the subsequent stages were skipped due to a fish’s revenge, the new players could only fumble their way through, dying and returning to the resurrection point time and time again, moving bricks and chopping wood to save up enough reputation points before making a comeback.

In this process, they tried all sorts of strange postures to pass the stages—some insisted that walking along the corner of the wall would prevent them from being attacked, some tried to learn from ants and roll past in a ball.

There was also a computer expert who actually made an analysis software.
After recording the scene of the floor exploding, it could automatically analyze the explosion pattern within ten seconds!

Although he couldn’t hack into the system of Sea Realm and couldn’t load it into the game world as a MOD (module), he could use live streaming to have friends outside help him use the software for analysis, actually reducing the difficulty of the second stage to the level of “if you have hands, you can do it.”

While other players were crazily praising him and wishing him a safe life, the merman also saw the post sharing this software.

He didn’t feel offended at all.
Instead, he had a new understanding of the players’ wisdom—this thing was very interesting.
It could simplify complex calculations into clear answers, which was also a precious attempt at knowledge.

But Ella was sullen for half a day because of this, her wings drooping without her even noticing—
Although it wouldn’t admit it itself, it did indeed have an emotion called “dislike” for such unexpected events.

Thanks to the variety of ways to pass the stages, the posts about the dungeon on the forum were always particularly exciting.
Teammates were often keen on taking pictures of their teammates being punished by the mechanisms as a souvenir.

No matter how well they promised at the beginning, when they saw their friend’s embarrassing moment, their hands would honestly press the screenshot button until it left an afterimage.

Seven days passed in a flash.

The 123 team, under Sykes’s guidance, frantically grinded daily quests, accumulating reputation points for the upcoming event.
At the same time, they also ran to the exchange post and exchanged for two shovels and other tools that might be needed.

It’s worth mentioning that Hua Yibing exchanged for a long, stick-like object and put it in his bag.
The top of the stick had a round, arc-shaped hook.

‘This thing looks like a part of some weapon? Why did he exchange for this?’

After receiving the merman’s puzzled gaze, Huahua confidently explained, “I saw through it at a glance. Kono physical holy sword da! A pry bar is the eternal god!”

The merman: “…”

Sykes thought to himself, he understood how to efficiently assemble a machine, and knew how to quickly mix a potion, but he would probably never understand the thought process of players, especially Hua Yibing.

The other players weren’t idle either, exploring this extremely realistic holographic game in an orderly manner.

More game videos about Sea Realm were also gradually spread on the internet through the sharing of the closed beta players.

The realistic and clear graphics, the novel and interesting settings, and the players’ creative stories completely catered to the interests of contemporary people.
Sea Realm gradually became a popular tag on the cloud site, and many people who posted videos also became famous overnight, entering the public’s sight.

Among them was Diamond, who continuously updated the “[Tower Climbing 101]” post.

After receiving the lord’s reward of 20 resurrection chances, he finally reached the top of the merman tower.
Although the prerequisite was that the lord was in a good mood and had removed most of the restrictions for him, it was still something worth praising.

Under the surge of emotion, Diamond decided to edit his tower-climbing process and upload it to the cloud site.
He didn’t expect the number of clicks to grow like a snowball, and he received likes from many hardcore players.

In the video, Diamond’s ways of dying were diverse.
Almost every few steps, a fatal trap would appear, and after dying and resurrecting, he had to start from the beginning again.

In this process, it wasn’t just the newly appeared traps that could kill a person.
Under carelessness, even a pit that had been stepped on before could still send a person back to the resurrection point, making the players watching the video unable to help but beat their chests and stomp their feet, crying out in pity.

The most thrilling time was when he was approaching the top of the tower.
The unremarkable top of the tower suddenly lifted open and swallowed Diamond in one gulp.
Because it was filmed from a first-person perspective, it looked particularly exciting.

It was precisely because of the many difficulties in front that the final success seemed so precious.

The moment he truly reached the top of the tower, the number of bullet comments reached its peak, and the game’s background music also became grand and impassioned.

Then, next to the image of the merman player overlooking the scenery below with red eyes, a line of Diamond’s self-narration appeared—
After nine days and six hours, and experiencing one hundred and twenty-four deaths, today, I have finally successfully reached the summit!

No matter the era, persistence is always one of the most admirable qualities.
His video received countless praises and blessings.

Some people also compared this video to some once-popular hardcore games, where the levels were extremely difficult, the pitfalls numerous, and even high-level players had to die more than 100 times to have a chance to pass the game, such as “I Wanna Be the Guy,” “Cat Mario,” “Getting Over It,” etc., all of which had a similar feel to this Tower Climbing 101. @Infinite good articles, all at Jinjiang Literature City.

This made passersby sigh—so hardcore players can turn any game into a hardcore game! @Infinite good articles, all at Jinjiang Literature City.

There was another player whose fame was on par with Diamond’s, and that was the one who was determined to become a contemporary Shennong² and taste all the herbs in Sea Realm.

That player, named [Contemporary Foodie], was a girl with an apple-shaped face and a little baby fat on her cheeks.
She looked very cute, like a girl-next-door.

But her style was extremely hardcore.
She tasted every plant she found in the underwater world, recorded related videos, and then decisively uploaded them to the eating broadcast channel.

The title was [Eating All of Sea Realm! The First Holographic Game Eating Broadcast!]

This novel idea attracted many eating broadcast viewers to click in, only to find that it was really an in-game eating broadcast.

As everyone knows, the sense of taste in holographic games is a hard nut to crack.
In addition, players generally prefer to fight monsters and level up, so few companies put effort into the sense of taste.
Firstly, the cost is high, and secondly, the technology is not up to standard.

So at most, players could only taste stimulating sweet or salty flavors in the game.
More refined tastes were impossible.

But this UP Master, [Contemporary Foodie], was different.
When she ate, she would hold the plant up to the camera for an all-around display and describe its taste in detail.

Whether it was a hint of sourness in the sweetness, or as clear as a mountain spring, or an earthy taste like mud, she described it so vividly that the viewers watching the video could also imagine the approximate taste, as if they were sharing that food with her.

Many passersby who had never watched eating broadcasts also liked to click into her videos, because they were interesting enough.

Sometimes, you could see the girl eating some super delicious food, and just as she was happily recommending it to the audience, the next second she would have turned into specks of light and been sent directly back to the resurrection point.

Extremely poisonous!

There was also a time when it was a very grotesque-looking plant.
An ordinary person would need some courage just to hold it in their hand, but the foodie girl ate it without changing her expression.
Then she was surprised to find that it actually tasted like Dungeness crab, and was so fresh and fragrant that it was comparable to the top quality kind!

Later, she cut this plant into small pieces, so you couldn’t see its original shape, and carried it with her as a snack.
The way she enjoyed the food made the audience’s eyes turn red with envy, and they all ran to order seafood.

But there were also times when tasting all the herbs went wrong.

In the latest video released by Contemporary Foodie, she tried a plant that looked like a chili pepper.
This plant was a rare case where the taste matched the appearance, and its spiciness was not much lower than a ghost pepper.

The foodie herself was the type who couldn’t handle spice.
She was choked until her face was flushed red, her eyes glistening with tears.

But in the end, she still picked quite a few chili fruits into her backpack.
This wasn’t because she had come to like the spicy taste, but because she had accidentally discovered that her health, which had been poisoned to the 60s by other plants, had miraculously recovered to 90+ after eating this fruit!

A fruit that restores health!
Maybe it could be used when running a dungeon?

This turn of events made the netizens click their tongues in amazement, saying that this holographic game was too realistic and rich.
Even every plant had its own attributes and taste arranged (hey!), this is a truly conscientious game!

It’s just that it might be a bit taxing on the developers.

By the way, the top hot comment was a petition of ten thousand people, requesting her to launch an attack on the animals.

Besides these two, the most clicked-on submissions were the collections of crawling merfolk.

The submitter had maliciously recorded the players’ crawling scenes when they first entered the game, added music with extremely precise timing, and made it into a a chaotic remix video.

As expected, while harvesting a large number of ‘hahahaha’s, it also cruelly overturned many people’s childhood stories—

[Mom asked me why I don’t listen to the Little Mermaid fairy tale anymore?]

[Because I’ve seen the mermaids in Sea Realm.]

[Parentheses, except for the Lord!!]

As the game’s popularity soared, many non-players also found their way to the forum.
The lord’s photo, the treasure of the forum, naturally couldn’t be hidden anymore.

Sykes, with his sparkling appearance and beauty that far surpassed humans, effortlessly conquered every online creature who saw the photo.

His photo was reposted on Cloud Weibo round after round, and countless passersby fell into the pit with a ‘smack’.

Many lookists expressed their disbelief.
Is this really a game model?
Paper characters can actually be this good-looking!
No, this isn’t even a paper character.
This is a 3D, solid lord who can interact with you in front of your face!!!

The official account’s followers doubled, and more people were crying out below, asking if the officials could start the open beta sooner.

Some people also created a Super Topic for Sykes.
Many masters and artists who had fallen into the pit picked up their pens to produce fan works, striving to pull more like-minded people into the water.

Related fanfiction and fan art also appeared like a blowout—as long as I pull in enough players, Sea Realm will start the open beta sooner!

They firmly believed in this.

Just like that, a lively and orderly week passed.
This batch of new players in Sea Realm had basically familiarized themselves with the game’s operations.

Besides the casual players, most had also passed the initial dungeon and obtained their first skill.

And the game was also time for maintenance.

Official Announcement:

[The hot-blooded and heroic subjects are ready for battle. In order to satisfy the subjects’ requests, the wise lord has specially opened up a new battlefield. Outside this peaceful land is a zone filled with darkness, curses, and violence, containing countless unknown surprises or fears.]

[After this maintenance is over, the outer lands exploration event will be opened, and [Daily Quest · Outer Lands Exploration] will be added to the daily activities.]

“It’s finally coming,” Old Li took a deep breath, looking at the notification sent by the system.
“Scott, thanks to your news.”

Sykes shook his head and said faintly, “I’m also doing it for myself.”

The next second, he felt an arm wrap around his shoulder.
The merman didn’t even need to turn his head to know who that guy was.

As expected, a familiar lively voice sounded in his ear, “Little kid, don’t always keep a straight face. You’ll easily turn into Yan Shuangwen’s paralyzed face.”

The person who came was none other than Hua Yibing.

Yan Shuangwen naturally ignored his roommate’s retort and looked at Sykes.
“See you when the server opens tomorrow.”

“See you when the server opens,” Sykes waved his hand, watching the few people log off in front of him.

The next moment, he had already appeared at the very edge of the territory.

[Master, the preparations are complete.]

The small crimson sprite appeared beside Sykes, her face prim and proper.

The merman swam forward a step, and the disguise on his body disappeared bit by bit, changing from an ordinary gray merman back to his glorious appearance with silver hair and golden eyes.

“Then let’s begin.”

His hand made a weak grasp, and the entire domain responded to its master’s call.
The will of the living beings and the land gathered here, transforming into the shape of a scepter, which appeared in the merman’s hand.

Sykes half-closed his eyes, slammed the scepter in his hand onto the ground, and the land cracked from the tip of the staff.
The crack extended all the way to the bottom of the air wall, then slowly moved upwards.

Crack.

The transparent wall cracked inch by inch, actually making the sound of metal and stone shattering.
The fragments fell to the ground and miraculously merged into the mud, disappearing from sight.

A gap more than a person’s height was thus opened at the boundary of the domain in front.
The cold seawater from outside seemed to have found some flaw and frantically poured in from the crack.

“Forbid.”

The merman’s pair of golden pupils suddenly opened.
His cold and majestic gaze looked at that spot, and he斥scolded.

It was strange to say.
As soon as these two short words came out, the crack seemed to be covered by a protective shield.
No matter how unwillingly the curses from the outside world lingered there, they could no longer enter the stable world inside by even a single step.

Ella was holding a huge wooden sign that was completely out of proportion with her own figure.
She flew over unsteadily and stuck it into the ground nearby.

Then she took out a pen from her pocket and wrote on it stroke by stroke—One-way passage, exit only, no entry.

“I don’t know how long the players can last in the outer lands during their first exploration,” the merman watched Ella finish all this and sighed.

[Master can personally observe their performance.]

Ella answered while dragging another wooden board over and hammering away at the crack with a ‘ding, ding, dong, dong’.

“After all, they are just merman forms covered by an energy membrane. They don’t have the powerful bodies of the merfolk clan,” Sykes sighed again.

The little sprite, who was holding a small hammer and nailing a door, heard this, slowly stopped the work in her hand, and turned around.

[Master’s attitude towards the players seems to have changed,] it tilted its head in confusion.

“Has it?” The merman also tilted his head.
“Maybe it’s because I’ve realized their importance? After all, in this world, only players are not controlled by the rules.”

Ella was convinced and continued with the work in her hand.
The merman didn’t say anything more, just looking at the empty territory after the players had logged off.

‘After getting used to the liveliness, the quietness makes a fish feel a little unbearable.’

The next day, after the maintenance was over, the players who had been waiting for a long time all came online and crowded to the quest board to check the latest activities.

As expected, the daily quest board had been updated with new quests.

[Bulletin Board: Dear players,]

[Daily Gathering Quest (1): Gather Coral Wood x30. Reward: 100 Reputation Points. Repeatable.]

[Daily Gathering Quest (2): Gather Stone x30. Reward: 100 Reputation Points. Repeatable.]

[Special Construction Quest: Repair a dilapidated merman’s hut x1. Reward: 1000 Reputation Points. Limited to once per player. Unlimited if the inspection result is 90 points or above.]

[Daily Exploration Quest: Complete outer lands exploration × N hundred meters. Reward: 100 × N Reputation Points. Lord’s Favorability +0.5 × N points, favorability cap 10. Repeatable.]

[Special Collection Quest: Collect various items and products during exploration! The lucky ones may trigger special quests! Reward: Unknown.]

The players who had accepted the quests swarmed to the air wall in the north, only to find that a magnificent wooden archway had appeared where there had been nothing before.

That archway was pieced together from wooden boards, and there were very obvious nail marks.
But paired with the completely different environment on the outside, it looked particularly quaint and solemn.

When the players looked through the door, they found that this side and that side were completely different lands.

Inside the air wall, which was the domain where the players had been living, although it wasn’t as exaggerated as being sunny and bright, there was enough light to illuminate every corner of the seawater.

The plants in the domain grew quietly, and occasionally a few small fish would float in the seawater.
When they encountered people, they would flick their tails and flee.
Everywhere was a picture of peaceful years.

But the other side of the wall was completely different.

There was almost no light source on that side.
Everywhere was a pitch-black expanse.
Occasionally, a few behemoths could be seen, swimming in the dark water, revealing a corner that could be explored.

“Whoa! It looks a bit scary,” Hua Yibing was startled by a yellow eye like a light bulb that he occasionally saw.
His left hand couldn’t help but touch his right arm.
“I just hope there are no snakes among those monsters…”

Yan Shuangwen beside him, however, had his eyes shining.
This was the first time Sykes had seen the other so excited.

“So beautiful. I really want to see what its full appearance is like…” Yan Shuangwen murmured, his eyes following that yellow-eyed creature.

Sykes: “?”

Old Li on the side, however, seemed to be used to it.
“He seems to be a doctoral student in marine biology protection. He’s always been very interested in this kind of thing.”

Of course, Hua Yibing wouldn’t miss this opportunity to complain about his roommate.
“He’s more affectionate towards these strange things than his own girlfriend. Of course, a person with his personality doesn’t deserve to have a girlfriend.”

Yan Shuangwen retracted his gaze and glanced at him faintly.

“Do you have one?”

K.O.!

Hua Yibing took a critical hit.

The audience in the stream room certainly wouldn’t miss this opportunity to laugh at Huahua.
They cheered and spammed the screen—

[Enemy damaged by eight hundred, self-damaged by one thousand! Good lord, I’m directly good lord.]

[Person in front, haven’t you heard of “The Art of War by Huazi”?]

[I’ve learned my lesson. But just now I asked the bookstore owner if he had this book. He said no, so I smashed the store. Brothers, did I do the right thing?]

[So it was you kid who was just arrested by the police! (doge head)]

Of course, Hua Yibing wouldn’t admit defeat.
He turned around and tried to drag his other two teammates down with him.

“Old Li, Scott, what about you?”

Old Li shrugged and spread his hands to indicate he was still single.
Sykes didn’t expect to be asked this question.
He was stunned for a moment and also shook his head.

Although the rumors outside were that a merman only had one destined partner in their lifetime, in reality, as a long-lived species, merfolk had such a long life that it was impossible to really spend countless years waiting for a specific person.

This led to the fact that every merman might fall in love with countless fish in their lifetime.
Of course, there were also fish who only had one relationship in their entire life, but that was definitely a minority.

Before he left, his merman companions had basically all had fish-fish relationships, but Sykes had no interest in this aspect at all.

With that time wasted on going out on dates and eating seaweed, why not read a few more books?

What else in the world could be more satisfying than the feeling of being filled with knowledge?

It doesn’t exist.

“I don’t have such a thing,” Sykes replied.
“Compared to that, I choose to read more books.”

“Pfft.”

Huahua and Old Li looked at each other and laughed out loud.
Even Yan Shuangwen, who had always been expressionless, had a clear smile at the corner of his eyes.

“What’s wrong?” The merman tilted his head in confusion.
Do humans not approve of such a statement?

Hua Yibing tried hard to hold back his laughter.
“Nothing, you’re right.”

Sykes shifted his gaze to Old Li.
Old Li silently turned his head to the side, his tail trembling suspiciously, as if he was holding back laughter.

Yan Shuangwen also looked up at the sky as if nothing had happened.

The merman finally put his gaze on the bullet comments.

[Shocked, what brand of good boy is this!]

[Studying makes me happy, what’s a girlfriend? (doge head)]

[(Knocking on the table) There are golden houses in books, and there are beautiful women like jade in books!]

[Look at you people, you don’t even have Scott’s awareness!]

[Hahahahahaha, so the 123 team are all single dogs? Why not call it the single dog team, hahahahahaha!]

[Person in front, it’s the 1234 (Scott) team now.]

Sykes was silent for a moment, then pointed to the sign that Ella had stuck in the ground.

“Look, there’s a sign here,” he deliberately changed the subject.

His teammates cooperatively gathered around to look.

“One-way passage, exit only, no entry?” Old Li read the words on it.
“Is this referring to this door, only allowing exit but not entry?”

When it came to serious business, everyone’s expression became much more serious.

“After going out, you can only come back by committing suicide? Is that what it means?” Huahua understood it in his own way.

“Go out and see, then we’ll know,” Yan Shuangwen swam towards the door.

Sykes followed.
“I’ll go have a look too.”

Seeing that his two teammates had already passed through the door, Huahua hurriedly chased after them.
“Wait for me!”

Old Li looked at his teammates in front of him helplessly and was the last one to pass through the door.

When he passed through that wooden door, he clearly felt his skin being squeezed, as if he was forcefully passing through a layer of plastic film.
There was a faint sense of discomfort.
@Infinite good articles, all at Jinjiang Literature City

When Old Li reached the world outside the door and tried to reach back in, he felt the same texture as the air wall before.

‘No wonder it says exit only, no entry.’

“Look at your status bars,” Yan Shuangwen was already waiting there.
He said indifferently.

The few of them looked at their personal status bars and saw an icon they had never seen before behind the health value.

That icon was black and red, and at a glance, it was something very ominous.
It looked like two snakes entangled together.

Clicking on it, there was a thoughtful explanation from the system below—

[Curse: A unique curse of the Sea of Death, which merfolk living in a greenhouse can hardly resist. Health -5 per minute (the value will change as the player’s mage level increases).]

“What is this debuff?!” Hua Yibing exclaimed, watching his health drop from 100 to 95.
“No wonder that door said exit only, no entry. Staying for a full twenty minutes will get you a high-efficiency return ticket.”

“Twenty minutes…” Sykes glanced at his player panel.
Can players only survive for twenty minutes in the curse now?

‘They really need to train.’

“Don’t just stand there dazed. Since time is short, let’s set off quickly!” Old Li, as the team leader, made a final decision.

The first problem the team faced was lighting.

Because the outer lands were at an unknown depth in the sea, the sun could no longer shine in here.
There might be some glowing plants or something to provide a light source, but they hadn’t seen any yet.

And at this moment, the advantage of knowing the event content in advance was revealed.

Because they had thought of this in advance during their preparations, they had each spent 5000 reputation points at the exchange post to exchange for an energy lamp that could be worn on the head.

Although the price was jaw-droppingly expensive, it was an incredibly convenient item at this time.

No matter which direction you turned your head, the energy lamp could clearly illuminate the things within ten meters in front.

Information is the most important intelligence.
With vision, many difficult problems can be easily solved.

The few members of the team decided to head north.
Old Li had a compass-like watch on his hand to ensure the team wouldn’t lose their way.

Everywhere in front was unknown.

Huahua was swimming a little slower.
When he put his hand on a nearby rock to push off, he felt that the touch under his hand was not right.

He turned his head abruptly and came face to face with four pairs of eyes that had suddenly appeared on the rock.

Hua Yibing: “!!!”

His heart jumped in fright, and the blinding spell in his hand was already released.
While the rock monster was in a state of confusion, Hua Yibing’s giant hammer smashed down with a ‘duang’.

“Are you okay?” The few people in front stopped to wait for him.

“I’m fine, I was just thinking about something…” Huahua stood there in a daze.

Sykes thought he was scared and swam over with a flick of his tail, wanting to swim with him.

But as soon as the merman got close to Hua Yibing, he heard the other mutter to himself, “This guy’s meat… is it delicious?”

“A very novel structure,” Yan Shuangwen had swum over at some point, bending down to poke the thing that was formerly known as a rock monster and now as a rock pancake.

“I don’t know what this thing is called?”

Sykes habitually answered, “This is a camouflage creature that lives on rocks, called a Somofeld, also known as a rock beast. It generally relies on its own camouflage to deceive other fish, and devours them while they are resting.”

The next second, he saw everyone’s gazes focused on him.

‘Oh no, this kind of thing isn’t something a player should know, is it?’

The merman’s tail swayed unnaturally.

Just as the fish was feeling a little guilty, he heard his companion’s excited voice—

“Is this an appraiser?” Yan Shuangwen’s eyes were brighter than ever before.
He looked at Sykes eagerly.
“The next time we see other creatures, can I trouble you to appraise them for me?”

Sykes: “Ah? Oh, okay.”

‘It can be explained like this?’

In the end, Huahua still threw the rock pancake into his backpack.
It was a collection-type quest anyway, who knew what the lord liked?
Maybe he just happened to like this thing!

After swimming forward for another ten minutes or so, everyone’s health had dropped to the twenties, and the number had turned an ominous crimson.

Just when everyone felt that this exploration might be fruitless, a shipwreck suddenly appeared within their field of vision!

“Let’s go have a look,” Old Li said excitedly.
“There are definitely items and such inside!”

He was the first to swim over.

The others’ spirits also rose.
Just as they were about to follow, they saw a deep purple tentacle suddenly emerge from the window of the shipwreck.

The tentacle whipped through the air, seeming to sense the presence of delicious food nearby.
It pursued it and wrapped itself around Old Li, who was closest, and dragged him into the ship!

“What was that?!”

Footnotes:

1. srds is pinyin abbreviation for 虽然但是 (suīrán dànshì), which means “although, but…” It’s used to soften a statement or introduce a contrasting point, similar to “no offense, but…”

2. 神农 (Shénnóng), the Divine Farmer, is a mythological figure in Chinese culture credited with teaching agriculture and herbal medicine. “Tasting a hundred herbs” (尝百草) is his most famous legend, where he tested numerous plants to determine their properties, often poisoning himself in the process. Here, it’s used to describe a player testing all the in-game plants.