Future Combat Power (1)

"What if you catch a cold again?" Alex insisted on putting the cloak on Inger.

Inger was afraid of both cold and heat, but he hated wearing heavy clothes on his body the most. He pushed Alex away and said, "No, I don't want it." He took out a small bottle of ground herbal powder instead.

"There are many kinds of herbs in the Earl of Delie's territory under the jurisdiction of Harenga. I bought some herbs for fever reduction from the store and ground them into powder. If I really have a fever, I can just make some herbal tea." He opened his collar again, revealing the blue magic stone collar pin on it. "And this?"

That was the temperature-controlled magic stone ornament he had developed in the capital. The red one was for heating up, and the blue one was for cooling down.

Alex finally gave up on giving him the cloak, but still murmured, "It's blue, we're heading east, it's not as warm as the south..."

"It's almost April, how can it be cold..." Inger said halfway, his face illuminated by the white sand and sparkling waves outside the window, and he squinted his eyes.

Although they saw the sea in Harenga, the sea there was turbid and dark, and it was gloomy for several days, so it didn't feel like the sea at all.

Alex lifted the curtain and smiled as bright as the sun: "We are here."

The Duchy of Hughes in the east.

The waters in the eastern coastal areas of Chonye are particularly clear.

They went straight to the largest bay on the east coast of Qiu Nei - Firefly Moon Bay.

There were many people playing and having fun on the beach, and there were also a series of cart vendors, making it very lively.

Inger and Alex left a trail of footprints behind them.

Alex was dressed casually, still in the same cloth shirt, cloth pants, and cloth shoes, which were easy to take off. He held up his shoes and left his footprints on the beach, with an even more comfortable smile on his face.

"Is it so comfortable?" Inger turned his head to look at him.

"Well... when I came here before... uh... I didn't have time for this..." Alex mentioned vaguely, looking at the shallow waves that climbed up the beach slowly and then receded.

He shook off the shoes and bare feet in his hands and said, "Why don't you try it? It's so comfortable!"

Inger usually wore casual boots. He shook his head, squatted down, dug in the sand, and dug out a strange-looking murex.

"How about this?"

"This is so ugly, and it has so many bone spurs. It's too dangerous. How can you give Chris something like this?" Alex immediately took the murex from his hand.

A drop of blood appeared on Inger's finger.

"Look!" Alex immediately grabbed his hand.

"It hurts a little." Inger put his finger in his mouth, dug another small breathing hole, and took out a white round snail.

"How about this?"

“Too small.”

"So annoying, that's it!"

"Can't you just pick one carefully?"

The two of them argued as they walked, and finally picked out a large and beautiful snail from the skirt of a beach girl selling shells.

"It saves me the trouble of looking for it myself." Inger was very satisfied.

Alex pouted and said, "Not sincere."

"If you keep going on like this, the day will be over. What are you doing? What are you doing here?" Inger kicked him.

Alex jumped a few times and put his shoes back on. "Okay, I'm leaving now! Are you okay here? Will you be kidnapped again?"

Inger threw a scallop at him and Alex ran away laughing.

Holding the shell, Inger couldn't help but think of what Ola had said to him.

[Is the three days real? ]

After he and Alex split up, they walked to the beach, sat under a shed, ate smoothies and asked the store owner.

"Is there any legend about the Sea God Pearl here?"

The boss shook the ice machine so hard that it flew up, and said loudly amid the noise: "What is the Sea God Pearl? I've never heard of it."

He poured fruit juice on a bowl of smoothie, handed it over, and added, "But there are a lot of deep-sea pearl oysters for sale here, in the town next door."

So Inger went to the nearby town to look for a pearl oyster stall.

I learned that in addition to the seafood caught from fishing, some people nearby also specialize in collecting pearl oysters. They don't open the shells, but sell them to customers to open them themselves. Whether you get one depends entirely on luck. This is quite popular among people of this generation, and occasionally someone can find particularly rare pearls.

[It’s actually just opening a blind box, which is similar to gambling with stones. ]

"Sir! Open a few! They're very cheap! Open a string of pearls for your sisters and mother to make necklaces and bracelets!" The vendor was enthusiastic.

Inger bought a few and put them in his hand. He asked, "Is there any strange legend about pearls here?"

Seeing that he had done business, the vendor counted the money with a smile on his face and said, "There are many rare pearls here, black pearls, pink pearls, king pearls, and twin pearls."

"Something related to mythology, like Poseidon or something like that?"

"What is Poseidon?" the peddler looked over in confusion.

Inger then remembered that the only unified god on the continent was the goddess Lu Ling. Other gods did not exist. So much so that this person did not even know what the god of the sea was.

This raises another question.

[Since Poseidon does not exist, why is Poseidon Pearl written on the materials list? ]

The vendor added, "There is a legend! There are some mermaids living on the nearby islands. They sleep in large shells on the reefs during the day. It is said that the King of Pearls was born with the blessing of the Deep Sea Morelia. So far, no one has gotten the pearl from the mermaids!"

Inger was speechless for a moment. With so much information exploding, he didn't know where to start.

[Mermaid? Are there mermaids in this world? Is it the mermaid I was thinking of?]

【What is Morelia? 】

[Why do mermaids live on islands instead of in the sea? ]

"Please tell me more." Inger stuffed more coins.

The peddler was shuffling money and clinking his hands. He asked Inger to come closer and whispered, "There used to be more mermaids. People here often saw them when they went fishing. But now most of them hide, so it's harder to see them. I know a lot of nobles come here for them."

Inger was also very curious, but he was quick to notice that the target the peddler was referring to might be different from his.

Inger smiled and said, "What if you want to find a mermaid?"

The peddler curled his lips and said, "Then we can only go to the lord to have a look. However, he loves those mermaids very much, and not everyone can see them...ah, of course the noble lord is different!" As he spoke, he rubbed his fingers and blinked.

Inger's eyes were covered with a faint shadow.

The slave system in Chuunen has been abolished for a long time, but such things still happen. In fact, not to mention magical creatures, human trafficking is not uncommon even in modern society.

Inger raised his chin to signal him to continue.

The vendor said, "Mermaids sleep on the island at night. When people come, they immediately jump into the sea, but it's not impossible to see them. You can try your luck at sea, you may catch a few, but if you catch them, you can't hide them. All the mermaids caught in this territory belong to the lord."

He seemed to be quite fearful of the lord in his words and was unwilling to say more.

So Inger asked something else: "What is Morelia?"

The peddler looked at him in surprise: "You don't even know this?"

Inger scratched his head as if embarrassed, "It's not mentioned in the book."

The vendor suddenly started to show off: "Of course, there is no need to say that. Young master, you have probably never been to the seaside. We usually live on land. Although we can't see it, the atmosphere is full of magic. There are actually similar things in the ocean. We call it Morelia here, which means the blessing bestowed by the goddess on the ocean. That's why all kinds of magical creatures are born in the ocean, such as mermaids, sea butterflies and the like."

"What about that giant pearl?"

"The relationship between mermaids and giant pearl oysters is mutually beneficial. The pearl oysters provide them with a place to sleep at night, and the mermaids protect them from being eaten by seagulls and fish. The mermaids also help the pearl oysters get pearls, because the presence of pearls is very painful for them."

"…Is this pearl oyster intelligent? Is it also a magical creature?"

"Of course, didn't I mention that? Giant pearl oysters are different from ordinary pearl oysters. Some of them are more aggressive and can even pinch people."

"You continue..."

"Mermaids used to give pearls to humans in exchange for what they needed, because pearls had no value to them. Humans were happy to trade. But in recent years... well... you know... the trade has collapsed, and people have started to breed small pearl oysters. Of course, mine is not bred!"

"Hmm..." Inger felt that he was very patient, after all, he didn't reach out to punch him.

"Some time ago, it was said that someone saw a mermaid in the ocean holding a pearl king. I don't know if it's true, but it was said to be a blue pearl as tall as a person. The lord was looking for it everywhere, but he couldn't find it. The mermaid hid it very well. That was a blue pearl! It is said that it only appeared once thousands of years ago. There was an unknown amount of Morelia condensed in it."

Inger immediately thought of the magic stone.

Ordinary pearls do not contain magic power, but blue pearls do.

He thought of the phoenix flower in his suitcase.

Is there any induction between the two materials?

Putting this idiotic thought behind him, he was caught off guard by a loud noise.

“Bang bang bang bang!!”

The loud noise continued and the ground shook.

The vendor was so scared that he fell to the ground, "What happened?!"

Inger quickly stood up and dropped the pearl oyster in his hand.

The peddler even shouted, "Sir! Your pearls haven't been opened yet?!"

Inger turned around and smiled: "I don't play games of probability." Then he ran towards the source of the loud noise without hesitation.

The loud noise came from a beach.

The first thing Inger thought of was that Alex was fighting with someone. Only a fight between a knight of his level could make such a noise.

But as he passed through a few alleys, he smelled an unbearable stench.

He couldn't help but stop and cast a magic shield on himself before continuing to run forward.

Push aside the trees and the beach opens up before your eyes.

"pound!"

The first thing that greeted him was a loud explosion and the screams of the people on the beach.

A huge piece of meat hit the top of the stall, crushing everyone and everything inside.

Inger gasped at the sight before him.

The white-gold beach was covered with blood, minced meat, and broken bones, and dirty fat bloomed like spring flowers, so gorgeous that it was disgusting.

Many people were bathed in the foul-smelling black and red blood, tumbling and crawling to escape from the culprit.

Those who were a little further away were lying on the ground vomiting, their legs too weak to stand up.

At this moment, a golden shadow came flying and stopped beside him.

"Ying! Are you okay?!"

Alex looked Inger up and down, and Inger looked back at him.

After confirming that everything was alright, the two looked towards the sea.

“Aa ...

"pound----!"

The explosion went up into the sky.

A real bloody storm fell from overhead with the explosion.

Inger gritted his teeth, suppressed his disgust, and took out his wand.

"It's a whale explosion."

Alex didn't have time to ask what a whale explosion was. He drew his sword and said, "I'm going to save people."

Inger cast a magic shield on him and said, "I'll go deal with the whale carcass."

Eric raised his sword and shouted, "Everyone! Anyone who can move, run! Stay away from that whale carcass!"

"Bang bang bang!" Explosions continued.

“Ahhhhhhhhhhh!” As if in response to him, the crowd started to riot again.

After saying this, Alex disappeared from his body like a golden thread, extending towards the people closest to the whale's body.

He carried several people on his shoulders and immediately evacuated the dangerous area. He repeated the process rapidly and saved more than a dozen people in just a few blinks of an eye.

Inger used levitation magic to fly into the sky.

He lowered his wand and pointed it at the whale, and a large teleportation circle was outlined above the whale.

Inger had never teleported such a large object before, and it took him much longer to construct the magic circle than it did to teleport a person.

He looked down at the whale carcass below and became more and more horrified.

He had seen images of stranded whales in documentaries, and they were already large enough, but the one he saw now was more than three times larger than the largest whale he had ever seen.

And this whale looks very strange.

The overall shape is similar to that of a sperm whale, and there is a nearly ten-meter-long white straight horn on the top of its head. On its black skin covered with vines, you can actually see spiral hard scales, and under the white stripes, there are countless black and purple crystals embedded in its abdomen.

It doesn't look like an ordinary whale, but it doesn't look like a magical creature in the broad sense either. It looks like a mess of things mixed together in a mass of whale meat.

The huge red vertical pupils were facing the sky, as if they could still emit substantial violent murderous aura.

After a moment, the magic circle was completed.

After the surrounding crowd was dispersed to a safe distance, the magic circle sank, and brilliant golden light swallowed up the whale corpse.

At the same time, an equally huge magic circle emerged above the sea level a little further away.

With a loud bang and a huge wave crashing onto the shore, the whale's body slowly sank to the bottom of the sea.

The waves that crept ashore carried away some of the flesh, but most of it remained.

The once bustling beach is now in ruins.

“Oooooohhhhhhhhhh!!”

People escaped death and cried and cheered with joy.

A small wave appeared on the sea level, revealing half a human head. The pair of aquamarine eyes stared straight in the direction where Inger disappeared.

Inger put the hood of his cloak on his head and tapped his feet in the air. Although he had no foothold, it was as if he was standing on a transparent wall. With the reaction force, he flew far away, rushed in a straight line, and soon disappeared from everyone's sight.

Alex didn't have time to wipe the blood off his body. He tore off a piece of torn canvas and covered himself with it, then hurriedly ran in the direction of Inger.