Translator: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio
Xihai Lake was located in the Xihai province of the Huaxia region.
It was also the largest saltwater lake in the area. Surrounded by Mount Datong, Mount Riyue, and Mount South Xihai, the lake was located in the vicinity of Qingtang City, a strategically positioned city in the northwest of the Huaxia region.
Gao Peng knew all of this. He also knew that a certain type of carp had lived in the lake before the Cataclysm.
After the Cataclysm, the fish had rapidly multiplied until they became the dominant inhabitants of the lake.
The fish had gradually evolved into other subspecies, such as amphibious carp, winged carp, purple-backed carp, and giant carp.
All these different types of carp had been in a constant struggle to prove that their own way of evolving was superior to the others.
The Forbidden Magic Stone was one of the ingredients required to allow the Adamantine Duck to reach Legendary status and evolve into a Forbidden Adamantine Duck.
Though all the other ingredients required for the Adamantine Duck’s evolution were rare, they could be found at the market. The Forbidden Magic Stone was especially difficult to find. However, it seemed that luck was on Gao Peng’s side.
All kinds of Forbidden Magic Stones existed. In theory, all of the existing elements could have been contained in them.
A Forbidden Magic Stone of a certain element would repel other substances of the same element, as well as other elements, to a certain extent.
He had to have it!
Gao Peng licked his lips. Once it reached Legendary grade, the Adamantine Duck would be able to awaken a second monster effect.
Just then, the telephone rang. It was his grandfather.
“Is that the ingredient you needed?”
“Ah, yes it is. Thanks, grandpa,” said Gao Peng, nodding.
“That’s great. I’ll send someone to retrieve it for you. You just stay at home,” said his grandfather, before ending the call.
At that moment, Gao Peng felt somewhat uncomfortable.
Shouldn’t he have been the one out there fighting a battle of wits and brawn with the dangerous monsters in the wild in order to obtain his prize?
Sometimes, Gao Peng also had to be wary of others who sought the same things as him. If he wasn’t careful enough, he could incur the wrath of a lot of people.
So why was he so excited about this?
…
Thousands of people had gathered beside Xihai Lake in uneven groups. The largest group had more than ten people, while the smallest ones only had two to three people.
Xihai Lake was extremely wide. Before the Cataclysm, it had been around 1,700 square miles wide, which was twice the size of Lake Tai.
After the Cataclysm, Xihai Lake’s surface area had expanded drastically. It was now almost as big as an ocean.
Ripples appeared on the blue-green surface of the lake as a soft breeze blew across it. A faint salty smell wafted from it.
“Chen Laoer? Aren’t you in the pharmacy business? What are you doing here?” said a red-haired woman standing beside the lake. Clad in a leather jacket, she was calmly smoking a cigarette while a smile played on her lips, her eyes squeezed together into long slits.
“Save it,” said a man not far away who simply waved a hand at her. He was a lanky man with short hair and a faint moustache. “Everyone here’s thinking the same thing. Let’s not waste each other’s time.”
The red-haired woman chuckled and casually threw her cigarette to the ground, then stepped on it with the heel of her high-heeled shoe.
“Everyone should be here by now,” she said. A huge truck had stopped at the side of the road, a couple of men jumping out of it. One of them, likely the group’s leader, was wearing a black short-sleeve shirt. There was a dragon tattoo on his arm that spread to the base of his ear. The man was called Gao Heng, and he was the head of the Blackgate Group’s sales division and the representative of the group as a whole.
“The Blackgate Group will be buying the object that has riled up the fish in Xihai Lake for three hundred million Alliance dollars and three Commander-tier Monster Core Crystals. Anyone who can get it out of the lake will be compensated for his or her efforts on the spot,” said Gao Heng coolly.
Everyone’s eyes lit up when they heard what he had just said.
There was no doubt in anyone’s mind at that moment that whatever had upset the fish in the lake was a prize worth killing over.
However, without knowing what it could be used for, the object in question was just as worthless as any other pebble at the bottom of the lake, especially to those who had gathered at the lakeside that didn’t own laboratories.
Three hundred million Alliance dollars and three Commander-tier Monster Core Crystals was an astronomical figure to these nobodies.
This was an extremely profitable deal for the Blackgate Group, as they only needed to pay a huge sum of money in order to retrieve a rare and valuable object from the lake.
Also, seeing that the object had been found near Qingtang City, where the Blackgate Group was based, they just had to have it.
To the northeast of Xihai lake, huge waves bulged out from the surface. One could see large fish-like silhouettes swimming about in the lake.
“My god, just how many of these things are in there?” said one of the monster trainers, who was staring at the black swirling mass in the water from the deck of a boat.
“There’s a carp infestation in the lake!” said someone beside him. They had always known that lots of carp lived in Xihai Lake. They had just never known how bad the carp infestation was until then.
Dark shadows surged in the water, darkening the entire lake. At times, a massive carp would leap out of the water and rock the boat back and forth before diving back into the lake with a huge splash.
“Forget it, let’s turn back. Even if we might be able to pull the prize out from the bottom of the lake, we might not make it out alive… The only way we could do this is with a flying-type familiar.”
“I don’t think a flying-type familiar will be of much use,” said one of the trainers calmly. He then pointed at Mount Riyue in the distance.
There were two mountain peaks on Mount Riyue. The left peak symbolized Yin, while the right peak represented Yang.
Mount Riyue was actually a mountain pass into Tibet. It was also known by other names, such as “the folding screen of Xihai” and “the gates into the grass plains.” It was situated between the Huangtu and Tibetan Plateaus, where the border between the monsoon and non-monsoon regions lay. A pastoral zone lay on one side the mountain pass, while an agricultural area lay on the other.
The mountain, which had acquired many names over the years, had gained an even more profound air of mystery after the Cataclysm.
Suddenly, a flock of black-feathered birds swooped down from Mount Riyue. The bird in the front was as big as a passenger plane. The front end of its wings was white, while the other end was black. Its eyes were a shade of golden red.
“It’s the Golden Goose King of Mount Riyue!” shouted someone on the boat, immediately recognizing the huge bird. “Let’s just get the hell out of here. I’m not risking my neck, even for three hundred million dollars.”
