Chapter 70: Water

Centipede Cavern was located across a terrain that was generally underlain by limestone. It was in the belly of the mountain, where everything was completely made of rocks. The interior of the cavern was vast. There were also jagged rocks of grotesque shapes all over the place. However, nothing about the cavern’s surroundings looked messy. Looking up, there were ten tunnels, and each of them had a width of approximately two meters. These tunnels were obviously formed from the movements of some sort of creature similar to a giant serpent. It had dug through the rocks, leaving trails and tunnels behind. It seemed that the friction between the surface of the creature’s skin and the surface of the rock had left the surface of the walls strangely smooth and symmetrical. At first glance, the well-polished tunnels actually seemed more man-made.

The height of the tunnels appeared uneven, yet they were all interconnected. Each tunnel faced other tunnels of different sizes within the interior of Centipede Cavern.

After seeing all this, Qin Ruo’s mind was thronged with thoughts of giant centipedes crawling slowly along the tunnels’ surfaces. He knew that he had to stomach the thought of it, and he did. He currently understood why those people wanted to recruit so many Bandits to search Centipede Cavern for what they desired.

The cavern with each of its tunnels interconnected to each other was certainly not going to be very shallow. Seven Bandits may not have been capable of exploring every single corner of the cavern in such a short amount of time.

After cautiously scanning through the situation in the cavern’s surroundings, the seven Bandits who entered the cavern much earlier than Qin Ruo vanished without a trace. They had probably gone deep into the cavern to look for the Black Dragonfly Herb by then…

The only one to remain was the Bandit, who was currently picking up the high-tier Herbs without doing anything else. Qin Ruo concluded that the Bandit had to be the person responsible for receiving the coordinates of the other seven Bandits, who went ahead into the cavern. After receiving a voice message from any one of those Bandits, this Bandit would hurry over to the coordinates of the discovered Herbs to gather them—if two Bandits could cooperate like that, gathering herbs would become a rather simpler task.

The Bandits could wait, but Qin Ruo could not afford to wait that long. After noticing his remaining MP, he frowned intensely.

In just two minutes, Qin Ruo’s Aquamorph had already consumed a bottle of MP Potion (M). If he continued to stay there and allowed his skill to consume his MP, God knows how much money he would need to burn in order to maintain his current condition… It seemed wiser for him to find a safe cave and observe the situation from there for a while.

He could experiment and see how Tier 4 monsters reacted to his presence when he activated his Aquamorph. In the meantime, he could also explore the unfamiliar area, which he had never set foot on before. Perhaps he would even get a chance to locate some Black Dragonfly Herbs or even some of those high-tier herbs, which the rest were looking for.

While the Bandit still remained in the same spot, occupied with his task at hand, Qin Ruo cautiously took a glance of the cavern’s entire surroundings. He slowly revealed a joyful expression on his face.

Fortunately, even though Centipede Cavern was filled with tough rocks, the Centipedes were naturally fond of cold, humid environments. Not only was the humidity of the cavern high, but even the surfaces of the surrounding rocks and rocks beneath his feet were also marked with a lot of wet traces. There were a lot of water droplets dripping down all around the caves too.

This was another area that could provide advantages to Aquamancers!

After he had this simple thought in mind, Qin Ruo picked the cave in the middlemost of all. He sneaked around the Bandit and went over to the cave he picked to hide.

***

Although the entrance to the cave was not large, the passage inside the cave was very spacious. It was enough to fit seven to eight people walking forward side by side. The only downside about it was that the cave was dark. There was no sign of any Illumination Crystals in the cave’s surroundings to act as a guideline in the dark. One could only see anything less than twenty meters away. It was obvious that using an Illumination Crystal would not be a wise idea. He would expose his presence to the other Bandits who had already gone ahead into the cavern. It would also defeat his original purpose of being there if he ever did that.

Fortunately for him, Qin Ruo had heard some basic information regarding the monsters in Centipede Cavern while he was outside of Death Valley. He knew that those creatures were extremely sensitive to light. He also knew that those creatures would create a very unique sound whenever they moved. It was really simple for him to identify their presence. He did not have to worry about suddenly walking through the dark and into the mouths of a giant centipede.

As he walked along the passage, which was covered in darkness and dead silence, the only sound Qin Ruo could hear was the sound of his own heartbeat, nothing else.

Qin Ruo continued down the path as he moved deeper into the passage. He could also clearly feel his body absorbing the humidity in the air at a rapid pace. Or perhaps, the humidity in the air was fusing with his body. The marvelous sensation felt exactly like that sensation he first felt back in the third floor of the Ruins. No, perhaps this felt even more marvelous than that…

Relying on the abundant moisture in the passage, Qin Ruo could feel his body gradually changing and his sense of thought drifting along with the Water element that was scattered across the air. The range of his “vision” seemed to be radiating farther out. It had increased from twenty meters to more than fifty meters, and it was still increasing!

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That sudden change brought an instant surprise and joy to Qin Ruo.

It was not an illusion!

He was very sure that he could clearly see every inch of detail on the surface of the rocks and every drop of water that was dripping more than fifty meters around him in the cave.

What the hell is going on?

As he felt pleased and joyful, Qin Ruo halted his footsteps in excitement. However, the quiet atmosphere in the cave was also broken…

Everything turned black in an instant!

It felt like his field of vision was suddenly covered by a thick black curtain. Everything then seemingly returned to the way it was. Qin Ruo instantly felt an unusual feeling of emptiness, loss, and frustration stuck in his chest.

Why did everything vanish all of a sudden?

Qin Ruo did a quick check on his status bar as he found nothing there.

He was left with no other option than to calm himself down first. After he tried his best to calm down, he continued to proceed forward. Qin Ruo began to feel what he felt a moment ago: the sensation of fusing… His field of vision had once again spread farther into his surroundings…

It appeared that it had something to do with his state of mind.

Qin Ruo kept himself on his toes as he quickly checked on his Attribute Status. He could only see a status called “Elemental Perception: Water” right behind his name. There was also an additional description along with the back of the status.

Advanced Aquamancer Ability activated—There is a certain rate required to trigger this status when a player enters an area filled with the Water element and has Aquamorph activated. Player’s Elemental Perception will spread and all invisible targets within the effective range will be detected…

After seeing the introduction on the status’ property, Qin Ruo was instantly overwhelmed with joy!

Sure enough, his decision to select the Tier 2 Aquamorph had subsequently allowed him to touch the threshold of an Advanced Aquamancer Skill.

The ability to condense water into ice was deemed to be some sort of beginner ability to control the Water element. It was supposedly just like any ordinary, simple command to attack and defend.

From his own experience, knowing how complicated it could be to control the Water element, creating the Frostweb skill called the Twelve Frostramparts Formation and a couple of other skills was only considered intermediate. Although he did not have much knowledge of advanced abilities to control the Water element, Qin Ruo was able to have a little understanding of it. At least he had acquired the ability to detect Stealth Units in his surroundings through as the Water element entered and fused into his body. That was indeed a very good attribute to receive.

Although he could only use that attribute in certain areas under certain circumstances, Qin Ruo remained positive that he would be able to understand more about it, provided that he could continue to explore the skill and its attribute. He believed that he would definitely be able to develop all abilities of an Aquamancer in a better way after that.

After getting slightly worked up, Qin Ruo remained sensible as he quickly calmed himself down. From then on, he did not deactivate the Elemental Perception: Water anymore…

He slowly familiarized himself with that status until he could feel his senses reach the maximum distance they could reach. Qin Ruo threw all caution to the wind as he gently grabbed onto a Frostsoul (item). He walked deeper into the dark passage, proud and full of confidence.