The Almighty Ring

“Ah Fei, I understand that there are different paths for you to follow. Even though we do not understand the world of superheroes, I want you to understand,” said Jiang Fei’s father as he reached out his hand and patted Jiang Fei on his shoulder. “We will always be by your side.”

Jiang Fei mother sat just next to him. Tears start to roll down her cheeks as she mustered her strength to ask, “When will you be going?”

Jiang Fei could not move. He felt a pang of tremendous guilt when he saw his mother crying. A son’s greatest sin was to make his mother cry. However, it would be a greater sin if he allowed his parents to get into trouble. For better or worse, he had to become stronger.

“I… Tomorrow,” replied Jiang Fei as he immediately changed his mind on the spot. Initially, he wanted to leave right there and then but after seeing his mother, he had to stay for one more day to accompany his parents.

“Don’t be like that. Our son has grown up. He understands the world better than us now. Besides, it’s not like he’s leaving us for good!” said Jiang Fei’s father as he held his mother closer to him.

“That’s right. I’m only leaving for a short while. It would take at least a week. Even at most, a month, tops!” said Jiang Fei.

“Is it dangerous?” asked his mother.

“I assure you that it is not. I’m only going to my master’s place to seek for more guidance. Remember the times when I didn’t come back for the day? That was where I went,” said Jiang Fei. He understood better than anyone that searching for the ship’s fragments would invite unknown danger. However, he could not tell his parents about the alien origin. Let them know about the Metahumans and leave the alien stuff out.

“Hm. As long as you understand how to behave,” said the father. Jiang Fei’s parents immediately recalled that Jiang Fei had always said something about competition. Only then, they realized that it was a lie. Knowing that, the mother calmed down.

“Alright son, since you’re going off tomorrow. Let us buy some good stuff. I’ll make us a luxurious dinner that no restaurant could ever cook!” cried the mother. She knew that if she dwelled on the topic any longer, she would end up crying even harder than before. Might as well just let it go and accept the fact that her son was all grown up and that it was time for him to leave the nest.

“Okay!” Jiang Fei nodded. Even so, it was only his mother that left the house to buy the cooking ingredients.

“I may not know much about kung fu or karate but I’ll leave you with just one advice. If others think one step ahead, you think twelve steps ahead!” said the father.

“I understand. But twelve steps might be too much for me… Hahaha…” Jiang Fei laughed.

That night, Jiang Fei’s mother had indeed prepared a variety of dishes that Jiang Fei loved.

“Here! Have some of these lobsters! You used to sulk whenever papa took the rest!”

“Haha! Here son, I’m sure you could finish this entire lobster by yourself. Do you remember how to remove the shell?”

…

Jiang Fei was happy during dinner time. He remembered everything his mother had just mentioned. When he was slightly younger, his mother rarely cooked lobster for dinner and when she did, it would only be one or two pieces. His father would finish them up before he could even finish peeling the shells of the claw!

Jiang Fei’s mother had barely eaten any of the dishes she cooked. She was so busy bringing up past memories as well as putting pieces after pieces of food onto Jiang Fei’s plate.

After dinner, Jiang Fei chatted with his parents until it was 11 pm. They were talking about how certain kung fu were real and others were fake. Naturally, Jiang Fei could only answer half of them since his knowledge about martial arts was not as broad as the other masters in the alliance.

“It’s getting late. You best get some sleep. It’s a big day for you tomorrow,” said the father.

“Yeah. Well, technically it is only the norm for me. I’d be practicing some martial skills with my master. That’s all,” said Jiang Fei reassured his parents to lessen their worries.

After that, he took a quick bath and got to bed.

“0541, is there a target yet?”

“Negative. Currently, there are not targets found that are worthy to explore,” 0541 reported. The energy power left in the ring was scarce. 0541 had to limit the search radius by a drastic amount. It would be possible for it to search the entire world but it would instantly empty the power cache of the ring. Jiang Fei would need to search far and wide and when a ship fragment was close by, 0541 could immediately detect it.

“Let’s leave it at that.”

Jiang Fei let himself fall onto his bed and closed his eyes.

“You’re late… AGAIN!” cried Isabella as she pouted.

“Ops…” Jiang Fei laughed it off.

“Oh well. Nothing I can do about it. In the end, it’s your world,” said Isabella as she sighed heavily.

Jiang Fei sighed as well and changed the topic.

“Let’s kill some Sea Serpents today, shall we?”

“Okay,” said Isabella solemnly.

When he logged out the previous day, Jiang Fei had just bought 200 Underwater Breathing Potions form the NPC merchant. He now had no Rainbow Shells left in his inventory.

“Let’s go,” said Jiang Fei as he handed one bottle to Isabella. Jiang Fei was not the only one who could not breathe underwater, even though she was considered as an NPC, she too required the potion to breathe underwater.

Once both of them had taken the potion, Jiang Fei and Isabella dived into the sea and swam toward the territory of the Sea Serpents.

The Mutated Sea Serpents were normal monsters. All of them were Level 65 normal tier monsters that had only taken at most five seconds to kill them. Unfortunately for Jiang Fei, these Sea Serpents were not gathered together. Instead, they swam around alone. Even though killing each of them was fast, Jiang Fei was still taking too much time since he had to swim to another place to kill another.

The worst part of the hunt was the drop rate. Even with super high Luck, Jiang Fei had only acquired one nerve strands after killing more than twenty of the Mutated Sea Serpents. To gather 1,000 Sea Serpent’s Nerves would take a really long time…

Jiang Fei and Isabella had been killing for more than four hours in the sea and had only managed to gather around a hundred nerve strands. The reason behind such poor efficiency was because most of their time spent was on swimming to the next target. Although the monsters were instantly killed on sight, it took some time for them to swim to another monster.

It was lucky that Jiang Fei had prepared 200 bottles of Underwater Breathing Potions. Or else, they would have much lower killing efficiency! Without the potion, Jiang Fei might only be able to hold his breath for so long. Every few seconds, he would have to surface to catch his breath, resulting in slower speed. As such, a few days might really be the minimum duration for him to complete the quest.

Just as Jiang Fei and Isabella were talking about random topics, Gulu was seen approaching them.

“What’s up?” Jiang Fei asked.

“Explorer! You’re here! I’ve finally found you! Please follow me back! There’s trouble!” said Gulu. Ever since Jiang Fei had gained more reputation, he had gained a Friendly status to all the Fishmen tribe. As such, the Cowardly Gulu was no longer afraid to talk to Jiang Fei with his weapons held out.

“What’s going on?”

“There’s trouble! Trouble there is! Please come with me! With me!” cried the Cowardly Gulu as he waved his fins and swam around.

“Seems like it’s a huge trouble. Perhaps it’s time for us to have a small break from hunting the serpents!” said Jiang Fei. He had already gotten so bored there.

“Very well,” said Isabella. She too was feeling extremely dull as killing the Mutated Sea Serpents was not even challenging.

Jiang Fei did not follow Gulu directly. Instead, he swam toward the snake-shaped island and summoned the Skygliding Dragon. It was much faster to travel by air than swimming in the sea.

In no time at all, Jiang Fei had returned to the Tidehunter Tribe’s village.

“Explorer! You’ve arrived! Please do something! You must save her! Save her you must!” cried Gulu as well as the other Fishmen that were present then. Everyone was shouting the same phrase over and over again.