Book 1: Chapter 57

Aqua Fortunately he can’t follow me to Oceana thanks to the System. So once I finish the first recording session for the music video, I immediately beat a hasty retreat to my body. Then I head out of the city towards one of those broken dungeons we passed by before. Because it’s time I start hunting again for the first time in a while. So I head for that massive underwater castle that I saw just floating there. Finding it without any real trouble thanks to its size. And, well, it’s a massive castle. Floating in the middle of the ocean. It’s hard to miss. While I’m swimming the rest of the way towards it though, my mind can’t help but wander. Specifically towards my parents, who apparently never abandoned me. From what I’ve been told, I was born in the Abyss. The exact details are apparently rather murky, but an emergency happened down there that forced my parents to send me up to the surface with a friend. But that friend ended up injured while he was escaping with me, and he died to that injury after finally bringing me out of the Abyss. Then I was just lost after that. Only to be eventually found living on the streets on Equeter. Which doesn’t make much sense since Equeter is nowhere near the Abyss. So there are a lot of holes in the explanation. But one thing is for sure from it. My parents didn’t abandon me. A faint smile spreads across my face at that thought. This entire time I just assumed I was abandoned. That no one wanted me when I was born so I was just thrown out. I guess good things can come from terrible events sometimes. Although, the parents I do apparently have are missing in the Abyss. So not entirely good. I narrow my eyes as I think about that, wondering if the Krakens will ever find them. Then I just shake my head. None of that is the priority right now. My priority is to survive. I can worry about other people when I do that. So I focus on my present situation as I arrive right at a balcony of the sunken castle. The castle itself is completely undamaged. Which is bizarre in its own right if it weren’t for the fact that I know broken dungeons can’t actually get damaged. It’s like they’re set in stone in reality. The physical objects in them at least. Not the monsters. There’s a good chance the monsters that were once inside this place are already dead and have been replaced by undersea monsters. After all, Gates are rather finicky things. They can only spawn in open air, open space. And while they do tend to base their interior on the exterior of the place around the Gate, that’s only part of it. And sometimes they ignore that. What I’m guessing happened for this castle is that the Gate appeared in some random air pocket down in the water before eventually breaking. Throwing out the main castle of the dungeon here. And there’s a good chance this dungeon was supposed to be some sort of island with a castle on it surrounded by water or something. Making them include aquatic monsters but not make them the focus. There aren’t many aquatic dungeon monsters after all. So the Gates seem to prioritize land monsters. I frown at that thought before going inside the castle through the balcony. Only to find some sort of bedroom. But the room itself is largely empty of monsters. Other than a couple starfish. Unauthorized reproduction: this story has been taken without approval. Report sightings. The starfish are only level twenty though, so I slaughter them before moving on to the hallway outside of the bedroom while glancing at the chat. [YEEEEES! SHE’S BACK TO HUNTING!] [UNDERWATER HUNTING LET’S GOOOOO!] [#MINERAQUAHUNTS] Yeah, no thanks to that last one. Anyway, what I find in the hallway is a little surprising. I blink at the sight of dozens of piranhas just swimming around the hallway. All of whom are level twenty-four or twenty-five. Huh. Right. [That’s a lot of piranhas.] [Piranha hallway?] [It’s so weird to see a medieval castle full of piranhas...] The piranhas all notice me at once. Almost like they have some sort of hive mind or something. Then they rush straight at me, making me instinctively activate Pressure of the Abyss. Making the water around me instantly darken, with the piranhas who enter that darkened water slowing to a mere crawl instantly. All while the piranhas behind them begin to tackle them due to the sudden speed drop, only to have their speed dropped as well. In the end I see all the piranhas just crashing into each other. Huh. Convenient. Without any hesitation, I activate Abyssal Kraken’s Embrace several times to summon several tentacles around them. Then I wrap all the tentacles around the sluggishly moving piranhas and begin to crush them all against each other. Making a massive flood of System Messages appear in my vision in the process. One after another. But all in just a few seconds as the monsters are all crushed into a large ball of about three dozen piranhas smashed together into a ball of paste and scales. Which is disgusting, so I make sure to pass by the ball while deactivating Pressure of the Abyss and continuing on down the hallway. With a single System Message lingering in my vision that has me feeling a lot happier than I was earlier. [Congratulations! You have now reached level 30! As the current First Ranker of Oceana, your total free points have increased by three, and your mana stat has increased by ten. Allocate the free points whenever you please. Additionally, you have now unlocked your sixth skill.] So when I get all the way down the hall and enter a room in the hall, finding just a couple strange fish in the room that are a couple levels above the piranhas, I slaughter the two fish and settle down in the room. Then I open my status and check out my skills. [REQUESTING SKILLS: USER AQUA ORCAYNE] [6 SKILLS RETRIEVED] [MORE THAN THREE SKILLS DETECTED] [ALL SKILLS CONDENSED] [Skill 1: Abyssal Kraken’s Embrace] [Skill 2: Hydrokinetic Wrath] [Skill 3: Call of the Abyss] [Skill 4: Abyssal Kraken’s Partial Shift] [Skill 5: Pressure of the Abyss] [Skill 6: Abyssal Reversal] [Description: Abyssal Reversal allows the user to send out a pulse of abyssal energy that temporarily corrupts the bodies of all it hits, causing them to be affected by the status Abyssal Reversal. All those under this status effect have all their actions reversed. However, the effect of this skill may be blocked fully or partially if the target has a strong mental resistance or a large advantage in levels over the user. Additionally, unless a target is far beneath your level, they will often instinctively realize what the effect does within a few seconds of being under its effects.] [Cost: Abyssal Reversal costs 20 mana to use.] [Cooldown: Abyssal Reversal has no cooldown.] [END SKILLS] Oh. Huh. That’s technically a mental skill. I wasn’t expecting that. Then again, I believe Abyssal Orcas are known for having mental skills related to the abyss. So it looks like it’s something from the orca side. If what I’m understanding about this skill is correct, that means I should be able to reverse everything something is going to do. So moving forwards will make them move backwards, attacking forwards will make them attack backwards, and even using a skill will be reversed somehow. It’s just too bad the skill costs so much mana to use. Even if it’s an area of effect skill that targets everything around me. Actually, does this thing have friendly fire? Huh. That’s not good. Does that mean I’ll be reversing my allies actions too if I use it in a group? Hmm. I’ll have to experiment with this a bit. So with that thought in mind, I head towards the next room of the castle connected to this hallway. Just to find a shiver of five sharks in it, all of whom are swimming around without a care until they notice me. Then, right when they begin swimming towards me, I activate my new skill. Sending out some thin pulse of deep blue light tinted with a slight purple color. A common color for mental skills. And when it hits the sharks, they begin to have a faint deep bluish purple glow to them as they suddenly begin moving backwards. Huh. I didn’t realize that was even possible.