Mira, Maria, and Celaine started back on their journey after that little detour in the Mermaid City.
After getting back out to sea, the 3 of them were slightly tempted to try cultivating the Water Body Transformation technique, but the thought of imploding made them stop.
They also became slightly depressed after entering back into the ocean as it was pitch black, they can't breathe like normal, they are constantly being watched and attacked, and it's highly unlikely that they'll find something good in this situation.
They decided to swim up to the surface to regain their bearings after staying in the Mermaid City for a few weeks.
After making sure they are heading in the right direction, the 3 of them went back underwater. The thought of finding an ocean treasure was too great as that's pretty much the whole point of being here and they probably still have at least a few weeks worth of swimming before they reach their next destination. It would be a waste to only stay above the water during this time.
Luckily, they had the gifts that Coralia provided them which made underwater travel a bit easier plus the dresses supplied considerable defense.
Mira also pulled out the trident when she was underwater as it seemed like it wasn't affected by the water at all. Her handling of the weapon is very poor, but it doesn't really matter as all she needs to do is stab things with it.
Like this, the three of them continued their journey in the water until they reached their next destination.
***
Not much has happened during Mira's journey through the ocean. They fought aquatic beasts and swam, that's pretty much it.
Their underwater skills have stagnated as there is only so much they can do with their current strength and constitution. Well, except for Celaine, who was able to traverse the sea like it's her home.
Their boring life of underwater travel abruptly changed when the scene in front of them switched from almost pitch-black to having some light. Well, there may be light, but its radiance is almost nothing. If a candle were to be lit underwater and the fire didn't go out, that's the amount of light radiating from the area in front of them.
It's just that the number of these dim lights is rather significant, probably a few dozen.
Mira's group has encountered enough aquatic beasts with lights as bait to understand that this is most likely not the case. Those beasts' light is much brighter than this.
As they got closer, they were able to see a small army of clams! And the things that were giving off light were the pearls inside of the clams!
Obviously, they can't just leave these precious pearls laying around in such a dangerous ocean, so 'reluctantly' they decided to shoulder the burden of handling these pearls. The only question now was how?
Are these clams dangerous? Is there something looking out for these clams? Are these pearls just bait to lure them in? What can these pearls even be used for?
These thoughts ran through Mira's mind as she did her best to remember any type of shellfish she has run into in the past.
Generally speaking, clams are not dangerous and they don't even have a brain to process information. From what she understood, clams do have a sense of touch, but it's more reactionary and it's only inside their shell that they can feel.
The only problem is that these are clearly not normal clams since they are about the size of two adult men and the pearls are bigger than the size of a fist.
These clams aren't giving off any kind of cultivation so she can safely assume that they aren't some rare magical beast. But Mira can guess that their shells are probably abnormally hard if they can live in the sea.
If they were to close their 'mouths' it may be incredibly hard to break their shells to get the pearls from inside. She would probably be able to break it if they were on land, but right now they are in the middle of the ocean, and even if they brought them up to the surface there is no land in sight.
Mira also had other worries like how did the clams even end up here, but right now she only had questions that were nearly impossible for the current her to answer.
'I'm tired of swimming through this goddam ocean and finding absolutely nothing! Even if these pearls turn out to be useless, I don't care!' Mira thought to herself.
She gestured towards Celaine to get ready and for Maria to stay on the lookout for any dangers lurking.
Maria wouldn't be much help in this operation anyways while Celaine can actually swim much faster than Mira can so she'll definitely be able to help retrieve these pearls.
After a bit of gesturing, the two of them came up with a plan. They were going to split up to try and gather as many pearls as they possibly can. Mira is going to use her scythe to scoop up pearls while holding the trident to make sure their mouths don't close on her weapon. While Celaine is just going to speed by them and take as many as she can in one fell swoop.
3… 2… 1… Go!
The two of them darted off as Maria swam around to check the surroundings.
Celaine swam as fast as she could and in just a few seconds, picked up her first pearl. Barely half a second after she grabbed the pearl and swam off, the clam shut its 'mouth'. She didn't even bother to looks back and just kept swimming with all of her might.
Mira wasn't quite as fast as she had to use her Qi to try and dull her scythe while also making sure she didn't break the pearl while scooping it up. This was tricky as she barely had a fraction of a second to scoop up the pearl, but thanks to Mira's quick reflexes and control over her strength, she was able to scoop out her first pearl.
Almost as soon as the pearl left the clam's mouth, it closed.
During this time, Celaine was able to gather 3 pearls while Mira only managed to get 1.
This continued on for a few minutes until the number of pearls gathered reached 30, but after this, the rest of the clams shut their mouths.
They tried breaking their shells, but as Mira thought, they were extremely durable. They could break them if they spent some time sitting there cracking them and they were actually planning on doing that, but it seemed they had run out of luck.
Maria came frantically swimming back with a scared look on her face. All she did was point behind them and keep on swimming.
Mira and Celaine hurriedly stored the pearls and looked behind them. They saw a massive dolphin-looking creature charging towards them with red eyes. Clearly, it was pissed!
It was in the Core Formation Realm, and not a weak one either. Mira couldn't tell exactly what stage it was at, but it was at least Stage 4 or 5 in the Core Formation Realm.
The two of them immediately started to flee as they didn't want to get caught up against that thing.
The two of them started swimming faster than they ever have before, but Celaine was clearly much faster than Mira.
The dolphin was also incredibly fast as it was a creature that was actually born to live in the ocean.
Mira could feel it right behind her and knew that she was in trouble. This fucking dolphin was just way too fast for her.
But she's not going to just roll over and die either. The dolphin's mouth was closing in on her legs and opened wide like it was about to take a chomp out of her.
Mira didn't try moving her legs out of the way as she knew it was impossible, but she did surround her foot in ice spikes that had a bit of Yin Magma in them.
The dolphin tried taking off Mira's foot as an appetizer, but as Mira's foot was in its mouth it didn't realize that it was surrounded by spikes.
It bit down and felt a chunk of something in its mouth along with delicious-tasting blood. It saw Mira still swimming away while leaving a trail of blood behind and knew that it was only a matter of time.
It kept chasing after Mira while munching on what it thought was Mira's foot, but the dolphin soon realized that there was also pain in its mouth and wondered what it might be. What it felt was not only its tongue starting to break down due to the traces of Yin Magma, but there were also small wounds from the ice spikes that impaled the inside of its mouth.
The dolphin grew confused and knew that the only thing that could do this was its prey that it had just taken a bite out of. Soon, the dolphin became enraged and swam after Mira much quicker than before.
Mira was doing all she could to try and create as much distance as she can while also heading up to the surface. Her leg was all bloody and mangled from the dolphin trying to take a bite out of her, but at least she kept her foot.
It didn't take long for the dolphin to come ramming into her side, breaking several ribs, rupturing some internal organs, and even broke her arm as well.
The dolphin went to try and take another bite out of Mira's broken arm. This time, Mira didn't try the same trick as before and instead took out her scythe.
As soon as the dolphin bit down to take a piece out of Mira's arm, she exchanged places with her scythe so that when the dolphin bit down, it didn't take her arm but landed on her scythe.
As soon as the dolphin bit down onto the scythe, it felt like its teeth might shatter, but that wasn't all. Mira used this time to strike back as she had plunged her trident into one of the dolphin's eye before taking it back and darting off. She didn't have to worry about her scythe as all she has to do is just summon it back.
Like that, she now has both of her weapons back and was now gaining distance on the dolphin.
She also spotted the surface of the water as well as Maria and Celaine. It seemed the two of them had the same idea to go to the surface as well.
The dolphin was now screeching in pain, not only because of its teeth but also from having its eye stabbed. It had lost its focus on Mira for a few seconds so she was able to gain a considerable amount of distance before it actually started to charge at her again.
Before long, Mira was about to reach the surface, but it seemed the dolphin was done playing around. It swam back after her, but not quite as fast as before as it seemed to be charging up an attack.
The dolphin then released a highly pressurized water canon from its mouth towards Mira.
Mira felt an attack heading her way and began to move, but the attack was too quick and ended up taking a chunk out of Mira's side.
Mira gritted her teeth due to the pain but didn't stop swimming. Once, she neared the surface, she created a set of ice wings on her back and then started to soar as high as she possibly could.
The dolphin also jumped out of the water in an attempt to kill Mira, but Mira was already falling down. She had grasped her scythe and threw it with every ounce of strength she had in her body. Her body was now incredibly strong after all of the temperings that she's done and if she were to guess, she'd say she now has the strength of a Core Formation Expert with just her body alone.
The only thing that was hindering her movements and strength was the water. Now that she's out of that, she can use her full strength to deal with this bastard.
The scythe made a sonic boom as it came crashing into the dolphin's mouth and the blade had started to dig into its head.
Mira had fainted right afterward, but she knew that the dolphin wasn't dead. At this point, all she could rely on is Maria and Celaine, who also had similar strengths to Mira.
'Hopefully, they can deal with this guy or we are really in deep shit…' Mira thought to herself as the last thing she saw is Celaine coming towards her.
