Chapter 171: A Dangerous Location

While Chen Chuan couldn’t see, he could sense that it was a long, large, spindle-shaped thing through the changes in the water flow.

He twisted his waist, then turned his body to the side, brought an arm up, and swept something incredibly tough and fast aside.

Since he was in the water and his legs were not planted to the ground, the motion propelled him back, and he had to take a tumble to negate the force.

Through what he touched, Chen Chuan realized that he had run into the black carp. This one was much larger and seemed to be at least one meter long.

Also, weren’t there too many of them?

Chen Chuan noticed from the change in the water flow that multiple black carp were swimming over. Each of them charged at him with immense power, like blunt arrows flying at him. If the tips of the heads were sharper, they would possess power equivalent to a crossbow bolt.

Chen Chuan could no longer use his hands to ward them off. He covered his head and used his mutated tissue to make his muscles tense up the moment he was about to be hit before relaxing to bounce them off or twist his body around to make the fish slip past him.

Due to this, some of his mutated tissue was unable to take part in the internal breathing process, while the intense movements made him burn off extra energy. In just a while, he burned off more energy than when he swam an entire circuit during the second stage of his training.

Still, the fish weren’t trying to attack him. He was just in their way. The first one he encountered was the leader, and the school was following it.

All he needed to do was think of a way to leave the area, and he would be able to avoid the school of fish.

Chen Chuan paid careful attention to the changes in the water flow and did his best to move toward an area where the water flow wasn’t too intense.

He exercised extreme caution during the process. After all, Chang Ba had told him that a handful of black carps had sharp heads within each school. If they stabbed an unsuspecting prey, they were usually successful in taking it down.

Chen Chuan made the right choice and managed to get out of the path the school of fish took, but he wasn’t in a hurry to move again. Instead, he took a moment to regulate his internal breathing and recover.

Once he sensed that the water flow had completely calmed down, he swam down.

This time, after just swimming for a while, a new problem arrived.

He ran into the other fish they had eaten. They were the man-eating fish Chang Ba had mentioned, and they were

pests

. While they were usually not big, they were incredibly agile. Sometimes, they just charged at their prey from the side or behind and bit them.

Fortunately, the diving suit was created using Central City’s technology, and they failed to tear through the fabric. Chen Chuan could also sense his muscles bulging where they bit him to bounce them off.

In the beginning, he had thought that he could avoid them like the black carps, but reality proved him to be naive. These fish had their eyes on him. Not only did they not stop attacking him, but they also grew in number.

Chen Chuan acted decisively and expelled the toxin he had not metabolized. The method proved useful. Even though some of them still tried to attack him, most of them swam away.

Once he noticed this, Chen Chuan wondered whether he should eat more of the man-eating fish before he came down next time.

𝘧𝓇ℯ𝑒𝓌𝑒𝑏𝓃𝘰𝘷𝘦𝘭.𝒸ℴ𝓂

While expelling the toxin, he sped up and swam out of the place.

Once he figured out how the fish attacked, he believed that he could kill them with bare hands, but not only would this act waste energy, it would also bring him no substantial benefits. It wasn’t as if they were the only fish in these waters, so avoiding them was much better.

Due to the complexity of the terrain, Chen Chuan slowed down a little. Yet due to it, more problems arose.

As he was swimming through another region, he felt something wrapping itself around him. This thing was hidden well and blended together with the water flow as it blocked his path. By the time Chen Chuan noticed it before him, the thing had already gotten on him.

The creature resembled an aquatic plant. It was long, durable, and had jagged edges. If Chen Chuan struggled to break free, his flesh would be torn.

Once the thing wrapped itself around him, it started tightening slowly.

This was an emergency situation. If Chen Chuan couldn’t break free in time, he might never be able to make it out.

Yanking at the plant was useless, because it was really durable. Even if Chen Chuan stretched his limbs to the limit, he might be unable to break his constraints. Also, since he was in the water, there was a limit as to how much strength he could summon.

Even so, Chen Chuan faced the crisis calmly. While he continued exercising internal breathing, his body slowly swelled up. The muscles in his entire body, including those in his legs, waist, and arms tensed and bulged up.

When they were almost at their limit, he exhaled swiftly, and his body contracted. At that moment, all his muscles shrank.

A gap appeared between his body and the aquatic plant binding him. Chen Chuan seized that chance and quickly retreated. At the same time, he grabbed the aquatic plant around his waist, tensed his core, and jerked his body up to break free.

Then, he kicked off and quickly escaped from the clutches of the aquatic plant, leaving behind a trail in the water. The aquatic plant came after him, only to grab at nothing. After a while, it shrank back.

Chen Chuan realized that he couldn’t be too fast nor too slow while swimming in this area, so from then on he maintained a set speed and did his best to observe his surroundings even more carefully. He became really cautious of anything unusual.

On his way, he encountered all sorts of other fish, but he avoided them or shook them off in time. After swimming for a long time, he finally found his first sign.

Even though his result was far worse than before, the situation was different, so he couldn’t just lump this result together with that of his second training.

This training was more of a test of his problem-solving abilities in complex environments. It required him to use all the techniques and abilities he had learned before.

Chen Chuan swam a little further ahead until a narrow shaft appeared beside him. It instantly put him on guard, and he was correct to be wary. As soon as he got closer, a rapid current came out of it.

Since he was ready for it, he tried to get closer to the shaft wall, but he noticed something off when he reached the wall. His mutated tissue jumped into action and made him do a side tumble in the water. Just as he moved, he felt something snap shut beside him. The water pressure generated from the motion pushed him away, showing just how strong the bite had been.

He waited for a while, but the thing did not move again. While he couldn’t see, he could tell that it was something similar to a clam. It had its mouth wide open for a living creature to swim into it. There was practically no way to guard against this.

Chen Chuan stopped moving for a moment. Based on his estimations, he shouldn’t be far away from hitting the one-hour time limit, so it was time for him to start looking for an exit.

He hesitated whether to continue forward or return the way he came.

He didn’t know the situation ahead, while behind him was a path he had already treaded, so going back would be easier. Yet Chen Chuan had come here to train and get stronger. If he wanted to save his energy, he shouldn’t have come in the first place. He decided to continue onward.

Even if he encountered something dangerous, he had his second self, so he should be able to deal with most dangers thrown his way.

Around ten minutes later, he found the second sign while searching for an exit, but it didn’t have a rope. Clearly, something had bitten it off.

He didn’t need to carry the sign around. All he needed to do was touch it and know the number on it, though even that was not necessary. He just needed to find as many signs as he could. He was here to improve, not to answer to anyone. Lying to himself by saying that he found more than he did was pointless.

Chen Chuan took a moment to determine where the water was going and swam there. Soon, after passing through a narrow space, he saw light shining from above and swam over.

Just then, he saw a number of man-eating fish swimming around the area. Before they could get close, he struck at them, and more than ten of them were sent out of the water as he swam forward. With a push, he broke through the surface of the water and heard Chang Ba’s voice. “Chen Chuan’s out!”

The pit Chen Chuan had come out of was pretty big. He swam to the edge and climbed out before wiping his face. As he looked at the brilliant sun above him, he exhaled long and hard. Even though he hadn’t been underwater for long this time, he ran into plenty of dangers he had never encountered before.

He had also only explored a part of the underwater area in the research center. There might be even more difficult and troublesome situations that he did not know about underwater.

Chang Ba waited for Chen Chuan to settle down before picking up the fish he had sent out of the water and dropping them into the bucket. He gasped in amazement. “They’re so fat...”

Then, he stood up and gave Chen Chuan a thumbs up. “You’re amazing, Chen Chuan. You lasted nearly an hour down there.”

Even though Chen Chuan hadn’t managed to find a lot of signs, he already did well by swimming down there for nearly an hour and making it back out alive.

Chang Ba had seen other young martial artists attempt this before, but they all had safety ropes attached to them. Even so, they did not manage to last long. When they came out, fear wrecked them, and they no longer dared to go down.

“I won’t set any conditions for you at this stage. Set your own goals. It all depends on you as to how far you can get,” He Xiaoxing said.

Chen Chuan thought about it. Before he went down, he had thought that he should be able to swim around smoothly, even if the time wouldn’t be enough for him to find the required signs. The results he had gained from the second stage of the training had given him a lot of confidence. Yet after this dive, he felt that he still wasn’t good enough.

This time, he had managed to leave safely, but he couldn’t guarantee being able to do so every single time. Even if his chances of survival would increase dramatically if he relied on his second self, that went against his goal of becoming stronger himself. It would be better if he strengthened his foundation before coming here again to test the results of his training.

Chen Chuan raised his head and said, “Mr. He, I’d like to continue with the previous training and get a little stronger first.”

“You’ll only have an easy time building upon a solid foundation, true. Since you’ve made your choice, do it,” He Xiaoxing said.

“Okay.” Chen Chuan then turned to Chang Ba. The latter was happily carrying the bucket of fish around. “Chang Ba, I’m sorry, but I’ll need you to send me around for a while more.”

“That’s fine. If you come back here again, just grab me more fish, and I’ll consider it as a favor repaid. Besides, I’m waiting to give you free lodgings and food here. If you miss this chance, you won’t get another like it again.” Chang Ba waved his apology off.

“It won’t take too long, I’m sure,” Chen Chuan said with a smile.