Chapter 316: Fish-man Burrow |
Qin Ziwen scanned the area and felt like a customer at a fish market picking out goods.
With the naked eye he could hardly tell which fish-men actually had real skills and which were just decorative pillows.
But it didn’t matter, he did not need his eyes, he had Insight.
[Common·Fish-man: ☆]
[Common·Fish-man: ☆☆☆]
[Common·Fish-man: ☆☆☆☆☆]
Qin Ziwen’s gaze was sharp, like a general inspecting his troops.
“You.”
“This one.”
If he kept picking, the whole tribe’s decent hands would be picked clean!
Qin Ziwen glanced at him, “You said I could choose myself.”
“Change the approach,” the Fish-man Chieftain said, “the ones you picked are all capable fighters. Our tribe still needs to keep some for hunting, otherwise the others will starve.
I can give you some artisans, members of the Artisan Clan, skilled craftsmen. I can give you some who can build fish-man sea-going vessels.”
Qin Ziwen thought that reasonable; he couldn’t corner them, “So which ones I picked just now?”
The Fish-man Chieftain pinched his nose in concession, “Take them all.”
In the end, Qin Ziwen took from the Fish-man Tribe twenty Turbid Clan fish-men and two hundred Artisan Clan fish-men.
Even within the Fish-man Tribe, Turbid Clan fish-men weren’t numerous.
They were large, ate a lot, and were expensive to raise if there were too many.
Big-waisted and broad-shouldered, like chubby walruses, the Turbid Clan fish-men trailed slowly behind.
Then there were one hundred sturdy Artisan Clan fish-men; these artisans generally stood over 1.7 meters tall and were considered tall within the Artisan Clan. Their star ratings were at least three, with a few four- and five-star artisans mixed in.
These artisan fish-men were well-built, fierce-eyed, and usually formed the elite hunting force that left the tribe to hunt.
The remaining one hundred fish-men were similar in size to Pula. Many among them knew some trades; given the right positions, they could quickly shine.
By the time they returned to the reef, night had fallen.
The sky was full of glittering stars, and by the reef some students were casting fishing nets to catch seafood.
“I got something in my net!” Qi Xiang shouted excitedly.
“You've netted your father!” Cao Biansheng popped his head out of the water, face dark, a fishing net draped over his head.
Qi Xiang rubbed his eyes to confirm the human head surfacing was indeed Cao Biansheng, then burst into laughter, “You bastard pretending to be a fish-man.”
“Hurry and pull your net back from your father before you damage it.” As Cao Biansheng finished speaking, heads kept popping up around him.
One by one fish-men crawled out of the sea and floated on the surface.
Many had nets draped over their heads. One Turbid Clan fish-man felt uncomfortable and tried to flip over; its webbed hand reached out, hooked the net, and tugged hard.
It nearly snapped the net.
“My net!” Qi Xiang’s pupils dilated as he hurriedly protested, “Cao-ge, I worked a week to scrape together enough to buy that net.”
Cao Biansheng called back; the Turbid Clan fish-man that had been moving immediately froze, its small eyes staring fixedly at Cao Biansheng, looking utterly innocent.
Cao Biansheng could only smile helplessly, “You all dive down and come up where there aren’t nets.”
He gestured several times. Only then did the fish-men understand and obediently dive down.
Watching how obedient they were, Cao Biansheng felt fish-men were actually easy to get along with.
Although they looked like beasts with human hearts,
most of them were simple and pure.
A kind of innocence unpolluted by the world.
As long as you were not on their food list, they would listen earnestly to your words.
But if you were on their menu, sorry, they’d babble something like, let me take a bite first and then we’ll talk.
News that Qin Ziwen had returned to the residential complex with a group of fish-men spread out.
It alarmed many people.
Some were curious.
Some were nervous.
“Are these fish-men going to steal our jobs?”
“How can we compete with fish-men catching fish straight out of the sea?”
“These fish-men look so strange, that one is huge, like a small mountain.”
“I wonder how strong they are.”
“They’re pretty strong. I tested one before. Though their arms look thin, their strength is astonishing,” testified someone who had fought alongside fish-men on the opposite island.
Jia Liangcai hurried over, dispersing onlookers, then came forward to receive instructions.
“Bring these fish-men into Home for now, and have them be on their best behavior.” Qin Ziwen pointed to the group behind him; he wanted to return first and construct buildings for the fish-men.
On land, the fish-men looked awkward. Several Turbid Clan fish-men twisted in place like lumps of sausage, making odd noises from their throats.
Back in Home, Qin Ziwen first took out cards and used a Blank Expansion Card (Large).
He placed the area to the north side of the Ghost Shipyard to make it convenient for fish-man artisans to work at the shipyard.
The peripheral gray mist was pushed aside, and a large new area was expanded.
Qin Ziwen then took out another Advanced Building Card.
Fish-man Burrow.
In an instant, intense hundredfold light enveloped the entire area.
When the light subsided, the formerly blank zone had completely transformed.
It became a vast, deep pool.
Rocks were scattered around the pool’s rim, and the surface of the pool at its center was deep blue, as calm and reflective as a mirror.
On one edge, a long stone ladder was carved from the poolbed up to the waterline.
From the outside it revealed little, so Qin Ziwen thought for a moment, walked to the edge, and stared at the deep, silent water. For anyone with claustrophobia this would not be a pleasant place.
Fortunately, he was not afraid.
He descended the stone ladder step by step.
Beneath the water the space was enormous, easily hundreds of meters deep.
It felt like a giant hollowed bottle, its mouth only the water’s surface.
The bottom of the deep pool was not pitch-black; the walls were covered with large patches of moss that emitted a faint blue glow,
casting an eerie blue light across the pool bottom.
The surrounding walls were carved with dense caves,
openings round or square, various sizes, stacked like a honeycomb.
This should be where the fish-men lived.
Not only could the current two hundred twenty fish-men fit easily, even ten times that number could be accommodated in these caverns.
The only slight downside was the large blank area in the center of the bottom.
Such wasted space.
After surfacing back to Home, Qin Ziwen took out three more building cards and was about to use them when the Home little glowing ball popped up.
[Detected building cards from the same series, merge them?]
This kind of merging had happened before; the Blacksmith and Leather Armor Workshop once merged with the Yanwu Military Arsenal, and the merged building gained all effects of the two buildings.
Qin Ziwen looked back at the Fish-man Burrow.
He roughly guessed how these three building cards would merge.