Chapter 882: Underwater Pursuit

Under normal circumstances, whenever a solo trip into an environment crowded with native inhabitants was needed, it was always "Algae" who took the lead.

Because in terms of frontal combat capability, "Algae" was the stronger one, and Algae was also extremely skilled at fighting.

Even if she couldn't win a fight, her escape ability was also superior.

But...

Heading to the Sixth Island of the Misty Islands, to a town called Cassetti, it was indeed Fern, the 'Swindler', who took the lead this time.

Because according to the intelligence Fern had gathered over years of mingling around the Misty Islands, the residents of Cassetti were mostly scaled people. Although they looked quite intimidating, most of them actually didn't engage in direct combat with others.

On the contrary, every single one of these fellows loved to "lie and deceive", using words to trick and mislead.

As a professional swindler, Fern was very skilled at socializing with people. Gathering intelligence and communicating with others in dangerous situations was always part of her job description.

And in a place like Cassetti, where swindlers were everywhere, naturally it was time for Fern to step in.

"These scaled people definitely don't know anything about the 'inheritance', so the right approach is to find out from them who might actually know something."

"According to the known intelligence, although the Lord of the Sixth Island has unstable mental state and tends to go berserk when provoked, as long as you don't bring up keywords like 'ancient civilization' and 'psychology' too much, she's still very willing to communicate with people - a genuinely friendly NPC. So the first choice should be to locate the Island Lord herself."

Not long after entering the town, Fern quickly locked onto the person she wanted to talk to.

A scaled person sitting on the stone steps at the entrance of some building, hands wrapped in bandages as if they had just been dressed.

The reason Fern chose this one was that by roughly judging the color of the scales, she could tell this scaled person was relatively "young" - the type who had just reached "adulthood" among scaled people.

Finding an underage scaled person would easily bring their parents running - and the older the scaled person, the more sophisticated their lies.

With this just-ripe scaled person, approaching him for a chat meant she wouldn't get swindled by a whole family group, and his lies were easy to see through - she could even just take everything he said in reverse. He was practically the perfect person to interrogate.

So...

Fern went straight up to him and struck up a conversation.

"Hello, friend. I'm a visitor from another island. I'd like to ask you for directions."

"I want to pay a visit to your Lord of the Sixth Island. Could you tell me where she is right now?"

The scaled person glanced at Fern, looking somewhat surprised, then seemed a bit frightened.

Fern ignored these expressions - in her view, they were nothing more than exaggerated acting.

How could she possibly make him afraid just by opening her mouth?

In Fern's eyes, this baseless performance was precisely a sign of his immaturity.

The scaled person then immediately spoke up, clearly pointing in a certain direction.

"Over there - in that white building on the high ground over there!"

Fern took a look and immediately spotted the location the scaled person was indicating. There was indeed a white building there.

"Alright, thank you."

Fern nodded and headed toward that white building.

But...

After Fern confirmed that her figure had disappeared from the scaled person's line of sight, in a shadowy corner, she took out a box and sprinkled some "dust" into the air.

Then, her form turned nearly transparent - and with this camouflage, Fern took a roundabout route, weaving through the cluster of buildings in Cassetti.

And the direction Fern was heading was the exact opposite of the direction of the church the scaled person had pointed to.

"With young scaled people like that, just taking their words in reverse is usually the safe bet - if the church is white, then I look for something dark gray or black; if the church is relatively isolated from the rest of the town, then the target building is probably inside the town itself; if the church is on high ground, I look for low-lying terrain... and as for the direction, I'll reverse that as much as possible too."

Fern quickly formulated her plan of action in her mind.

In Fern's view...

Although maybe not everything was reversed - perhaps only one or two points were opposite - but if she followed this principle in her search, she should find what she was looking for soon enough!

...

By a pool of water somewhere on the Sixth Island, Lin Yu sat beneath a tree, quietly waiting for news from Hannah while simultaneously using his spiritual sense detection to probe the water pool before him.

"I wonder how the other players are progressing... they shouldn't be too fast, right?"

"After all, I've got the original 'Freud's' brain on me, plus I used rhetoric to negotiate with the Lord of the Sixth Island into a nearly optimal state before achieving my current progress. There's no way they can be faster than me."

"Besides, that military otaku should be causing them trouble whenever he gets the chance. Whether he succeeds or not, the 'Marauders' will definitely have to spend time dealing with him... and on Fu Luo's side, he probably still has to go looking for Old Yao."

"So... I should still have time to set things up."

"The only one worth worrying about is 'Fern'... but then again, I do know her well enough. If she really catches up too fast, I can prepare some targeted countermeasures for her in advance."

Lin Yu kept thinking, his skill in utilizing spiritual energy growing more and more refined - he had to admit, the Lord of the Sixth Island might have had some deeper meaning in placing Old Zheng's "inheritance" in the water.

The water pools on this island were deep and winding, and Lin Yu felt as though they had been practically designed specifically for spiritual sense detection.

Of course - with Hannah's help, in a sense Lin Yu was still cheating.

The little octopus was swimming quite joyfully beneath the water - she genuinely felt delighted to swim in open waters again after so long.

For Hannah, she didn't even consider this hard work - it was practically playtime.

However, Lin Yu wouldn't reduce his gratitude toward the hardworking little octopus who had earned yet another merit just because Hannah herself didn't find it tiring.

"If it really weren't for Hannah, searching through all these pools one by one would definitely take a lot of time..."

As Lin Yu was thinking, Hannah's feedback also came through in his mind.

"Croak! Director, Your Excellency - something seems off underwater too!"

"There's a hidden passage at the bottom of this water area - it seems to have been artificially dug and cleared - and it was just cleared recently."

As Hannah spoke, Lin Yu's expression turned serious.

"So there's another expert out there?"

This was also within his expectations - although basically none of the players could have arrived here this fast to start searching...

Among the natives of the Misty Islands, there would definitely be those capable of finding this place.

These underwater passages connected to the open sea outside, and "sneaking" from the ocean into the island was a foreseeable route.

Especially if the other party also knew the inheritance was hidden in the water - then they'd be even more likely to choose this path.

So, Lin Yu immediately made his judgment.

"Since it was just cleared, that means they haven't gone far. And the other party must be a fairly large 'target' to need to clear and widen the waterway."

"Hannah - track them! Let's find that bastard!"