Book 5 - Chapter 5: Hunting the Star Lake Python

n(Puttty: Mistake alert! Since the Chinese character for a bow can similarly be translated to crossbow, I wasn’t sure and left it as a steel crossbow, but now Imma confirm its a Steel Bow instead of Steel Crossbow, sorry!)

nAfter getting on shore, XinFeng asked, “This is where the Star Lake Python lives?”

nWu Zhen followed behind XinFeng, ever since he became a thousand Lun master, he had great respect towards XinFeng, hoping that he could occasionally give him pointers, these pointers were too good. However XinFeng understood that and he didn’t have anything else to teach, in this period of time, Wu Zhen needed to consolidate his power and train normally.

n“Yes, we’ve found one here, but we didn’t have the necessary strength, we hope that this time it will be successful.”

nZhong Geng added, “This is the place with the highest chance of sighting, the other places have a lower rate of success. We only have this month, when the time comes, we must leave.”

nMany people started to move the supplies from the ship, the wooden shed on the shore was extremely big, with thick wooden planks added onto the ground, seemingly making it feel isolated from the ground, on the four surroundings were veils hanging with the purpose of blocking out insects. A wooden hut the size of a few hundred meter square quickly became a suitable place to live.

nXinFeng had gotten an extremely good position near the shore, not only is the sights good, he did not have to squeeze with other people. He had his own veil covered space.

nAs the leader, Zhong Geng had the middle position in the wooden hut, while Wu Zhen who wanted to befriend XinFeng, specially stayed next to him.

nThe news of their rise in level had already spread to Han Xiao Bao’s ears, however since she hadn’t reached a bottleneck, she wasn’t in a rush to break through, but she was still extremely envious, it was just that she hadn’t found the chance to go to XinFeng.

nZhong Geng ordered his men to organize the weapons, the most important one being the steel bow, this thing was similar to the image in XinFeng’s mind, with a big size and amazing arrows the width of a child’s arm, entirely made of steel, it’s arrow head was similarly thick with sharp barbs and groves, upon contact, it would definitely open a bloody wound.

nThere were a total of eight steel bows, every one of them were the length of three meters and needed a winch winder. XinFeng guessed that the maximum power of these bows made of only steel would be something that would take him a lot of effort to block, he didn’t know if his special Milun armor could take the attack of this steel bow but he definitely wouldn’t want to try, and because of the experiences he had in his past life, he had a natural fear towards arrows.

nThe steel bow was built on the front of the eight boats, with servants and fishermen starting to do maintenance on the steel bows, mainly focusing on wiping oil and tuning, in a damp environment the scariest thing that would happen was rusting, therefore these expensive eight steel bows were all cared for and maintained by professionals, it’s price extremely high due to how it could threaten even thousand Lun masters.

nAfter resting for a day, so to allow Zhong Geng and Wu Zhen to consolidate their training, for someone to suddenly breakthrough and immediately be able to start working normally wasn’t possible.

nOn the sunrise of the second day, the ten wooden boats left the pier, leaving only one there for emergencies.

nXinFeng was on the larges boat, with the Scaly Crocodile’s skin covering it. As it entered the deep water area, a few fishermen started to use the blood of the Scaly Crocodile to wipe onto the skin, they occasionally even threw the minced meat of the Scaly Crocodile into the lake.

nIn Zhong Geng’s hands was a large, thick harpoon made entirely of steel, similarly the same thing was in Wu Zhen’s hand. He asked, “Do you want a harpoon?”

nThe barbed harpoon made of pure steel would hook fishes upon penetration, at the sides of the two were piles of harpoons. XinFeng smiled with a shake of the head, “I have my own weapon.” With a flick of his wrist, the black bow appeared in his hands as well as arrows of pure steel, which he stuck to the wooden planks of the front of the boat.”

nWu Zhen commented, “Steel arrows aren’t powerful under the water.”

nXinFeng laughed, “Steel bows…….are the same, and you’re still using it, hehe.”

nWu Zhen laughed embarrassedly, they won’t be using the steel bows to shoot underwater, but to shoot when it appears.

nXinFeng asked, “Do you have wooden boards here?”

nZhong Geng replied curiously, “What do you need them for? We have them, how big do you need them to be?”

nXinFeng replied, “Probably around the size of a foot, roughly there will be fine, get me more of them.”

nWu Zhen answered, “I’ll go find some.” Quickly, he returned with a dozen wooden boards and placed them onto the deck.

nXinFeng placed them into his Hidden Lun space and asked, ‘Anymore? Get me more.”

nWu Zhen replied, “Alright.” He immediately instructed the old man surnamed Tian to find more and brought back almost a hundred small boards back, which were all placed into his hidden Lun space.”

nThe ten boats circled around the lake the entire day till night, only then did they return to land, with no results. The lake was extremely peaceful with no signs of the Star Lake Python appearing or even some big fish, with only the meat and blood of the Scaly Crocodile, they’ve scared away all the fish.

nJust like that they spent a dozen days, leaving at daybreak and returning at night without finding the Star Lake Python, now, even Zhong Geng was worried, with only a dozen days left, if he wasn’t able to find it, then he would have wasted yet another chance.

nEvery night, XinFeng would go to the peak of the stone mountain to train, in this amount of time he noticed the large amounts of lightning element in the air, this allowed his training to improve greatly, and he understood that the rainy season was almost here.

nOn the daybreak today, XinFeng went onto the boat as usual and saw Zhong Geng staring into the distance of the lake’s surface with furrowed brows, seeing this he comforted, “Don’t be impatient, even if it’s unsuccessful, you still have gained other benefits.”

nZhong Geng spoke, “That’s right, actually I shouldn’t be so greedy, but I’ve prepared for so many years, coming back and forth so many times without any success, it’s really upsetting.”

nXinFeng asked curiously, “It’s not like you’ve never encountered it, you’ve even fought it once. What does it look like?”

nZhong Geng replied, “It has a beautiful exterior with horns on the side of its head, en, white horns the length of a meter, an extremely large mouth, claws on its front but as for if there were any on the back…..we haven’t found out. It has a long tail and its skin didn’t seem to look like scales, but layers and layers of something, something we don’t know, but it does give off two kinds of flashing light, one was blue and the other was silver that can block most attacks.”

nHearing this made XinFeng confused, he couldn’t imagine what it would look like.

nWu Zhen also spoke, “That’s right, it’s especially beautiful, but dangerous too, many of our men died, unable to block it.”

nXinFeng replied, “Let’s wait and leave it to our luck and fate, those that should come will come, those that shouldn’t…..wouldn’t, hehe.”

nSomeone reported, “Old master, the blood and flesh of the Scaly Crocodile are almost gone, do we continue spreading it?”

nZhong Geng was saddened further, “Continue, spread it more, if we can’t find it then we’ll leave earlier this time, why would we still need that flesh and blood.” That man nodded and left, and the servants immediately started throwing buckets of meat and blood off the boat, with the smell of blood thick in the air.

nIt was almost noon when XinFeng suddenly stood up at the front of the boat, he spoke, “It’s here!” He had a strong promotion that a strong creature was spying on them and heading their way.

nZhong Geng and Wu Zhen both stood up, the two of them speaking at the same time, “Where?”

nXinFeng pointed at the direction in front of them, “It should be there!” He wasn’t too sure himself, but he knew in his heart that the Star Lake Python should be there.

nZhong Geng believed that XinFeng wouldn’t talk bull**, he immediately ordered the ten boats to form an arcing shape, with the boats that carried the eight steel bows equally on both sides and the other boats in front, quickly speeding forward.

nEveryone instantly became tense, every single one of them, especially normal humans, were all nervously doing their jobs. From the beginning Zhong Geng had already said that nothing could go wrong, and if it did whoever the culprit was will die, not at his hands, but at the claws of the Star Lake Python. Thus, everyone did their jobs seriously, even if the Star Lake Python were to appear next to them, they would still try to finish their task.

nFor this, Zhong Geng had trained them for a long time now, at this time the results were evident in their efficiency, with the order placed only a while ago, the entire boat had already started speedily doing their jobs without any hints of chaos. Seeing this XinFeng could not help but praise them, he had also feared for discrepancies but he didn’t expect this crew to be so organized, he spoke, “Not bad, this crew is not bad.”

nWu Zhen softly explained, “Master has been training them for a long time now.”

nXinFeng nodded, “No wonder, between the trained and the untrained was a huge difference.” He then added with a laughed, “The few failures from the past, was it because of disorder?”

nWu Zhen replied embarrassedly, “The past two times we were extremely unorganized, it was utter chaos, only the third time were we trained, but we didn’t find the Star Lake Python, hehe.”

nXinFeng could not help but laugh, that was truly too unlucky, he spoke, “This time I believe it will be a success, as long as it appears.”

nConveniently it was noon, with the sunlight piercing through and the morning mist dispersed. On the front of the boat one could see very far, this lake was truly boundless, extremely big and it’s depth immeasurable. Once, Zhong Geng had even sent men to check, but they could only get to a hundred meters below the water, and not deeper.

nThe deeper the lake was, the stronger the monsters would be inside it, this was something everyone knew, only these sort of places could large scaled marine lifeforms live, if it was shallow, then even large fishes wouldn’t live there, even if the environment was good.

nA ray of silver light appeared, and followed closely after was a ray of blue light, with a long ripple effect in the waters far away.

nZhong Geng shouted in surprise, “That really is the Star Lake Python ha ha ha ha ha, I finally found it!!!”

nWu Zhen shouted loudly, “Good! Master, I’ll go to that boat!” He immediately jumped onto a smaller boat that followed closely behind the large boats, it was specially made to be used to travel to and from other boats, he had planned to go onto the boat there Tian Dabin was on. After all, he was the coordinator, while Tian Dabin was far lacking.

nTranslator’s Corner

nLittle bits and pieces are coming through about his past……umuuu, I can’t wait for the day it’s revealed…..

nMaybe he died to an arrow to a knee and was an adventurer? Who knows…….

n