Apotheosis Begins with Tai Chi

His ten fingers clamped down hard, gripping the Cyan Silver Dragon’s body firmly from both sides.

Caught off guard, the large fish reacted instinctively, whipping its tail. The water exploded, and the fish shot forward like an arrow, dragging Chen Cheng along with it.

Chen Cheng had originally planned to channel his Dark Force directly into the Cyan Silver Dragon and shatter its spine.

But now, he felt a surge of playfulness.

He simply let his body hang onto the fish, keeping everything but his ten fingers relaxed and allowing himself to be carried along.

He let the Cyan Silver Dragon drag him through one patch of water after another.

Of course, he wasn’t doing this purely for fun.

As he was being dragged, he could carefully perceive the changes in the water currents, understand how the Cyan Silver Dragon manipulated the water to generate force, and how it used the momentum to surge forward.

In its rhythmic rises and falls, its twists and turns, there was a sense of profound and effortless natural grace.

By internalizing this understanding, he might be able to extrapolate and develop a similar Water Control Technique of his own.

The Dragon Rider section of the Wandering Dragon Technique was, in fact, just such a technique.

However, by building on this foundation with his own insights and experience, Chen Cheng might be able to create something even better.

Of course, this couldn’t be achieved overnight. It would require a long period of accumulated experience and deduction.

For now, however, he had discovered a few principles for controlling the Cyan Silver Dragon.

Squeezing with his right hand made the Cyan Silver Dragon turn right; squeezing with his left made it turn left.

The force of his squeeze determined the sharpness of the turn.

Squeezing with both hands at once made it slow down, while lifting or pressing down with his hands controlled its ascent or descent.

Of course, an ordinary person could never do this.

For one, Chen Cheng possessed overwhelming strength, which the Cyan Silver Dragon could clearly sense. It knew that if it didn’t comply, it would very likely be crushed to death on the spot.

On the other hand, Chen Cheng’s physique, constantly enhanced by the synergy between his Four Gods Profound Body and the Unyielding Attribute, was long past the point of comparison with an ordinary person.

Coupled with the Wandering Dragon Technique’s method for circulating Blood Qi, he could almost completely ignore the negative effects of the water temperature and pressure.

If an ordinary Fisherman were in his place, a single sudden dive into the depths by the Cyan Silver Dragon would be enough to make them pass out or even die from the cold and pressure.

Now Chen Cheng was truly having fun.

He had never quite understood before—mainly because he had never experienced it—why taming a wild horse was supposed to be so thrilling.

Now, he got it.

Taming a ferocious fish, getting it to docilely submit to his control, making it go wherever he willed and do whatever he commanded—it really did give him a subtle sense of conquest.

A man’s desire to conquer is etched into his very bones.

「A moment later.」

The Cyan Silver Dragon burst out of the water.

Chen Cheng’s upper body broke through the surface with it, sending a spray of water exploding into countless glittering droplets in the sunlight.

He quickly refilled his lungs with fresh air, then guided the fish to dive once more.

The broken ice closed in above him, and beams of light flitted past his sides. The water’s color gradually deepened to a dark blue, almost pitch-black, like a bottomless ancient well.

An unknown amount of time passed like this.

Chen Cheng had completely lost track of his location.

But it was fine. As long as he could see the sun’s position, he could determine the general direction. If he kept swimming toward the Wu Family Wharf, he would get back sooner or later.

Chen Cheng guided the Cyan Silver Dragon to the surface to catch his breath.

He submerged again.

Just as he was preparing to head back, Chen Cheng suddenly spotted several figures leaping into the distant water and slowly spreading out.

The distance between them was great enough.

Chen Cheng could see them, but they were completely unaware of his presence.

There were five of them in total, holding Fish Spears and balled-up fishing nets. The nets glowed with a faint golden light, suggesting they were made of some special material.

They also wore indigo bodysuits tanned from some special beast hide, likely for insulation and underwater camouflage.

On the shoulder of each bodysuit was a white, cloud-patterned insignia.

Chen Cheng recognized the insignia at a glance—it was identical to the one on the uniforms of the Cangying Hunting Manor’s Manor Soldiers.

’Have I accidentally stumbled into the Bai Family’s territory?’

A thought stirred in Chen Cheng’s mind. He immediately guided the Cyan Silver Dragon to hide in a crevice between some aquatic plants and a reef.

He continued to watch in silence.

The men swam with incredible speed, their coordination impeccable. They didn’t even need hand signals; a single look between them was enough to communicate the next step.

It was obvious they were specialized Fishermen from the Bai Family’s Cangying Fishing Village, responsible for catching Treasure Fish.

The men slowly spread out in a circle. As they descended, their nets gradually unfurled and linked together, forming something like an inverted bowl that slowly enveloped a particularly dense patch of seaweed below.

’Is there a Treasure Fish in there?’

Chen Cheng focused his mind and concentrated his vision, trying to get a better look.

The seaweed obscured his view, so he couldn’t see any sign of a Treasure Fish, but he didn’t necessarily need to.

This was a classic case of "the mantis stalks the cicada, unaware of the oriole behind." As long as the mantises had a clear view of their prey, that was all that mattered.

He channeled his Dark Force.

A small cloud of blood mist instantly erupted from under the Cyan Silver Dragon’s gills, and the fish went completely still.

Chen Cheng slowly lifted a nearby rock and pinned the Cyan Silver Dragon underneath it to prevent the current from sweeping it away.

Then, he surfaced again to take a deep breath.

By the time he dived back under, the five Fishermen ahead had already begun to slowly tighten their encirclement. The process was slow but steady, calculated not to startle their target.

Suddenly.

A cyan-green blur shot out from the seaweed.

It was about two fingers wide and three feet long, moving with phantom-like agility and speed.

It was a Treasure Snake with a green body and a black belly.