Chapter 323Chapter 323: Fishing Techniques

Yang Yi reeled in fish like a madman, catching twenty-two Needlefin Pipefish in a row before finally stopping. The entire process took less than forty minutes.

During the first ten casts in particular, almost the instant he threw out the hook, a fish was already biting. Each catch took less than thirty seconds.

I definitely ran into a school of fish!

Yang Yi made the guess silently, growing increasingly curious about what was happening beneath the surface.

He picked up the Light Containers beside him and aimed it at the sea, pushing its illumination to the limit to disperse the Black Mist blanketing the water.

Unfortunately, the seawater itself was pitch-black, making visibility extremely poor. If he wanted a clear look, he would have to rely on his Third Eye.

Activating it, he quickly spotted a massive school of fish more than twenty meters below the surface. There were thousands upon thousands of Needlefin Pipefish, all swimming in almost the exact same direction as the Nightmare Star.

No wonder he had been catching one fish after another—he had been fishing directly above the school.

Suddenly, one of the Needlefin Pipefish seemed to notice him.

Breaking away from the swarm, it shot toward the surface like an arrow released from a bow.

Whoosh!

The pipefish burst out of the water, thrusting its long, needle-like snout straight at Yang Yi.

It slammed headfirst into the Crystal Greatshield.

Crack!

Its snout shattered on impact before the fish dropped back toward the sea, only for a skeletal arm extending from the ship's hull to snatch it out of the air and haul it aboard.

"So these fish can actually see what's happening above the water... and even launch attacks?" Yang Yi exclaimed in surprise.

He lowered his gaze to the Crystal Greatshield and inspected the point of impact. A tiny white mark had been left on its otherwise flawless surface.

The strike had been surprisingly powerful. Had he been wearing ordinary leather armor instead, it would have pierced straight through.

He then glanced at the wooden bucket nearby.

More than twenty Needlefin Pipefish of varying sizes were piled inside. The smallest measured only around thirty centimeters in length, while the largest were nearly two meters long.

To keep the fish from jumping out, Yang Yi had covered the bucket with a lid and even placed a heavy stone on top to hold it in place.

But judging from the current situation, the wooden bucket wasn't nearly sturdy enough.

He took a closer look and noticed several bulges protruding from the sides. Some of the pipefish had actually driven their needle-like snouts straight through the wood, leaving them firmly lodged in the bucket. ȓ𝓪𝐍òβĚS

When he lifted the lid, he found three smaller Needlefin Pipefish dangling from it, their snouts embedded deep in the wood.

"Uh..."

Yang Yi had been so focused on fishing that he had completely ignored what was happening inside the bucket. If he kept stuffing more fish into it, the large wooden bucket would probably fall apart.

However, after discovering this peculiar behavior, an excellent idea came to mind.

He first instructed the Old Captain to slow the Nightmare Star to around forty knots, roughly matching the speed of the school swimming beneath them.

Then he handed the Old Captain a fishing rod and ordered it to fish while steering the ship, so long as it kept the vessel on course.

As for Yang Yi, he retrieved a sturdy wooden box reinforced with iron plates—something he hadn't used in quite some time—and assembled it before filling it with seawater.

It was the container he had originally prepared for the Fruit of Abundance. Since it was far more durable than the wooden bucket, it would serve just as well for storing fish.

After making these preparations, Yang Yi walked to the ship's central courtyard, hung the Light Containers around his neck with a thin cord, and leaned halfway over the ship's side while fishing.

This way, he could maintain his original fishing efficiency while also using himself as bait to lure the Needlefin Pipefish into attacking him, increasing his catch rate even further.

Any fish that leapt from the sea and killed themselves by crashing into the Crystal Greatshield could simply be collected by the vines. They only needed to weave a small net along the outside of the hull, allowing the dead fish to be gathered automatically and carried onto the deck at regular intervals.

Using this method, Yang Yi caught more than three hundred additional Needlefin Pipefish in just one short hour.

More than seventy percent of them were already dead, most having smashed themselves to death against the Crystal Greatshield.

Three hours later, however, no more pipefish leapt from the sea to attack him, and even the fish biting his hook had changed to another species.

Sensing that something was wrong, Yang Yi activated his Third Eye once more and peered into the depths below.

Only then did he realize that the enormous school of Needlefin Pipefish had vanished without a trace.

"I lost them. That's a shame," Yang Yi muttered regretfully.

After all, the school had numbered in the tens of thousands, perhaps even over a hundred thousand. The fish he had caught amounted to less than one percent of the entire swarm.

He then began counting his haul.

The Needlefin Pipefish that had killed themselves by crashing into the Crystal Greatshield were piled into a small hill on the deck, numbering well over a thousand.

As for the fish stored in the iron-plated wooden box, together with those from the earlier wooden bucket, there were more than three hundred in total, and roughly half of them were still alive.

These fish were extraordinarily aggressive and couldn't distinguish friend from foe, often impaling each other, or themselves, in the process.

Even the iron-plated wooden box had suffered damage. Although the pipefish hadn't managed to pierce all the way through the reinforced walls, they had left countless puncture marks on the inside.

Yang Yi then walked to the bow to inspect the Old Captain's catch. After confiscating its fishing rod, he ordered it to focus solely on steering the Nightmare Star while increasing the ship's speed.

"Seventy-two fish in total... and some of them are actually still alive. It looks like these fish are resistant to the darkness," Yang Yi concluded.

The Old Captain hadn't been carrying a Light Containers, meaning the surrounding sea had remained shrouded in Black Mist. The fact that these fish could leap out of the water without dying was enough to prove they possessed a certain degree of resistance to it.

Perhaps the whip-like filaments covering their bodies were what protected them.

Yang Yi gathered all of the Needlefin Pipefish together and counted them.

There were 1,491 in total.

There was no way he could eat that many by himself anytime soon, so he decided to preserve most of them by salting and drying them into stockfish, greatly extending their shelf life.

He snapped a photo and sent it to Suna.

"Today's haul was pretty good. I caught more than a thousand fish!"

Her reply, however, was surprisingly indifferent.

She seemed to be busy with something and simply told him to come over.

Yang Yi called Xiao Ji over and assigned it the task of preparing the fish for preservation. He also told them to cook a few for dinner.

"Captain Yang Yi, these fish don't have much meat. If you grill them, there probably won't be anything left but bones," Xiao Ji said after scanning a Needlefin Pipefish with its camera.

"Then what's the best way to cook them?" Yang Yi asked.

"They're best suited for clear soup or braising in soy sauce. They can also be eaten raw."

"Then braise a few."

Yang Yi casually picked one, but after hesitating for a few seconds, he changed his mind. Instead, he grabbed the thickest and longest Needlefin Pipefish, nearly three meters long, and headed toward the cabin.

He remembered that the fish supposedly had hair-growth properties, so he decided to try eating it raw instead. Maybe it works even better when it's fresh.

Two minutes later, Yang Yi arrived at the entrance to the Witch's Laboratory.

By then, the nearly three-meter-long Needlefin Pipefish in his hand had already been devoured down to its head. Almost two-thirds of its body had disappeared into Yang Yi's stomach.

To be honest, the raw Needlefin Pipefish didn't taste very good.

Its flesh was slightly sour with a strong fishy odor, while the whip-like filaments were both salty and fishy, tasting almost exactly like seawater.

Yang Yi fed the remaining fish head to the Mouth of Gluttony.

Its teeth were much stronger, and unlike him, it wasn't picky about what it ate, making it a far more suitable diner.

After feeding it, Yang Yi entered the Witch's Laboratory.

Inside, Suna was busy tinkering with the Prototype Beam Hand Cannon. Resting on the worktable beside her were the bottle of Alchemical Magic Ink and the Low-Grade Abyss Soulstone, its cracked shell leaking faint strands of glowing light.

"You're here. Come take a look at this!" Suna called.

She picked up the Prototype Beam Hand Cannon.

Yang Yi studied it with a frown but failed to notice anything particularly unusual.

Aside from the strange, incomprehensible patterns covering its surface—which had apparently been painted with Alchemical Magic Ink mixed with some sort of fluorescent pigment—it looked almost identical to before.

"Did you repaint it?" Yang Yi asked.

"No!"

Suna denied it immediately.

Then she released the weapon.

Instead of falling, the Prototype Beam Hand Cannon remained suspended in midair, floating entirely on its own.

At the same time, the intricate patterns covering its surface lit up with a faint blue glow.