A special flame

Back on the shore after Jay left the Lighthouse and rowed over the sea again, he summoned his horse and rode to the place Liam had hinted him to.

The Murlocs that were threatening the Lighthouse keeper and his family had settled near some ship wrecks to the south.

Jay rode along the beach for a while until he spotted the rock formations he was searching for. Liam had described them as countless sharp pikes reaching out of the water, and they looked exactly that way.

In between Jay saw a mast pointing diagonally towards the sky, signaling a sunken ship lay there.

A number o Murlocs was patrolling the beach, so Jay had to dismiss his horse as he got closer. Their levels were still low to him but higher than most of the fish-like monsters normally had.

On his way there, Jay had seen a small settlement of them close to the cliff, but it had been totally destroyed. The only traced he had found though, was that of Murlocs.

Somehow the situation looked like Liam had been right to call for help.

If a stronger tribe emerged from the south that possibly even attacked some of its breathen, an attack on the Lighthouse would have been only a question of time.

After the coast was clear and no more of the monsters crawled out of the ocean, Jay had no other choice but to go looking for the reason of their growth himself. Though he had a certain idea as to what might have been the reason, he still was reluctant to go looking down there.

The reason was not the monsters or even the sharks he had been warned of, but the fact that he sucked at diving. Until now he had proven that to himself multiple times, last was the day before as he tired to enter the shipwreck.

He simply didn't get his body to dive down under water, rising and swimming was no issue.

Doing latter to reach deeper into the water, careful not to get smashed into the sharp rocks by the strong current, Jay looked down through the crystal clear water.

Under him he saw parts of shipwrecks between a reef where large numbers of Murlocs had settled. It was surrounded by the sharp rock formations even under water, giving them shelter from outside dangers. Watching them for a short while from the surface, Jay jumped into action the moment he thought them in good positions.

The dive was fast and he couldn't see clearly, but the moment he touched the ground, Jay got surrounded by multiple fish monsters.

He hadn't suddenly learned do dive but simply taken out one of the cannons from the shipwrecks he had stored inside his inventory. Grabbing onto it, the weight had pulled him down and he found himself about thirty feet under water only seconds later.

The problem that arose next was him not moving properly under water and still having to grab onto the cannon.

After miserably defending the first two spears that got hurled to him, Jay took out his dagger and managed to kill off two monsters until he drifted back to the surface.

Still followed by some of the Murlocs, he got rid of three more until his head peeked out of the water.

The rest of the fish-like monsters had fled back to their under water camp by then.

For his next dive, Jay fetched a rope from his inventory and bound it into a sling on both ends, then he laid it around his waist and bound it tight there as well.

Breathing in deep and filling his lungs with air, Jay took out another cannon and grabbed it tight. While still on his descend to the bottom of the sea, he threw one sling around it and let himself get pulled down.

The poor Murloc that didn't spot him coming close from above died with a sword rammed top down through it. Jay then pulled the second sling over the other cannon and was ready for his hunt.

For the following three minutes he killed off some monsters, running after them while pulling the cannons behind him. But as his air ran out he stored the two weights back and rose to the surface again.

He could only repeat this tactic two more times until the Murlocs had learned to fear him and simply fled out of reach.

They were way to fast for him under water, so Jay had to think of another tactic.

With a new tactic in mind, he went for another dive. This time he got close to the shipwreck where most of the monsters had been residing beforehand.

As he hit the ground and took a stance, Jay pulled out his mana rifle from the inventory. Even if gunpowder was worthless under water, this weapon didn't require it.

With a loud bang he fired the first shot, killing two Murlocs standing in a row simultaneously.

After a short cool-down he fired a shot again, killing another monster. This repeated for as long as there were targets within reach and Jay had no more air.

The first half of a shipwreck got cleared in two more dives. As Jay got back to the surface he looked down again and saw the dark wooden structure beneath him, riddled with holes where he shot the Murlocs and the water having taken a different, rosy color.

Swimming on the surface further towards the open sea, Jay positioned himself above another big part of a shipwreck.

Diving down he instantly noticed the difference in depth. It wasn't the time it took to reach the bottom, but the colder temperature and a notably risen pressure.

As those circumstances still shouldn't endanger him, Jay went on with the same tactics like before. This time though he directly went inside the wreck.

The battle that took place was way longer than he had anticipated.

While the number of monsters wasn't bigger than at the other wreck, their levels were at least two above.

Other than that, the turned over ship he found himself in was mostly intact, so he could only reach to a certain point with his dragged behind cannons.

A problem arose when he had to turn around and flee because he ran out of air again.

Jay even had to store one of the cannons to gain some speed and still received some shallow cuts from the further defending Murlocs.

On his next dive he stored one of the cannons back the moment he landed and went to explore the wreck.

Glad there was only one deck in the rump he reached through a relatively big hatch in the middle, Jay had to fight through another large group of even stronger Murlocs.

And the reason for that presented itself in the back of the structure.

Guarded by a really big, red Murloc holding something like a trident, Jay saw another totem placed between lots of rubbish, crates and other items.

This remembered him of the encampment from the other day where Jay found the message in a bottle. He got the hunch the Murlocs had started to collect treasures, though the definition was a bit vague.

Looking back at the big Murloc, Jay used his [Analyze] on it and learned it was a named monster again. How and why those creatures got to get a name, he had no idea.

__________

Slark [lvl. 20 (Elite)]

(Murloc-Hunter)

HP 524/524 Mana 30/30

[Harpooning]

__________

Without time to loose, Jay rushed forwards, defending against and defeating some attacking monsters until he reached the totem.

While the red Murloc trashed around with his trident, even killing off some of his followers, Jay got short on air again.

Touching the totem and storing it away, Jay did the same with the cannon holding him on the floor. Dodging the monsters attacks while floating up, he had no time to take out a weapon himself.

Reaching the ceiling Jay simply boosted his hand with mana and covered it with fire magic in the hopes to even slightly weaken the durability of the rotten wood, and then he threw his hardest punch possible under water.

With a loud cracking noise, the ships planks broke and he drifted up to the surface. Breathing out like he learned somewhere in his past, Jay looked back down only when his head was above the water.

What he saw then astounded him and brought him another plan, though he regretted not having found out about it earlier.

At the place where he had punched the ships hull, small flames had formed and kept on burning even under water.

Like as his magical flames couldn't harm himself, they simply didn't follow the normal physical rules he once learned.

The few Murlocs that had followed him up had noticed the flames as well and rushed back there, only to burn and harm themselves.

Taking out the cannon again and diving down, Jay readied a spell as he still was on his way. With a critical cast (Fireball) and another one from his quick slot towards the wreck, Jay started to channel a (Blazing Flames) spell the moment his feet landed o the ship. The flames that spread in all directions set the wreck aflame, no matter if it was over fifty yards under water.

Back on the surface after he set nearly the whole hull aflame, Jay watched the scene unfold beneath him.

In his log numerous notifications appeared signaling him the death of monsters, while the burning wreck illuminated the water under him.

After a certain notification popped up, informing Jay about the death of Slark, he swam back towards the beach.

With their leader gone, it didn't matter how many of the monsters survived as the rest was bound to retreat when their protector was gone.

But the gone leader of the group brought another problem Jay hadn't thought about. It presented itself in the form of a huge shark fin closing in on him from the side with frightening speed. And the sight he got as he looked there under water was not better in the slightest.

In the seconds before it arrived, Jay saw a humongous tiger shark coming for him swimming through the sharp rocks. Even its level of 19 signaled Jay that he was nothing but easy prey in the eyes of this prime predator.

It just had chosen the wrong appetizer.

Within an arms distance, the over twenty feet long shark opened its giant maw to catch and kill Jay, but the contact to its teeth never came.

Instead it got a contact to its jaw.

And then it got hurled out of the water and onto the closest razor sharp rock.

What Jay had done was to grab its nose as it was withing reach and guide himself next to it.

The moment it broke through the surface he kicked its jaw with a magically booted knee. As the impact was so hard, it's jawbone broke and the heavy beast flew a bit to the side.

The rock being there was pure coincidence but sealed the fishes fate.

Arriving close to it with two fast strokes, Jay hit it twice with a fire loaded fist and roasting it from inside. Storing the then dead fish into his inventory, Jay went back on his way towards the beach.

This time though he kept watching out for more fins, even peeking under water here and there in between.

Walking out of the water, Jay wondered if he had drifted off or if he really hadn't seen the not too small settlement of Murlocs directly in front of him.

And the monsters directly came running for him.

As he was back on land, Jay made short work of the whole encampment. With all his spells available and his arsenal of different weapons at the ready, it took him only a couple of minutes to blast through the whole settlement and eradicate the over thirty monsters living there.

Gone through the camp and standing on the other side of it, Jay saw why he didn't spot it before. It had been hidden behind some of the sharp rocks on the beach in a small sink, so he couldn't have seen it from where he had arrived at.

Back to that spot, Jay looked onto the ocean again where he had his makeshift dives only a short while ago.

What he saw there sent shivers down his spine and he somehow felt responsible for it: Fins over fins peeked out of the water between the rocks.

Jay was sure that if he left it that way, not only all Murlocs would cease to exist, but the sharks might wander up the beach and endanger the Lighthouse later instead.

He knew it was hypocritical, but as he knew the family, Jay didn't want to be the cause that endangered them later on. Otherwise he would have simply left the sharks feast on the Murlocs until the end.

Walking back into the water over a long sandbank, Jay reached a reef that was so high he only stood to his knees in the water. Taking out his Mana Rifle again he aimed at the first shark and began hunting the hunters.

Though his first shot was off due to the water, his second hit and so did all the ones that followed.

By the time he was done, Jay had been glad the first shark had come for him when he missed his first shot.

It died no ten yards from the reef, but that was the best thing that could happen like he learned a few seconds later, when the next shark presented itself while biting into its brethen.

A shot into its eye took it out with one critical hit.

The shark hunt took nearly as long as the diving down and killing off the Murlocs with the totem. But after he killed ten of the oceans predators, the rest of them pulled back and fled into the ocean.

They seemed to hold at least a bit of intelligence.

Riding back after storing the abundant amounts of fish into his inventory, Jay arrived at the Lighthouse some time after noon. Though his visit to the coast was an all together nice experience, it had been far from a vacation with all he had experienced there.

While rowing and steering the small boat was no longer a problem for him and he had even gotten used to the oceans currents, the wet clothes and armor he had worn over the nearly two days at the coast had been enough for him.

After getting rid of the armor in the shag, Jay reported what the found and partially to prove it, partially for the sake of the small family, he took out one of the tiger sharks he had stored. The monstrous fish took up nearly all of the small yard as Jay chose one of the bigger ones.

Stating he'd prepare a nice meal from it and leave the rest of the fish there so their stock on food should be refilled, Jay got another lecture.

Apparently those sharks were monsters and not normal.

Jay had gotten a similar lecture from Marcus back then when they skinned his hunt for the first time:

Monster meat was imbued with wild or even misamatic mana that lingers everywhere, and because of that not edible.

One of the bears back then had been not too far from turning into a monster as the chef had stated. A few weeks later and a magic core would have started to form, boosting the bears powers immensely by changing the structure of it's mana.

The monsters mana would run rampant the moment it got taken in and only do harm, up to a mana poisoning.

Only rare monster cooks that have learned to pull out most of the soaked in mana were able to prepare such a meat.

But the materials harvested from this monster were worth so much that the family would have no problems to buy as much fish as they wanted to. Deciding to leave the shark with them so they would get some profit, Jay said his farewell and left towards the small pier. Liam accompanied him and told he would leave for a few days as well.

With his ring retrieved he could finally ask for his new girls hand.

Jay promised him to not tell anyone about him, only report to Stoutmantle once he would see him, so the work at the lighthouse was settled.

With a new goal set in his mind, that was to get the monster cooking skill, Jay rowed over to the beach for hopefully the last time in a long while. The fact that his system supported his wishes once in a while, giving him a new quest brought him a self mocking smile.

It seemed that it only reacted to necessary tasks or real desires.

***

Quest:

'Next level cooking'

Object:

acquire the [Monster Cooking] skill.

***

Arriving on the stony beach and pulling the boat a bit out out the water, Jay summoned his mount and rode towards the small path between the cliffs he came from.

It lead up towards the road and once he arrived there at the top he turned around and rode the few dozens of yards back.

From up the steep cliff he took a final glance on the island with the Lighthouse and the bright flame signal he had saved.