Chapter 138: Discovered

Visibility is poor at night, and her divine sense is limited in range, but Yun Qing cannot wait until daylight to try again. She wants to see right now if she can hook a fish above level 40.

With a thought, she leaves her cave dwelling, using stealth and breath-concealment to approach the lakeshore. She takes out the prepared bait, hooks it, and casts her line.

The translucent spider-silk line enters the water, seemingly possessing its own form of invisibility. Even for Yun Qing, who is focused, it is difficult to see clearly; she must judge the situation on the other end through the sensations felt through the silk.

Even when she concentrates her divine sense into a single thread, its range is only five meters. Xiao Haoran once said that those with stronger divine sense can detect those with weaker sense probing them. Her current strength is insufficient; her divine sense might even be inferior to that of a level 40 fish.

This is also why cultivators do not casually use their divine sense to probe private territories, as it easily leads to death.

Since her range is insufficient, Yun Qing decides not to use her divine sense while fishing, relying instead on stealth and silence as she waits for a bite. Whether she catches something below level 40 or above is entirely a matter of luck and the fish's own determination to snatch the bait.

After only a few breaths, Yun Qing feels movement on the other end of the silk. It is not the sensation of it sinking freely; something is approaching.

Suddenly, the silk in her hand jerks downward—a fish has taken the bait.

Immediately following is a powerful tug. The force is so immense that it causes pain even through her gloved hands.

A fish in the 30s would not have such strength; the one that bit the hook must be a high-level catch. Worried about injuring her hands, Yun Qing does not compete in raw strength. Instead, she follows the pull, attempting to guide the fish along the shore toward the shallows.

However, the fish seems to realize her intention and struggles desperately to swim back into the depths of the lake. To avoid being dragged into the water, Yun Qing slightly lengthens the silk, channeling her internal energy into it, barely managing to force the fish to thrash along the shoreline according to her will.

Feeling the tension in her hands, she realizes after a while that she has already expended half of her internal energy, yet the fish shows no signs of fatigue.

"Liu Liu, why are fish in the 30s so easy to catch, but those in the 40s are so difficult?"

"Two reasons. First, your internal energy is highly enticing to fish in the 30s. They become immersed in the delicious bait and, caught off guard, are easily pulled up and killed. If you didn't have such tasty bait, you'd find them quite difficult to kill as well."

"And the second reason?"

"The fish you are catching are contaminated, and they have something wrong with their brains."

Yun Qing: I feel like I've been insulted by a dog, but I can't find the evidence, nor do I have the power to refute it.

She wonders if the level 40+ fish are also contaminated. She suspects that using spiritual energy would make them easier to catch. Just like gathering materials, fishing above one's own level significantly reduces the success rate.

After a stalemate of about five minutes, Yun Qing takes advantage of a momentary lull in its struggle to yank the fish out of the water and slam it onto the grass.

[Unknown, Level 43.]
[Gathering Experience +500]
[Obtained: Small Silverfish x1]

The Small Silverfish is not a contaminated one; its brain is fine, which is why it tried to escape after biting the hook.

On the grass, the palm-sized fish is level 43. It thrashes its tail against the ground, leaping high into the air, looking as if it could break free and return to the lake at any moment.

As a first-rank spirit beast, Yun Qing dares not be careless. Lacking a proper weapon, she summons the Mosquito Queen’s Poisonous Claws and strikes.

The fish continues to leap on the grass. After several strikes and with the coordination of the spider silk, she finally manages to graze the fish with the tips of her claws. This is partly because she is reluctant to damage the meat—she wants to eat it, yet she hasn't thought of a good way to kill it yet.

-20; [Combat Experience +60]
-30; [Combat Experience +90]

The 20 damage was from her strike, while the 30 was from the Small Silverfish being poisoned. The poison makes the fish dizzy, and it begins to flop further and further away from the lake.

Seizing the advantage, Yun Qing pulls out her axe. With better aim, she swings it a few times and finishes the fish off.

-30; [Combat Experience +90]
-20; [Combat Experience +60]
-20; [Combat Experience +260]
[Obtained: Low-grade Spirit Stone x1]

Looking at the palm-sized Small Silverfish on the ground, she realizes how hard she worked to catch it, poison it, and then laboriously kill it. She wonders if it is even still edible.

Yun Qing focuses her attention on the fish: [Contaminated Small Silverfish, can be purified.]

A moment ago it was just a Small Silverfish, and now it is contaminated—and she is the one who did it. It doesn't matter; she has the Purification skill.

The Purification skill levels up alongside her, and it can purify items of a higher level than her own.

Picking up the carcass, she silently recites, "Use Purification."

As the skill activates, she notices that it isn't her silver coins being consumed, but her spirit stones. Fortunately, Liu Liu had picked up a spirit stone for her when she killed the fish, otherwise, she would have suffered a loss.

[Crafting Experience +200]
[Obtained: Small Silverfish x1]

Dissecting the meat requires technique; such a high-level fish cannot be automatically harvested. Yun Qing takes out her large kitchen knife and manually processes the meat. It consumes a great deal of her internal energy, but she finally manages to remove the gills and entrails, obtaining some rather unsightly fish meat and 400 points of gathering experience.

For her first catch of a first-rank fish, the entire ordeal leaves her, a Xiantian-level cultivator, with most of her internal energy depleted. It feels far more difficult than catching ten fish in the 30s.

However, she is close. Just a few more catches and she will hit level 41. Once she has spiritual power, fishing will become much easier. She enters her cave to meditate and recover her energy.

What Yun Qing does not know is that she was discovered the very first day she appeared at the Sunlit Lake to fish.

It is a peak sixth-rank Little Black-Feathered Eagle. Fond of eating Small Silverfish, it often absorbs the essence of the sun and moon from the largest tree by the lake. In its spare time, it uses its sharp gaze to inspect the food that enters this place, occasionally picking something that looks decent. Only when extremely hungry will it grab whatever is available.

It once ate a first-rank human. The taste was something it never wanted to experience again—the creature was huge, required tearing apart with beak and claws, was foul-smelling, full of black bile, and poisonous.

Yun Qing: Are you sure you ate a human and not a soul-corpse?

Seeing Yun Qing, an unranked creature, it felt no delicious aura from her and had no appetite at all. It watched her fish by the river; she didn't catch much, and none of them were ranked. Those unranked fish in the Sunlit Lake were prone to dark toxins, and the eagle disliked tainted food, so it paid her no mind.

Her stealth and breath-concealment were decent, but in its eyes, they were just petty tricks. For these past three days, neither the eagle nor the human had moved.

Tonight, the human returned to fish. The eagle barely paid attention, but to its surprise, she actually pulled a Small Silverfish from the lake.

Small Silverfish are rich in spiritual energy, small in size, and can be swallowed in one bite without getting stuck in the throat. It loves them, but they are incredibly fast in the water and too small to catch easily.

It was just preparing to fly over and snatch the fish when it realized that the foul, disgusting human had actually poisoned the delicious Small Silverfish.

Damn it! It decides to drive her away. If she doesn't leave, it will kill her and feed her to the hyenas. It would never eat someone that smelly.