Chapter 502 – The God of the River (2/2)

Suddenly, he saw the float sink. He reeled his line in a hurry.

The thin fishing line became taut, but it refused to budge. Had he hooked onto a rock?

The small boat tilted slightly and the old fisherman could vaguely make out a huge shadow that swam by in the water. Shocked, he tossed down the fishing pole and retreated frantically.

With a splash, a carp leapt out from the water.

This should have been a sight that the old fisherman had seen his entire life, but he became stupefied with fright. His mouth hung agape. That was because the carp was even several times larger than his boat.

The carp also stared at him with widened eyes and opened its huge mouth in an attempt to swallow the old fisherman. It was covered in fiery-red scales, but there were ink-like splotches of black on its back, which slightly seemed like a black lotus.

“Fish monster, don’t even think about making trouble!”

The old fisherman’s reactions were fast. He kicked off the nose of the boat. The boat was submerged by the water before suddenly shooting back up due to buoyancy. He pushed off it to leap into the air, shooting towards the riverbank. He was actually a first-rate master.

Boom!

The carp had crushed the boat to pieces as shards of wood shot in all directions. A huge hole appeared on the surface of the river, forming a whirlpool.

The old fisherman ached all over, as the wooden shrapnel had injured him. However, he could no longer worry about that. He lowered his head to check the surface of the water. The carp landed in the water before floating back up, opening its mouth, just waiting for him down below.

The old fisherman was a martial arts master, but he could not fly, much less know how to use some divine technique like pushing off his right foot with his left. He had nowhere to draw force from in the air, so all he could do was watch as he fell towards the fish’s mouth.

“I’m done for!”

At this moment, the carp suddenly closed its mouth and turned around, diving back into the water.

With a plop, the old fisherman landed in the water. Just when he was about to swim over to the riverbank, he noticed that the water surface upstream had suddenly become extremely smooth, drifting downwards like a mirror.

“What is it this time?” The old fisherman’s face changed drastically. Clearly, the fish had been frightened away by this.

In the blink of an eye, not a single ripple remained in the water around him. Something brushed past him. In that instant, all of his hairs stood on end as his mind froze up like it had fallen into a cavern of ice. His limbs all stiffened as he directly sank into the centre of the river.

A while later, the surface of the river turned back to normal, and the old fisherman reappeared on the surface. He spat out a mouthful of water and collapsed on the riverbank. He was in a sorry shape.

He wanted to eat fish, but he ate no fish. Instead, a fish had almost eaten him. The waters of rivers and lakes were too deep. As it seemed, he could only fish in streams in the future.

There seems to be daemon qi up ahead. I better catch up and take a look.

When Li Qingshan refined the smaller river, he did not come across a single proper daemon, probably because it was far too shallow, unable to support daemonic beasts that had transformed into daemons.

When he refined the larger river, he finally encountered a few. However, most of them had not even condensed a daemon core. However, they were much larger than other members of the same species. Their intelligence was lacking, having yet to properly evolve from beasts.

It made his plan to capture a few underlings to serve under him fall through. Now that he finally ran into one that bore some proper resemblance to daemons, he could not help but take special note of it.

“You sure flee quickly!”

Li Qingshan continued swimming forwards, but the daemon qi had already vanished. He could only advance slowly if he wanted to refine the water system.

The larger river was much wider than the smaller river and there was much more water. Although Li Qingshan had already gained some experience with refining water systems, he still remained rather slow.

However, upon further thought, he stopped worrying. Underground, the blackwater salamander and ice frog were both water-elemented daemons among the daemon soldiers under his command. By then, he could just dispatch them here.

Two days later, early in the morning.

Li Qingshan finally returned to his starting point, the end of the river and the shore of Clear Court lake.

Welcoming the rising sun in the east, he opened his hand, and the Water God Seal flashed. Light poured out like waves as a thin streak of light unfurled, implying that the regions of water under Li Qingshan’s control had expanded.

Only around a tenth of the Water God Seal had been filled. The god seal that Ru Xin had given him was truly of a higher quality. It was completely sufficient for refining Clear Court lake.

Li Qingshan no longer hesitated anymore, leaping into the vast Clear Court lake.

Clear Court lake was not circular. Instead, it was an irregular semi-circle. It was shaped like a running rabbit.

In the belly of the rabbit, which was also the centre of Clear Court lake, was a lone island shrouded in mist and illusionary formations. Only on some special occasions would the criss-crossing structures of various heights be visible, rising and falling with the terrain they stood on.

As a result, there were rumors that Clear Court lake possessed an immortal’s island, but that was only the belief of ignorant people. People who truly understood the cultivation world all knew this was where the sect of Clear Court lake stood.

As the saying went, deep mountains and great marshes hid figures of power. The island was abundant with spiritual qi, making it an excellent, blessed land of cultivation.

As a renowned sect of the Clear River prefecture, Clear Court sect was also an important member of the Daemon Suppression alliance of the Clear River prefecture. In order to fend off the attacks of night roamers, they too had moved to the Rose Cloud mountains.