50 Underwater Cave (1/2)

”See?! I told you that you will like it. Look at all those lights. So beautiful…” Dongmei called out seeing his reaction and watched the shiny purple crystals illuminating the whole cave with a grin on her face. Both he and she knew what those crystals were.

They were Ethernum Crystals that were one of the most precious and expensive materials in the world. With so much potential inside of them and hidden uses that scientist is yet to be discovered, the value of it was understandable.

The whole cave was about five meters tall and had more than ten meters in diameter. The whole ceiling was filled with Ethernum crystals that were bigger than a fist and there were many more, the size of a watermelon. From what Wuxing learned, just this one watermelon sized Ethernum crystal was worth more than a villa. This is why he didn't wonder why the miner was so crazy when he found a crystal like that.

”Yeah, it is indeed pretty here,” Wuxing confirmed Dongmei's comments, feeling she was hugging onto his arm, waiting for his remarks. With him admitting it, he couldn't scold her anymore so Dongmei relaxed, returning into her happy mood.

”I have to show you something more amazing. Come, get out of the water.” Knowing it wasn't everything, she got out of the water tunnel and reached out to him to pull him with her.

Wuxing could hear some sounds as if waves were hitting something in the distance so he suspected there was another outlet from this cave which led to the sea, and only when lifted himself a bit, getting out after Dongmei, did he see the source of this noise.

Just a meter away from the tunnel exit, he saw another pool and what surprised him was that there were hundreds of colourful fish swimming all together as if a whole swarm was gathering there. One had to know that the diameter of the poor was only less than five meters and because of many fish, they could not even see the bottom of it.

Looking at the water level and how it was raising up and down, Wuxing guessed that it was still connected to the sea somehow. He didn't exactly know how close they were to it but it should be far.

”Look how pretty they are… I think they gather here from the see because of those crystals. The energy produced by them probably lures the nearby fish.” Dongmei thought as she squatted in front of the pool and felt the water with her fingers. She tried to touch one of the fish but none approached her hand.

”Yeah, this pool should be connected with the sea which is not far away from us. I guess there must be a crack in the mountain somewhere close and the water from the sea is entering through there.” Wuxing theorized as he watched her play with the water.

Just as she said it, one of the fish decided to make a leap of faith and jump out of the water only to hit the wall and bounce back towards the pool. In the next second, another fish decided to jump herself too, aiming at the wall but she also bounced back.

”What do you think they are doing?” Dongmei asked curiously, letting Wuxing's arms wrap around her so she could feel his warmth. Even if it was warm outside, inside of this cave the temperature was lowered by a few degrees.

Instead of replying, Wuxing pulled her with him and they approached the wall as close as they could by walking around it and Wuxing started examining the wall. With him so focused, Dongmei laid calmly inside of his embrace and waited for his opinion. The wall was covered with a lot of mucus from the fish bodies with some scales still lingering on them but there was nothing that indicated why they were doing it.

Splash.

Another fish jumped out of the water, doing exactly what others did but this time Wuxing was up close and could see what was going on. As the fish hit the wall, one of the Ethernum Crystals shook from the vibrations of the hit and one could see it was very loose already. He could guess that with a few tens of hits, the crystal would probably fall into the water.

Dongmei also saw that and commented, ”That crystal is about to fall into the water.”

”Wait… Maybe that's what they want? To get the crystal into the water. They are gathering here because of the Ethernum Crystals in the cave so maybe the crystals have some special effects on them? Those fish spend some time bashing against that wall to make at least one crystal fall. Look many of them have a lot of scars on their bodies.” Wuxing figured out a theory which even made Dongmei think that it might be true.

If one thought about it, there was no other rational explanation of why they would do it. There could be one more reason which is a special tradition during mating but Wuxing found that to have little probability. They all hit one spot on the wall, trying to hit the crystal which was sticking out the most out of all of them. If they were mating it would be more of which fish jumps the highest kind of deal.

”I think that might be true. Do you want to find out what happens when the crystal finally falls into the water?” Dongmei asked, thinking that maybe he wanted to do the same as she did and she was not wrong as Wuxing nodded to her question.

”I can hold your hand while you will reach out to grab the crystal. What do you think?” Wuxing proposed seeing that it would be hard to get any other crystals out of the rocks without any tools.

”Alright. Just don't drop me.” Dongmei didn't find that impossible to do so she quickly agreed, knowing he wouldn't do anything funny with her. With him holding onto the wall with one hand and her with the other, she slowly reached out and grabbed onto the crystal.

Just as they thought, it was loose and it was not hard for her to pull it out from the socket which she did after a few movements. The Ethernum Crystals were really fragile so she had to be careful not to crush it on accident.

”Here you go.” Dongmei passed him the crystal after he pulled her back into his arms and asked sweetly, ”Are you going to just throw it into the water?”