Chapter 519 Black Tide Hunter

"[Proficiency +1]"

"[[Heavy Tide] lv2 (94/100) → [Heavy Tide] lv2 (95/100)]"

The translucent characters flashed in the empty air before vanishing.

Xia Nan glanced at them, then looked away.

His expression remained completely unchanged despite his combat technique's rising proficiency.

He felt not the slightest ripple of excitement.

For one thing, ever since acquiring the [Proof of Diligence], he had been gaining an average of nearly three proficiency points a day. He was already used to [Heavy Tide]'s current leveling efficiency.

For another, his current mood was truly anything but wonderful.

As for the reason—

Gripping his fishing rod, the dark-haired young man stared at the deck. There, a tiny fish—no longer than his index finger—flopped wildly around, having just been pulled from the sea. He fell into a deep silence.

This was his entire harvest for the whole morning.

Why?

This shouldn't be happening—

Time, weather, temperature, positioning, and technique—relying on his sharp Perception combined with the vast amount of fishing experience he had recently studied and synthesized, Xia Nan felt he had done absolutely everything right.

He should have been pulling up big fish one after another. It was only logical.

But the pathetic catch before his eyes forced him to abandon his daydreams and return to reality.

"Whoa! You caught one, Xia Nan!"

Alton the halfling cheered in his ear, his voice brimming with pleasant surprise.

He wasn't being sarcastic. The little guy was always incredibly supportive; seeing Xia Nan finally catch something after a whole morning of hard work, he was genuinely happy for him.

"How about I stew this into a bowl of soup for you at noon?"

Under normal circumstances, highly skilled master anglers wouldn't even bother keeping such a tiny fish. They would just unhook it and toss it right back into the sea.

But he had gone to such great lengths to catch it. It was small, sure, but Xia Nan couldn't quite bring himself to throw it back.

After thinking it over, he unhooked the finger-length fish and handed it to the halfling.

"Just toss it into the cream of mushroom soup," Xia Nan said. "Actually, maybe pan-fry it for a few seconds first so it absorbs more flavor."

"Hehe, don't worry! I guarantee it'll be delicious!"

Alton took the little fish with a grin and scurried off on his short legs, excitedly heading into the cabin.

Reeling in his line alone, Xia Nan tried to cheer himself up.

No matter what, he had at least perfectly achieved his training goals.

As mentioned before, during the long journey from the inland regions to Barracuda Bay, he had unexpectedly discovered that combining his combat techniques with fishing served as an excellent form of training.

The efficiency was even slightly higher than his daily practice routines.

Taking [Heavy Tide] as an example: casting the rod, pulling the line, and even using the combat technique to stir the seawater and bait while waiting to simulate the movements of prey—all of it produced a training effect.

As a result, even though his training time during the voyage was much shorter than back in Barracuda Bay, he still maintained the same proficiency gain efficiency.

Right now, it was already their seventh day since setting sail from Wave-Breaking Wharf.

Xia Nan had pushed his [Heavy Tide] proficiency up to lv2 (95/100). He figured he was only a day or two away from leveling it up to lv3.

As a companion combat technique belonging to the Meteor Blade Hunter class, its quality grade should be in the same tier as [Gravity Etching].

As a key node in the leveling system, once [Heavy Tide] reached lv3, Xia Nan should gain tangible attribute points, just as he had with [Gravity Etching] and [Fang Hunt].

Thinking of this, his mood inevitably improved quite a bit.

After all, since arriving at Barracuda Bay, he had acquired quite a few Rare pieces of equipment and significantly boosted his overall combat capabilities. However, both his class level and physical attributes were still merely accumulating; there had been no substantive changes yet.

Right now, even a single attribute point was enough to excite him.

"Whoosh—"

The damp sea breeze blew across the undulating waves, rustling his short, dark hair.

His nose twitched, and Xia Nan couldn't help but furrow his brow.

He felt the humidity in the air quietly shifting.

Looking up into the distance on instinct, he could vaguely make out a faint, extremely distant smear of grayish-black where the sky met the horizon.

Before he even had time to warn anyone, the druid Hein, standing at the bow, simultaneously noticed the situation through the abnormal movements of the seagulls circling overhead.

"Beware the storm!" she shouted to the crew on deck.

"Prepare to lower the sails and drop speed!"

In an instant, the once-peaceful deck erupted into a flurry of activity.

Thanks to Xia Nan and Hein spotting it early, the crew of the Blade of Vengeance Ship had ample time to make preparations. Coupled with their extensive past experience, the scene on board wasn't the least bit chaotic. The sailors all performed their respective duties, bracing for the impending storm.

Every station had its manpower assigned in advance; trying to help blindly would only get in the crew's way.

Therefore, having put away his fishing rod, Xia Nan had no choice but to stand by the railing at the edge of the deck. He gazed at that speck of grayish-black in the distance, trying to use his Perception to judge the storm's scale and trajectory to the best of his ability, hoping to offer the fleet some assistance.

On the other side, as the team's core spellcaster, Hein also had nothing pressing to do at the moment.

Retracting Ayin, the silver-banded snake that had been sunbathing coiled on her shoulder, back to her wrist, she saw what Xia Nan was doing and walked over.

"How is it? Did you find anything?" she asked.

Hearing this, Xia Nan shook his head slightly.

Although he had been in the Southern Archipelagos for a while now, he hadn't encountered such severe weather very often. Without enough accumulated experience, no matter how sharp his Perception was, it was hard to make a truly accurate judgment.

"The only thing I can say for sure is that the scale of this storm should be much smaller than the one we encountered last time," Xia Nan replied.

The Blade of Vengeance Ship was a specially modified vessel carrying multiple Class Grade experts, and even its ordinary crew members were highly experienced.

The vast majority of the reason they had looked a bit battered previously was because of the Spiral-Toothed Shark School hiding beneath the surface.

If it was just an ordinary storm, it wouldn't be hard to handle at all.

Not to mention they had so much time to prepare for it.

Seeing Hein standing right beside him, Xia Nan suddenly remembered something.

"The Lunar Tide Banquet," he asked. "You've attended it before, right?"

"Of course," Hein replied.

Despite her young age, Hein was practically one of the earliest members to join the Blade of Vengeance Fleet and had been following Lorraine for many years.

Even though the Sea Rhythm Festival only occurred once every three years, she had attended the Lunar Tide Banquet more than once alongside the red-haired female captain.

"How is it, exactly? Is there anything special about it?" Xia Nan followed up.

"It's just a large-scale banquet. It's lively enough, but the tier isn't really all that high," Hein said, recalling her memories. "Unless there are special circumstances, high-level Class Holders at the Transcendent Tier or Legendary rank simply won't show their faces. The attendees are basically all adventurers at our level."

"Including Algae Scale Dodd?" Xia Nan raised an eyebrow.

Hearing him ask this, Hein pondered for a moment before nodding somewhat hesitantly.

"Algae Scale hasn't shown his face much in recent years, and there's rarely any news of him taking action personally.

"But—he shouldn't have reached the Transcendent Tier yet. Otherwise, given his past personality, it's impossible he'd keep such a low profile."

That didn't differ much from the intelligence he had gathered recently. Xia Nan nodded to himself, but out of caution, he still mentally prepared for the worst-case scenario.

"Speaking of which, with your current reputation, you actually don't need to tag along with us. You could just find your own ship and sail over, and nobody would stop you."

Seeing the atmosphere grow a bit heavy, Hein abruptly changed the subject.

She wasn't wrong.

When he first arrived at Barracuda Bay, Xia Nan had already asked Hera for information on how to attend the Lunar Tide Banquet.

There were two methods in total.

The first was exactly what he was doing now with the Blade of Vengeance Fleet: finding a well-known figure with the qualifications to attend and having them bring him along.

The second was to carve out a certain level of fame in the Southern Archipelagos, thereby earning his own right to attend the Lunar Tide Banquet.

When Xia Nan had trekked over mountains and rivers to reach the Southern Archipelagos, the Sea Rhythm Festival was only a few months away. Feeling he lacked the time, he chose the first method and used Hera's connections to meet the Blade of Vengeance Squad before him.

He hadn't expected the past few months to be so full of twists and turns, allowing him to forge quite a reputation in an extremely short amount of time.

It was just that the spread of the "Sea Fang" alias still needed some time. Otherwise, if he had just half a month more, he might have received a direct invitation.

However, just as Hein had said, with his current level of fame, even without an invitation, standing at the banquet doors would very likely earn him the exact same treatment as any other attendee.

Regarding this, Xia Nan didn't have any extra thoughts on the matter.

His cooperation with the Blade of Vengeance Fleet had been very pleasant. Furthermore, he shared a common goal with their captain, Lorraine, and they had even finalized a cooperative plan.

He didn't mind attending the banquet together with them as a temporary member of the fleet.

After casually chatting with the druid beside him about the Lunar Tide Banquet for a bit, Xia Nan was just about to head into the cabin with her to see if anyone needed his help.

But suddenly, a tense warning cry rang out from the crow's nest overhead.

"Southeast! An unidentified ship is approaching!"

Xia Nan's gaze naturally followed the direction.

Out on the distant sea, amidst the endlessly rolling crests of the waves, a medium-sized ship could vaguely be seen approaching them.

'Adventurers? Or maybe pirates?'

Xia Nan pondered internally.

His dark eyes locked tightly onto the distant ship, his gaze focused on the flag at the top of their mast that served to identify them.

It had a black background with white patterns. The design featured a sharp harpoon stabbing diagonally downward against a backdrop of sea waves, with the chain attached to its end coiling around the edges of the flag.

Xia Nan had never seen this flag before, but he felt like he had learned about it somewhere; it gave him a vague sense of familiarity.

Just as he was trying to recall, the correct answer rang out beside his ear.

"The Black Tide Hunter Fleet?"

At some unknown point, Captain Lorraine, having heard the lookout's warning, had already emerged from the cabin.

With her wealth of experience, she instantly recognized the identity of the distant ship at a single glance.

'Black Tide Hunter?'

Reminded by her words, Xia Nan immediately recalled the information he had learned about this fleet while studying up on the Southern Archipelagos.

Adventurers, when it came down to it, were merely a special group of people who possessed formidable strength surpassing ordinary folks and made a living by taking on Association quests.

The ones relatively at the bottom of the hierarchy had no special requirements regarding the type of quest itself. Within the same difficulty level, whether it was gathering or hunting, as long as there was money to be made, they would accept almost anything.

But as adventurers gradually increased their strength, formed fixed squads, and even stepped onto the path of Class Holders, the types of quests they accepted would become more targeted based on the specialized skills of their team members.

Some adventurer squads specialized in various bounties, becoming "bounty hunters" in the traditional sense;

Other squads pursued legendary treasures, with single quests easily taking years to complete. However, whenever they succeeded, the profits could cover a normal team's expenses for years, or even make them overnight millionaires, turning them into veritable tycoons.

As for the Black Tide Hunter adventurer fleet, their core business was tracking and hunting all sorts of monsters and aberrant beasts in the ocean. Their income primarily came from quest rewards and sea beast materials.

They rarely interacted with other adventurer squads, yet they were frequently seen dragging the corpses of massive sea beasts back to port to sell for high prices.

Xia Nan had previously heard this squad's name in the tavern and had learned about their fleet's flag from others' descriptions.

He hadn't paid much attention to it at the time. He never expected to run into them out here on the open sea in such a manner.

But—

Thoughts raced through Xia Nan's mind.

Although the Black Tide Hunter nominally relied on hunting sea beasts as their main source of revenue, based on his understanding of adventurers in this world, if they truly ran into a so-called "fat sheep" on the unmonitored open sea, they probably wouldn't mind temporarily changing their identity and doing some pirating on the side.

Their identity as adventurers, given the current time and location, was already a threat to the Blade of Vengeance Fleet.

It was difficult to judge whether they were friend or foe.

Not to mention, the other party's ship was actively approaching them right now. Who knew what kind of motives they harbored?

Fortunately, from what he knew, the Black Tide Hunter Squad's own combat strength wasn't considered too high. He estimated they probably couldn't match the Blade of Vengeance Fleet, which currently had him and Alton as temporary members.

Still, they needed to handle this cautiously.

At the same time, Lorraine, standing beside him, clearly shared Xia Nan's concerns.

She didn't relax her vigilance just because she knew the other party's identity. Instead, she rallied her squad members into formation and directed the crew on deck to prepare for battle.

In just over ten minutes, the Black Tide Hunter's wooden ship had navigated through the waves and arrived right next to the Blade of Vengeance Ship.

This also allowed Xia Nan to clearly see the situation on the opposite deck.