Chapter 223: Atlantis

Jade controlled the body of the Ocean Master to float toward him and he created a transparent portal between him and the body that it entered into. The portal sent it to a storage dimension that Jade now called a Vault since they were more secure than Rooms he previously used.

He turned toward the group of watching people, deactivated his Grim Reaper Cloak privilege so that they could see his race and Rank and said 'Hello, I come in peace' after sensing their caution. There was a ball of compressed space around them that opened to let Jade's psychic message through. Jade smiled when he saw it and thought 'It's crude but it's better than nothing'. He saw that the ball was made by the Colossal Squid at the back of the group.

Eel floated forward without leaving the ball and asked 'Where are you from?' He was denoted by the IP as [Rank 27 Lightning Fishman]. Jade thought 'That's the exact question I wanted to ask you' but he said 'I'm from Nigeria'.

Eel said 'Where is this Nigeria?' Jade was silent as he thought 'They were swimming in the Atlantic Ocean yet they didn't know where Nigeria was? Are they kidding?' Seeing Jade's silence Eel said 'Sparkle, I'm talking to you'.

Jade pointed at himself and said 'Me?' Eel nodded and Jade said 'First off, Nigeria is just along the shore of this Ocean we're in. How could you not know that? Second, don't call me Sparkle, that's the name of a pony in a children's cartoon. My name is Feisal'.

'Feeeeisaaaaal' Eel said like he was tasting the name 'A name with no meaning. Shore, beach, as I feared you are an invader'. Jade was confused and he said 'I'm sorry for invading your territory' and thought 'Is he retarded? Fish brain? Did he have to know all this before he realizing that I was trespassing?'. Eel said 'This place is not our territory, you-'he was interrupted by the humongous portal that appeared beside him.

The Colossal Squid came out of the portal. Now that it was closer Jade noticed that it had 16 tentacles, 4 arms unlike a normal colossal squid that had 2 tentacles and 8 arms. His IP denoted it as a [Rank 20 Kraken Variant: Genius]. The squid said 'Sorry for copying your spell if that annoys you. Eel here is very apprehensive of humans. My name is Ink, nice to meet you Feisal'.

Jade looked at the Ink with excitement and curiosity causing Eel to frown and float back. Jade said 'You say human like it is distant thing to you, why is that?' Jade already had a hunch but he wanted it to be proven. Ink said 'That is because we are not and have never been human'.

Jade's excitement peaked and he asked 'What were you before? I can guess you were a Colossal Squid before you evolved'. Jade noticed Ink's joyful expression which concerned him, he thought 'How can I know the facial expressions of a fucking squid, what have I turned to?' As Jade thought this the Leviathan, Length, and the person riding it, Coral, passed through the portal. Jade's IP denoted Coral as a [Rank 25 Atlantian Elementalist (Calcium)].

Ink said 'Indeed, I moved to this ocean in fear of the monsters'. Jade had so many questions. He asked 'Were you always sentient, we humans assumed you weren't but we still taught you were quite smart but then again sentience is a complex concept'.

Ink showed joy and said 'Indeed it is. I believe sentience is a creature's capability to live outside of its natural instincts. I don't really think it is determined by intelligence although it is all relative. What a creature might consider ingenuity might be seen as instinct by a creature with high intelligence'.

Jade nodded and said 'Yes, very true. The topic was always a poorly understood point for us humans. I believe the ability to communicate with a creature, whether it is lower of higher in intelligence than you, helps to identify if it is sentient or not. But as humans we didn't have a way to do that'.

Seeing that the conversation had entered a tangent Length said 'Desist from talking about useless things. What do you want?' Ink sent an apology to Length and said to Jade 'Sorry for engaging you'. Jade said 'No problems. As for your question, I was just here to kill the Ocean Master. I attacked me when I was human so I wanted to eliminate it. But now that I know you guys are here I would like to get to know you'.

Length looked at Eel with an unperturbed expression indicating that he was ok with Jade's request. Eel had an uneasy expression and Coral had a slight smile on her face. Ink was ecstatic about the idea. Eel groaned and flew away and the rest followed him.

Jade was extremely confused as the group left him. Ink said 'Follow us, Eel has agreed to let you into one of the cities'. Jade was extremely shocked, they didn't use psychic communication at all. Jade thought 'They speak to each other through facial expressions! That's wild! Or maybe their communication was so advanced that I couldn't sense it? I doubt that'

Jade swam with them for a while and before he knew it, he was headed toward a humongous city on the Ocean floor with buildings made of a mixture of coral shells and stones. The city was lit up by shining shells on the buildings themselves, most of the buildings in the center were as tall as mountains.

Jade had no idea how the city was hidden or how they got there. It was like, at one point he was swimming toward empty water, and then suddenly the city just came into existence. He thought 'It couldn't have been that I was fighting close to a whole city all along and I couldn't notice it. That's too unbelievable!'. He replayed the memory of his transportation here over and over again but all he noticed was that the city was always there but it was just extremely well camouflaged.

The city had people riding on 20 meter long metallic Sword Fishes of different colors that transported them through the city. There was the rare 15 meter long translucent Sail Fish that also acted as transportation. There were two types of people commonly seen; the [Atlantians] that resembled humans the most, only the spares scales on different parts of their body and gills differentiated them from humans.

The second type of people that were commonly seen were the [Fishmen]. They were more varied with the ones closest to humans possessing only a full array of scales and a pair of gills to differentiate them from humans, they were quite rare. The ones farthest from human had fish like upper bodies, fish tails attached to their spines like normal tails or tentacles for arms; they were also rare. Most Fishmen had a balanced combination of fish and human traits.

There was the rare [Merman] or [Mermaid] with human upper bodies and fish lower bodies, as well as the rare Octopus, Squid, Orca or Dolphin moving on their own. All the people had different marine traits and they all looked different from each other making Jade feel like he was in a weird sea themed cosplay event.

The people were all scantily clad with women wearing clothes similar to bikinis or just light gowns that was just plainly lingerie and men wearing loin clothes, shorts or trousers. The animals and merefolk were the only completely naked ones in the city but the people weren't too far from it. Jade looked overdressed in his hoody and long shorts.

Length floated away from the group, even though the city was large enough for Orcas to swim through Length was in a different league when it came to size and his current size was a shrunken one. Ink said 'We are going to meet someone who is very interested in human culture. She will handle the discussion with you'.

They floated into the city and Eel sent and received some psychic messages toward a certain building in the city center which they eventually reached. Jade didn't even have to reduce his size to pass through the door. An 8 foot tall woman approached them after they went through the door. She had thin blue tendrils for hair and hairless white skin. Her eye balls were blue and she wore a light semi transparent gown that failed to hide any of what was below.

Jade controlled his senses and focused on other aspects of her when he noticed that his body was susceptible to sexual urges unlike when he was a Primordial Human. His IP identified the woman as a [Rank 28 Jelly Fishman]. The woman smiled to him and said with a psychic message 'Welcome to Atlantis-Border 8'.