A Fish Subordinate

"Man, something is indeed amiss here." Iota sneaked into a fishing boat and rode it off, shouting at the owner, "I need to borrow your boat for a few hours. I've left some payment for it."

"You thief! Stop…" The fishing boat's owner hollered at the top of his lungs when his feet hit a sack nearby, feeling the jingling within as he opened it, instantly blinded by the sheer number of coins within. 'This is more than the boat's worth.'

His face instantly beamed as he shouted with a fawning tone, "Please, it's all yours, kind sir. Have fun with it."

"Sweet," Iota flashed a thumbs up at the owner and continued to row the boat away. As for where he got the sack of money? A generous noble had donated it to him, after receiving a few injections.

'The canals are too narrow to do anything. I need to venture into a bigger region.' Thinking as such, Iota rowed the boat through the canals and made countless twists and turns. He knew most of the routes in the city thanks to the map Yakone had brought in before. Of course, the locations of important facilities weren't available.

But that didn't matter, for he obtained everything else. It also meant that the places he wasn't aware of were principal locations of importance in the city.

Soon, he made his way to the river that flowed through one edge of the city. All the canals were tributaries artificially branched out from this river by Merku Garobu.

Iota peered into the waters below, observing many schools of fish moving past, "There's plenty in this region."

He threw in the net and hauled a small batch of fish, injecting a syringe's contents into his body to use the gain in strength to lift the haul into the boat. As he wasn't a fisherman, he didn't have the necessary skills to smoothly capture the fish.

Hence, he had no other choice but to rely upon brute force to do the job.

Once the school of fish was on board, he dropped them in a small tank installed on the boat. This was there to ensure the fish didn't die too soon and maintain their freshness for a longer duration.

Iota calmly plunged a syringe into a fish's body, watching it shrivel up as all its blood was sucked in. Once the golden stream mixed into it, he injected the contents into another fish, observing it become hyper immediately.

"What is…?" Iota turned around and observed the nearby fishermen. He selected the biggest fish in the captured lot and began to inject it with the blood of other fishes, watching its body gradually exhibit mutations, 'This is different from what I observed in Norda and Yakone. Are people more resistant to mutations than fishes?'

The large fish was addicted by now while its body seemed to have digested and adapted to the injected drugs, manifesting the qualities of the other fishes—whose blood he injected into it—a little.

Iota observed its eyes, thinking for a moment before he extracted a syringe's worth of blood from himself and injected it into the fish, watching it wriggle erratically in response. A dozen seconds later, the thrashing subsided as its eyes displayed intelligence.

'Indeed, one's dominant characteristics are granted through the injections.' Iota thought. Yakone had good athletic ability, especially in the field of running. Hence, when Iota injected himself with Yakone's blood, he gained a larger boost to his speed.

Similarly, what was his speciality? His intelligence and his photographic memory, other than his ability. Therefore, when injected with his blood, the fish temporarily gained intelligence.

"Move in a circle if you can understand me," Iota spoke to the fish, watching it move in a circle, 'Does it gain the ability to comprehend me since it's my blood that was injected into its body?'

"I want you to do this," Iota displayed four syringes with the blood of fish, "Since you also have my ability, can you store these syringes as a tattoo?"

The fish revolved once before touching the first syringe, transforming it into a tattoo that now appeared on its body. But immediately after, it turned a tad sluggish, struggling to convert the second syringe into a tattoo.

Upon seeing that, Iota stopped it, "Seems your limit is carrying one syringe. Well, that's still good enough."

He then pointed at a lone fisherman nearby, "Can you shoot it into him from within the water?"

Iota was able to shoot the syringes, though the speed was only good enough to pierce through the skin. But that should suffice in most situations.

When he released it in the water, the fish swam towards the target and waited patiently, observing him from a fair depth. Right as the fisherman crouched forth to pull up the cast net, the fish surfaced, extending its head out as it opened its mouth and shot out the syringe, lodging it into the man's hand.

"Aargh!" The fisherman screamed in shock as he pulled up his hand in reflex, staring at the back of his hand where he had been bitten by something. All he spotted was a tiny hole, nothing else.

In that instant when he retracted his hand in reflex and closed his eyes from the prickling pain, the syringe finished injecting the contents as Iota retracted it.

"Gah!" The fisherman suddenly clutched his neck and collapsed onto his boat, gasping for air as he seemed to be suffocating.

Iota acted like he was concerned and rowed his boat in the fisherman's direction, observing from closeup that gills had formed on the fisherman's neck. They seemed to have connected to his windpipe and blocked their connection to his nose, making it the sole mode of air inhalation possible.

Of course, the fisherman wouldn't have any problems if he were to jump into the water now. He would breathe freely underwater. But as he wasn't aware of it, he was thrashing about like a fish, unable to breathe in the air.

The effect lasted for a dozen seconds at most before the gills vanished. The effect waned as the fisherman was able to breathe once again. It would have persisted a bit longer if Iota had injected more, but to avoid the fisherman from seeing his syringe, he retracted it in a hurry, and thereby only partially injected the contents.

'Anyway, this will serve as a good weapon against anyone on land.' Thinking as such, Iota approached the fisherman, "Are you alright, friend?"