Spiny Devilfish

Because of this dangerous experience, Alvin looked forward to his physical berserking after being promoted to a true knight even more.

"Sigh, it would be great if I had the alchemy boost that came with the White Sail Sword Technique." Even in his current situation, Alvin, who originally lacked resources, was helpless. After all, you can't make bricks without straw.

When Alvin finished arranging the items in the pharmacy, locked the door, and walked out, it was already evening. The gas lamps along the streets near the city centre were all lit. Six melodic chimes sounded from the bell tower in the city center, reminding everyone in the city that it was already 6 PM.

Alvin went past street after street on foot.

One could occasionally see well-dressed gentlemen take out exquisite, golden pocket watches from their pockets elegantly and slowly check the time as passers-by looked on in envy.

Small watches had just been invented recently, so exquisite portable pocket watches were still luxury items to most of the townsfolk.

Taking out a pocket watch on any social occasion would improve the standing of its owners. Hence, from the moment pocket watches came to existence, they were sought after by the middle and upper class, who cared a lot about their image.

When Alvin saw that, he found it kind of funny. He seemed to find the feeling he felt when flaunting his new iPhone to his friends in his previous life. However, an adequate sense of competitiveness and vanity was one of the driving forces of human progress, wasn't it?

After ten minutes, Alvin had already sat down in Daddy York's small restaurant and was enjoying his large cheese steak and fungi soup. Warm light shined into the windows and created long shadows from the passers-by outside.

Fathers going home after working for the whole day, housewives rushing to pick cheap vegetables before the market dispersed, and kids rushing home after playing past the time they were supposed to go home… They were full of life, something Alvin had always craved.

Unfortunately, he was alone again now.

"Hey, handsome, whatcha lookin at?" A gentle voice sounded in Alvin's ears. A lass wearing a servant costume put a large cup of butterbeer in front of him.

"Sister Lina!!" The lass had leaned a little too close to him, so her voluptuous breasts pressed against Alvin's shoulder lightly. Her scarlet hair fell from her head and tickled Alvin. This made Alvin blush slightly as he resisted the lass' flirting embarrassedly.

"Hehehe…"

After getting the reaction she wanted, the red-haired lass named Lina covered her mouth, turned around, and walked away with her head held high and chest puffed out like a triumphant, little hen.

There were many similar experiences in the memories of his original body. Not only did the tavern boss' daughter Lina flirt with him, many lasses living in the two streets nearby who felt that they had decent levels of charm tried flirting with him too.

Alvin had a very nice body in this life. He was tall, handsome, and had very fair skin. His training in sword techniques and his noble education since young gave him a unique aura that was different from that of most people his age in this era.

And after the era-transcending memories of his previous life were awakened, such an aura was even more obvious. Coupled with the fact that he owned an apothecary, he was a classic rich boy.

All these qualities combined naturally attracted many lasses who were experiencing their first awakening of love. However, most of them did not really want to get into a relationship with Alvin. They merely wanted to use him to display their charm.

Now all Alvin could do was continue to do what he did in his previous life and avoid making any mistakes. Having experienced these kinds of things before, he was not anxious at all! Generally…

Ring, ring…

"Welcome! What would you like to have today?" After Lina took the order of the new customer, she returned to the kitchen and winked at Alvin when she passed him.

However, Alvin did not notice the lass' wink as his interest was piqued by the fishy smell on the bodies of the two customers that had just entered.

"Are there really such huge fish inshore?"

"Of course! Those on the same boat as me all saw it. Many huge weird fish followed the migrating red-bellied sturgeons everywhere. They looked like demons and were very scary.

"They had red spines on the tips of their tails. Disregarding the size of their bodies, just those spines alone were longer than a guard's sword."

The middle-aged sailor who was missing one front tooth spoke continuously and described his experiences unceasingly. To increase his credibility, he even clearly listed out the time, place, and names of eyewitnesses clearly for his friend.

Alvin did not know whether his friend believed him, but Alvin listened to his words attentively.

"They seem to be talking about Spiny Devilfish? Could a deep-sea school have swum to the sea area near Leopold?

"Hmm… that should be the case. If he did not see them personally, there's no way he could describe the characteristics of the Spiny Devilfish in such detail.

"If I could get the spine of a Spiny Devilfish and make potions with it, my body constitution at the apprentice knight stage would definitely grow much faster. Then I'd have more time to prepare for my knight promotion. What a serendipitous encounter!"

The spine of a devilfish was an important raw material for boosting potions for apprentice knights. But it was hard to obtain them through trading due to their unique behaviour. Ever since escaping to Leopold, Alvin never saw one in person, even when Grandpa Leo was alive.

If one did not specially go hunting for Spiny Devilfish spines, even if someone caught a Spiny Devilfish in the high seas, they would not specially keep such a specific body part of this kind of fish. Like sun-dried lizard tails, Spiny Devilfish spines were desired by a special group of people that hid in the shadows.

After hearing the good news serendipitously, Alvin took a big gulp of the butterbeer on his table and felt very excited. Alvin felt like today was his lucky day, and the boredom he felt from being stuck in the apothecary for several days in a row completely disappeared!

The next morning.

After making sufficient preparations, Alvin did not even go to the apothecary. He left Leopold and sprinted directly towards the place the sailor from yesterday had said that he saw the Spiny Devilfish. To Alvin, just a day's worth of earnings was nothing compared to his development as a knight.

While walking, information related to the Spiny Devilfish kept appearing in Alvin's mind.

Such unique fish mostly lived in the high seas. They had giant bodies and weird appearances, but they did not have vicious temperaments. One could even say that they were a little timid. Their prey consisted of small fish and shrimp, and they did not eat humans, which could be considered large land animals to them.

The spines on their tails were also not used for attacking. Instead, the spines would turn red by themselves when the Spiny Devilfish fled. While attracting their opponents' attention, they would fall off like a lizard's tail to create an opportunity for their owners to escape.

In order to obtain a spine, Alvin prepared to make use of their trait of breaking off their spines to escape. After all, although such large fish had a gentle temperament, they still had huge bodies. Alvin would be stupid to go underwater to fight one head-on.

When he reached the part of the coast that the Devilfish appeared at, the sky had just lit up slightly.

Because the news that giant, weird fish had appeared in this area yesterday had already spread among the fishermen, there was barely anyone here today. This also made Alvin's hunting operation more convenient.

Because he was worried that the group of Devilfish would swim away before he arrived, Alvin had no time to borrow even just a small dinghy that could only travel near the coast from someone he knew. Looking around, there were also no fishing boats left behind by good-hearted people for him to borrow temporarily.

However, this was no problem for Alvin. He used the axe he carried around with him to cut two moderately thick dead trees on the coast. Then he used some rope to tie them together to form an extremely simple "raft" meant for one person.

"Haha, perfect!"

Of course, only a highly skilled and bold guy like Alvin would dare to go out to sea on this kind of "raft", even if they were only going to coastal waters where they could still see the coast.

Bringing some rope and some moderately sized rocks with him, Alvin rowed his oar, which he pared using his sword, and set off.

Splash—

Alvin compared the sailor's description, the distance to the coast, and the coordinates of reference objects and quickly reached the place where the fisherman had found the Devilfish.

He took off his clothes and tied a long rope, which had one end tied to the raft, to his waist. He then tied a dagger to his shank and jumped into the water.

The water was not very deep here, so he could see with difficulty as sunlight shone down onto the sea. Alvin activated his Data Vision to aid him in finding the school of Spiny Devilfish, which loved to wait for their prey to come to them on the seabed.

He would return to the surface once he determined that the Devilfish were not there and dive in another location.

Alvin was very famous. When he repeated the process of dive, look, return, change location, and dive again for the fourth time, the Data Vision finally picked up abnormalities on the seabed.