Losing weight was a severe test of one’s willpower. After doing just two more squats, Yang Yi gave up on the idea of continuing his workout, at least for a while. He decided to wait until the weakened state wore off before exercising again; that way, his stamina would last longer.

He began checking the chat channels to see what the other players were up to. Most chatting had equipped titles, colourful and varied, with very few duplicates.After all, everyone wanted a title with some personality, so they tended to choose the rarer ones.

Yang Yi glanced at his own title and noticed a new one had appeared:

【Whale Hunter: An honorary title earned after slaying a rotwhale.】

But since it was clearly Suna who had killed the rotwhale, it had to be a team-based title, likely granted to both of them.

Yang Yi focused his attention on movements within the sea regions.

Under the double threat of the Bountiful Sea and the Black Fog, areas completely unaffected by either were extremely limited. In around three days, the entire safe sea zone would gradually be stained white.

As a result, prices for food, sea salt, and other resources hard to obtain within the Bountiful Sea had slightly increased, time was running out. Overall, prices were still within an acceptable range. This indicated that most players were fairly well prepared and that there wasn't widespread panic buying.

After browsing for a bit, Yang Yi stopped and contacted Song Yingwen directly. He intended to sell intel on the rotwhale and also enquire about upgrades for special ships.

“Materials needed for me to reach level 4?”

“My ship is a special vessel. To upgrade it, I need influence points. Influence comes from newspaper circulation, so the better the paper does, the faster I can level up. The materials required are just basic resources,” Song Yingwen replied.

His ship was also currently level 3, but to advance to level 4, he needed to publish two more issues to gain enough influence.

“I see. Do you know how other special ships upgrade?” Yang Yi asked again.

“A few. For example, the captain of the ‘Tempest’ is looking to buy mid-grade Wind Essence. The ‘Iron Will’ captain is after ocean-silver. The ‘New World Fleet’ needs a more diverse mix, ocean-silver, magic stones, mid-grade Earth Essence, mid-grade Water Essence, that sort of thing.”

Yang Yi was silent for several seconds. He realised that his ship’s upgrade materials were unusually strange — it required demon corpses and regenerating flesh.

“Oh right, the leader of the ‘Eden’ fleet is offering high prices for information on dream demons. If you’ve got intel on this type of aberrant creature, you could fetch a good price. That guy… has money to burn!”

Dream demons?? Yang Yi’s heart skipped a beat. He immediately asked Song Yingwen if he had any information on that captain’s ship, but the response was tight-lipped.

“I never voluntarily disclose any information about collaborators’ ships or real names, unless they’ve already revealed it in the chat channel,” Song Yingwen replied, clearly having added the person as a friend.

Yang Yi didn’t press further. He actually appreciated Song Yingwen’s principles. After all, he also had sensitive info, like his own ship’s name and real identity.

Yang Yi made a mental note of this particular fleet. Who knows, maybe that captain’s ship had some similarities with his own.

After that, Yang Yi sold the rotwhale intel to Song Yingwen for 20,000 Shell Coins. Of course, he’d held some things back, like mentioning that he was the one who actually killed it.

He also had no photo evidence and said nothing about the Salt Wedge. He only reported that the Bountiful Sea housed gigantic creatures, some as large as islands.

After ending the conversation with Song Yingwen, Yang Yi returned to the chat interface and posted a message:

“Buying information related to regenerating flesh at high prices. DM me if you’ve got any leads!”

Yang Yi quickly received a private message. The sender even had a unique title: Justice Knight, with golden, animated light flickering around the font.

"Are you really One-Eye?" the person asked.

Yang Yi paused only briefly before admitting it. He also switched his own title to "One-Eye”.

It was the first time Yang Yi had used this title, and he noticed that the two characters were squeezed inside an eyeball that blinked from time to time — kind of gross, honestly.

“So, it is you... Then you should be able to handle this thing. Just kill a vampire.”

The Justice Knight sent him information on an aberrant creature:

【Name: Vampire】

【Description: A form evolved from a lesser vampire after consuming large amounts of blood. Weak to sunlight, silver weapons, holy water, and other forms of sacred damage. Its heart serves as a reservoir for storing blood. As long as blood remains, the vampire can constantly regenerate. The regenerative tissue is known as ‘Ever-Regenerating Flesh’. Destroying the heart is the only way to truly kill a vampire.】

After reading the details, Yang Yi sighed internally. Ever-Regenerating Flesh wasn’t unique to rotwhales. Vampires had it too. Likely, other highly regenerative creatures possessed it as well.

That explained a lot. Trying to harvest a Fruit of Bounty from a rotwhale’s body was probably far more difficult than taking one from a vampire.

“Do you have any info on where to find vampires?”

“Nope. I killed the captain of a special ship, and it turned out he was a vampire. The evil bastard tried to rob me!”

“Uh…”

“I threw his corpse into the Monster Vending Machine and got a rare-grade two-handed sword out of it. Not bad, honestly.”

Yang Yi chatted briefly with the Justice Knight. Though it wasn’t a long conversation, it was clear this person had an extreme aversion, almost a puritanical obsession, with aberrants or anything evil.

He was a real zealot. Yang Yi didn’t engage too deeply and politely declined the Justice Knight’s friend request.

In the Justice Knight’s eyes, “One-Eye” was a model hero and role model. But in truth, Yang Yi’s paths to supernatural power were anything but clean. If the Justice Knight ever found out Yang Yi was a werewolf, they'd probably become bitter enemies.

After closing the chat interface, Yang Yi’s weakened status also ended — the -2 attribute debuff was finally gone.

He resumed working out and losing weight while thinking about his next steps.Since Ever-Regenerating Flesh could come from multiple sources, harvesting the Fruit of Bounty from the Bountiful Sea was no longer his only option.

“Would different types of flesh lead to different upgrade strengths?”

The thought suddenly occurred to Yang Yi, and he couldn’t rule it out.

A vampire surely wasn’t as powerful as a rotwhale. Even using its corpse in a capsule machine only yielded a rare-grade weapon, so its strength was probably below that of the Ice Nest Elder or the Crystal Giant.

The rotwhale was obviously much stronger! At least stronger than a vampire. Though, to be fair, Yang Yi had no way of knowing how much of the rotwhale’s power could still function under extreme cold.

He took out the fragment of the Fruit of Bounty he had kept earlier and decided to try using it in the capsule machine.

The item had multiple uses, it could also be ground up and eaten to extend one’s lifespan. But Yang Yi didn’t believe he’d ever die of old age. So, longevity held no appeal to him.

As for selling it on the black market, that was a privilege only available to locals. So far, Yang Yi hadn’t even seen a single city, let alone a village, much less anything like a black market. After considering all that, the capsule machine still seemed like the best value.

He tossed the fragment in.

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