I Am Your Natural Enemy

Having figured out a way to make progress, Wen Yan fell into deep thought.

If existences like King Guilong could be led down the right path, keeping things peaceful and orderly, the progress would definitely advance very quickly.

But as soon as this idea flashed through his mind, Wen Yan dismissed it.

He thought of King Guilong at the very beginning—at that time, it would have been hard to be judged a success.

This would basically be like doing a quest, holding off on the final step, and waiting until the quest was formally issued before completing that last part.

It looks pretty easy on the surface, but before reaching this point, he’d already gone through being a stranger, testing the waters, taking down a Mountain Lord, and even saving King Guilong’s life—only letting him revert to a Flood Dragon.

That’s why you now get this situation where advancing progress by 9% looks so simple.

If that 9% had to be earned from zero, it probably wouldn’t be so easy.

The previous time he got 20%, that was likely because he didn’t even know there was progress to be made, so when he made a choice that fully matched the system’s requirements, it just meant more.

And now, the very first thing Wen Yan could think of that could push a lot of progress was the Water Monarch.

If he could pull that off, it’d be at least 20% progress... no, even 30% might be possible.

But Wen Yan only thought about it briefly—just a quick thought—then realized that advancing the progress for the Calamity Protector Water Official Talisman probably wouldn’t be so easy.

Thinking about it, it makes sense—his Scorching Sun progress advanced really slowly too. At least, in daily use, he never noticed any accumulation of proficiency or anything like that; progress only came from other incidents.

Each time progress advanced, aside from that time he witnessed the mushroom bomb explosion—which maybe nudged progress a little—every other increase had been completely unexpected.

If you wanted to proactively look for ways to progress, you really wouldn’t know where to start.

With this Calamity Protector Water Official Talisman, even though it’s obviously hard to push progress, at least now he has some sense of what direction to take.

Wen Yan lowered his right hand. The faint glow of the Calamity Protector Water Official Talisman on the back of his hand gradually faded and disappeared into his skin.

He already had a hunch—even if he tried to avoid the Water Monarch as much as possible now, once he wanted to push the progress higher in the future, it would be absolutely impossible to sidestep that guy.

But there’s no rush—take it slow.

If it really came down to it, Wen Yan mulled it over, glanced at the Calamity Protector Water Official Talisman, and a tiny idea started to brew in his heart.

He let go of stray thoughts and looked at the still-unchanged King Guilong.

”How are you feeling?”

”Feeling pretty good. Maybe just give it a few more decades and I’ll be able to recover to my original state,” King Guilong said, in extremely high spirits.

”That’s good. Take your time to recover. Later, I’ll chat with Cai Heizi and see if we can get you a new temple built. But with a new temple, you’ll have to take on the responsibility—watch over the water system in your region and keep it running smoothly.”

”I understand.” King Guilong didn’t try to act tough anymore; after getting a serious beating and nearly dying, it’s true—you do change a lot.

Wen Yan chatted with him for a bit longer before finally leaving the bottom of the river.

King Guilong figured that something that once took centuries, now had a pretty good chance of being fixed up in just a few decades—that was a huge improvement.

But Wen Yan wanted to say, a few decades...

By the time King Guilong recovers, he might already be living in a retirement home, fighting with other old men for square-dancing grandmas to be his dance partner.

A human life lasts only about a hundred years—still way too short.

So far, it seems only those mysterious Longevity Species can live truly long lives.

And maybe the reason they can live that long is because they spend most of the time asleep.

Wen Yan was finally starting to understand why, throughout the ages in Divine Land, so many heroes began chasing immortality in their twilight years.

Coming up from King Guilong, the Big Grass Carp and Water Snake were already waiting for Wen Yan. No clue where these two had learned this trick.

The Water Snake transformed into a bridle, wrapping around the Big Grass Carp’s head, the two twisting together to turn into a rope, letting Wen Yan take hold and pull them along.

These two—just for a temple—they were all in. Not only did they have to patrol the river, they also had to scrap with people, and afterward still come over to suck up for brownie points.

Wen Yan patted them both on the head, not accepting this bootlicking.

”No need for this. Maybe I can’t guarantee things everywhere else, but here, as long as you do your job well, that’s all that matters. The rest—you two don’t need to worry so much.”

Wen Yan didn’t transform into some kind of grass carp knight; he just let the Big Grass Carp and Water Snake tow him, speedily gliding through the water.

These water demons—not the brightest, maybe, but they really don’t seem to harbor any ill intent.

Wen Yan felt there was no need to force others to lower themselves and act like mounts.

When they got ashore, the Big Grass Carp and Water Snake lingered at the riverbank, sending Wen Yan off as he walked away.

The Big Grass Carp’s big eyes were wide and worried.

”Did we do something wrong?”

”I don’t know either. Is it because I’m a little too slippery? Hard to grab onto?”

The two demons started overthinking. The Turtle Demon slowly swam over, trying its best to open its small eyes wide. When he saw them, it was as if he was seeing two lucky bastards who’d picked up gold bricks.

”It’s not that you did something wrong—it’s that that lord doesn’t look down on you. And you shouldn’t look down on yourselves either. Just do your jobs well.”

...

Once he was on shore, Wen Yan called Feng Yao to ask what had actually happened before.

Did someone try to jump into the river? How’d you end up fighting with the Big Grass Carp?

Once he got the story straight, Wen Yan was speechless.

How dumb can you get? Anywhere else is whatever, but in the stretch of West River flowing through Virtue City, if someone tries to throw themselves into the river, they’re basically sabotaging the Water God-in-training’s cultivation.

Even if you get knocked out, there’s no way they’re letting you die in the river.