I Can Fish Up Everything!

Chapter 311: Chapter 207: A School of Large Cuttlefish

Gu Nan kept his eyes closed as the scene shifted. He waited until he could hear the crash of waves and feel the warmth of the sun before slowly opening them.

Having entered the Beachcombing Map many times, he’d learned a thing or two.

Entering with his eyes shut prevented the dizzy spell from the sudden change in location, and it also gave his eyes a moment to adjust from darkness to daylight.

He appeared on a coastline today. As far as the eye could see, there was nothing but jagged reefs—no sandy beach in sight.

The sea before him churned with whitecaps, and countless strands of seaweed drifted on the surface.

Gu Nan looked down and saw he was already in a diving suit, with a mesh bag and a fish stringer hanging from his waist.

He was also holding a one-meter speargun. ’Probably about the same as my own,’ he figured. ’Standard-issue beginner gear.’

Gu Nan understood at once. It looked like today’s primary haul would be coming from the water.

This wasn’t the first time this had happened. It had occurred back when he was still terrible at spearfishing, causing him to almost completely waste his once-a-week, money-making beachcombing opportunity.

That was why Gu Nan had started practicing spearfishing every day in a different Beachcombing Map.

He used to stubbornly believe there would be something to find in the reef zone, but after coming up empty three times in a row, he now knew the moment he saw the diving suit that there was nothing on the shore.

Still, Gu Nan held his speargun, took off his flippers, and strolled around the nearby reef area in just his dive socks.

For one, he was looking for a good spot to get in the water. For another, he wanted to double-check that there really was nothing on shore.

After a few minutes, he confirmed it: under these conditions, there was absolutely nothing on shore, not even the usual sea snails.

That settled, he had no choice but to head to the water’s edge. He sat on a relatively flat rock, pulled on his flippers, put on his diving mask, and slipped straight into the water.

The area near the shore was thick with seaweed pushed in by the waves. The moment Gu Nan submerged, he got a face full of it.

He quickly cleared the seaweed from his mask, only to discover a massive bloom of jellyfish.

If this weren’t the Beachcombing Map, gathering some jellyfish would be an option.

But with only three hours each week, Gu Nan certainly wasn’t going to waste his time on such low-value catches.

After struggling his way out of the seaweed thicket, the water ahead suddenly opened up.

The water in the map was incredibly clear; he could make out the underwater landscape a good fifteen meters away.

There were no fish in his immediate vicinity, however, so Gu Nan just picked a direction and swam off in search of a school.

As he swam, he kept his eyes peeled for valuable finds on the seafloor. Sure enough, a moment later, he spotted a large whelk bigger than his palm on an algae-covered rock three or four meters ahead. It was slightly different from the domestic variety, though.

Gu Nan would collect these rarer items for his aquarium. If he found more, he might ship them to his shop to sell, or he might just cook them up for himself at some point.

The underwater resources were truly abundant. Soon after finding the large whelk, he discovered two enormous scallops, each as big as his face. They were also a foreign species.

He couldn’t sell these at all. Gu Nan had already looked into it; they were the kind of thing that would never clear customs.

So, most of the time, Gu Nan just ate them himself. After all, it would be too hard to explain where he got them.

After surfacing for air twice and gathering quite a few tasty morsels along the way, he finally came across a massive school of fish.

But as he watched the large mullet swim past, Gu Nan felt his interest wane.

The mullets were quite large, each one around forty to fifty centimeters long.

Unfortunately, their bellies weren’t plump like they would be in winter. If they were full of roe, they’d be worth something. Without the roe, they weren’t even worth a shot from his speargun.

They were cheap—less than ten yuan a jin. He couldn’t be bothered with them.

He swam another twenty meters or so, and the seafloor gave way to a sandy patch where quite a few fish were swimming about.

Gu Nan’s eyes lit up. He’d finally found a proper hunting ground.

Spearfishing in the game map had one major advantage: whenever his mesh bag or fish stringer was full, he could instantly send the catch to his Chilled Storage. It wasn’t like in the real world where he’d have to return to his boat to unload.

Several golden pompano, each about forty centimeters long, were swimming near the bottom. Gu Nan decided to use them for a little warm-up.

But as he drew closer, he suddenly felt that something wasn’t quite right.

There was a bulge on the sandy bottom. He moved in for a closer look. ’Is that a ray?’

He glanced at the speargun in his hand, then sized up the ray’s width. He estimated it was nearly one and a half meters across.

The ray had to be over two hundred pounds, at least. His basic speargun wouldn’t be able to handle it.

Besides, rays aren’t harmless; they’ll fight back with the venomous barb on their tail. Not wanting to get ejected from the map, he turned his attention back to the golden pompano.

THWACK! The spear shot forward, piercing one of the golden pompano clean through.

Gu Nan expertly released his grip on the speargun, grabbed the fishing line, and began pulling it back while swimming rapidly toward the surface.

He had only been underwater for a minute at most. He could have secured the fish right there, quickly reeled in the line, reloaded, and gone for a second one.

But safety came first. Gu Nan didn’t want to get into the habit of spearfishing like that. If he ever pushed his luck and couldn’t hold his breath, it would be a fatal mistake.

By the time he surfaced for air and dove back down, however, all the fish were long gone—including the ray that had been lying in wait.

Gu Nan wasn’t bothered. That’s just how spearfishing was.

Besides, it wasn’t like that was the only golden pompano; there were plenty of them on this small sand flat.

By the time he worked his way across to the coral reef area, his Chilled Storage was richer by twelve golden pompano, each weighing four to five pounds.