That kind of system was pretty common in games. Even low-tier starting materials could become components for high-tier tools or elemental equipment when properly processed.
“Alto mentioned he’d memorized a bunch of compounding recipes. We should bring these to him.”
“That sounds nice. It’s good that Alto knows a lot more than just how to count money.”
“Eh, I’m not so sure... I can still picture him bargaining day in and day out. He’s good at appraising things, though. I remember him throwing a Molotov once.”
Now that I’m thinking about it...do any of us actually know what Alto’s full skill set is like? Well, whatever. We should ask him if there’s any way to use the stuff we fish up here.
As I fished more and more, I was reminded of all the hunting we’d done earlier in the day. There was hardly any resistance, and I probably had my high Energy and upgraded gear to blame.
Had it all become a bore, or was this a good time to rejoice at my own growth? In any case, I’d need to search for a fishing spot that would prove to be more of a challenge.
I kept fishing until I’d successfully met the quota to register the Dark Bass and all the other catches in my log. But I wasn’t about to waste the rest of my Fever Lure. I kept casting.
“C’mon, lord! I know you’re out there!”
Silently, I prayed that the respawn cooldown for the Dark Bass Lord had expired.
“I wonder what kind of fish we’ll catch here if we trigger a Fishing Combo...”
Right as Shouko said that, a Dark Bass jumped out of the water, and—following right behind it, a Darkness Lizardman burst from beneath the surface and snapped at it.
“Speak of the devil...”
I activated my Electric Shock to electrocute the lizardman and pull it closer.
“A lizardman...is it treated like a gator here?”
“You might be onto something.”
Fishing Combos were a newer addition, and maybe that was why that one was actually putting up a good fight.
“Pole Fishing!”
With a splash, I managed to yank the Darkness Lizardman straight out of the water. It flopped on the bank, still fighting back in whatever way it could in a desperate bid to stay alive. But it was all for show. The fish was already caught.
“This looks rather messed up.”
“You’re not wrong. Just imagine if we chained another combo... Would a Dark Knight Lizardman chomp it next?”
“If Yamikage were here, she’d be crying out about how surreal this is.”
“And thank god Tsumugi, L’Arc, and Therese aren’t here either. They’d be laughing their heads off.”
It was quite a laughable situation, after all.
“It’s very curious that we’re catching Darkness Lizardmen like this.”
“If the game says they count as fish, we shouldn’t question it. Just think of it as reeling in alligators.”
When I dismantled the Darkness Lizardman I caught, I ended up with a material labeled Darkness Lizardman’s Soul.
“I got a soul material. What’s up with this?”
“It’s another way to enhance Spirits. Aside from raising the Energy cap, you can also grow stronger by absorbing souls into your Intermediary Stone to enhance it. I’m assuming you got it as an item since you didn’t technically defeat it in battle.”
“Hmm... I guess I’ve just been ignoring that system.”
I checked my Intermediary Stone and... Ah, it has a bunch of souls from the monsters I’ve defeated stored up.
I’d been putting it off without properly checking it so far, but it really was a whole mechanic I’d just been overlooking this whole time.
“Honestly, have you been playing for this long without realizing?”
“Well, fishing is my main— Wait, lord souls get registered too?”
Apparently, all the lords I fished up after the update had been added to the long list of souls. I’d never even noticed. I was able to manually select whichever soul I wanted to equip to determine the bonus effects I’d get.
“You never know what kind of obvious features you’re overlooking,” I said.
“We’ve been brute-forcing our way through everything, after all. You didn’t truly need to know.”
While we were chatting, I felt a sudden jolt. My rod snapped down with a force greater than anything I’d experienced at the spring.
“Aight! We’ve got a big one! This has to be the Dark Bass Lord! Let’s go!”
Water was spraying all over the place, a far cry from the spring’s usual calm.
I put to work all my fishing experience and the strength of my gear, tilting the rod to match my foe’s every move...all while spinning the reel.
“Take this!”
And of course, I activated the Electric Shock on the rod, sending a charge through the line, and suddenly it burst from the water. But...the black silhouette clearly didn’t belong to the Dark Bass Lord.
“What was that, just now?”
“Umm, it looked like a fish to me, Kizuna. Is something wrong?”
“Yeah. That wasn’t the lord I saw at the aquarium. We hooked something completely different.”
“A new discovery, then. My heart is racing already.”
“Same.”
Excitedly, I continued my back-and-forth with the fish.
The shock did some damage, but it wasn’t enough to finish the job.
This one’s a tough nut to crack... I challenged it thinking it was the lord, but...this requires full concentration.
It was way more difficult than I expected...
“Judging from that dark shadow, it’s definitely dark-attribute... Now, how can I fish this thing?”
Do I have any other options... Wait, Trapping Arts!
“Eat this!”