The Cosplay Cultivator

It was good thing that what it was was asleep - actually, its mind was even more somnolent than someone who was asleep, it was definitely hibernating, he was sure of it now as he reflected on that.

And good thing too - Tang Ze couldn't imagine how, even if it somehow consumed everything else in the lake, it would be able to fill even half of its belly. What kind of carnage would it cause once it woke up?

He hoped that he would never have to find out.

Then again, the lake was pretty deep - he realized, as he began to surface. Despite his abnormal speed, he still couldn't even begin to detect the traces of light coming from the surface. In his search for treasure, just how deep did he end up going?

In his haste to get back to the surface, he passed far closer to the mermen settlement than he otherwise would have. But, this did not even cross his mind, with him only wanting to get away from whatever that thing lurking in the depths was, and he was soon out of the eyesight of the mermen anyway.

If he was back on Earth, surfacing so fast would have no doubt given him some form of decompression sickness, but Deepcurrent was naturally immune to such things.

He peeked out of the lake's surface, and spotted Yin Tiang. "Hey - I couldn't really spot anything worth taking, and no journal either. But the lake is way deeper than I thought, I'll give it another try, but I wouldn't get your hopes up."

Yin Tiang nodded as Tang Ze dived back down, this time only wading into the relatively shallow water. He could see a small cloud of discoloration around him as he moved - the waterproof body paint was beginning to dissipate, and he didn't have long before it would be completely gone.

He didn't find much of importance near the shallower beach bed - there were tons of things that were shiny, but it was mostly just trash like old bottles and the like. He found a handful of copper coins, but it was not even worth the effort to collect them. The paint that he had applied to his body was in itself far more expensive than any of these coins.

"No good," Tang Ze said, coming back to shore and approaching Yin Tiang. "Nothing worth taking."

"Ah, well, I guess I should've seen that coming," Yin Tiang said.

"A question though - is there some story of a big sea monster - or I guess, lake monster living in this lake?" Tang Ze asked. Tang Ze described what he had seen to Yin Tiang.

"Never heard of something like that," Yin Tiang said. "With that said, even if you couldn't get anything else - do you mind picking up some Freshwater Serpentweed? We can at least sell that to get something back." If Yin Tiang had never heard of it, maybe it was something that was older than this empire itself. How long had it been hibernating within the depths of this lake for?

"Freshwater Serpentweed?" Tang Ze asked. Yin Tiang told him that it was a plant that looked quite like seaweed, but grew in large quantities slightly deeper in the lake. It could be used as a somewhat valuable ingredient in the refinement of various pills.

"Alright," Tang Ze said. They had already come out so far, so they might as well try to recuperate something of value from this whole journey. Not to mention, at the very least, this would not involve going deep into the water.

To where that thing was...

Tang Ze shuddered even now at the memory of that creature.

He had bought a special towel with oil-cleansing substances to help him wash off the layer of body paint. It was getting to be slightly irritating for his skin, which is why he never really liked costumes like these which involved having to put on a full layer of body paint.

That said, Tang Ze had seen people back on Earth completely covered in paint - sometimes gold or silver, or other colors if they were trying to be orks, aliens, or some other creature that required changing your skin color. Those people were quite dedicated, and back home, he had told himself that he too once wanted to try such a thing but had never gotten around to doing so... and he had ended up here before he could ever act upon such a desire.

And yet, here he was, not only doing that in a new world - but also not just as a hobby but something that was quite useful.

The two of them had brought lunch for such an occasion. There was a human settlement out in the distance, but it was too far to conveniently walk to unless they wanted to fly or use magic.

While they were eating, however, Tang Ze's actions had unwittingly caused quite the commotion beneath the surface of the lake's seemingly tranquil surface.

The mermen settlement of the lake was not a huge force - numbering only about thirty thousand or so. There was a much larger mermen settlement near the coast of the Raswatian Empire but that was a seawater mermen settlement; these mermen were adapted to freshwater.

They only had a single town which had been created using a special ability of the mermen to grow sponges in a way that allowed them to become huge and shaped like buildings. At the same, time, they could also be made to grow as hard as stone.

The mermen for the most part had a peaceful coexistence with humans, who had learned that it was not a good idea to dump a large amount of trash into their lake long ago. Although their population was too small to generate a good number of high-level cultivators, on average, they were stronger than humans especially underwater. They had a number of other features that allowed them to save themselves while living in the lake - a form of magic that could control the waves, weapons that could fly through water as if it was air, and the ability to retreat into the depths of the water if they were defeated where humans could not easily follow them.

It was thanks to these advantages, and the fact that there was nothing of extreme importance in the lake in the first place, that they were left to their own devices by the humans.

Naturally though, they had their own groups of sentries and scouts around their settlement, and though Tang Ze might've not thought much of zipping by them while surfacing, they were immediately on guard upon noticing the same.

From their point of view it was bizarre - a creature emerged from the depths moving at a speed they could barely keep track of, but instead of approaching their civilization, it zipped away and turned towards the surface with the speed of a torpedo.

Only two of them got a good enough look at this thing to be able to describe it when they went back to report to the other mermen.

The mermen burst into a flurry of activity like they hadn't in decades, speculating on the identity of this stranger. This was akin to a military helicopter flying over a remote uncontacted tribe back on Earth.

Although the two of them had gotten a closer look at Tang Ze when compared to the others, this was only relative - and they were also unsure about the finer details.

The younger mermen had no idea what to believe, and the elders had not heard of anything like this either.

It was only when one of their priests was consulted that they got something resembling an answer.

"Based on the description… could this be Ma'akt?" one of the priests wondered.

The mermen religion was complex, and in the stories that made up their beliefs, there were creatures which could be loosely termed as 'minor gods' which would occasionally visit the mortal mermen. Ma'akt was one of them - whose name translated to 'one who is as fast as lightning.'

Given the speed with which they had seen that creature move, this theory began to gain traction and spread like Greek fire among the mermen civilization.

The mermen king, Jiao Ming, naturally heard of these stories, and was approached by his High Priest, Jin Lei regarding the same.

"Your Highness, I trust that you have heard the stories of Ma'akt descending from heaven to meet with us?" Jin Lei asked.

The mermen king was sitting in his throne room - which was located in a palace made not of sponge, but of coral - a rarity for them that had to be imported from their brethren living near the coast. He sat upon a throne adorned with gold and silver, and as his High Priest continued, scratched his chin in contemplation.

"Your Highness, in the days of old," Jin Lei continued. "It was common for us to offer sacrifices to the gods."

Back in the olden days, every month, the mermen would sacrifice a young boy to the temple of Mar'chel, Ma'akt's uncle. And every seven years, seven virgins would be strangled in honor of J'abal, mother of the lesser gods.

With time, such practices were decreed as being 'barbaric' and had been phased out by the kings that came before Jiao Ming.

"What are you getting at?"

"Your Highness, our city has been in peril the past few years," Jin Lei said. "Our foundations have been sinking without us having an explanation for why." The mermen civilization was built atop a rock, though for some reason, the foundation upon which they had built their homes was beginning to crumble from beneath them. A section of their city had already collapsed, with no one having a clear explanation as to why. "Isn't it clear then, than this is a sign from the gods that we have lost their favor? And to see that Ma'akt himself has visited us. But, think of this - even though he passed by our city, why did he not stop by to visit us? Is this not a further sign that we have lost the favor of the gods, that although he was in our waters, he did not deign to even give us a message or engage with us?"

Jiao Ming did not fully agree with Jin Lei, though there had been talks of their city losing the favor of the gods for several years by now. Jiao Ming had attempted multiple times to hold large congregations or grand sacrifices to them, to no avail. Their city continued to sink, with no one being able to give an answer why even now, and it seemed the gods continued to scorn them.

"Perhaps," Jiao Ming said. "But those guards don't even know for sure what they saw." Their descriptions were rather hazy and unreliable, able to essentially be molded into whatsoever people wanted them to be in order to suit their own desires - such as with the priests of the city who badly wanted this to be some kind of portent from the gods. Jiao Ming highly doubted that Ma'akt had genuinely descended from heaven to come visit them.

That said, the priesthood had quite a large influence on the general populace.

And though he was an absolute monarch, even he was subject to the whims of the crowd.

If word got out that he was treating this matter lightly, it would cause an uproar, perhaps even greater than with the fact that their city seemed to be mysteriously sinking into the earth.

Given this, he had to do something to appease them.

But what?

"Perhaps one of these facts could be dismissed as a coincidence, Your Majesty," Jin Lei continued, placing pressure on the king. "But these many coincidences coming together cannot simply be a coincidence."

"What would you have me do then?" Jiao Ming said through gritted teeth. He had to restrain himself from yelling out 'Get to the damn point already!' Jin Lei was speaking with an excessively servile tone, though Jiao Ming could notice the glint in his eyes that communicated that the High Priest knew that he had the king cornered.

And despite this, the king could do nothing.