As the warship sunk, the few experienced spiritual cultivators within managed to avoid drowning through the use of water essence, but unfortunately, not even they could escape Daniel's finishing blow.
In fact, the moment the pirates had retreated from the ship's deck, Daniel had jumped back in the water, and dived right underneath the sinking ship.
Usually, pirates were amazing swimmers, but today, water would turn into their worst nightmare.
No matter if a martial or spiritual cultivator, once Daniel noticed someone in the water, he would take control over the water essence which surrounded them, and force streams of water to penetrate into every orifice of their body.
Constant streams entered their nostrils, their eardrums were perforated, and throats invaded by the salty water, which rapidly filled their stomach, lungs and cranial cavity.
Not even their eye sockets were spared by the invasive streams, as the eyeballs of the most unfortunate between the pirates started to pop out and gently float in the calm waters.
Needless to say, being in the water meant death for them, and one by one, they slowly drowned or received fatal injuries.
The few capable of resisting Daniel's aquatic attacks, were were two rank 4 spiritual cultivators, and the ship's captain.
The three of them were able to disturb Daniel's control over the water essence, either with their spirits or ki, but alas, they were unable to resist for long.
After just half a minute, the first spiritual cultivator, due to a mistake in calculating the amount of spiritual essence needed to defend from the perforating power of Daniel's streams of water, had been unable to protect himself, and ended up being killed like the rest of the pirates.
No longer than a minute later, the second spiritual cultivator, completely unable to resurface to take a breath of air, or to maintain an air sphere in a place where wind essence was so sparse, like Daniel did.. had started to panic, and after involuntarily breathing in too much water, he drowned.
The only living member of the Bloody Sea Pirates, was their own captain, 'The Red Painter', which being a rank 5 martial cultivator, had much a much more powerful body when compared to spiritual cultivators.
It was now a one on one battle, and the pirate captain hadn't given up yet. With his two sabers, he rapidly swam towards Daniel.
It took him only a few seconds to reach Daniel's air bubble, as his streams of water weren't powerful enough to block his advance.
He slashed with both of his sabers through the thin air bubble, and towards the seemingly weak body of a spiritual cultivator, but instead of the familiar view of blood and gore mixing with the water, he felt the hard edge of Daniel's sword.
One had to understand one thing. Even if used to fighting underwater, the fighting prowess of martial cultivators would still be slightly reduced. While instead, when considering Daniel's perfect body, along with his extreme comprehension of water and wind elements, one would understand that even though lower in rank, Daniel had no sort of disadvantage in this fight.
On the other hand, this had been a huge shock to the pirate captain, which couldn't help but breathe out good part of the air he was holding in his lungs.
Underwater, Daniel was faster than the tall and thin man, so he charged at him and started to mix water traps together with targeted sword slashed.
For the next minute, if a whip of water wasn't able to get a hold of one of the captain's limbs, a shallow cut would appear on his body right after, and whenever the captain was able to predict and parry one of Daniel's sword slashes, a sudden morse would tighten around the captain's hand, blocking him just enough for Daniel to strike.
This was a one way fight, as fighting a spiritual cultivator with as much comprehension of water essence in its main element, was like fighting a giant while standing on the palm of their hand.
Despite the captains enhanced brain and lungs, he was nearing the moment where he would need to resurface to breathe, but he was sure, that his enemy would never allow him to easily do such a thing.
Slash after slash, pulling after pulling, the powerful martial cultivator, similarly to its spiritual companion, started to panic.
He was certain that he would have won a fight with the young man, had they been outside of the water. But right now, he felt like an abyssal monster had set his eyes on his dear life, and wasn't willing to let go.
Moments turned into seconds and seconds turned into minutes. Each 0ne as horrifying as a stab in the chest. The captain's state of mind started to collapse, as he tried to resurface so eagerly that he let go of his two sabers.
Unfortunately, it didn't take long for Daniel to appear right above him, and send a few slashes of "Spitting Ki" against his body.
The two slashed had been precisely aimed at the man's shoulders, and had incapacitated his arms completely.
The captain completely ignored Daniel, as the only thing he could think about was to feel the fresh sea breeze to fill his lungs once more.
He swam, moving his legs to a crazed speed, while the light of the surface became bigger and bigger. He felt as if he was one step from reaching the most comfortable of places.
His biggest desire had been granted, as he finally managed to emerge from the water, and breathe once more, just in time to feel the cold blade that had pierced through his heart and out of his chest.
One last breath, and the Captain was dead.
-----
While still swimming in the calm motion of the water, Daniel observed his latest gains.
The moment he had killed the captain, two windows had appeared within his mind.
But alas, Daniel couldn't bring himself to be overly happy about it, as the windows not only showed his latest gains, but also the exact number of lives lost during the attack.
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Reap What You've Sown +9452
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*Everything Helps*
Second objective completed
Survivors: 893
Reward: 6500
-----
Still, the quantity of karma points that Daniel had received this time, was impressive.
Putting his rewards aside, Daniel started to emerge from the water, up until he was quite literally standing above its moving surface. He then turned around, and took notice of the ship's position.
A soft ascending current start to blow all around Daniel's body, first making his clothes float, then lifting his body completely, allowing him to walk in the air.
Most of the cultivators still on the ship's deck, looked at the figure of a young man casually walking on air towards their ship, and felt a faint shiver run through their spines.
Within their minds, the collective idea of not competing against this monster during the tournament, had formed in unison.
Daniel's sword had already disappeared into his spatial ring, and the only thing within Daniel's hand was a small leather bag, on which the symbol of the Bloody Sea Pirates had been neatly carved.
This small bag emanated a similar feeling than his spatial rings did, and it was, in fact, the captain's personal spatial bag.
-----
Back in their cabin, under the curious looks of Heimart and Ligart, Daniel checked his profile out once again.
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Dan Hiel - Karmic system's wielder.
Age - 14
Rank
- Mid rank 4 of Martial cultivation (Perfect Body)
- Mid rank 4 of Spiritual cultivation (Perfect Connection)
Karma - 29.511
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Weapons Masteries (Details)
Martial Arts (Details)
Skills (Details)
Spells (Details)
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Reap What You've Sown
Time Is Precious Lv.2
Reduced Cost Lv.2
System Upgrades (Details)
-----
After seeing his accumulated karma points, Daniel found very difficult hiding his excitement, as the two cousins were still closely looking at him.
Suddenly, one of them started talking.
"So, you're a spiritual cultivator.." Said Ligart, the younger of the two.
Without looking back, Daniel confirmed it "Indeed I am." His tone a casual one.
"A powerful one at that.." muttered Heimart to himself.
"What rank have you reached?" Inquired Ligart, his eyes shining with a strange light.
Unwilling to lie, Daniel casually responded "faint sub-stage of spiritual synchron-" but before he could finish, a sudden and loud laugh resounded in his left ear.
"AHAHAHAHAHAH!! YES!!" Shouted Ligart. He then turned towards his cousin, and said "Pay up!"
Heimart showed an annoyed expression, as if bothered by the childish behaviour of his cousin. He then took a silver coin out of the small bag hidden within his shirt, and threw it at Ligart.
After his eyes moved back on Daniel, he said "You do know that only people under twenty-five can enter the depths of the tournament's island, right?"
The reason for this question was simple. Daniel had claimed to be only fourteen years old, and to have reached the fourth stage of spiritual cultivation. On top of it, he had such a deep understanding of water and wind, that he had been able to sink a warship, and single handedly kill more than half of an entire pirate's crew, not to mention, killing a rank 5 martial cultivator.
The age that Daniel had claimed to have, to the two martial artist, simply couldn't be true.
The two cousins had reached a common the same conjecture. And that was that Daniel, had probably lied about his real age.
The only way someone could maintain their aspect at their early teens, would be through the heavy usage of pills which could retain one's youth. That also meant, that Daniel must have been much older than he looked.
It's not like there weren't any rank 4 or 5 cultivators amongst the participants of the tournament. But they all neared the age limits imposed by the island.
Heimart, for example, had reached the mid Full Control sub-stage of martial cultivation, while his cousin Ligart, was at the early Full Control sub-stage. The two were respectively twenty-four and twenty-two years old, and were considered the most talented individuals within their school of martial arts of origin.
Heimart, being at the exact same stage Daniel was, had understood better than anybody else how deep his understanding of wind and water essence was. So he was fairly sure that Daniel wasn't a simple young man with a prodigy level talent for cultivation, and that instead, he was an old and experienced spiritual cultivator.
The reason why he had to pay up to his cousin, was because if their speculations turned out to be true, thing about both of them were fairly sure.. that meant that Heimart had never guessed Daniel's real age, and therefore he had to pay his cousin back.
Daniel ignored Heimart's unnecessary advice, and instead lied on his bed, trying to relax.
"Hey, where do you guys think our mystery man is?" Said Ligart while pointing at the empty bed on the right side of the cabin.
The two looked at the direction Ligart was pointing, and after a moment of silence, Heimart said "He might have died in the battle.."
Before the three could consider the chances of that to be true, the door of their cabin opened. Behind it was a petite figure completely covered by a grey coat. Near the neck, the bottom part of a mask could be seen, and at its sides, a few strands of black hair flowed down to her shoulders.
Daniel recognized this person immediately. It was the petite girl which had engaged on a one on one battle against the pirate captain.
The girl didn't say anything. She simply entered the cabin, and with a quiet jump, she ended up on her bed.
She then covered herself with the grey blanket, and went back to the usual state the three had been used to see her in.
Amongst the general surprised expressions of the three men, Ligart was the first to recover. He looked at his cousin, who had just given the girl for dead, and while shrugging his shoulders, said "Guess not.." He then took a deck of cards out of his pocket, and started to shuffle it.
Daniel looked at the covered figure of the girl, and before he could turn around, once again, he noticed a slight movement underneath the cover.