Chapter 2015-12-22 5:32 PM

[December 22, 2015, 5:32 PM.]

[Hello, viewers! You are watching *International Exploration Program: Special Episode - Ruins of the Ancient Wasteland*, brought to you by Zheng Guo Central Television.]

[We are currently located on the surface of the Northern Mariana Sea, and are gradually descending. The multinational exploration team has already set off, and we will accompany them as they dive into the sea to explore the traces of the ancient divine dragon.]

The *Chilong* submarine has a total of six rows of seats. The first row has three, which are the consoles operated by the control personnel. The last row has one, occupied by Xuan Lu, who has the Xuanwu (Black Tortoise) bloodline and is at the peak of the Awakening realm, capable of controlling water. The other two rows have one seat each, and Su Zhou is sitting in seat number eight, which is further back.

In the front rows are researchers and the live broadcast crew, who are chatting and introducing the three drivers and three researchers to the audience, as well as the purpose of this mission and the related procedures.

"The descent of the *Chilong* will be relatively slow. We will descend at a stable, uniform speed, collecting data from each sea layer along the way. It will take approximately two hours to reach our destination."

At this time, a female researcher surnamed Wen, wearing a protective suit, is speaking confidently and concisely to the camera: "We will transmit all data synchronously with the research vessel. This way, even if we are attacked by sea beasts and the entire crew perishes, at least the data can be transmitted back."

When she said this, her tone was firm and without hesitation.

[An admirable spirit of scientific research, but surely it won't come to that, right?]

Such ominous words were actually just a pre-designed line. The female host replied with a smile: [For this mission, we are fortunate to have invited four powerful transcendents to accompany us. With their protection, I believe no sea beast would dare to attack.]

As she said this, the camera naturally switched to Su Zhou and the others, introducing the four transcendent companions one by one. Everyone who was in the spotlight naturally smiled.

The focus of the camera, of course, was on Su Zhou, the number one genius of the younger generation in Zheng Guo, the authoritative commentator familiar to the audience, and Xuan Lu, who possessed the Xuanwu bloodline—as for the other two transcendents, who were originally disciples of Xuan Lu, unfortunately they only appeared briefly and were not worthy of more screen time or names.

"It's Su Haiwang (Sea King Su)!"

"It's Su Haihuang (Sea Emperor Su) (correction)!"

"Sure enough, I knew that any ruins related to the sea would have his involvement."

"Professor Su, can you perform that thing?"

"Perform what?"

"Talking to fish!"

In the live broadcast videos of various channels, many comments related to Su Zhou suddenly appeared in the already surging comment sections. It must be said that Zheng Guo's propaganda was indeed very effective. Basically, tens of millions of viewers around the world recognized Su Zhou's face, which often appeared on judging panels. In just a few months, he had become one of the most well-known figures in the world.

"The barrage must be making fun of me again."

Without having to guess, Su Zhou, with his rich online experience, knew that at this moment someone must be spamming something about talking to fish, or other stale memes related to the Sea King. As for why he was so clear about this, it was because he used to be one of those people who spammed stale memes.

Thinking of this, Su Zhou couldn't help but sigh: "Thirty years east of the river, thirty years west of the river. I never thought that one day, I would be subjected to internet persecution... Next time I persecute others, I must increase the intensity!"

From the sea surface to a depth of two hundred meters is the shallow sea layer, where sunlight can penetrate directly. The vast majority of fish and large fish live in this area. Further down is the dim twilight zone, also known as the mesopelagic zone, which extends to a depth of seven hundred meters.

Below seven hundred meters is the dark, bottomless aphotic zone, the true deep sea.

The introduction was very short. Soon, the camera switched to the perspective of the submarine. The *Chilong* descended at a uniform speed of one meter per second. The clearly visible shallow sea layer quickly passed, and everyone could see with their own eyes that the surrounding seawater gradually became deeper blue, then black.

Stare. The submarine's lights turned on, illuminating the surrounding sea area, and continued to descend at a uniform speed.

However, at this time, a rather wonderful thing could be seen. Just as the *Chilong* entered the deep sea, the camera, which had moved to the rear of the submarine, captured a very magnificent scene—the seawater, which theoretically only has stratification in oceanography, was actually stratified.

Everyone could see that, in the camera, the entire upper sea surface was 'burning' fiercely. The surging seawater intertwined, releasing bright, white-gold spiritual light.

"This is a natural spirit storage phenomenon." The female researcher surnamed Wen, when asked by the host, replied: "The spiritual energy that the sun shines on the Earth is accumulated in large quantities in the seawater, so that the entire shallow sea area becomes a bright, self-luminous high-spirit zone during the day."

This phenomenon is difficult to see during the day, and is also undetectable at night because there is no spiritual energy from sunlight. Only by diving during the day, reaching the deep sea, and then looking upwards, can one see this scene, as if the entire sea surface is burning.

"So beautiful!"

"So the shallow sea looks this beautiful from below? I want to go diving too!"

"First, you need a submarine."

"I'll just swim."

"Then first, you need to know how to swim."

Like fire in water, the dazzling spiritual radiance flickered. This strange and harmonious scene of water and fire blending made countless viewers exclaim in admiration, quickly taking screenshots to use as screensavers.

"The shallow sea has actually become a natural high-spirit zone. The shallow sea layer happens to be the living area of the vast majority of fish. No wonder the phenomenon of sea beasts gaining spiritual intelligence is so common."

Also appreciating this scene, Su Zhou suddenly realized: "No wonder I could easily see hundreds or thousands of spiritually intelligent sea beasts in the South Sea—the ocean itself is a huge spirit accumulation array!"

As the submarine continued to descend to the bathyal zone at a depth of about 1,000 meters, the intense spiritual energy interaction phenomenon in the upper layer gradually became invisible.

The Mariana Trench is not a biologically rich area. Unlike the coastal areas or around coral reefs, there are no numerous fish or various strange creatures to explain. The two-hour descent process seemed like it would be very boring.

However, how could a program jointly designed by multiple countries allow such a thing to happen?

Soon, with the switching of the camera and the exclamations in the live broadcast barrage, everyone could see that in the deep, quiet sea, there seemed to be large groups of dark shadows rapidly approaching the five submarines of the joint exploration team!

"Holy crap, what are those things?!"

"Are they fish or snakes?"

"Oh my god, I saw a great white shark!"

As the dark shadows gradually approached, their true forms were revealed one by one—they were ferocious sea beasts of various types, rushing towards the exploration team! Most of these sea beasts had the strength of the Spirit Opening or even the early Awakening stage, and the strongest of them, the great white shark and the black sea snake, actually had the strength of the high Awakening stage, and their number was close to a thousand!

"Danger!"

"Why are there so many sea beasts?! Didn't the authorities drive them away before?"

Basically, the vast majority of people subconsciously worried, their hearts rising to their throats.

But some people vaguely had a sense of déjà vu: "Wait, this scene feels a bit familiar..."

"I'll go out." At this time, Su Zhou smiled at the others in the exploration team: "I saw a few familiar faces—it seems they followed me all the way since I went to sea, and only arrived now—not bad, quite enthusiastic."

Undoubtedly, this scene was also filmed, and the scene of Su Zhou leaving the submarine through the escape device and entering the deep sea made those who knew about the South Sea fish swarm incident realize.

"So you're the one who attracted them all!"

The approaching sea beasts did indeed trigger the exploration team's alert, but because Su Zhou had previously demonstrated his attraction and influence on marine life, even though they were worried, the submarines of other countries did not take any further action.

At the same time, Su Zhou was launched like a torpedo, entering the deep sea. A thin layer of protective film formed by water assistance surrounded him, causing the surrounding water to automatically move away from Su Zhou, allowing him to breathe freely.

There was no need—Su Zhou removed the water assistance, directly enduring the pressure of the deep sea with his physical body. And now he didn't need oxygen to burn energy in his body. With most of his organs spiritualized, he only needed spiritual energy to maintain his bodily functions.

"This environment, high pressure, low temperature, silence, is quite suitable for spiritualizing muscles..." Feeling the pressure of the thousand-meter deep sea, Su Zhou sighed: "And it's just right to adjust the internal organs and tissue structure in my body to adapt to the deep sea environment."

It could be seen that the various organs in Su Zhou's body, which had already been spiritualized, began to adjust according to his will, gradually transforming into structures that could easily resist the pressure of seawater—the transcendent stage could adapt to most harsh environments, and the deep sea was just one of them.

"Blurble blurble blurble~"

Noticing Su Zhou's escape, the group of sea beasts immediately cheered and swarmed up—they did not harm the submarines next to them, or rather, they had no interest in the submarines at all. In the eyes of these sea beasts, there was no other target except Su Zhou.

A huge petrified great white shark and a long black sea snake pushed aside all other competitors and came to Su Zhou's side—these were the two sea beasts he had given spiritual seeds and blood to back then.

"Good kids, it must have been tiring to swim all the way here."

After these two sea beasts came to Su Zhou's side, they happily twisted their bodies, and Su Zhou also smiled and reached out to touch the great white shark's chin, allowing the sea snake to wrap around him.

Behind him, there were thousands of sea beasts swimming rhythmically. Forced by his power, they did not dare to approach, but they also admired the authority of the true dragon tyrant, so they just circled from a distance, showing off their figures, hoping to be seen by the 'Dragon King' and become his guards, like the great white shark and the black snake.

It could be seen that the five submarines descending in sequence were surrounded by a large number of rare, spiritually intelligent sea beasts. They were like a layer of guards, protecting the submarines as they descended.

And the program crew's camera was undoubtedly aimed at Su Zhou, who now resembled a sea king, surrounded by countless fish and sea beasts. This scene was broadcast to all parts of the world.

"This really looks especially like a sea king—no joke." Some barrages sighed.

"The title of Dragon King is really not wrong. Sure enough, there are only wrongly given names, not wrongly given nicknames."

"Is dragon blood enough to do whatever you want?!" "Sorry, dragon blood can do whatever you want!"

"So handsome!"

"Wuwuwu, these fish all have the strength of the Awakening stage, and I'm not even as good as a fish!" Some barrages became humble.

The spectacle of the fish surrounding them undoubtedly brought surprises to the audience, and the researchers in the submarine also explained the types and strengths of these sea beasts one by one, showing that their research strength was strong, and that they had long known even the rarest creatures.

It was even possible to see a few small fish that glowed all over, appearing crystal clear and incredibly cute, immediately causing many people to exclaim 'cute, want to raise!'

Behind the live broadcast video, a Shanghai tycoon was scratching the chin of the white ragdoll cat in his arms. After seeing the bizarre, diverse, and even glowing fish in the video, he couldn't help but turn his head to look at the huge fish tank next to him, as well as the one red and one green koi in the fish tank, and suddenly sighed: "Little Red, Little Green, you eat the spiritual fish food I specially ordered every day, why don't you glow? Learn from them!"

Of course, this tycoon was just complaining casually. Obviously, he didn't really think that his koi could understand his words.

But when he turned his head and continued to watch the live broadcast on the big screen, he didn't notice that the two koi in the fish tank exchanged a knowing look.

Back to the live broadcast.

At this time, it could also be vaguely seen that in the originally silent and dark deep sea, there was a layer of falling light points like snowflakes... This seemed to be 'deep sea snow', the corpses of plankton and algae on the ocean surface, a kind of settling organic debris, but deep sea snow should not glow, and these snowflakes all had spiritual energy reactions.

This was the condensed spiritual energy that sank downwards from the upper spiritual energy-rich zone! It could be seen that the surrounding fish were chasing these light points. Although there was a lot of spiritual energy in the shallow sea, it was not condensed enough. The naturally condensed spiritual energy light points in the deep sea area were the real treasures and delicacies for the spirit-opening fish!

Therefore, even fish that used to live in the shallow sea were now gradually developing the ability to dive deep.

Since the advent of the spiritual energy revival, the ecological structure of the ocean has also undergone tremendous changes. As the researchers explained and the program crew introduced, the viewers who knew this gradually understood that it was not only the land world where humans lived that was being changed, but the ocean was also the same.

A huge number of spiritually intelligent sea beasts, natural spirit storage layers, mysterious ecological cycles and living environments... Many people who had studied oceanography in the past and were now preparing to act cool in the live broadcast with other barrages were now stuck. They found that although the knowledge they had learned back then had not been returned to their teachers, it had become useless under the evolution of the new era.

The submarine continued to descend. With the sea beasts guarding them, it was actually much safer than a normal descent. However, as the depth approached 3,000 meters, most of the spirit-opening stage sea beasts could not withstand the pressure at this stage, and could only regretfully stay where they were, watching Su Zhou and his party leave, and then reluctantly returning to the sea surface.

But at this moment, Su Zhou vaguely heard a sound.

It was a song, composed of high-frequency sound waves that the human ear could not capture.