Chapter 21 - The Ocean

Alex felt himself dropping through the fog, as he fell, the fog grew increasingly thick, until he felt like it might condense on his skin.

Completely blind, he was relying entirely on his water senses to tell him where the bottom of this abyss was, extending 80m below him. He spread his arms and legs out to the sides, doing his best to slow his rate of descent.

'I think this is right?'

'I want the most surface area to slow my fall as much as I can.'

After about 5 seconds of falling, Alex started to panic, not because he was worried about how fast he was falling, but because he'd eventually like to return to the village, and he'd have to climb back up this enormous cliff.

'Not like I have much of a choice now.'

Using the fog in the air, and the waterfall, he started pushing downwards, slowing his descent significantly. Since he was just braking his speed, it wouldn't burn through his mana at a particularly fast rate, and he'd be able to reach the bottom safely.

As he continued falling, the roaring sound of water had become almost painfully loud, indicating he was growing near to the bottom of the waterfall. Unfortunately, the fog had thickened to the point where it was almost getting dark, blocking out the sun - or at least that's what Alex assumed, not like he knew anything about his surroundings.

He also noticed a significant warming of the air, worsening the sensation of humidity as the fog stuck to his skin, creating a sticky wet sensation. He started braking hard against the waterfall - he was confident he was near to the bottom.

Finally, he reached the bottom of the waterfall, where he noted the waterfall crashing against a pool of water at the bottom, creating enormous frothy arcs of mist which shot up into the air. It then led into some extremely turbulent waters before rushing off downstream, to who only knows where.

As he slowly lowered himself towards the water, he noted that the pool of water the waterfall collided with was quite hot, giving off large quantities of steam, in addition to the fog that seemed to form when it hit the cold water coming from above.Alex slowly reduced his speed further, alighting on the rocks beside the pool.

'What kind of geological formation even is this?'

'A waterfall directly into a hot spring, a literal fog generator.'

He lowered his hand to hover above the pool of water, noting the heat radiating off it, somehow it was almost boiling, despite the massive volume of cold water coming down from above.

Shrugging he walked around the edge of the pool, where he returned to following the river outlet. The fog continued thinning as he distanced himself from the base of the waterfall, lasting for another kilometer, until the air cleared, making visible the surroundings.

From start to finish through the valley of fog, Alex had been blind to everything except for the river, using it as a guide. A sense of tension he didn't know he'd been holding lifted off him, and he gave a quiet smile - it was good to see the sun.

Beside him, the river continued on for another 200m before widening substantially and ending at what seemed to be a sea or ocean of some sort, surrounded by banks of fine white sand.

Turning around, he was greeted by this site of mountains stretching far into the sky, at the base of which stood a lush forest, before transitioning to a sandy beach.

'I guess the area with the village is on a plateau of some sort.'

Taking off his shoes and ragged socks he stepped onto the sand, noting the warm sensation between his toes. He walked out towards the water and dipped his hand in, noting its taste - salty. He continued to stand in the water for a minute letting it wash over his feet, a big smile lighting up his face - he was now in his element.

Turning around and walking towards the forest, he located a tree which would serve as his base of operations - he needed a place to sleep and keep his stuff. He climbed up into the branches, making himself a hammock using some thick vines, and his jaguar rug, which he looped over two branches. The skin was tough and pliable, and he was certain it could hold his weight, while being thoroughly cozy and intimidating. At the base of the tree he deposited his deerskin cloak, and dagger - couldn't have it rusting after all. He also dumped his clothing, leaving only his ragged pants on. Alex wasn't ready to go skinny dipping in the ocean, clinging to some irrational sense of dignity.

'Guess I'm still a prude.'

Running into the waves, he started doing a mix of swimming and using his water control, shooting through the waves. He was using the vortex technique he'd developed a while ago to propel himself, and it was working wonderfully, though he noted some oddities.

It seemed that his water control strength had suddenly dropped, and he had know idea why. Unnerved, he quickly retreated from the ocean, returning to the beach.

'What's going on?'

Extending his hand to the ocean he dragged a ball of water, letting it flutter around him. He then walked over to the river - he hadn't remembered having any issues manipulating it earlier. He reached out, with his senses, dragging a ball of water from the river, letting it hover beside the ocean water.

'Seriously?!?'

It was noticeably harder to control the ocean water than the river water. Scratching his head, Alex was at a loss as to the cause.

'It can't be temperature, can it?'

'I've played with hot water before, and it didn't seem to make life difficult.'

'What happens if I mix them?'

He then transferred some of the ocean water to the ball of river water, feeling it dissolve. He then noted a subsequent drop in control, however it only seemed to dilute the river water somewhat.

'Is it the salt?'

Frowning, he walked back to the forest, thoroughly intrigued. There were discoveries to be made!

He spent the next 15 minutes gathering firewood, before starting a small fire with his flint. There he took his small orb of seawater, and let it boil over the fire, until more than three quarters of its volume had evaporated.

He then noted a further drop in control asthe water evaporated. it seemed whatever was causing him issues seemed to concentrate as the water evaporated.

'So this isn't some weird thing intrinsic to the water, but something inside it. There's nothing magical about the ocean water.'

'To my knowledge, this should mostly be salt, and some organics.'

'But my ability specifies control of water, not necessarily salt water.'

'So is it about purity of water then? Should I be using deionized water?'

'What's something that will dissolve in water easily?'

Feeling a spark of inspiration, he ran to the river, grabbing more water, and then grabbed his dagger. He then made a small cut on his hand, and let a small drop of blood roll off into the ball of water.

As with the salt, he noticed a substantial drop in control, and it seemed a little bit of blood went a very long way. He estimated he'd only diluted the water with around 5% blood, and his control had already dropped by almost a third.

'So until proven otherwise, anything that contaminates or dilutes the water will make my life difficult.'

'I guess that would explain why my control over my own blood is so bad.'

Digging through his memories, he remembered a few other facts which he'd missed. His ability to sense tree sap was also greatly reduced, like it was muddy, similar to how he had trouble seeing blood. Excited, he realized another obvious fact.

'Isn't the human body something like 80% water?'

Trying to sense anything in his arm, he frowned, failure evident on his face - all he could locate was blood, it seemed that the other cells and tissues were excessively complex, and wouldn't be able to yield any real control. Searching through his body, he noticed something else he could manipulate - his bladder, and his tears.

'Behold, water control, lord of water, blood, piss, and tears.'

'Simply fantastic.'

Alex recalled some competitions he and his friends had, in which they'd try to pee their names in the snow.

'I could probably pee in cursive with my water control.'

'If I use my water control on my pee enough, will I unlock it as an ability path?'

'Wait, what dictates what things get added to my ability path?'

…

'System, anything to say for yourself?'

The system remained unresponsive, causing Alex to sigh.

'Something to add to the todo list.'

Deciding to end his investigation for the day, Alex returned his gaze to what he'd decided was an ocean - not that it mattered. It was time to explore.

Setting off for the ocean, he dove in and started propelling himself with his ability - he opened his eyes, ignoring the stinging sensation. There he was greeted by the sight of clean sand, populated with small bits of what he presumed was seaweed.

'I guess the water's still too shallow to see anything exciting.'

Now that the water was deeper, it was time to try some acrobatics. Taking a breath, he generated some small vortices around him, pushing himself to the bottom of the ocean.

The sudden drop towards the bottom was surprisingly difficult, as moving quickly with the method required the quick formation and release of the little vortices all over his skin. That said, it worked quite well, and he managed to pick up a decent amount of speed, pushing off the bottom, he started hopping along the seabed, using his water control to regulate his positioning.

Returning to the surface, he gasped for breath. It seemed that his endurance stat made him better able to hold his breath, and he could spend an active 3-4 minutes underwater now.

He continued swimming out away from shore, where he noted an increasing number of fish, though most remained too small to warrant catching. As he grew further from shore, the seafloor had then given way to a field of seagrass, littered with rocks.

Extending his senses, he noted tons of wildlife hidden within the grass, but nothing stuck his fancy with regards to hunting, there were tons of beautiful fish, some clams, a few small eels, and even an octopus.

Ignoring them all, he shot out deeper into the ocean, where he noticed the depth drop more, he estimated it went down to around 40m. He noted quite a few creatures of interest, namely some giant crabs, and a few larger sharks.

'Time to observe.'

Fortunately nothing seemed to be giving him any attention at the moment, and he used the opportunity to hide himself. He quietly dove down to the seabed, and proceeded to dig up the sand before burying himself completely, not even leaving his head extended above the sand.

He then extended his sense, transforming it from a sphere, to something of a searchlight, improving its range. He could extend his sense to around 100m like this and it gave him excellent visibility on the happenings above him.

The sole issue with this strategy was that presently he could only stay underwater for around 5 minutes, but Alex had something of a plan for this. Relaxing his body, he did his best to release all the tension in his muscles, trying to relax his heart rate.

The loss of all sensation gave him greater focus, allowing him to focus on the space in time between his heart beats, allowing his thoughts to still, and letting him enter a somewhat trancelike state. The issues with his hideout largely solved, he turned his sense skyward, focusing on oneof the giant crabs he'd seen.

He'd spotted several of the creatures on the seabed, and one was hanging out amongst the seagrass, it seemed to be waiting for some prey to draw near. The crab had a pink armored body around a meter long, with a soft looking underbelly, before splitting into several long almost spider like double jointed legs, each extending to around 1.5m in length, and ending in a sharp looking point. Its arms were equally large, ending in a pincer that looked like it could completely enclose Alex's waist, the insides of which looked sharp and serrated, creating a vice grip of death.

Its head was terminated with two beady eyes which watched its surroundings with interest. From toe to toe, this crab was around 3m long.

He continued watching, as he wanted to get a rough sense of the crabs' capabilities before he'd try hunting one. A large fish was swimming near to the surface, seemingly in pursuit of some smaller prey, and the eyes of the crab tracked it attentively as the fish grew closer.

'Hunting the hunter, I see.'

Once the crab deemed the fish had entered its range, it seemed to brace itself against the seabed, before shooting upwards, blasting through the water towards the fish it had been targeting. Coming in from behind its victim, it quickly shot out with its claw, managing to clamp down on the unsuspecting fish, who proceeded to struggle desperately in its grip. The crab had so much momentum that it almost reached the surface, before slowly drifting back down to the seafloor, where it grabbed the fish with its other claw and proceeded to tear it in half.

Alex watched the crab devour the fish with horror.

'Who needs jumping spiders when you have jumping crabs?'

Ensuring the coast was clear, and that there were no large predators anywhere near him, he slowly started unburying himself, doing his best to remain unnoticed. He then slowly returned to the surface, taking a deep breath - he'd managed to hold out for around 7 minutes after fully relaxing himself.

Deciding to go for another session of observation, he returned to the seabed, where he buried himself once again. Turning his attention to the crab, he watched another two attempted fish captures, both ending in failure - it seems even monster crabs couldn't win them all.

As he was planning on returning to the surface for a breath, he heard the distant sound of clicking in the water stopping him in his tracks.

'Sonar?'

---Author's Note---

Two items of business.

1. I'm going to upload an image of a map that I've hand drawn in the chapter comments some time soon once I get a scanner working. This is something fun I thought I'd try, so if you all like this, let me know and I'll make new ones depending on the situation/story.

2. I have 0 backlog to work through on my end right now, and I'm writing chapters basically the day I put them out at the moment. I'm not a big fan of this, and I may end up writing out the full arc before I release chapters (I'd like to avoid major edits after the fact like I'm presently doing with earlier chapters). So if you don't see any updates from the story for a week or maybe even longer, you know what happened.