Ch.258# 258. City of the Abyss

“Is this a sea stone?”

My heart raced when I saw a large blue emerald-like gem, bigger than a fist, embedded in the middle of the deep sea.

“It’s fucking huge…”

Sea stone is a gem known as the jewel of the sea.

Literally, it has considerable value as a gemstone, found only in mana-rich areas of the deep sea, and in terms of rarity—the most important element of a gemstone—it ranks among the top five in the Farming World.

Moreover, sea stone can simply be considered a perfect superior version of mana stones.

If I made a ring or accessory with this, it would probably be at least two to three times more effective than a mana stone.

[Corrupted Sea Stone]

– Grade: SS+

– A jewel of the sea that has absorbed and concentrated magical power from the deepest ocean for tens of thousands of years or an unknown period of time. It absorbs surrounding magical power and emits pure magical energy.

– Currently corrupted by chaos energy it absorbed but failed to purify.

“So even sea stones have their limits.”

More than tens of thousands of years.

Even a sea stone that had been absorbing and purifying magical power in the abyssal ocean of the Rift Dimension couldn’t handle the dense chaos energy covering the entire sea and ended up corrupted.

The crimson-black streaks visible between the blue emerald hues seemed to enhance the beauty of this gem, which I personally found appealing.

“This is way too generous a reward for killing just two Deep Sea Cleaners.”

Not that I’m complaining.

With this pleasant start, I gathered all the resources scattered throughout the deep sea.

This is a place where no one has set foot.

I explore the deep sea, collecting all the valuable resources I can find.

Anyway, if needed, I could establish a temporary base in the deep sea and create a base transfer portal to commute from home, so there’s no need to rush.

I’ve planned to spend at least two weeks exploring this Abyssal Ocean biome.

Apart from the difficulty level of being a Level 7 Dense Chaos biome, the ocean biome itself is incredibly vast, and with the influence of the unmeasurable map, it would take all day just to look around casually. Plus, the ocean biome extends vertically as well, making it impossible to just skim through.

If it were just a matter of depth, I could simply dive down as far as possible and be done with it.

But some areas have land, some go deeper, and others rise back up.

Even underwater, there are various terrains, and you never know what might be hidden between them, so a proper exploration requires thoroughly searching every visible area.

In fact, while searching around the underwater land where I found the sea stone, I discovered a cave filled with various fascinating resources including luminous stones.

It must be a Deep Sea Cleaner’s cave.

The characteristic of Deep Sea Cleaners is that they eat everything, digest what they can like fish, and regurgitate what they can’t, storing it in their caves, accumulating quite a collection of underwater resources.

Especially shiny things.

Surprisingly, Deep Sea Cleaners love these, so the cave contained many valuable resources that would fetch a high price.

I earn enough money on Earth now that I’m not lacking funds.

So I thought I might be less greedy for resources, but entering the Abyssal Ocean quickly showed me how foolish that thinking was.

Earth money is irrelevant here.

Rare resources. Precious resources.

Resources that are difficult to obtain even in the Rift Dimension can be exchanged for Pam, and there are other rare resources that can only be purchased with Pam.

So it’s not just about money—seeing these valuable resources that I couldn’t obtain in the Farming World, resources that could be useful somewhere, I couldn’t help but feel materialistic desire.

“I can smell it. I can smell it.”

Of course, just because I’m greedy doesn’t mean I can search the entire ocean.

Maybe someday, but my immediate task isn’t to thoroughly comb through this sea, but to destroy the source of the dense chaos energy.

Exploration and farming can wait until after the chaos energy is purified.

I also need to collect corrupted resources.

And for such light work, it wouldn’t be bad to hire hunters who would do the job well for pay.

Though they’d need to find a way to breathe underwater.

Still, having come all the way to the Abyssal Ocean…

I should at least take home one or two of the famous ocean resources from the Farming World.

Since I already got a sea stone, rather than material resources, I wanted to see the merfolk that are said to be extremely rare.

“They might be around here.”

The Rift Dimension has everything.

I heard from the Naru tribe that there are elves, and since the Naru live in swamps, merfolk must surely live in the sea.

Of course, there’s no guarantee they’d be in this Abyssal Ocean.

In this vast Rift Dimension, there must be more than just this one ocean biome.

But in my opinion, the Abyssal Ocean seemed to qualify as the main ocean biome.

It’s a Level 7 biome with an area about twice the size of the biomes I’ve seen so far, and it’s incredibly deep.

So I decided to search for them, considering the high possibility of their existence.

“…Is it too vast?”

If they’re not here, or if I can’t find them, I’d be wasting time with hard work, but I don’t mind that.

When playing Farming World, I spent time on even more useless things as an unemployed person.

Investing a few days isn’t a big deal.

Plus, with the good movement skill “Leap,” I thought it was worth trying.

———————-

I’ve been wandering around for about five days.

Aimlessly roaming the dark deep sea for 15 hours a day was a lonely task bordering on insanity.

It was fortunate that monsters attacked me as I moved around; without even that, I might have lost my mind from the difficulty.

It wasn’t physically demanding but mentally exhausting.

In the deep sea filled with darkness where nothing is visible, following small glimmers of light, searching through meaningless vast lands, thinking there might be something hidden here…

If I weren’t a master of solo play with 10 years of Farming World experience, I might have given up long ago.

Of course, these complaints were possible because my spec upgrades were meaningful, allowing me to easily defeat corrupted monsters.

And I know this:

In Farming World, if you keep putting in effort and taking on challenges, you’ll eventually get what you want.

If this were reality, I wouldn’t have been so confident in my challenge.

What lies below?

Could I search the vast oceans of Earth with just the belief that treasures are scattered at the bottom?

What if what I found turned out to be nothing special?

What if it was the most valuable thing that could be found in this sea?

It would be utterly disappointing. But I know it’s not like that in the Rift Dimension.

The deep sea in the Farming World I know is full of expensive resources.

Even as I fight with myself in the darkness, the resources I pick up are all worth enduring the loneliness.

Even in small caves in unremarkable lands, though often empty, sometimes one or two things appear.

Calculating the value of my five days of time versus the rewards, I could take some comfort in the sea stone I found initially, though there wasn’t much else afterward.

On the seventh day.

I finally achieved results.

“Oh…!”

Just as I was starting to think I should find the corrupted abyss first and look for merfolk later, I discovered a bright light source illuminating a large entrance at the bottom of a massive rock formation deep in the sea—a light that shouldn’t exist in such a deep abyss.

“This feels promising.”

Bright light illuminated the entrance, with more light leaking from inside the cave.

Someone was living there and had deliberately installed lights in this dark deep sea, suggesting a higher possibility of life forms rather than a corrupted abyss.

The corrupted abyss.

Places where dense chaos energy gathered were, from my experience, dark and gloomy rather than bright, with visibility often reduced to nothing.

As I approached the cave entrance, I saw it was constructed like a large castle gate.

As I reached out to open the door…

Swish—

Something flew toward me.

As fast and sharp as a corrupted monster.

Crack-

“…!”

I caught the trident, broke it, and grabbed the neck of the creature that had lunged at me, summoning my Eager Sword as a threat.

“Oh. Aren’t you pretty?”

The caught human—no, mermaid—was indeed the merfolk I had been looking for.

“Now. Open the door.”

With such friendliness, coming out to greet a guest.

I had a feeling my relationship with the merfolk would go well.