Cave Refuge

The sailors who were captured into the bubble were naturally facing an indescribable situation.

Those captured sailors couldn't stay in the bubble for long, so there was originally nothing but a barren land inside the bubble, which is why the merfolk were so reckless in filling it with water, simply to prevent others from digging tunnels to escape.

Under normal circumstances, the sailors sent into the bubble couldn't last long, so the merfolk wouldn't provide the trapped sailors with food.

When those in the bubble saw an opening above, they naturally assumed a leak might have occurred and wondered if they could escape through this breach. So they all gathered around it.

As they approached and saw the opening in the bubble, although a few merfolk were near the breach, they didn't pay them any mind.

At this point, most of the sailors had come to their senses, and despite not being at their peak physical and mental condition, being at about seventy to eighty percent, they weren't afraid when they saw the merfolk. Instead, they were somewhat eager to try their chances.

However, there was a significant height difference between the ground and the leak at the top of the bubble, so the other sailors planned to wait for the water level to rise so they could then try to escape through the leak.

What they hadn't expected was that the sudden appearance of this leak on the bubble was deliberately opened by the merfolk standing nearby.

As they waited quietly for the water to rise, hoping to escape through that leak, they didn't expect that after the water level had risen only about half a meter, the merfolk would close off the leak.

Faced with this turn of events, the sailors inside the bubble were momentarily at a loss, standing dumbfounded on the spot.

Throughout this process, Dong Tianyu stayed put honestly, without any intention of ambushing the merfolk; after all, he had already gained an understanding of the situation inside the bubble.

So when the fishmen left the vicinity of the bubble, Dong Tianyu quietly followed behind them.

As he neared the Underwater City, Dong Tianyu didn't continue to follow them but instead found a place to hide.

Dong Tianyu hadn't forgotten his purpose for coming here, which was to search for treasures that could enhance the level of his Cave.

By now, after several improvements, ordinary materials made little difference to the Cave's enhancement, and even some of the previously rare materials barely made any progress.

It was when Dong Tianyu first learned of these hazardous areas overseas and a sixth sense arose within him, telling him intuitively that this place would have treasures that could upgrade his Cave, that he decided to set out.

Looking at the Underwater City not far away, as well as the merfolk shuttling through it, Dong Tianyu knew it would be simple to annihilate them. The Three Flags in his possession now had the power to obliterate this Underwater City.

But Dong Tianyu refrained from doing so because he was still uncertain whether the items of use for his Cave mansion in his intuition were the merfolk or some object within the Underwater City.

Thus, what Dong Tianyu needed to do was to capture some merfolk first and send them into his Cave to see the reaction. If it proved effective, then none of the merfolk in the Underwater City would escape from his grasp.

Dong Tianyu didn't wait long before he saw a group of merfolk, carrying something that resembled rope shackles, heading towards the bubble.

Dong Tianyu understood what the merfolk intended to do and took this opportunity to capture the group of fishmen.

With the Flying Swords experiencing negligible resistance in water, of the twelve fishmen, eight were slain in an instant by the Swords, which then swiftly severed the arms of three others. In less than five seconds, there was only one merfolk left, who hadn't reacted yet and was now with a sword at his throat.

At this moment, Dong Tianyu quickly approached that side and then opened the connecting passage, sending the seawater mixed with merfolk blood, as well as those merfolk who were either dead or had lost their arms and were unable to resist, directly into the Cave.

As for the merfolk who, with a flying sword at its neck, dared not move an inch, Dong Tianyu used his Divine Sense to knock it unconscious before tossing it into the Cave as well.

After thoroughly cleaning up the battlefield and ensuring that no seawater containing merfolk blood had leaked out, Dong Tianyu finally left the area.

Now that the merfolk had been sent into the Cave, the next steps were relatively simple. Dong Tianyu casually found a fairly secluded spot and subsequently entered the Cave himself.

The reason he entered the Cave was not that Dong Tianyu could no longer hold his breath; it was because, after reaching the Golden Core Stage, he no longer needed oxygen to power his body.

It was like when researchers discovered that billions of years ago, when Blue Star first formed and there was no oxygen in the atmosphere, those algae that didn't need oxygen had very long lifespans.

They lived until the appearance of oxygen, and theoretically, if oxygen had never appeared, they would have continued in a state of immortality.

Yet, the emergence of oxygen was like a potent poison, continuously eroding and poisoning their lives.

In fact, in everyday situations, oxygen indeed demonstrated the characteristics of a poison, and this type of poison was not just any ordinary poison; it not only targeted living organisms but also possessed strong destructive power against non-living things.

Essentially, nothing could resist the damage caused by oxidation; theoretically, the less contact with oxygen, the longer the preservation time. The most straightforward example is vacuum-packaged foods, which, without oxygen inside, typically have a much longer shelf life than similar items exposed to oxygen.

It is the same with living organisms. Though they continuously breathe in oxygen to survive, the slower the heart beats and the lower the frequency of oxygen intake.

This concept has already been discovered, for instance, in martial arts novels, where those martial artists with higher cultivation levels and longer lifespans are described with extremely slow but powerful heartbeats.

In tales of gods and monsters, as cultivation level continuously increases, one starts by expelling impurities from the body, followed by cultivating Innate Energy. Once one's body is filled with Innate Energy, the next step is to close off one's pores, preventing the polluted air from the outside world from entering the body.

Doesn't this description resemble the expulsion of oxygen from the body and its replacement with Spirit Energy or similar energy to perform oxygen's role within the body?

Under normal circumstances, the cultivation at the Qi Refinement Realm involves filling the body with Spirit Energy, while the Foundation Building Stage is about liquefying the internal Spirit Energy, almost as if replacing one's own blood with liquefied Spirit Energy.

And one's own blood is compressed at the heart, transforming into just a few drops of Essence Blood.

As cultivation level continues to rise and the accumulated liquid Spirit Energy within the body becomes abundant once again, one can say that not a trace of oxygen remains inside. At this point, gathering and compressing the liquid Spirit Energy within the body eventually forms a Golden Core through internal manipulation of Spirit Energy; this is the cultivation method of the Inner Alchemy Sect.

The purpose of creating the Golden Core is actually to forge a vessel capable of housing the Cultivator's soul, or rather, their will.

The Golden Core acts like an embryo, and at the Nascent Soul Stage, it's essentially about nurturing a new Energy Body composed purely of energy, inside the original body. This is also why people say, "As long as the Nascent Soul exists, the Divine Soul does not perish."

It's also why at this stage, losing the physical body means not only does the Cultivator not die, but they can also continue their cultivation.

For this reason, Dong Tianyu, who had cultivated to the Golden Core Stage, could naturally stay underwater without air for a prolonged period without being affected.