I started wandering towards to inner ocean as soon as the coin landed in my hand with the blue side up. Having seen the planet from space, I came to the conclusion that there was probably more than one leviathan based on the amount of ocean. This interpretation would also explain the numerous discrepancies in the description of the monster. With a thought, my wings burst into existence and carried my skywards. My destination was the transition point of the inner and outer oceans at the south-easternmost tip of the free trade republic.

It was a casual two-hour flight during which time I watched a few caravans travelling between small inland towns with the hundred people groups looking like ants from my altitude. Having reached my destination, I dismissed my wings and entered into freefall. It was an exhilarating experience that ended only a few dozen meters above the ground. The idea was to see how close I could get to the ground before deploying my wings and landing softly. the result was leaving it too late and burying myself feet first into the forest just outside the heavily fortified sea monitoring station. After assuming the guise of an elf and walking away from the impact site, I entered the accompanying town. I was able to discover that no large sea monsters had been seen crossing the channel in the last month with a few bribes and a bit of subpar detective work.

Despite how mundane my questions were it seemed any information related to sea monsters had value. Unsatisfied with the contradictory information, I approached the leader of the defence garrison before asking him, “How often do you see the leviathan?”

There was an awkward silence as the elf stood with his hand out and it was only after paying a five gold 'fee' that he replied. “Haven’t seen that beast for at least a year. Word is it was last sighted off the south coast of the Zurgan dynasty heading north towards the water spirit kingdom.”

 I could not use a gate having never been to either location, orbital redeployment was not possible due to the recent squid infestation while reaching it by air would pass directly over the Wild Lands. With everything tallied, I decided to use this as a shakedown run of my new skill and chose to go via water. I headed directly to the port market after leaving the old elf's office since the majority of the sellers would be closing their stalls soon. Having managed to purchase a large supply of fish products, salt and a few rare marine products at a good price, I was in a good mood. Deciding it was a good day to try my luck, I began wandering the town looking for tell-tale signs of the black market. While it had not been present in the trade capital due to the detection rituals covering the entire city, a small but stable location like this would be guaranteed to house a branch.

I located the small black dot on the bottom of a pub sign with some more bribery and a few threats. Entering the building was easy since it was an officially licensed premises. Entering the backroom, however, was a different story normally involving passwords and shit. Having wasted enough time finding the place, I simply warped into the room and grabbed the small man around the throat. Surprisingly enough the person was actually a person, an old human. Staring into his scared eyes, I demanded, “Tell me what you know of the leviathan and I will let you live. Tell me of the items the black market has and you will be paid well. Lie to me and you will wish for death!” I honestly wouldn't have hurt him, but he did not know that.

I could see that he wanted to talk but the tightening of his muscles prevented him from doing so. Feeling like an idiot for only remembering about slavery at that moment. I moved closer and shattered the slave collar before placing both a permanent transformation potion and a large bag of coins on a nearby barrel. The man crumpled like a broken doll when I walked from the room. He had provided me with more information than I thought he would and I had given him his freedom, for as long as it would last. His story confirmed the garrison leaders words and also elaborated on how the underworld worked. I let the man take whatever was resources this small contact point had with the exception of a small quantity of drugs that I 'confiscated' and a box containing around twenty large mana crystals.

Deciding this pub was as good as any other, I booked a room for the night. Eating the watery stew and downing a few beers reminded me of back home as it seemed all pubs, no matter the world, had the same atmosphere. I had avoided such places when travelling with the princess since too many drunk patrons hit on her during our first attempt.

The night was not peaceful because it seemed the local gang lord wanted to make an example of me for both barging in and having the balls to sleep in his territory. Three punk assassins came in the middle of the night. Entering the room through a secret wall passage I had long discovered, they proceeded to walk over to my bed and stab down with poison daggers. Their blades plunged into me with a clang and the confused looks remained on their faces as their heads separated from their bodies. 

Walking down the stairs It was clear this was not the act of the human because his corpse was thrown at my feet by a large dracon man holding a club. Seeing this man dead honestly pissed me off, so staring at the opponent I declared. “All I wanted was some information and goods, but now you have made this shit personal! I don't give a fuck who you are or who is backing you. By dawn, you will all be dead!”

The oversized man started to reply with, “We are the,” before my fist punched right through his chest. Taking the few seconds when the room was stunned, I used my luck to slightly manipulate the system. It was nothing flashy like changing skills, I merely activated the group function. This system was related to the party function and allowed the identification of comrades and enemies during a war. Normally activated by the group's leaders, I bypassed this to mark every person this now dead dracon would consider a group member with specific marks designating the leaders.

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With glowing crosses above their heads the fight was like shooting fish in a barrel. I further justified my actions by counting the number that had the murdered tag. After witnessing me kill five of the remaining six in the room almost as quickly as I killed the first, the last one fled. As was common with a scared stupid person, he ran straight to their base in search of safety. After banging on an unmarked door in the slums area he was let inside. Unfortunately for him, Before the door could close, I grabbed the edge ripped it off its hinges. With a sinister smile, I walked through the opening as a woman lunged at me with a dagger, but a wave of my hand made her head disappear.

Among the people in the room were a pair of young twins with no markings and a dozen or so guys playing with women. Knocking all the non-combatants out with a pulse of time distortion cost me half my mana but guaranteed their safety so I deemed it worth it. Ignoring the casual display of power the biggest thug in the room began to speak, managing, “We are the Gilg,” before I shot a bolt of space infused wind between his eyes.

This scene repeated several times in differing hideouts but luckily non-combatants were not common. Eventually one of the women managed to get out that they were from the Gilgan crime family but it meant literally nothing to me seeing as I did not know the local power struggles. As dawn broke, I burned a mansion on the city limits to the ground. I know I didn't get all of them but I did manage to learn from the leader that their family was from the Kotis empire in the north and they would 'never let me live.'

I decided to just escape into the ocean to avoid any consequences of the night spent committing bloodshed. After gathering pure oxygen in my lungs using wind magic so as to extend my first dive, I leapt into the ocean from the mansions private dock. The cold was refreshing and I felt extremophile begin working. This skill was somewhat strange as it did nothing normally and provided no buffs. What it did do was adjust their body to survive longer whenever a person entered an environment that could not support life. You would not be able to survive indefinitely but extending mere seconds into days or weeks would not be a problem.

As with all things though there was a caveat. To use this ability you needed to survive in the environment for an hour as your body adapted. For water it was as simple as bathing but surviving in environments like space was a different matter. To make it worse the majority of your body had to be in contact with the hazard, so no magical shielding or space suits. The pay-offs, however, were monumental and after an hour in the water, I had developed retractable webbing on my hands and feet, gills to harvest oxygen from the water and my skin had slightly thickened to deal with the temperature and pressure. I was literary my cultures depiction of a merman.

Swimming came naturally to this form and I glided through the water. Abusing water magic, I became even more streamlined and thus faster. I noticed the magnitude of life contained in the ocean as I was dashing down towards the seafloor. From fish, crabs and corral all the way to giant sea mammals and inquisitive turtles. It truly was a whole new world blessed by the refracting light from above. After fifteen minutes, I reached the 'divide' that separated the inner and outer ocean and it was much grander than what I was expecting.

The ocean floor simply fell away like some kind of giant cliff. Hundreds of meters below was a giant blue seaweed forest growing around ten-story high coral formations. it was like someone took the inner ocean and supersized it. Swimming over the edge the reason became apparent, with the mana density reaching almost eight times that of before the divide. For the first time ever, I realised just how strange this planet was. It had rare minerals that should not exist in the lower layers and more mana than it should. It also explained why the sea creatures would go to the inner sea to give birth. Newborns would not survive in this sea without at least level fifty stats.

I was surrounded by giants after diving down into the underwater jungle. A few of the predators took note of me but after the first one was cut in half they treated me like one of their own. These animals were not stupid and supported by the vast ecosystem with a large supply of fish, there was no reason for them to risk death fighting me. From what I could tell these monsters were campers. They planned to kill any monster that tried to leave the internal sea before it had the power to survive while devouring fish in between. The most common predator was a four jawed shark whose mouth opened up like something out of a horror film.

Realising that my original plan of eating premade meals was useless due to the water ruining it, yes I know I didn't really think the whole underwater thing through, I started using identify to collect edible sea plants. While I could have eaten raw fish the thought of doing so upset my stomach and the multiple parasites the pheonixian knowledge had informed me of reinforced that idea. Surprisingly there was a large number of seed pods produced by the oversized seaweed that was edible, tasting like a sweet fruit. Similar to other plants the idea was to have whoever devoured the fruit spread the seed and once again identify saved my ass. Mixed into the regular fruit was a 'queen seed', this particular one would attach itself inside the consuming monster and use them as its seedbed.

After storing a literal tonne of sea fruit into my storage belt I began my westward quest. The journey was as beautiful as it was brutal. If a person paid close attention something would be being killed every second. The same thing happened on land with insects and other small creatures but when the smallest creature was half my size and left a trail of blood it seemed a little different. The scenery also changed and deepened the further I got away from the coast with the reef giving way to massive rifts in the ocean floor leading down into pitch-black darkness. Between these cracks was a land of sand but it was not some boring brown, it was a breathtaking rainbow of colours from deep reds through to pearl white.