CHAPTER 152 - FOR EXP GROWTH AND PEACH-SPERITY
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The chief showed us the transparent bowl. “This is a magical item that we found washed up on our beach one day.”
[Diving Helmet:
Going on an exciting adventure under the sea? Use this item to enable you to breathe underwater.]
In Adventure Incarnate, the helmet was a novelty fashion item given away during a summer event. It had no actual use in the game, but in this world, I was able to use it to escape from a sticky situation in the Chitinous Caverns. I couldn’t believe that I would have to wear that fish bowl-looking thing on my head again.
The lady to the chief’s right showed us the [Diving Helmet’s] features. There was a button to tighten the neck ring to seal the helmet, and a small red doohickey at the top of the device replenished the air when it was fed with [Spell Stones], or spirit stones as they called it here.
I tried it on. “Does this make me look fat?”
Everyone laughed, especially the chief who burst into riotous laughter, slapping her thighs and doubling over in sheer amusement. I thought my joke was pretty lame, but it seemed this was a very appreciative audience, maybe they didn’t get out much.
The chief, her attendants, and dozens of villagers both young and old went to accompany me and my apprentices to the river. We made a colorful procession to the Enchanted River as Kharli and Mo walked beside me, giggling at the handsome village youths, while Lari, his face still red as a tomato, hid behind them. Along the way, we passed the famous Peach Blossom Forest. Hundreds of trees were covered in thousands of delicate pink and white blossoms that scented the air with an intoxicating fragrance.
One of the young men, who was introduced to us as the chief’s eldest grandson, acted as my tour guide. He was a foot taller than me and had long black hair down to his waist that was intricately braided and decorated with painted wooden and glass beads.
“It’s so lovely! I can’t believe I’m here.” I bent to pick up a fallen peach blossom and marveled at its perfect symmetry and exquisite color.
The chief’s grandson smiled, showing a flash of pearly white teeth. “The Great Turtle rarely allows strangers to approach her. Do you happen to have a mysterious ancestry?”
“I’m an orphan…”
“And you don’t know who your parents are?” He and the other villagers who were listening in to our conversation nodded their heads. “A lot of the youths who live here like to explore the world before returning, often with spouses or the families they formed outside the island. Could your parents…?”
The villagers looked at me up and down and voiced their opinions.
“No, she’s too pale.”
“Maybe one of her grandparents was from here.”
“We have a family that used to have blue eyes three generations ago.”
“She’s short.”
“Her hair is the right texture.”
“She’s one of ours because the Turtle waved to her.”
“Yes, she has to be.”
The chief’s grandson rolled his eyes and whispered to me, “Don’t mind them, they’re excited because we get very few visitors.”
“It’s okay,” I whispered back.
He stopped under a particularly tall peach tree that had a ladder leaning against its trunk. “Look at that branch up there. Do you see that perfectly circular hole in it? That was caused by the Monkey King’s staff. Do you know the story?”
“Uh, I know about the Monkey King and that he had a legendary sandalwood staff.”
“They say that he boasted that his staff could grow to such a length that it reached the heavens. When the others in the Assembly of Immortals asked him to prove it, the Monkey King planted his staff right here.” He pointed at a spot directly below the hole in the branch. “And his staff pierced the branch before it struck the vault of heaven.”
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“Wow!”
“Why don’t you try putting your eye up against the hole? You might see something extraordinary.”
“I’d love to!”
Of course, the branch was too high for me to reach, so I climbed the ladder while he held it steady. I mentally patted myself on the back for wearing trousers instead of skirts today. Grabbing onto the branch to maintain stability, I put my eye up against the hole, but all I saw were more leaves and branches of the peach tree.
“Teacher, did you see anything?” asked Kharli.
“Nope. Just the tree. You guys try it.” I stepped aside and gestured for the others to take their turn.
Sadly, none of my apprentices saw anything out of the ordinary.
“What do people normally see?” I asked the chief’s grandson.
“Oh, children sometimes see random things, but adults never see anything much,” he said.
A cute little gap-toothed girl ran up to us and said, “I saw a fish!”
This started a clamor when the other kids started yelling about their visions. I couldn’t tell if they were joking or not.
“I saw an eye!”
“I saw a turtle!”
“My mother saw my father!”
“There were moons in the hole.”
“I smelled a fart.”
“Cuz you farted!”
“You’re the one who farted, you farty girl!”
“I’m gonna fart on you!”
Everyone burst out laughing at that.
The chief shook her head and scolded them. “Stop it, don’t fart in front of our visitors.”
“Yes, ma’am,” “She started it,” “Sorry,” they said before running away.
We put the ladder back in place and chatted a bit as we walked through the Peach Blossom Forest. I found out that their main trade products were peach wine, peach wood bows, and peach wood wands, which were used in various temple rituals.
“What about the Peaches of Immortality?” I asked.
He chuckled. “Sorry, they don’t grow here.”
By the time we reached the Enchanted River, my feet were beginning to hurt from all the walking. The Peach Blossom Isle was a lot bigger than it looked when we were on the boat. There was no way that all this land would fit on the back of the giant sea turtle that we saw. This place must be in some kind of pocket dimension.
I thought that the Peach Blossom Forest was as beautiful as a picture on a postcard, but when we got to the Enchanted River, I was even more amazed.
“This is incredibly beautiful!” I peered down at the crystal clear waters of the river.
“Be careful.” The chief’s grandson pulled me back from the railing. “Don’t bend down that far. You might fall off.”
I continued to make admiring noises as my eyes swept the expanse of the river. The water at the edges was a lovely aquamarine that shaded into deep sapphire in the middle. The colors were so vivid that they seemed unreal. If I had seen a photo of this, I would’ve thought it was color-enhanced. The water was so clear that I could see the entirety of the riverbed, even the deepest part, though it was hard to judge its depth.
“That’s weird. I feel dizzy looking down…” I gripped the wooden railing as I cautiously bent down and tried to look for the Sacred Offering Bowl. “Going into the water must be like swimming inside a jewel. Is the water sparkling?”
“The rocks on the river bed have some quartz and agate in them.”
“How deep is it?”
“The open area is only forty man-heights, but there is a subterranean cave system there. Before swimming in the river became taboo, some cave divers used the enchanted item to breathe underwater and explore the caverns and tunnels. They say the tunnels go down into unfathomable depths.”
“And it’s called the Enchanted River because…?” I smiled, anticipating yet another cute story about the Assembly of Immortals.
The chief’s grandson crossed his arms over his chest and sighed. “Fairies live in the river and love to abduct beautiful mortals. My great-great-grandfather went swimming one day and never came back. His body was never found.”
“I’m sorry to hear that.” Was the river more dangerous than it looked?
“There’s an old story about the youngest child of a chief who disappeared into the river in ancient times. He came back a hundred years later, looking the same as he looked when he disappeared, and wearing a pearl ring.”
“Where did he say he went? What happened?”
“He said a fairy princess fell in love with him and took him to her palace made of coral and jade where they got married and had seven children. He returned to bring his parents back to the underwater palace, but he fell in love with a beautiful maiden from the village, and decided to divorce his fairy wife.”
“Oh dear, I don’t think I like where this story is going.”
“You know how these old stories are. I think the ancients loved tragedies.”
I shook my hand and turned away from the river, leaning back against the railing. “Let me guess what happened next. He died, right?”
He nodded. “He somehow convinced the head priest to hold a ceremony where he waded into the river and declared that he was divorcing his wife. When he threw the ring back into the river, his hair turned white and he started aging rapidly.”
“Because he was gone for one hundred years?”
“His unending youth must have been a gift from his fairy wife, and when he divorced her she took it back, or maybe the ring was a magic item.”
I was about to comment that he kind of deserved it when three white-robed men appeared on the other side of the river and started ringing bells. A large school of golden-scaled fish then came into view from out of nowhere.
“The priests will be feeding the fish now,” said the chief’s grandson.
The men threw buckets of rice, minced fish, fish guts, and so forth into the water. I was very surprised to see that the fish took turns eating. First, the golden fish ate the food, then they disappeared and another school of fish, this time with silver scales, swam up near the surface to partake of the meal. The third group of fish had silvery-gray scales, and the last one had brownish-blue scales.
“What kind of fish are those?” I asked.
“They’re all different kinds of piranhas.”
“Pi-pi-piranhas?!” Was this quest a scam? No wonder the bodies of the drowned people never surfaced. The river was full of man-eating piranhas!