The Ultimate Evolution
chapter-634

The river’s flow stemmed from the Kijuju Marshland, but due to the current dry season, the water level wasn’t plentiful at all.

Nevertheless, due to topographical reasons, the flow of the river was overwhelming rapid. The underground river inclined downwards and poured down from elevated precipices, where the rocks demonstrated a valour that could grind one’s bones to dust. Massive fogs of mist emitted out from the churning billows, issuing a faint piercing sensation in one’s nose. Evidently, the mist contained toxic essences.

Naturally to ordinary folk, a steep upsloping precipice was akin to a heavenly moat. Even a special expedition team in the real world inevitably required the assistance of various tools to be capable of scaling the current. Moreover, it would definitely take a great deal of time.

On the contrary, in Sheyan’s perspective, someone who possesses superhuman strength multiplied manifold that of ordinary humans, who also possesses the unrivalled title of ‘Pirate Captain’, it was absolutely impossible for the torrential currents and the treacherous upslope terrain to impede his advance.

With his current extent of powers, a heavenly moat was simply a casual joke.

At present, though he was only left with 10 plus hours of the free deadline, Sheyan’s fighting spirit was instead burning vigorously. His was confidence attributed to Little Lord Fokke’s success, that if Little Lord Fokke was capable of acquiring the ‘Stairway of the Sun’, he too would be capable of that.

Following that, the arduous process of scaling against the current naturally didn’t require further explanation. To Sheyan’s surprise, for some unknown reason, Mbenga was bent on following him.

One must understand, Sheyan could effortlessly breathe underwater for over half an hour, but Mbenga couldn’t. This implied an extremely high risk of dying if he continued advancing.

They first swam through a river course that was utterly submerged, and because they also needed to climb up a 5-metre tall waterfall, Sheyan could only tie Mbenga to his back with a rope before proceeding.

Even though Sheyan did his utmost to crash through that river course in the shortest time possible, Mbenga had still fainted from suffocation. Yet after resuscitating him, Mbenga persisted unyieldingly in accompanying Sheyan.

"I hear whispers from my soul, the only way to find myself is by venturing deeper. For this, I am willing to pay all it takes!"

Mbenga declared this with exceptional sincerity, thus, Sheyan could only respect his aspiration.

*******************************

5 hours of scaling later, at the distant head of this underground river, Sheyan could finally behold a ray of light right ahead!

After swimming through, at times underwater, and at times climbing up vast stretches of craggy subterranean ground, Sheyan could finally behold the breathtaking sunlight.

Without a doubt, that was their destination, the core reaches of the Kijuju Marshland.

To arrive here through ordinary means, god knows how many crazy untold dangers and difficulties one would have to face; numerous outrageous trials and challenges, covered with countless corpses and souls. Yet through this rapid underground river, though the journey was filled with hardships and perils, it only required a few hours.

Before arriving at the exit, Sheyan once again discovered another stone platform of roughly 10 plus square metres, with strange oddities placed atop it.

Hurrying his footsteps over for a look, Sheyan immediately noticed a large pile of utterly mouldy clothes. A gentle pinch would suffice to grind those mouldy linens to dust.

Evidently, upon reaching this spot a decade plus ago, Little Lord Fokke had ordered his subordinates to strip off their clothes.

This was undoubtedly a rather suspicious move. As Sheyan swept his incisive gaze in surveillance, he caught glimpse of several disorderly placed and rotting wooden planks. Those wooden planks had rotted to a stage where a trifling finger could splinter it into dregs.

Relying on his perception and experience, Sheyan successfully squeezed out the knowledge he needed above these wooden planks from his mind. He deciphered, their shapes revealed they were part of commonplace wooden casks on board ships. Such wooden casks could be used for seemingly anything; storing water, food or miscellaneous things, washing face or legs, urine potty, or protection during battles. Furthermore, when a ship capsizes, adding lids to it and attaching two to the waist would transform it into a life buoy...

Sheyan strolled over before stroking his finger along one of the cask planks. After wiping away the layer of dust and rotten splints of wood, a peculiar sensation feedbacked up his finger; resembling that of solidified candle wax. Sheyan then scooped water and rinsed it over.

Instantaneously, a think layer of light yellow substance was revealed. The substance adhered tightly to the rock, and Sheyan had to scrape some off before carefully twirling the substance around his fingers. Then, he swiftly tasted with his tongue, allowing him to immediately identify it.

This substance was a necessity for ships of this era. With an illustrious reputation, it was called the devil’s oil.

Actually, it was simply blubber boiled with wood and lime. It was a common essential for all ships, including pirates, merchants or the navy.

During naval wars, it could be utilized as flammable substances, and could also be used to mend leaking cracks on the ship. Furthermore, by adding unique spices from Madagascar, it could be used as a preservation from decomposing. In any ship, one could frequently see casks of this blubber wax.

Sheyan squatted for a good long while to observe. He could differentiate out withered vines trapped within the solidified blubber. If not for being coated in the blubber, through the years of flushing water and moisty erosion, it would’ve been reduced to dust long ago.

The bifurcation characteristics of these vines were relatively distinct, after comparing with those fresh ‘Chaliba’ vegetation he pulled from the party storage, Sheyan could tell they were the same variation.

Sheyan shut his eyes and pondered...…

"Over a decade ago, gasping for breath and air, Little Lord Fokke’s group had ascended to this precipice platform. Following that, they stripped off their clothes, exposing their skinny, bony and filthy bodies. Producing a wooden cask of blubber, they smeared the ‘Chaliba’ vegetations with devil’s oil..."

"The crux of this is obviously…...why did they have to strip?"

Sheyan couldn’t fathom this even after racking his brains. This group of males couldn’t possibly have traversed thousands of miles, just to bring lubricant to this remote and gloomy cave of Africa for homosexual activities...

Unable to contemplate, Sheyan, fortunately, had another way of resolving this issue. That was, to sample this personally for himself.

Although the devil’s oil and solidified onto the rock’s surface, it hadn’t expired. Sheyan then casually scraped off a chunk the size of a fist, which could be used after heating it slightly.

Soon after, Sheyan retrieved the recently harvested ‘Chaliba’ plant and rubbed it against the boiling warm devil’s oil.

Very quickly, he received a notification that left him utterly dumbstruck.

[ You attempt to blend the unique Chaliba plant of this world ]

[ Blending….. ]

[ Blending failed... ]

[ Blending….. ]

[ Blending failed... ]

[ Blending….. ]

[ Blending failed... ]

After receiving this list of notifications, Sheyan abruptly remembered that Ndipaya prescription, ‘Ancient Gjesi’, he acquired from slaying that Plaga Type B host. That prescription allowed him to concoct a herb medicine known as the ‘Ancient Gjesi’.

Moreover, that prescription had detailed to him the type of herbs he needed to gather.

Faced with this situation, even a fool would understand what happened. What more to Sheyan who also possessed a concoction ability?

It was very clear!

That year, Bernard Fokke must’ve obtained an excellent Ndipaya prescription, where the raw materials involved was the blubber of animals and this ‘Chaliba’ herb.

Anyone else who faced this issue now would experience a terrible headache. However, who was Sheyan? A concoction expert!

He had directly inherited Saruman’s alchemy arts, and after countless concocting experiences and research, his skills had been brought to the point of perfection. As for his concoction apparatus, he naturally brought out with him, where he could use it to profit at any time.

Therefore, without expending much effort, Sheyan required only 10 minutes to experiment with this secret concoction method that Little Lord Fokke acquired.

The pitiful Little Lord Fokke had spared no efforts to destroy his ancestor’s remnants, just to preserve all these profound mysteries. Instead, through Sheyan’s painstaking investigations, the fog of mysteries were all beginning to disperse; uncovering the truths behind....

"Bunch of morons, not knowing even a simple distillation and purification method. Yes, just rub those Chaliba herbs with the blubber, how long would you want to rub for?"

As he muttered to himself, Sheyan’s nimble hands had started conducting the entire process of distillation and purification of the harvested Chaliba herbs. Eventually, he ended up with a tiny bowl of sparkling, translucent, pure and limpid liquid; resembling that of an amethyst crystal.

Proceeding from there, he employed a pipette and started dripping the liquid, one droplet at a time, onto the blubber.

Ultimately, he obtained the most reasonable prescription.

[ Attempting to improve a herb prescription….improving the Ndipaya Ancient Herb Concoction: Tigfog… ]

[ Usage method: smearing ]

[ Herb blending dosage: 0.731 blubber and 1 Chaliba herb distilled liquid (90% purity) ]

[ Property: Upon smearing on a human’s skin, it will transform all secreted perspiration and bodily fluid into exotic volatile substances. These substances affect all life forms resident to the thick fog of the Kijuju Marshland. Lowers the chance of being discovered beyond 3 metres away by 99% ]

[ Property: If smeared on a weapon, once this herb concoction contacts flesh and blood of life forms resident to the thick fog of the Kijuju Marshland, it will induce a negative buff. Reduction of capabilities by 25% - 30%, duration lasts for 24 hours ]

[ Duration of this improved herb medicine increased to 240 minutes. Herb medicine properties will fade upon expiry ]