Aqua

  Well that’s… an unexpected skill.

  I purse my lips while tilting my head as I swim, briefly wondering what I should think about the skill as I stare at it and swim.

  [REQUESTING SKILLS: USER AQUA FALLEN]

  [5 SKILLS RETRIEVED]

  [MORE THAN THREE SKILLS DETECTED]

  [ALL SKILLS CONDENSED]

  [Skill 1: Abyssal Kraken’s Embrace]

  [Skill 2: Hydrokinetic Wrath]

  [Skill 3: Call of the Abyss]

  [Skill 4: Abyssal Kraken’s Partial Shift]

  [Skill 5: Pressure of the Abyss]

  [Description: Pressure of the Abyss allows the user to increase the water pressure in the area five meters around them to the water pressure of the upper depths of the Abyss itself. Additionally, the range of the skill increases by another five meters for every 100 points in Magical Strength the user has. Furthermore, the water pressure of the skill will increase to different levels of the Abyss depending on the user’s Magical Strength.]

  [Cost: Pressure of the Abyss costs one mana for every five seconds the skill is active. However, the time every point of mana lasts increases by five seconds for every 100 points in Magical Strength the user has.]

  [Cooldown: Pressure of the Abyss has no cooldown.]

  [END SKILLS]

  It’s certainly an unexpected skill.

  What even is the water pressure in the Abyss? I’m at least certain the bottom of the Abyss would be so bad that it would crush any regular human in an instant. But the upper depths?

  I’m not actually sure.

  The Abyss is a largely undocumented location in the Alliance.

  Surveillance does not work in the Abyss.

  Phone recordings, video recordings, livestreams, whatever. None of it works in the Abyss.

  The only thing that works is the Pioneer Broadcast System.

  Despite that, when the Alliance tried hiring Pioneers to go into the Abyss, all that ended up accomplishing was the Pioneers all dying within hours of entering. Without getting very deep.

  Even aquatic focused Pioneers ended up dying within half a day.

  So no one knows what even the lower half of the upper depths of the Abyss look like. Much less what monsters are in it or what the other levels of the Abyss are like or how deep they are.

  Especially since the Pioneers all gave up on that. After all, they survived being Pioneers in the first place and won their way back into the Alliance at the top, so why would they sacrifice their lives just to explore the Abyss?

  And until now the only Ancient Monster that was guaranteed to be connected to the Abyss was the Abyssal Orca, who has it in its name.

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  Even the Kraken is only assumed to be connected to the Abyss since it’s just as strong as the Abyssal Orca and another aquatic Ancient Monster.

  But the Abyssal Kraken…

  I have to wonder if maybe… just maybe… the Kraken wasn’t actually the strongest version of its species.

  That thought sends a shiver down my spine as I continue swimming.

  One way or another, the Abyss is a terrifying place.

  Eventually I arrive back at my home and collapse onto my backpack. Just completely ignoring the chat that is still talking about my battle with the starfish, albeit with some of them wondering about what my trait and skill from level 25 are.

  But after a few seconds of me just lying down, I finally get to work trying to check for hearts. And as I begin taking off my armor, the broadcast cuts out for privacy.

  I don’t care about that though. What’s important now are my hearts.

  And lo and behold, when I check for heart beats after taking off most of my clothes aside from my undergarments, I find not one, or two. Not even three or four.

  I find five heartbeats echoing through my body.

  Holy shit that’s a lot.

  Don’t squids and octopi normally have just three hearts? Why the extra two?

  Not really sure, but whatever. The extra hearts are beneficial.

  Although I’m kind of curious what my internal structure actually looks right now.

  From what I can tell based on feeling around my torso, I have one heart in the upper right corner and upper left corners of my chest, one just slightly above my belly button, and two of them in the lower right and left corners of my belly. Albeit closer to the back of my body than the front.

  As for where anything else is, and if things were moved around to accommodate? I have no idea.

  Still. Having five hearts will be very helpful in the future. Especially with my new skill.

  After all, to kill me now, something has to destroy all five of my hearts and my brain.

  The only thing keeping me from being practically immortal so long as that doesn’t happen is that other injuries could easily end up damaging or making my heart stop long before other hearts or my brain regenerate. So it’s not really safe to say that I can’t die unless someone directly targets all of them.

  Something else I noticed is that the hearts don’t all have the same amount of force as they beat.

  The heart in the center of my torso feels like the main one as it beats a lot harder than the other four. While the other four beat a lot quieter than even a regular human heartbeat. A lot softer in general.

  To the point that it was actually very confusing when I started feeling around for heartbeats and first checked where my normal heart would be. Only to not feel a thing.

  I can only feel the other heartbeats when my hand is placed directly over my skin where the heart is. That’s how softly they’re beating.

  Honestly, I’m not even sure if these four hearts are strong enough to support the entire body on their own if one of them was the last heart left. It’s entirely possible the heart would just collapse.

  Then again, I’m not a scientist. So I wouldn’t know.

  Anyway, I put my clothes back on after finishing the inspection without caring about the bruising on my body before lying back down on my backpack and gazing up at the ceiling.

  The wounds should heal soon. Possibly by the time I finish work tomorrow in fact.

  I ended a bit early today, so there are over twelve hours before work even starts tomorrow. Which means an extra several hours before work ends.

  That leaves me smiling a little bit despite my pain.

  Eventually my healing should be good enough that I can take on monsters several levels above me without much trouble. Just because of me healing all the damage they deal me minutes after they deal it.

  That’ll be great.

  I let out a sigh while staring up at the ceiling of my little cavern home. Then I gradually close my eyes, falling asleep within seconds despite my pain.

  And when I wake up again, I quickly get to work. I do my usual morning routine and go to my first job of the day.

  Which is actually a modeling job this time around. Just like the job I ended off on yesterday.

  Except this job is for the winter. So it has me wearing winter attire while walking on the ice near a glacier.

  A rather large change of pace from the last job.

  The complete opposite in fact.

  Not that I particularly mind though.

  I like the cold actually. And I’m pretty sure my body is literally made to handle the cold well.

  Which makes sense. Considering that the deepsea is pretty cold from what I’ve heard.

  An average of right above the freezing temperature for water.

  If I’m being honest, I could probably walk around without my armor on in just a short sleeved shirt and shorts and be perfectly comfortable in this place.

  It’s always interesting all the new things I’m learning about my body ever since my Bloodlines awakened.

  Anyway, after that photoshoot I go to a different commercial shoot that is very far out of what I’m used to.

  It’s actually a makeup commercial.

  For underwater, waterproof makeup.

  Which I didn’t realize was a thing.

  But if I’m being honest, I have never worn makeup in my life. So I feel rather out of place throughout the entire shoot.

  Thankfully for me, and for everyone there, my knowledge of makeup doesn’t matter whatsoever for the shoot.

  It’s not like I’m the one applying it after all. That’s the makeup artist’s job.

  When I arrive at the third job though, something happens.

  A loud beeping sound echoes through my head and my System Phantom begins to flash red as a message appears in front of my vision.

  [Pioneer’s body has been moved on Oceana. Canceling the Pioneer’s System Phantom.]

  My eyes widen in shock. And I’m not the only one as those at the shoot for the variety show I was going to record for look just as shocked.

  Then everything goes black, and I find myself returning to my body.

  Just to feel the cavern shaking all around me.

  What in the abyss is going on?!

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