Level 1 to Infinity: My Bloodline Is the Ultimate Cheat!-Chapter 895: The Pearl Beneath the Qilin

Once Ethan realized he could breathe, the last thread of panic slipped away and he let himself sink. The milky-white liquid swallowed him whole, cool and weightless, and almost immediately he felt waves of energy seeping into his body. It was not a violent surge, not a burning infusion, but something steady and clean, like mountain springwater pouring into cracked stone.

After the brutal fight with the Qilin, every inch of him had ached as if iron hammers had pounded him from the inside out. His bones felt splintered, his muscles torn and wrung dry. Yet as that cool current flowed through him, the pain receded with astonishing speed, dissolving as though it had never existed.

He became acutely aware of his body in a way he never had before. His bones and muscles responded like starving children who had been handed a feast, clinging to the energy, devouring it greedily. Deep within his muscles, the faint specks of light that only appeared when he activated Force Synchronization had never fully faded since he woke this time. During the long clash above, they had dimmed, their glow thinning to embers. Now they brightened again, drinking in the energy at a frantic pace, regaining their luster strand by strand. As he descended, the liquid around him thickened with power. The deeper he went, the denser it became.

Ethan did not need anyone to tell him what this was. This was treasure. The kind people bled and died for.

He stopped hesitating, flipped his body smoothly in the water, and dove headfirst. Going up was impossible, the strange pull of the lake pressing him downward like a heavy palm, but descending was effortless. He cut through the white haze in seconds. Through the murk, he began to make out the lakebed below.

At the very center, something churned.

A vent in the earth spewed a column of thick white mist upward. Mist should not exist underwater, yet there it was, rolling and expanding as if it obeyed laws of its own. Near the lakebed, the water was startlingly clear, almost crystalline. The vent blasted its strange vapor toward the surface, and that vapor was what dyed everything above in milky white.

When Ethan swam into the clear zone, he immediately felt the difference. The surrounding energy thinned, becoming faint and diluted. That confirmed it. The true source was not the lake itself, but the mist erupting from that vent.

He angled his body and swam straight toward it. As he approached, he slowed and extended one hand into the rising mist. The moment his fingers pierced it, that cool energy flooded into him again, stronger and more concentrated. His muscles tightened in response, fibers drawing in and strengthening as though forged anew. Without further hesitation, he twisted and dove fully into the column.

Inside the mist, the downward force that had dragged him since he fell into the lake abruptly vanished. He found himself suspended in a steady upward current of energy. Beneath his feet, the vent roared silently, releasing endless streams of power that poured into him without pause. The light within his muscles flared bright and steady now, no longer flickering. For a fleeting second, he wondered if he was still made of flesh and blood at all. His body felt hollowed out, bloodless, replaced by something cleaner and harder.

And yet it was not enough.

The vent expelled far more mist than his body could absorb. Most of it scattered uselessly into the lake above. Ethan frowned slightly, mind turning. If this was the source, then the concentration inside the vent itself had to be greater. Why sit at the mouth of a spring when you could drink from its heart?

He clenched his teeth and activated Travel Form.

He almost laughed at himself as the shift took hold. He had been immersed in his Core for so long that he had nearly forgotten certain things. In the fight above, he had used Bear form and Panther Form instinctively. But when he fell into the lake, it never crossed his mind that Travel Form allowed him to breathe underwater. In this environment, Travel Form became Seal Form, perfectly adapted for the depths.

The transformation sharpened him instantly. His body streamlined, speed and agility surging. With a powerful flick, he shot downward and squeezed into the vent, which was barely wide enough for one person to pass. If the mist originated here, then something within was generating it. Something denser. Something far more valuable.

The tunnel was pitch black and the pressure pushed back against him, but darkness had long since stopped being an obstacle. He pressed on. After several seconds of swimming through the narrow shaft, the confined passage abruptly widened. The resistance lessened. A faint glow appeared below.

Ethan followed it.

In the center of the cavern beneath the lake floated a pearl the size of a basketball, milky-white and luminous. It hovered in the water as if gravity meant nothing to it, radiating the same cool energy that had filled the lake above. The mist poured from it in slow, continuous waves.

"Knew it," he muttered to himself, satisfaction curling in his chest.

There was the treasure. The true reward. The Qilin had likely been nothing more than a gatekeeper. Defeat the guardian, claim the prize. It all fit too neatly to be coincidence. Why else would he have been dragged down here? 𝐟𝚛𝕖𝚎𝕨𝗲𝐛𝚗𝐨𝐯𝐞𝕝.𝐜𝗼𝗺

He scanned the cavern carefully. No movement or immediate threat. The space was vast and silent, lit only by the pearl’s soft glow. Convinced for the moment that the Qilin had been the final obstacle, he angled his body and began to descend toward the treasure.

Then the current behind him shifted.

It was subtle at first, a faint disturbance in the water, but Ethan’s instincts screamed. He spun just as a flash of gold tore through the darkness. A golden greatsword thrust toward his chest, its blade gleaming even in the muted light.

"Damn feathered freak!"

An angel had followed him down.

The blade pierced the space he had occupied a split second earlier. Ethan twisted aside and drove his fist forward, the blow carrying the weight of a cinder block swung at full force. He aimed not for the edge, but the flat of the blade.

Metal rang out violently through the water.

The greatsword was knocked from the angel’s grip and sent spinning into the cavern. The angel himself slipped fully from the vent behind him, wings unfolding in a controlled sweep.

Ethan’s expression hardened.

The strength behind that strike had not been inferior to the white Qilin’s attacks. Earlier, when the Fortune Dragon had exhaled a single breath and reduced one of these angels to dust along with his weapon, Ethan had assumed they were expendable soldiers, impressive in number but lacking true power. Now, after a single exchange, he was forced to reassess. The angel had ambushed him, suppressing his aura so completely that Ethan had not sensed the sword until it was nearly upon him.

In the open cavern, the angel’s wings spread fully. With a subtle tilt of his body, he glided through the water with fluid precision, as comfortable here as in the sky.

Ethan could not help the bitter admiration that flickered through him. "So those chicken wings let you fly and swim. Convenient."

According to old legends, angels were divided by their wings. The lowest rank were once human, worshippers who had received blessings and grown two wings. Above them stood the four-winged, then six, eight, and beyond. The highest among the regular host bore twelve wings. And in whispered stories passed down through generations, there was mention of a single being with twenty-four wings, the first of their kind to enter this world. No one had ever seen it. Some doubted it existed at all.

Seeing these eight-winged angels here, combined with what the monkey king had hinted at earlier, stirred an uneasy thought in Ethan’s mind. Was the disaster Morzan spoke of somehow tied to them?

This was not the moment to chase that question.

The angel had already recovered his weapon and, without wasting another heartbeat, shot toward the pearl. His body cut through the water like a spear.

"Think you’re taking my prize?" Ethan growled. "Not happening."

In Seal Form, his underwater speed rivaled the angel’s, but not quite enough to overtake him head-on. The angel held a slight lead, and at this distance, that margin mattered. Ethan calculated instantly. He would not intercept in time if he simply chased.

So he layered his power. Panther Form, Bear form.

Three forms at once.

Power surged through him in violent harmony. His frame expanded, muscles thickening while retaining Seal Form’s streamlined agility. The water around him churned as he accelerated, blazing after the angel. Both hands began to gather energy.

He had assumed that without the Twilight War Spear he would lose access to his stored skill power. The spear had always acted as a conduit, stabilizing the strain. Still, he tried.

To his surprise, the energy condensed directly into his palms, stable and obedient.

The milky-white mist that had saturated his body was reinforcing him from the inside out, hardening muscle and bone beyond their previous limits. In his previous stat, he could only channel one skill at a time. He had to discharge it before attempting another, or his body would fail to contain the pressure and tear itself apart.

Now, for the first time, he felt as though he might withstand more.