The Fish I Catch Can Level Up-Chapter 239: Setting Sail for Australia
[Aquatic Codex (Level 3)]
[Current Experience: (0/80)]
[Unlocked Capture Tools: Hand, Fishing Gear, Speargun, Shrimp and Crab Pots]
[Max Aquatic Species Level: 50]
[Unlocked Species: 1. Mantis Shrimp, 2. Crucian Carp, 3. Dace...]
[Special Abilities: Effortless Swim, Aquatic Affinity Aura, Hunter's Blessing]
The Level 3 Aquatic Codex hadn't changed much, aside from adding a new ability. Chu Mingcheng tapped on it to check its function.
[Hunter's Blessing]
[Ability One: Trusted Companion.]
[Every hunter has trusted companions by their side. When friendly or even intimate aquatic creatures appear near the host, they can be instructed to assist. (The closer the bond, the more unconditionally they will obey the host's commands.)]
[Ability Two: Danger Identification]
[The hunting process is fraught with many deadly creatures. The host will gain the ability to identify them. All harmful organisms will be unable to escape the host's eyes.]
Chu Mingcheng had already experienced the first ability. The three sea lions obeying his command to intercept the school of fish were proof enough.
It seemed he could gain the help of other creatures in the future, provided they were friendly enough toward him.
So those three sea lions were well worth cultivating—the closer their relationship, the more obedient they'd become.
As for the second ability, it gave Chu Mingcheng pause.
Harmful organisms couldn't escape his eyes. Did that include coral fish contaminated with ciguatera toxin? This was his biggest headache at the moment, and the ability he needed most.
If he could identify ciguatera toxin, he could continue hunting high-value coral fish without worrying about accidentally catching a toxic grouper and harming himself and others.
He had Life Conversion to detoxify himself, but the memory of Jiang Luoluo falling ill had left him heartsick for a long time.
Fortunately, her case wasn't too severe, and she had no lasting side effects.
Otherwise, Chu Mingcheng would have regretted it for the rest of his life. After all, ciguatera toxin had been known to cause permanent disability.
Now that he had this crucial ability, he had to test it out.
Even though it was already past four in the afternoon and he'd be late getting back, he knew his mind wouldn't be at ease until he understood how it worked.
His current location was only two nautical miles from Crescent Moon Island. Chu Mingcheng started the fishing boat and reached the island's coral reef area in no time.
He'd just showered and changed out of his wetsuit, but he couldn't be bothered with the trouble now.
Chu Mingcheng stripped down to nothing but a pair of boxer briefs.
His robust physique was completely exposed to the air, though there was no one around to appreciate it.
He walked to the small gate on the aft deck and jumped directly into the water, then swam toward the bottom of the coral reef.
Arriving at the reef area, he saw that most of the fish were still hiding since it wasn't feeding time yet.
Some small fish swam above the coral, but he didn't notice anything unusual about them.
Just then, a cute little fatty, flapping its short fins, swam past him. It was a pufferfish, its big, round eyes looking rather adorable.
However, Chu Mingcheng noticed a dense green glow emanating from its abdomen and gonads.
This was likely a whitespotted puffer, and a pretty big one at that—about fifty or sixty centimeters long.
Chu Mingcheng wasn't here to fish right now. Encountering such a large pufferfish, he immediately swam toward it.
The pufferfish sensed a large creature approaching and immediately tried to flee. But in the next moment, a hand slapped against its body, sending it tumbling through the water several times.
Realizing it couldn't escape, the pufferfish immediately puffed up its belly, seemingly enraged by the slap.
In just a short while, it transformed into a ball as large as a household pot.
Chu Mingcheng had only meant to tease it. He hadn't expected that when it puffed up, the swollen belly in his vision would still glow green on the inside.
Knowing that a pufferfish's internal organs were poisonous, he now understood the function of his new ability.
Was it telling him that the organs and gonads of the creature before him were highly toxic?
Chu Mingcheng immediately lost interest in teasing the pufferfish—he was ready to go check on other creatures.
A short while later, he encountered a sea snake. In his eyes, its fangs and venom sacs were green.
When he tried turning off the new ability, the green color vanished.
Afterward, he saw a green glow on the dorsal fin of a rockfish and also saw toxins inside the Atergatis integerrimus crabs crawling on some of the coral reefs.
Chu Mingcheng wasn't surprised to see the toxin concentrations in these naturally venomous creatures.
He was familiar with most of the marine life in domestic waters, which made this ability seem somewhat redundant, but it was still very useful.
When he went abroad, there were many aquatic creatures he wouldn't recognize, and that's when this ability would be extremely helpful.
But that wasn't the main point. Ciguatera toxin wasn't visible on the surface. This new ability had to be able to detect it for it to be of the greatest help to him at this stage.
He saw plenty of groupers and coral fish, but he didn't notice anything special about them.
This told him that the proportion of coral fish with ciguatera toxin was still relatively low. Otherwise, after hunting so many, he would have run into trouble long ago.
After swimming around for a large circle, a leopard coral grouper—estimated to weigh over ten jin—appeared before him.
Chu Mingcheng's eyes lit up. He'd finally found a grouper carrying toxins.
The green glow was most concentrated in the fish's head and abdomen, and its body also had a faint green shimmer, indicating that its flesh was toxic too, just less so.
When Chu Mingcheng turned off the Danger Identification ability, the leopard coral grouper returned to its original beautiful state.
When the function was on, there wasn't a single edible part of the fish except for its fins.
Ciguatera toxin is mainly concentrated in a fish's internal organs and head. It seemed this leopard coral grouper was indeed a carrier.
Now that he understood some of the uses of his new ability, Chu Mingcheng returned to the boat with his mind at ease.
He was still curious, however, about what dangerous but non-venomous creatures would look like with this function.
When he encountered such creatures in the future, he could turn it on to see.
The three sea lions had worked quickly. The seventy- or eighty-jin fish was eaten clean, leaving only some blood and scraps of meat on the deck.
Chu Mingcheng instructed the three sea lions to get off the boat and rest on the island, then rinsed the deck with water before heading back to the bathroom for another shower.
It was getting late, so he didn't delay any longer and started the boat for home.
As he neared the pier, Chu Mingcheng contacted a buyer, but no one in the group chat was interested in the Red Drum.
Mainly because the fish was too common. Customers in Wenzhou didn't need it, and there was no point in paying extra for shipping.
Some restaurants in Xiamen had small purchase volumes, only wanting thirty to fifty jin. It sounded like they were doing him a favor, and he'd even have to deliver it himself.
Therefore, after returning to the pier, Chu Mingcheng decided to sell directly to the fishmongers. He could do without that kind of "face"!
When he had good catches in the future, he'd see if he gave those restaurants any face. They couldn't even manage a polite refusal—they deserved their declining business.
One thousand three hundred and seventy-two jin of fish were bought by three fishmongers at a unit price of eighteen yuan, for a total of over twenty-four thousand yuan.
It was only a little more than what he'd gotten for the humpback grouper, yet he'd worked all afternoon for it.
It seemed premium aquatic products were still more profitable. Now with his new ability, he didn't have to fear ciguatera toxin anymore.
…..
At home, Jiang Luoluo saw Chu Mingcheng return and quickly reheated the dinner she'd made.
Knowing this man, he most likely hadn't eaten.
But even if he had, it was no problem—it could be a late-night snack.
"Luoluo, how did the yacht license test go?" Chu Mingcheng asked while eating his dinner.
The drone test had been very simple. Both of them passed the assessment after practicing for a while and were now just waiting for the licenses to be issued.
The yacht license was a bit more troublesome, but Jiang Luoluo had known how to operate a boat for a long time, so in theory, it shouldn't have been a problem.
"Of course I passed! Because of Agong, the driving school said the license should be ready before the fishing ban."
"That's good," Chu Mingcheng nodded, then brought up another matter. "By the way, I'm thinking of selling this small boat. What do you think?"
Jiang Luoluo thought for a moment. Their upcoming trip would be quite long, and they wouldn't be back until the fishing ban was completely over.
By then, the big boat would have been launched. With the big boat for their sea trips, they definitely wouldn't be using the small one anymore.
The small boat would probably just sit at the pier, requiring maintenance and mooring fees, which was clearly not cost-effective.
Selling it would mean a nice chunk of cash back and less trouble.
Therefore, she nodded. "Selling it is a good idea. We won't be using it anymore anyway."
Seeing that she agreed, Chu Mingcheng didn't bring it up again.
Once the fishing ban began, he'd just list it with that shipyard and have them sell it on consignment. At most, he'd pay a small commission fee.
As for selling it to the shipyard directly, Chu Mingcheng wouldn't do that unless he was desperate, because the price would be pushed down very low, which wasn't worth it.
…..
Ten days passed quickly. The licenses and visas were all in hand, and the plane tickets were booked. They'd be departing at ten in the morning tomorrow.
The fishing boat had been taken to the shipyard by Chu Mingcheng for them to sell on consignment.
The boat's valuation, based on factors like its time in the water and the usage hours of the outboard motor, was ultimately estimated at five hundred and eighty thousand yuan.
A boat that had been in the water for about half a year had lost two hundred and twenty thousand in value, which made Chu Mingcheng feel like he was taking a huge loss.
It was just that his outboard motor's usage hours were about double that of most people's boats due to his frequent trips, so the price was a bit lower.
The shipyard's consignment fee was 5%, meaning if the boat sold for five hundred and eighty thousand, they'd receive a commission of nearly thirty thousand.
Of course, the price wasn't set in stone. Chu Mingcheng had set a bottom line of no less than five hundred thousand.
The shipyard's buy-back price was four hundred thousand. If the bottom line went any lower, after adding the consignment fee, he might as well just sell it directly to the shipyard.
With all matters arranged, Zhang Ruomei drove the two of them to the airport, and they took off.
Chu Mingcheng's first stop was Melbourne, the most livable city in southern Australia.
And just below Melbourne was the island of Tasmania, the source of the Giant Tasmanian King Crab
Although the Giant Tasmanian King Crab was one of Chu Mingcheng's targets, he wasn't so obsessed as to immediately rush out to sea for crabs upon arriving in Australia.
He was mainly coming to Melbourne because Noah, the man he'd rescued, lived here. Secondly, it was a great place for tourism, so he decided to visit this city first.
Originally, after meeting Chen Chu at the end of the year, Chu Mingcheng had thought about asking him some things about Australia.
But then he unexpectedly met Noah, which made contacting Chen Chu unnecessary, as they weren't very familiar with each other.
Noah was different—he was warm and hospitable, had invited Chu Mingcheng and Jiang Luoluo to his home, and had even had a few drinks with him.
Their relationship was therefore quite amicable.
Noah had originally been in China, taking care of his son who was studying abroad with his wife.
After learning that Chu Mingcheng was coming to Australia, he explained the situation to his wife and returned home early to act as a guide for the two of them.
His wife and son, on the other hand, would return to China after the school holiday in June.
.
!
Chapter 239: Setting Sail for Australia
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