The mysterious man had happened to witness the fire that day but hadn't bothered himself with it much, the culprit didn't seem to mean any harm, not to mention that he has other matters to attend to.
He had been sent to capture the person who had infiltrated into a lower continent with the flame fragment map that his organization had lost, the incident couldn't have been that person's doing since the spirit beast was at least Mid Stage Saint rank contracted beast which was as rare as unicorn horns and dragon scales in Sunlight Continent not to mention Moonlight Continent .
The man had thought it could only be a contracted beast since a wild spirit beast couldn't have sneaked into the city undetected, however he didn't even take into consideration the existence of celestial rank spirit beasts who could attain human forms.
If only he had looked into it more...
Meanwhile, Zi Hua was heading to the allocated place, she wore a white and purple female martial artist clothing that reached her knees and slightly darker purple trousers coupled with knee high boots.
It was an enormous lake which was strange considering that a flame was supposed to be there, but the Immortal Flame was different from other flames.
The reason why the experts sent by General's Manor all disappeared was because this place had many marine spirit beasts with the weakest being High Stage Intermediate.
Though, that wasn't much of an obstacle for Zi Hua, the real problem was how she was meant to go down to the bottom of the lake, due to the red flame fragment she could sense the approximate location of the flame but in this world there's no oxygen tanks of the sort.
Abruptly, bubbles started forming at the surface of the lake and a gargantuan labyrinth fish (anabantoidei) burst out of the water, an idea suddenly came into Zi Hua's head.
Labyrinth fishes can blow bubbles, if she uses her martial arts to condense/compress oxygen then surround her head with oxygen like a bubble it might work, basically a DIY oxygen mask/tank.
The fish launched a fierce attack towards Zi Hua, however Zi Hua released her aura to scare the poor fish away, it helped her think up the idea so she won't kill it, plus it had only tried to attack her because she intruded into its territory so she was in the wrong here.
'Goodbye fishy'
Zi Hua proceeded to dive into the water, she had learnt to scuba dive when a client wanted her to assassinate a mafia boss during a submarine party, that was one of her hardest missions since there were so many trained fighters there an it was impossible to sneak into but the client had given her a generous amount of money.
It took her quite some time but when she finally reached the bottom of the lake, she saw a faint aquamarine glow, there it was, in a patterned black lantern looking thing that sat on a short pillar that surprisingly hadn't corroded with the passage of time, but before she could reach it she found a snake-like eel with its body wrapped around the pillar.
From Zi Hua's results after using spirit eye on it, it was a Mid Stage Saint ranked spirit beast, the same level as Zi Hua, the spirit beast was probably the guardian and boss of this lake, however Zi Hua was only Low Stage whereas it's probably some several hundred year old spirit beast.
As strength grew, gaps between levels were more apparent.
Zi Hua paused to weigh the factors, the spirit beast has the environmental advantage and she doesn't have any experience fighting in the water... Oh well, she'll just leg it, no point running away at this point since it seems that the spirit beast has noticed her...
The spirit beast charged towards her ferociously with its serpentine body.
"Hiss!"
'Is this a snake or eel?' It had a snake like body with the slit eyes but the skin and color was that of an eel.
Zi Hua used some spiritual power to propel herself to the side then twisted her body to kick the snake-eel's head, she figured that using weapons would only drag her down considering the water pressure and friction.
'Why didn't I make a weapon suitable to use in the water?' This was the first time Zi Hua felt so helpless, previously she would be extremely prepared but during these few years of idling she had lost her touch.
"Why didn't I just refine a pill that allows me to breathe underwater" This also finally dawned on her, she didn't need to spend all that effort compressing oxygen and maintaining it so it wouldn't disperse if she had just CAME PREPARED!
But no use regretting it now, she can only learn from her mistakes next time.