The difficulty of a catch was not constant, but rather relative to Yuchi's current strength.
The stronger he was, the less difficult it would be to hunt the same prey.
This was his first time fishing, but he had already encountered a triangular cone nightmare. The difficulty of catching this at his current level was S-rank. Yuchi was just a newbie who had not known any better. He had not seen the success rate, so he daringly made the attempt.
"Fortunately I didn't have the time to check the success rate."
"Otherwise, if I saw the 10% success rate, I might have let it go."
Taking in a breath of cold air, Yuchi felt a little scared when he recalled this matter.
After carefully understanding the text, he was suddenly enlightened.
"The fishing rod's function is pretty straightforward!"
"It provides me with a once-in-a-day opportunity for me to catch these ancient existences!"
"If I can catch them with my rod, I don't have to fight them and can harvest them to increase my strength!"
"If I fail to catch them and get dragged into the sea by them, I'll have to fight them to the death. And if I fail there, I'd end up as the prey instead!"
Normal people required luck to fish, but I had to risk death? If I picked the wrong fight, I would probably end up as a cold corpse after being dragged into the sea.
Yuchi sighed with emotion.
There were more than 1000 pages in the illustrated compendium in his mind. There might be 10,000 pages, or perhaps even 100,000 pages. It appeared that each region had different ancient species!
The image of the triangular cone nightmare lit up inside the illustrated compendium. As it was being activated for the first time, all of his attributes increased by 10 points, and he mastered the skill "Bite"!
[Name: Yuchi]
[Constitution: 11]
[Strength: 11]
[Speed: 11]
[Skill 1: Bite. Bite the enemy without letting go. As the skill deals damage to the enemy, you will recover a small amount of health.]
[Skill 2: None]
[Skill 3: None]
[Skill 4: None]
"Bite? Others have all kinds of brilliant combat skills, and I'm going to have to bite my enemies..."
"What if I end up fighting a girl?"
"Hmm...That won't end well..."
"But I have four skill slots. It seems like I'll have to fish up more creatures to fill them up."
"The source of this skill is from this ghostly phantom."
Once the image was lit, the skill would be available forever and, in the future, he would be able to combine four different skills to deal with different situations.
Apparently, skills could only be combined before combat. During combat, unless the enemy was too weak, there would be no chance for him to change his skill combination.
It took an hour to change his skills.
When he recalled the success of his first catch, he became extremely excited and even felt a little speechless.
"The triangle cone nightmare's first catch gave me a 10-point increase in all attributes."
"Each of my attributes have now reached 11 points."
"So each of my attributes were only at 1 point at the beginning? Sigh, no wonder the previous owner of this body was considered a loser."
Yuchi was shocked.
The reason why the humans came up with the profession of beast tamers was that they were afraid of death.
Yes, that was it. They were afraid of death.
In the early years, there had indeed been many powerful humans. These humans were quite powerful, however, no matter how powerful they were, they still ended up encountering monsters that were more powerful than themselves. It was very normal for humans to die when this happened.
The beast tamer profession solved this problem, as it allowed them to control one's pet beast to fight in their stead.
Even if the pet beast died, the beast tamer would not die with it. He would only suffer a temporary setback. This way, he would be able to preserve his life even when faced with more powerful monsters. It was a relatively safe method.
After this method was discovered, traditional martial artists gradually died out. After all, there was no new blood to continue their legacy.
Therefore, the original owner of Yuchi's body had chosen to give up because he saw that he possessed no talent or potential to become a beast tamer, which inadvertently meant that he would never be able to change his fate. He threw himself into the river to end his own life.
It was precisely because of this that Yuchi managed to transmigrate into this world.
"There's no need for me to be flustered. Even if I don't have the talent to become a beast tamer, I'll be fine!"
"I can turn myself into a ferocious beast by constantly fighting against these ancient species and existences!"
"I don't believe that I'll die once I achieve absolute strength."
Yuchi thought about his current physical attributes.
He was not sure how his current attributes stacked up against the pet beasts of ordinary beast tamers.
Still, no matter what, this path was placed in front of him, and he had to traverse it!
He would revitalize the path of traditional martial arts!
He was probably the last martial artist in this beast taming era!
He was now trapped in this prison, and he would serve a ten-year sentence!
He could go fishing every day.
Under such circumstances, his strength would increase steadily with each passing day!
'Then, when I am released from prison ten years from now, even if I'm unable to roam the world freely, I should at least be able to keep myself safe. That shouldn't be a problem, right?'
"It seems that..."
"I, Yuchi, am no longer an ordinary human!"
…
On the morning of the second day, Yuchi arrived at the shore of the Netherworld Sea.
The sense of loneliness was not bad. At the very least, no one would come to disturb him and stop him from fishing.
When he cast the fishing rod, Yuchi discovered some details that he had not noticed yesterday.
Yesterday, he had thought that there was no bait at the end of the fishing rod's line. However, today, just as the line touched the surface of the Netherworld Sea, he realized that there was something there.
At the end of the line, there seemed to be a small bone?
This bone should be what the fishing rod used as bait to attract the monsters of the Netherworld Sea. Perhaps different sea regions required different bait.
He fished in peace.
Unsurprisingly, today's prey came rather quickly. Yuchi also briefly looked at the notification that appeared in his mind when he felt a tug on the line.
[Fishing difficulty level: B]
After seeing that, he ignored the notification.
He had not even been afraid of the S-Grade difficulty level yesterday, so how could he be afraid of a B-Grade difficulty level today?"
His hands firmly grasped the fishing rod in his hands. As the qi and blood essence in his body was gradually infused into the fishing rod, Yuchi felt much more relaxed. He then saw the familiar and strange ghostly phantom appear under the surface of the sea.
"It's you again..."
"Alright then," he said.
It was the triangular cone nightmare.
He encountered it yesterday, and now today as well.
This would not be too difficult.
Yesterday, he only had 1 point in each of his attributes but, today, he had 11 points in each attribute!
Given his drastic increase in strength, this little nightmare no longer presented much of a challenge. After the fishing rod was lifted up, the triangular cone nightmare directly dissipated into his body.
[Name: Yuchi]
[Constitution: 12]
[Strength: 12]
[Speed: 12]
[Skill 1: Bite. Bite the enemy without letting go. As the skill deals damage to the enemy, you will recover a small amount of health.]
[Skill 2: None]
[Skill 3: None]
[Skill 4: None]
Five minutes later, Yuchi examined his current attributes.
The first time he activated an image in the illustrated compendium, he would receive a tenfold reward. Now that he had fished up the same thing again, he only received one point.
However, the 1 point reward for all attributes was also a lot. After all, he still had to spend ten years in prison.
Not to mention, what were the chances of him catching another triangular cone nightmare tomorrow?
'That's impossible.'
'My luck shouldn't fail me so easily.'
…
The third day.
[Catch: Triangular Cone Nightmare]
Despite seeing all his attributes reach 13, a thin layer of sweat appeared on Yuchi's forehead.
He panicked!
"It can't..."
"It can't be that this entire sea region is filled with these things, right?"
The netherworld sea glowed faintly, as if it was smiling at him.
"No!"
"If that's the case, I'm not even sure if I can increase my attributes by 1 point every day."
"Impossible, that's impossible!"
"There's no way I'll encounter another triangular cone nightmare tomorrow!"
…
On the fourth day.
[Catch: Triangular Cone Nightmare]
All of his attributes had reached 14. This in itself was a very happy thing, but the sense of foreboding in Yuchi's heart was getting stronger and stronger.
As he stood by the shore, the vein-like patterns on the fishing rod in his hand gradually faded away.
He was full-on panicking now.
He did not dare to utter a word because he was afraid of jinxing himself.
…
The fifth day.
[Catch: Triangular Cone Nightmare]
…
The sixth day.
[Catch: Triangular Cone Nightmare]
…
Day 30. At night.
Yuchi suddenly awoke from his sleep. He mumbled these three words, and his face looked a little terrified as cold sweat ran down his forehead.
"Triangular cone nightmare!"
"One month! It's been a whole month!"
"Throughout this past month, I haven't seen any other monsters besides this one."
Over this one month period, Yuchi had gone to the beach with hope every day!
Every single time, it was this ugly phantom head that emerged from the netherworld sea!
His entire mentality gradually changed.
At first, he thought that the phantom heads were trying to kill him but, later on, he discovered that the phantom heads seemed really happy to see him. The speed at which each one bit the hook was simply unbelievable.
"They aren't even giving the other ancient monsters a chance to take the bait!"
"This is no different from those little b*stards I fished up in my previous life!"
"These triangular cone nightmares really live up to their name! I even end up catching them in my dreams!"
Yuchi was sitting up on a simple stone bed. He was looking at the distant Netherworld Sea through the window.
He was extremely aggrieved.
"Netherworld Sea."
"If you really have the guts, then give me a big one right now! Don't make me lose all respect for you!"
It was already past 12 o'clock, and the fishing rod was fully charged.
While the other prisoners were sleeping soundly, he walked over to the beach in a huff.
Looking at the ocean in front of him that seemed to faintly glow with fluorescent colors, Yuchi angrily hurled the fishing line directly into the sea.
One minute later, a notification appeared in his mind.
Out of habit, Yuchi looked at the notification. When he took a second glance, he discovered a line of text. This line of text almost made him jump up in excitement.
[Fishing difficulty level: S]