~Ahhhhhhh~

Lin Wu kept on shouting as he fell, even though no sound was actually coming out of his mouth. He fell for about a minute and then finally reached the bottom.

~Plop~

A rather disappointing plopping sound was heard as he fell into the water. As soon as he entered the water, he realized that it was cold. Ever since coming to this world and being reborn as a worm, this was the first time Lin Wu had actually felt cold. All he had felt before this was either normal temperatures or extremely hot temperatures.

“Chickie nuggies! If I still had my previous body, my jewels would have fallen off from this cold.” Lin Wu complained.

‘Now then what do I do?’ Lin Wu thought as he looked at the map.

The navigation was pointing him to the depths of the water. He wiggled his body and turned his head towards the bottom. He could see the familiar green glow coming from the depths. The water was clean and clear, thus it was much brighter this time.

Lin Wu could see a vague outline at the very bottom from which the eerie green light was emitting. Just as he was looking at it, he suddenly realized something.

“HOW DO I BREATHE!? Dammit, I’m going to drown.” Lin Wu shouted, feeling afraid.

He wiggled in fear and tried to swim. But to his misfortune, his worm body was unable to efficiently swim, or it could also be because of his disturbed state of mind that he was not able to think clearly.

“Dammit, you stupid system, you are clearly trying to kill me.” Lin Wu yelled.

Lin Wu kept on struggling to swim and kept on wiggling until eventually, he went still.

‘Huh, am I finally dead?’ Lin Wu thought.

He opened his eyes and saw that he was still under the water.

“What the hell! How am I breathing?” He said in a shocked tone.

~Ding~

—————————————————————————————————

ANSWER: The host does not have lungs, thus cannot drown in the usual way. The Host’s physiology allows him to breathe through his skin, thus as long as the water has a sufficient concentration of oxygen, the host will be able to breathe in it.

—————————————————————————————————

Reading the system’s answer made Lin Wu feel dumb. He realized that he had completely forgotten about his physiology and that he was no longer a human. He still was not able to adjust to his new body.

~Phew~

“That takes a huge burden off my mind.” Lin Wu muttered and took a ‘Breath’ of relief.

Lin Wu did a double-take and realized that he felt nearly the same way as he was breathing back in the air. The only difference he perhaps felt was that the efficiency was slightly less. It was as if he had put a thin sheet over his head and was breathing through it. While it was slightly uncomfortable, it was still doable and would not bother him as much.

Putting this situation behind him, Lin Wu’s attention was drawn back to his quest objective. He looked at the glowing figure and wondered how he would get to it. His wiggling was a rather inefficient way of swimming and he did little more than just flail around in the same place.

“Chickie nuggies! Is there no way for me to proceed now?” Lin Wu spoke in frustration.

Just as he was doing this, suddenly a thought came to his mind.

“Wait, can I do that…” Lin Wu muttered.

An idea had appeared in Lin Wu’s mind, and he didn’t know if it would work or not. Still wanting to try it out, he initiated it.

Lin Wu gulped the water from his surroundings into his mouth. He kept on doing this until his body was completely filled and could not handle any more volume of water. If one were to look at Lin Wu now, all they would see is a large bloated worm.

After filling himself up with the water, Lin Wu wiggled with difficulty and oriented his head towards the quest objective and his lower end towards the surface of the water. Once he was in the right position, he forcefully contracted his body.

~Pwesh~

The water that was consumed by him was now shot out of his lower end, and his body was thus propelled forward as a result. Lin Wu traveled about a half a meter distance by this method.

“Whoa! I did not expect it to work. Guess I’ll just use this method to travel underwater.” Lin Wu spoke to himself.

Having found a method, Lin Wu kept on gulping copious amounts of water and then expelling it. Still, the deeper he went, the harder it was getting for him to travel. The exhaustion from constantly drinking and expelling was tiring him out.

Lin Wu then realized that he had not eaten for more than a week now.

“Dammit, no wonder I’m getting tired. I need to eat something, but it doesn’t seem like there’s anything here either.” Lin Wu said.

‘Wait, I think it’s better that there’s now creature like fishes here, or the most likely thing to happen would be that I would get eaten. After all, fishes eat worms, right? And even if I’m a big worm, this is still a cultivation world; I probably wouldn’t survive an encounter of that kind.’ Lin Wu thought to himself after a while.

Not being able to think of anything else, Lin Wu decided to ask the system.

“System, is there anything I can eat here to restore my stamina?” He questioned.

~Ding~

—————————————————————————————————

ANSWER: The lake does not have anything that the host can consume at his current level right away. But if the host only wants to restore his stamina, he can do so by using the stored vital energy.

—————————————————————————————————

‘Oh, I can do that too? Then let’s do it. I’ll die anyway if I don’t act now.’ Lin Wu thought to himself.

“Okay system, use the stored vital energy to restore my stamina.” Lin Wu ordered.

~Ding~

—————————————————————————————————

NOTIFICATION: Utilizing 2 units of stored vital energy to restore the host’s stamina.

—————————————————————————————————

“Alrighty! I can tolerate that much loss, no problem. Now then onward to the objective.” Lin Wu pumped himself up, both figuratively and literally.

~Pwesh~