After Cerqin voiced her doubt, she jolted to find all three gazes pinned on her like spears of light.

Silver Luan and Aileaf had already read Spring Tide’s intent, like ripples telling a story across a still pond.

Alarm pricked first; her voice came after. Spring Tide, when you said “play,” you didn’t mean water—you meant me...

What else?

...

Spring Tide’s unblushing momentum rolled in like surf, and Cerqin’s instincts screamed to bolt like a rabbit under a hawk’s shadow.

She turned—Aileaf pinched the fabric at her rear. The high-grade diving suit stretched like river taffy; its give was shockingly good.

It yanked a full meter in a blink. Aileaf let go, and the snapback cracked like a sling.

Cloth slapped Cerqin with a crisp smack. She yelped, a guilty thrill fizzing, and inertia pitched her forward like a wave, straight into an uncovered crate.

A sticky splat detonated by her ear like a popped bubble of sap.

Cerqin focused and sprang up like a startled cat. What the hell is that...

Looks like a viscous octopus, a low-tier monster. How about we let a few out for ambiance?

Spring Tide slid an arm around her waist, kneaded upward, then breathed against her ear—her voice a demon’s whisper under the surf.

N-no... let’s not. Even with a water-breathing potion, you breathe different in water. If we get carried away, I’ll choke...

You can relax about that~

Silver Luan lifted a vial that caught the light like a trapped raindrop, and, hearing Cerqin, bragged with a sunny gleam.

The main problem is cost. It’s brewed from materials drawn from Silver Luan’s awakened bloodline. Top tier—fundamentally different from normal underwater potions.

“My materials”? I’m not a monster.

Silver Luan tugged Aileaf’s cheek like pulling warm mochi, her displeasure soft but sharp.

Mm… Most water-breathing potions put a special film over the nasal cavity, like jelly on glass. Better ones change your skin, fish-hide style, so it pulls air from water. The downsides? Low efficiency, muffled comms, and in most underwater emergencies you still have to hold your breath.

This one’s different. For a time, it reshapes part of your body. It grows specific breathing organs for underwater use, like new gills sprouting under moonlight.

Like when I use the Dragon Deity to change my tail’s shape?

Surprise flared, then clarity. Even she couldn’t create organs she didn’t own—only tweak what she had. Her Dragon Deity was about enhancement, a river of power thickening what was there.

She remembered Half Dragonkin whose Dragon Deities leaned into evolution, bloodlines branching like deltas. That too was within a Dragon Deity’s authority.

By the way, how long does one dose last?

Depends on how much you drink. This vial could carry you for over a month. Just a lick now—don’t waste it. It’s brutally expensive.

Aileaf uncorked and took the tiniest sip, like tasting sea-salt on wind. The other three mirrored her.

Cerqin felt the potion race from her tongue like a tide through reed beds, flooding limbs and bones with a strange magic.

Seconds later, her cheeks and neck itched. Gill-like slits opened like petals at dusk, bringing a dry, papery discomfort.

Her nose and mouth suddenly refused to draw air; a thin membrane formed in throat and nose, frost-light and firm.

This potion feels...

Silver Luan, whose vial was mostly her own bloodline pressed into liquid, changed the most. Pale scales shimmered beside the new gills like moonlight on fish, lending her face a bewitching, otherworldly cast.

What shocked Cerqin most was the sound. Silver Luan’s sigh didn’t travel through water; it slid in like a whisper on the skin, clear as a thought in her skull.

Impressive potion, right~

Aileaf basked in Cerqin’s wide-eyed look, purring inside like a cat with a fresh catch.

Alright, into the water. Breathing air with these organs is torture—like waking parched at noon.

Spring Tide touched her new gills, the thirst rough as dry wind over sand.

They climbed the steps and dove into the vast deep tank. Water wrapped their bodies like cool silk, and relief flashed like dawn through cloud.

As they sank, the simulated pressure thickened like a mountain settling into the sea. Cerqin, the least strong, moved differently, as if invisible currents pressed a palm to her chest.

This suit is wild. Where skin isn’t exposed, it feels totally different from the bare parts—like eel-skin armor against the deep.

She’d worn the skimpiest set today, so the water’s grip was vivid, a hundred hands urging and restraining.

Hey... wait, don’t rush.

Before Cerqin could finish marveling, Silver Luan’s long tail coiled her ankle like living silk. In water, not on ground, the bind stole her balance like snagged seaweed.

Buoyancy cradled her; two useless flutters later, she could only despair as Silver Luan tugged her a meter deeper into the blue.

I heard people cramp up when swimming. Especially when seaweed or little critters entangle them...

Aileaf’s voice bloomed at her ear, a demon’s murmur turning thunder-clear in the water.

Aileaf, what are you doing?!

Ah!

Her toes seized; the alien jolt hijacked her body like a lightning twitch through a wire. Cerqin screamed, a string of bubbles rising like pearls.

You’re awful! Aileaf, I’m coming for—ah!—ah... ah~ w-wait, wait, ah~

What’s the pressure at now?

While Cerqin yelped under Aileaf’s one-sided mischief, Silver Luan kept her tail hooked like a silk leash. Every lunge at Aileaf turned into a cramp, then a gentle pullback.

Hearing Spring Tide, Cerqin rubbed her ear; the potion funneled sound so close voices came like surf in a shell.

Spring Tide muttered, helpless as drizzle. Keep your volume down when you’re that close. Pressure is about two thousand meters now. That’s near the low-tier limit; mid-stage practitioners barely feel it.

The max pressure’s higher than that, right?

In the Law Enforcement Hall’s deepest water-torment room, Silver Luan didn’t buy such a low cap. For Fourth Rank and up, this pressure’s more drizzle than storm.

It can reach ten thousand meters.

One of the few drawbacks of this potion is it doesn’t help with pressure resistance.

That’s not really a flaw...

Most water-breathing brews don’t cover that anyway. Pressure shielding is another branch entirely.

Still, for the price, perfection would be nice. With only this one function, it’s like a jeweled knife that won’t cut.

Aileaf’s tone held a tinkerer’s rain-on-tin regret.

Sadly, the one who could truly feel that pain—Cerqin—was rolling her eyes at the tank’s bottom.

Cramps chaining one after another, buoyed by water’s strange hold, drained her stamina like a slow leak from a cask.

Unfortunately, the Love God is broken for stamina and mana recovery. Go ten-plus minutes, and “stimulating” turns to grindstone.

You’re too much...

Alright, alright. I’ll make you feel good in a bit. Your blood pressure’s low. Let me turn the valve up; adapt to deep-sea pressure first.

How do you raise pressure? We’re already underwater...

Silver Luan’s puzzlement drifted like a question fish. Spring Tide only smiled, tracing signs across the clear water screen like fish-trails in sand.

With that little sequence, the pool’s pressure leaped several levels, cresting at max like a storm tide.

Then she gestured again. The transparent partition frosted white in a blink, fog on glass sealing sight.

Can the other rooms still see us?

Silver Luan caught on at once, a hawk spotting a field mouse.

We’re not about to do this as a public show, right?

Of course not. I screened it with magic. And we agreed—once it’s screened, they leave the monitoring room.

Good. Being watched by a crowd would feel like standing bare under the noon sun...