Pioneer of the Abyss - Book 2 - Chapter 43

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Don't mind this. It's so that free readers can't see half the chapter when the chapter eventually becomes patron only.

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Table of Contents

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Click the following link for the 1408 word chapter 43:

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1EX7W-w5ftcEK-Yv9W5ShdQOhvv8uvVyaCH3_0jbEOCI/edit?usp=sharing

Or you can read the unformatted version below:

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Aqua

This is a surprisingly good haul of items.

I find myself crossing my arm and tapping my finger as I look through the various items.

There are a total of twenty items. With each of the clan members having had one item for themselves.

Which leads me to believe that they all split their items evenly. Since I doubt they all happened to get one item apiece.

As for the items themselves?

Amongst them, there’re ten recovery items to either recover mana or heal the wearer, along with three items to increase physical strength, three to increase magical strength, three to increase mana capacity of the wearer, and one to directly attack through a powerful wave of electricity sent around the user.

The recovery items are half one-time use items and half worn items with cooldowns. With the one-time use items being far more effective with their single use than the cooldown items.

Meanwhile the rest of the items are all worn items with passive effects.

So I go ahead and put on one physical strength enhancing item, one magical strength enhancing item, one mana recovery item, one healing item, and one mana capacity enhancing item. Loading myself up with one of each type.

Except the shock attack item, which I save for an abyssal servant to use later. Assuming they can use items.

I’d rather not be shocked along with the enemies, after all.

Anyway, most of the items are in the forms of rings, bracelets, and necklaces. And most of them are pretty small, and they fit under my armor. So there aren’t any mobility or comfort issues with wearing them.

Unfortunately, most of the enhancement items don’t really do much. They’re just too weak.

But items are items, and any small amount helps.

After resting a bit at my home, I go ahead and accept my next job. One meant to be recorded at night.

Making me appear at the site for the photoshoot. Which is a beach on an island under a full moon.

A rather beautiful location.

Then I change into various different outfits and do the shoots. Including but not limited to different swimsuits, different casualwear, and even some types of armor. Pretty much every outfit the character I’m playing in the upcoming TV action-drama wears throughout the show.

The studio is definitely taking advantage of my popularity to promote the show, and Rhett isn’t doing anything to stop them because it helps us too. Something about him using this promotion material as well to help promote me. Not to mention that all of the designers for the outfits I’m wearing are paying as if this is a modeling gig too.

So he’s kind of treating this job as numerous jobs all in one.

I don’t really care either way. Considering that I’m being paid for it, and none of the outfits are very revealing.

The people making the job requests are always very careful about that.

Extremely careful.

Especially after one specific studio tried tricking me into modeling with a rather revealing outfit. With said studio no longer existing anymore after the entire building was crushed under a suspicious bubble of water, and the people inside the studio responsible vanished along with the building.

Leaving behind just the ones unrelated to the incident behind soaked in the crater that was left from the building.

All I can say about that matter is that my grandfathers weren’t very pleased with their actions.

And that was with me not even touching the outfit they’d prepared.

I can’t imagine what they’d do if I had actually ended up wearing it. Which I wouldn’t ever do.

But it’s amusing to imagine their reactions.

Come to think of it, speaking of my grandfathers, they’ve been gone in the Abyss for a while now. I wonder when they’re gonna come back?

If I had to guess, they probably went down deeper than ever before this time. Either that or something is delaying their return to the surface.

I glance to the side after finishing changing out of the most recent outfit to find the next one already on a hangar waiting for me. With this particular outfit being a beautiful dress that fits perfectly with the scenery around the site.

At first glance it looks like the dress might even be a bit difficult to put on by myself, but when I walk up to it and try to put it on, the thing actually automatically equips itself to my body. Making my initial worry rather pointless.

That’s convenient.

The dress itself is a grand, flowing dress that goes all the way down to the floor. It also has high heels to walk in, and some sort of glowing blue gem that nearly matches my eyes.

As for the dress’ color? It’s a beautiful blue that matches my hair perfectly and fits the general atmosphere with the full moon and the ocean in the background.

My only complaint is a very minor one that it shows a tiny bit more cleavage than I’m generally comfortable showing, but that’s only a minor thing. Mostly just something I’m slightly embarrassed about. Nothing more.

The dress itself is incredibly beautiful and makes up for it, after all.

After putting it on, I leave the VIP changing room they gave me – which has become the norm at this point considering how every single studio I go to treats me this same way – to begin making my way back down to the beach. Completely ignoring the looks of admiration I receive on the way there since I’m used to it.

Then the final shoot of the job goes underway and finishes just as quickly. Without any retakes whatsoever.

Which is always nice. Not having to spend unnecessary extra time over a nit-picky director.

(Art of Aqua during the shoot in the dress)

Anyway, after this shoot, I move onto another job. A quiz show centered around my own exploits. With me wearing a business suit this time.

And, of course, find myself getting rather embarrassed from the various things they have on the quiz. Like that annoying hashtag a lot of people keep using. The miner one.

I even go out of my way to mark everyone’s answers as incorrect when the question about the hashtag is brought up. But the other judges ignore my verdict, and other people on the set fail miserably to hide their amusement at the situation.

My eyes narrow when I see Rhett with his face turned away clearly chuckling.

Traitor.

I am not a miner. When will these people understand this?

Maybe I should stop broadcasting completely after taking control of Oceana and becoming an official pioneer until they stop that hashtag. A boycott of sorts.

That might work.

Of course, the quiz doesn’t pause just because of my embarrassment or my future planning, and soon another hashtag appears that I once again refute. And the people once again ignore my refuting.

Very rude people in this place.

Time goes on and eventually the quiz show draws to a close. Following which I return to Oceana again and begin to make plans for tomorrow.

Of course, my plans pretty much just end up being continuing my hunt. But I also add in some plans to search for the Bloodliner.

I don’t really have any clear ways to find the Bloodliner though, so that’s just going to be a search by feel sort of thing.

Where would a Bloodliner from a clan thought to be by many as a myth hide?

Probably the bottom of the ocean.

I just need to figure out which ocean and carefully make my way down.

There are still very powerful monsters at the bottom of the ocean, so I need to be careful. But it also works out that I need to find stronger monsters to hunt anyway.

Both to get more REGEN stat points and to level up some more.

I really want to see what my next trait will be. And I want to get whatever power the Abyssal Kraken is using to drain those Ancient Monsters of power.

Because that sounds like a skill I really want to have.

A way to drain others of mana, or maybe even their overall power.

I find myself smiling as I continue making plans, keeping that in mind as I do so.

It’s a wonderful goal to have.