A moment later, his hand began to release a searing heat that burned through the Eel, only for Solaris' black flame to enter the insides of the Eel's body.

Using Solaris underwater was not exactly easy, but Jason also knew that if he had enough mana, he would have no trouble evaporating the entire sea.

Thus, the only thing he had to pay attention to right now was to regulate his mana consumption while diving further into the sea.

The marine beasts were not exactly strong, and their only advantage was the all too familiar environment they were in, and possibly their big size.

Marine beasts' size was far from the average beasts found on the ground, and they were known for being much larger than other beasts.

As such, Jason was not really intimidated when he sensed strong ripples within the mana, indicating a beast swimming past him.

If not for his Emperor Eyes that gave him the reassurance to know what cultivation base the maritime beasts had in addition to their exact position, the entire situation would have been much different.

Jason knew that he wouldn't be as calm as he was right now because even if he was strong the fear of the unknown in an equally unfamiliar territory wasn't supposed to be overlooked by a sensible warrior.

Thus, jumping into the sea, only to be surrounded by darkness and an unknown beast would have been extremely terrifying without the Emperor Eyes.

Fortunately, he possessed them, and given his calmness, he didn't face any further problems in reaching the bottom of the sea.

There were only a few scenarios in which even the Emperor Eyes didn't help him to retain his calm so far. The maritime beasts simply looked too grotesque, but fortunately, their cultivation was not as strong as their looks that were fearsome.

This would have been truly terrifying, but thankfully he could avoid that by swiftly deflecting the attacks through moving around in a small radius.

It was probably his fortune that he had entered the territory of a beast that didn't mind him infiltrating the area it had claimed.

However, at the same time, Jason noticed something else that caused him to be confused.

The marine beasts inside the sea were attacking the remaining forces of the Oceanfolk!

Earlier, Jason had assumed that the Oceanfolk would attack him, and try to obliterate his existence, but they didn't even have time to think about him.

Rather, they were fighting the marine beasts to barely survive inside the sea.

This was something Jason found to be extremely interesting, but unfortunately, the beasts inside the sea were not strong enough to be of any help if he wanted to make use of the marine beast's hatred against the Oceanfolk.

If some of the beasts would have been at the Peak of the Prismar stage, or even the Ascendion stage, this would have been much better!

Nevertheless, the procured information about the marine beasts was interesting enough to take note of as Jason reached the seabed within 10 minutes.

Now, he had around ten more minutes left to search for a way towards the mana vein that seemed to be buried a little bit deeper.

Despite that, he could already feel that the mana was much denser around the area he had entered.

However, even then, Jason was also able to sense that something else was intermixed with the released mana, transmuting and weakening it tremendously.

He had yet to find out what it was but owing to what he perceived through his Emperor Eyes, the mana vein seemed to be in a much worse state than he first expected.

That was not something he could be happy about, and instead of becoming frustrated, Jason swam around the seabed looking for ways to reach the mana vein.

This took him a total of five minutes, and Jason knew that he had to swim upwards soon, otherwise, the remaining air in his lungs wouldn't be enough to allow him to reach the surface.

With that in mind, he decided to remember all the tunnels that seemed to exist at the bottom of the sea, in addition to all the information he had found out so far.

Some of the tunnels were simply habitats of large beasts, while other tunnels seemed to lead somewhere far away.

However, there were a few more paths that seemed to lead him even deeper.

Yet, without knowing if there was even a single spot in the vast sea where he could breathe properly, Jason couldn't just jump anywhere and do however he pleased.

Because of that, Jason suddenly felt extremely useless. He recalled the time on Argos when he had promised himself to bind specific beasts according to the special abilities they would transfer to him.

'I should definitely start searching for beasts with nightsight, and underwater breathing abilities'

Even if he wouldn't know when they need to use these abilities would arise, having them was better than being in the same situation as he was right now.

Jason was forced to waste crucial time swimming to the surface and back, just because he was not able to breathe underwater.

His cultivation base might be at the Prismar stage, but only at a higher cultivation base would he not have the need to rely on either breathing or oxygen to survive.

As such, for now, he was restrained by his body that required him to breathe once in a while.

He knew that the 20 minutes he gave himself to stay underwater were not his limit. If necessary, it would be possible for him to use mana to replace oxygen to sustain himself underwater for at least an hour.

However, Jason was not sure if this could lead to some problems with his body.

As such, he wanted to avoid doing something unnecessarily as long as it was possible.

Nevertheless, Jason knew that he wouldn't be required to eat, sleep or even breathe a lot once he reached a higher cultivation stage.

At least, that was what everyone was always saying. He recalled that even Jennifer said that the lowered demand for basic necessities was the reason cultivators were able to enter a much longer solitary cultivation period with a higher cultivation base!

In the end, after going back and forth, Jason slowly found a perfect path to take in order to prevent being attacked or bothered by marine beasts.

This was a great advantage and gave him enough time to figure out more about the tunnels that were not used as a habitat by beasts.

Owing to the extra time, he got the opportunity to enter some of the tunnels, but unfortunately enough, none of them was really useful.

He required only a small area without water and a little bit of air to breathe.

However, this was already too much to demand, and Jason began to wonder if it wouldn't be better to dig his own tunnel towards the mana vein from the ground, only avoiding the tunnels that were filled with water.

To his misfortune, even that was not feasible, because the Emperor Eyes allowed him to see that the location at which the mana vein was damaged seemed to be in a different spot too.

Yet, Jason was not sure if this spot was filled with water or not, that was something he had no idea about.

'If I could only create an oxygen mask without too much mana consumption' Jason thought at that moment, only to recall the mask Solaris was able to create, purifying the air by discarding anything that was harmful.

Unfortunately, being underwater, Solaris wouldn't be able to sustain itself without consuming a high quantity of mana.

However, it was at that moment when Jason got an idea that sounded extremely stupid, yet, also intelligent enough to give it a try.

'I might as well attempt it, otherwise, I will never reach the mana vein, let alone fix it!!'

__________________