The rod was crude, the line coarse. Ethan checked his inventory: empty. No bait.
“Just a rod and a hook?” He stared at the bare iron. “That’s it?”
Maybe an SSS Talent didn’t need bait.
He cast anyway. The hook vanished into the blue.
A light breeze wrinkled the water. Ethan waited, tense, until the line gave a small jerk.
He yanked.
A slimy clump of green-brown seaweed slapped onto the raft. It looked disappointingly normal.
A notification flashed.
[SYSTEM]
You obtained: Seaweed Essence.
Health restored: +10%.
Warmth spread through his limbs. The exhaustion in his muscles eased, and even the sharp edge of thirst dulled.
He let out a breath he hadn’t realized he was holding.
“So that’s what you meant by unexpected.”
If he could restore Health, then food and water weren’t immediate problems—at least not yet. First, he needed to patch himself up to full.
He cast again.
While waiting, he reopened chat. People were shouting their Talents into the void like lottery numbers.
[CHAT]
Player 0549: “C-Rank Strength Boost—+40%! Hauling ropes is easy now. Damn it!”
Player 0573: “Congrats, dock king.”
Player 0663: “D-Rank Agility Boost. I’m faster than a rabbit!”
Player 0234: “E-Rank Mental Boost. I’m… very awake? That’s it?”
Player 0149: “F-Rank Stamina Boost. I’m cursed.”
Player 0952: “Same! I’m going home!”
Player 0028: “B-Rank Pyrokinesis. I can control flames.”
Ethan scanned the stream and sorted it in his head.
Most Talents were passive stat boosts—Strength, Agility, Endurance, Mental. The higher the rank, the bigger the percentage.
A handful were active abilities, the flashy kind: fire, snow, his own… fishing.
The guide had been clear: one Talent per player. No rerolls.
He’d been smug for about three seconds.
The line tugged again.
He reeled in a mess of seagrass and dark silt, dripping mud onto the boards.
Another notification appeared.
[SYSTEM]
You obtained: Sea Silt.
Stamina Boost: +1%.
Ethan froze mid-breath.
“Stamina Boost?”
He felt it immediately—a thin thread of extra reserve, subtle but undeniable, like his lungs had learned to draw a little more air.
He snapped open his panel.
[PANEL]
Talents:
SSS-Rank Infinite Fishing
F- Rank Stamina Boost (+1%)
Two.
He had two.
If SSS-Rank Infinite Fishing could pull Talents out of the sea… could it pull more? Could it stack them? Improve them?
The thought was dangerous. The kind of thought that got people killed, because greed always whispered that you were special.
Still—
He cast again.
The afternoon sun beat down, turning the ocean into hammered glass. Ethan lowered his gaze to the raft and the junk he’d pulled up so far: seaweed, seagrass, silt.
He couldn’t help a dry laugh.
No bait. No lures. Just a hook.
If nothing else, he’d never live down the shame of being the world’s most overpowered fisherman who couldn’t catch a fish.
A flicker of light caught his eye.
Something wriggled inside the muddy tangle—tiny, translucent worms that glowed faintly, like strands of thread lit from within.
Bait.
Ethan didn’t trust anything in an alien ocean, so he watched them first. When they didn’t melt the wood or leap at his face, he prodded them with a long blade of grass. No reaction. No obvious venom.
He hooked one carefully and cast.
This time the bite was different—alive, deliberate.
Ethan’s pulse kicked up. He hauled the line in, steady and controlled.
Water broke.
A blue-gray fish slapped onto the raft, its back freckled with pale luminous spots.
[SYSTEM]
You obtained: Glimmerfin Bluefish.
Stamina Boost: +2%.
He checked his panel again.
[PANEL]
F- Rank Stamina Boost (+3%)
It stacked.
The fish thrashed beside his boot, tail hammering the boards.
Ethan stared at it, then at the Talent description he’d seen earlier.
Not limited to the sea.
He’d been fishing the ocean. But what if he changed the target?
What if he fished… the fish?
Slowly, he brought the rod tip down until the hook hovered over the Glimmerfin’s slick scales.