"An extraordinary one!"
The fishman leader blurted out, a hint of awe entering his gaze as he looked at Leilin, though there was surprisingly little shock in his expression.
After all, from Leilin's earlier actions alone, his extraordinary nature was already obvious.
"We are from the Yidong Trading Company. If you don't mind, you're welcome to rest on our ship. I'm sure everyone would be delighted to converse with an extraordinary one…"
The fishman leader spoke respectfully.
This was precisely the reason Leilin had revealed his power. In a primitive world during an age of great voyages, the underbelly was saturated with evil, and the law of the strong devouring the weak was carried to its absolute extreme.
If Leilin had been alone today without any power to protect himself, he would have been stripped bare and sunk straight to the ocean floor!
Even the fine materials of his luxurious clothing would have been reason enough for his death.
But once mysterious power was revealed, the treatment he received changed entirely.
Until the Yidong Trading Company had thoroughly assessed Leilin's strength and background, they wouldn't dare make a move against him so easily.
"Thank you!" Leilin replied with measured politeness, then declined the drawbridge they had lowered and flew up to the deck under his own power.
Standing on the deck, Leilin was mildly surprised by the alien appearance of these "crew members."
Several sailors near him had extremely bizarre looks — some closely resembled the fishmen he had just seen, except their tails had been replaced by two long legs. They wore clothes like a laborer's, clearly indicating a low status aboard the ship.
Beyond these fishman sailors, however, Leilin noticed another type of creature.
This one was surrounded by a crowd of fishmen and appeared to hold a higher position, but its form was utterly different from an ordinary human. It possessed a single enormous vertical eye, with a pupil diameter exceeding one decimeter. From around the eye socket, a mass of tentacles hung straight down, forming limb-like appendages.
To put it plainly, it looked remarkably like the Beholders Leilin had encountered in games in his previous life.
"Well! I always suspected other worlds wouldn't be entirely populated by humanoid races, but this particular form really is something else…"
Leilin grumbled inwardly. Perhaps due to some principle of harmony or other reasons, in many other worlds, despite the great variety of non-human races, a body plan resembling the human form — with a head, four limbs, and a torso — had become the overwhelmingly dominant biological structure. Nearly every other world had one or two humanoid species.
Take the fishmen he had just seen, for example. In the water they still retained a fish-like lower body, but once they came ashore, they immediately formed human-like legs.
Beings like the Beholders, completely unlike humans in form, certainly existed, but they were never the mainstream.
In Leilin's mind, he had already mentally labeled this creature the "Beholder race," and to think that in the Infernal World, it was precisely this alien race that held the upper hand, enslaving the humanoid species — that gave Leilin a slight jolt of surprise.
"Esteemed extraordinary one! Please accept my — Geger Guguno Akzede's — most profound respects!"
At that moment, one of the Beholder's tentacles curled upward, and Leilin suddenly received a wave of spiritual power. The information within conveyed a greeting, tinged with an unmistakable note of flattery.
"Greetings!" When it came to the application of spiritual power, Leilin was far more skilled than this Beholder, so he had no difficulty responding.
What struck him as peculiar, however, was that this Beholder race communicated directly through spiritual power — essentially a form of brainwave exchange.
"Beings of this form likely possess highly advanced spiritual civilization and exceptional brain development!" Leilin nodded to himself.
"You must be from the Silfer Continent! Only there do humans of your kind exist!"
The Beholder's enormous pupil fixed itself on Leilin. In its iris, Leilin could even clearly see his own reflection. After a brief pause, the creature sent over another burst of spiritual information.
"I must apologize! My origins and background are confidential. I promised my mentor that I would not reveal where I come from before I've made a name for myself!"
Leilin answered with an air of righteous solemnity, and this only deepened the Beholder's respect.
"Your mentor must be a truly great extraordinary one!" Making one's reputation known across an entire continent was an extraordinarily difficult feat. Those who managed it were all powerhouses of remarkable strength.
"Indeed! He is a truly venerable elder, brimming with wisdom and resolve…"
A faint trace of wistfulness passed through Leilin's eyes. Then he turned to the Beholder and asked, "I was caught in a shipwreck and had to drift on the open sea for quite some time. Could you tell me where this place is?"
"Oh! This is the end of the Heier Continent shipping route — we're already very close to the Heier Continent. To suffer a shipwreck even after getting this far, your ship truly had dreadful luck…"