He watched Li Qian and Golden Carp Qizai charge straight out.
One headed straight for the top of the waterfall, the other swam up against the current.
The man and his pet were a picture of fiery determination.
Fatty An was instantly caught up in the excitement.
He wanted to follow them and watch.
However, in the next moment, he came to his senses.
Considering his stamina, his physique, and the height of the stone steps, he quickly gave up on the impractical idea.
'By the time I get up there, the show will be long over.'
With that thought, he simply stood still.
He stared without blinking, his eyes fixed on Golden Carp Qizai as it climbed the waterfall.
More accurately, he was staring at the ever-brightening Light of Evolution that blossomed from within the water's current.
As for Qizai's actual body, he couldn't see it at all, as it was hidden by the waterfall.
"Qianzi, you're really full of surprises!"
Swallowing hard, Fatty An barely suppressed the shock in his heart and couldn't help but mutter to himself, "This time, if I can really see a Koi Carp evolve, perhaps it won't just be me witnessing your rise. It could also be a chance for our An Family to take another step forward!"
While Fatty An's mind raced, his thoughts drifting to matters of the distant future...
Meanwhile, the view zoomed in on the stone steps, where Li Qian was still climbing upward at an extremely fast pace.
Not far from him, within the waterfall, the torrent kicked up by Qizai's upstream struggle had already grown more powerful.
In addition, the Light of Evolution was becoming more and more obvious in the dark night.
After climbing to about sixty meters, Li Qian paused, glanced back, and then peeked at the top of the waterfall.
He gauged the distance with a look. 'I should be more than halfway up the steps by now.'
In the nearby waterfall, the current churned by Qizai had also reached about the midpoint.
Li Qian knew very well that although it seemed like he and his pet had completed about half their journey, in reality, they had only just begun.
The further up they went, the more the difficulty of the climb would increase terrifyingly with the rising height.
Especially the final section near the top of the waterfall; the pressure would be several times what it was now.
And this increase in difficulty didn't just apply to Qizai, but to Li Qian himself as well.
Reaching the top of the waterfall before his pet was, without a doubt, an incredibly difficult challenge for him.
'But I have to do it!'
So, gritting his teeth, he continued his ascent without a moment's delay.
Not far away, the Light of Evolution rising from the water grew ever more intense...
「On a mountain path about a kilometer from the Hundred Feet Waterfall.」
A mysterious person in a dark red robe stood quietly...
He closed his eyes, concentrating his senses. Soon, he snapped them open, his gaze locking firmly onto the distant waterfall.
"Such powerful Energy fluctuations... could that be the entrance to the Cloud Mist Ruins..."
After muttering this, the dark red-robed figure flickered and vanished from where they stood.
In the blink of an eye, the dark red-robed figure was already several meters away.
Meanwhile, in the opposite direction from the robed figure and also about a kilometer away from the Hundred Feet Waterfall, a middle-aged man in a black Public Security Bureau uniform instantly sensed something and changed his course.
On a flat piece of ground near the mountain's peak, inside a tent, a resting woman suddenly opened her eyes and looked towards a certain spot on the mountainside.
...
For a moment, the Energy fluctuations stirred up by Qizai's evolution had attracted the attention of several groups of onlookers.
Li Qian, who was completely absorbed in climbing the stone steps, was naturally oblivious to all of this.
Besides, neither he nor Fatty An possessed the ability to sense such things.
Around the middle of the Hundred Feet Waterfall, Qizai, pushing against the curtain of water, shone with an ever-brighter Light of Evolution, like a slowly rising sun.
As time passed, Qizai's speed slowly decreased, and Li Qian also felt his steps growing heavier.
Mechanically taking step after step, he didn't know how much time had passed.
Finally, the end of the stone steps was right before his eyes.
Li Qian gathered his strength and charged straight up.
The top of the stone steps was a platform.
A round platform, paved with smooth concrete to serve as a viewing deck, was surrounded by a railing.
Without hesitation, Li Qian ran directly to the spot closest to the waterfall, grabbed the railing, and looked over.
As he expected, not far away, Qizai had already climbed to a position near the top.
The top was also a small pool where spring water bubbled up, probably connected to a cavern inside the mountain.
Qizai was about to reach the summit, its speed now extremely slow, but it stubbornly continued to ascend.
Seeing Qizai's arduous climb, Li Qian finally understood why Cyan-Scaled Flood Dragons were so rare in nature.
The complex, difficult, and obscure evolution method was only one reason.
Another point was... the requirements for the Koi Carp itself were also extremely high.
Qizai was, without a doubt, an exceptional specimen among all Koi Carp.
Even it had to give its all to reach the top, to say nothing of others of its kind.
As for Ah Fu, Li Qian didn't think it could succeed on its first try.
Fortunately, however, the cost of failure was merely wasting two pounds of Dragon Bone Powder.
Otherwise, even if one knew the evolution method, they might not be able to afford it.
In addition to this, Li Qian also came to a profound realization.
Even if one mastered the evolution method from Koi Carp to Cyan-Scaled Flood Dragon, it didn't mean that all Koi Carp could successfully evolve.
Whether it was comprehending the Climbing Waterfall Skill and training it to the Perfection Level, or using a Limit-Breaking Stone to get Fish Jump to the Breakthrough Level—none of this was something an ordinary Koi Carp could achieve casually.
As for climbing the Hundred Feet Waterfall, that was even more difficult.
One could say that Li Qian had indeed found a path to leap the Dragon Gate, but very few Koi Carp could actually make the jump.
Li Qian watched with rapt attention as Qizai slowly climbed, inching closer and closer to the top. His heart was in his throat.
At the bottom of the waterfall, beside the pool, Fatty An was also staring intently.
Although it was getting hard to see clearly, he could faintly make out that Qizai was about to reach the top.
As for Ah Fu in the water, it would occasionally leap from the surface to gaze at the top of the waterfall, looking very excited.
It seemed to be cheering Qizai on, but it also seemed to be looking on with longing, eager to follow in the other's footsteps.
At the top of the waterfall, after about a quarter of an hour, Qizai finally reached the summit under Li Qian's watchful gaze!
'Now! Use the Fish Leaping Skill!' Li Qian thought, sending the command to Qizai through their contract.
SPLASH!
Sensing Li Qian's thought, Qizai chose to trust him unconditionally.
It exerted all its strength, mobilized all the Energy in its body, and leaped violently out of the water.
Qizai used its Breakthrough Level Fish Leaping Skill. It leaped extremely high, an estimated five meters or more.
It was as if there really was an invisible "Dragon Gate" in the empty space before it.
It was beginning to leap the "Dragon Gate," and the Light of Evolution on its body grew even more incandescent!
At that very moment, Li Qian moved. He flung his hand forward, throwing out the Wind Chime Fruit.
Li Qian's throw was extremely accurate; the Wind Chime Fruit flew almost directly toward Qizai.
Qizai caught the Wind Chime Fruit with ease and swallowed it without hesitation.
VWOOM!
Suddenly, the Light of Evolution, like gunpowder suppressed to its limit, exploded!
A sonorous cry echoed from within the shower of light that filled the sky...
The rain of light scattered down, illuminating almost the entire area around the Hundred Feet Waterfall.
BOOM!
Finally, the entire rain of light fell, every last drop landing in the pool at the bottom of the waterfall.
And the moment after all the light had fallen into the pool...
SPLASH!
The water exploded as a dragon's head with a single conical horn leaped from the surface, followed by its entire body.
Its slender body was about six meters long. Its cyan Dragon Scales glistened, each one embedded in its body like a star in the night sky. Its azure Dragon Claws, though only three-toed, lacked none of their sharpness or beauty!
Without a doubt, this was the Cyan-Scaled Flood Dragon!
Aside from the single conical horn and its three-toed claws, it had the standard form of an Eastern Dragon!
Noble, majestic, fierce, and soul-stirring... this was the impression the Cyan-Scaled Flood Dragon left on Fatty An!
As for him, he was completely dumbstruck, standing ramrod straight by the pool's edge like a puppet.