Michael didn't tarry any longer and found a suitable place to set up in. As he discussed with Princess Octavia, the next place he was going to install a Filter was quite the territory a few hundreds of meters away from the Sunken Ship.
Now, this doesn't seem the most sensible decision at first. It would look better if the filter was placed adjacent to the Sunken Ship so that the combination of both filters would create a larger territory with filtered water.
But Princess Octavia chose a place quite a ways away from her territory for only one reason: fomo.
Fear of Missing Out.
'Coincidentally,' the place of the second filter was directly on the line of sight of the Coralis, Triton's expansive territory.
Those who wandered a bit away from the Mermen utopia, as it was called, would suddenly see a new place flourishing with life out in the open waters.
This would certainly attract the attention of most mammalian Mermen, especially since they were the ones who needed mana-infused water the most. That's where they get their oxygen, after all.
Of course, their species had the most trouble adjusting here in the New Sparta Lake. That was why most of them lived in the Coralis, which was manually pumped with magic by Triton in order to make it liveable.
But even he, the great warm-blooded prince of the deep sea, hasn't been able to fully solve that problem. His pockets bled Sand Dollars every day just to keep his city afloat. He certainly wouldn't have extra funds to make the outskirts of his territory flourish.
That was where the filter came in. Once the citizens of Coralis saw that even the desolate floor of the lake could become liveable, then they would be more than willing to migrate towards Octavia's territory, thereby gaining their votes.
Okay, let's start!
…
…
…
Michael spent the whole day working in the cold, dark waters of the lake installing all the needed systems for the filter.
The only thing that gave him company was the ongoing livestream of the Lunar Celebrations. He couldn't watch it fully, but he did listen in on the conversations.
Well…, at least the things he could understand. Zion was quite the chatterbox, clouding the conversations happening around them. He didn't mind. Sheina would catch him up to speed later.
Anyway, he finished up his work early the next day, finally installing the crystallized Unity shard into the engine.
Once the fuel was installed, the machine sputtered into action, sending gusts of mana-infused water all around its surroundings.
"It's done," he said to the Mermen guards.
"Amazing sir Keo! I can already feel the water starting to get fresher!"
"We will be glad to report this to the Princess once she comes back."
"For now, please follow us back to the Sunken Ship. Princess Octavia has already prepared your reward ahead of time."
Feeling bubbly, pun intended, Michael drifted back to Octavia's territory and found himself staring at another treasure chest.
"One million Sand Dollars as promised, sir Keo!"
With a satisfying click, he pushed the shell lock on the chest, causing its lid to burst backwards.
Effervescent bubbles rose from the treasure chest, before the clear, tempting sight of Sand Dollars entered his vision.
"Thank you," he said, before receiving the chest with his shadow inventory.
Immediately, ChatJK5 flashed a notification detailing his current wealth.
[Sand Dollars: 4,311,523]
HAHAHAHA! Without missing a beat, he immediately went towards Serena's quarters and requested an exchange.
With her help, a vortex appeared a few feet above the floor. Its dark, tenebrous tunnel led into a different place entirely, somewhere so deep that even light could not touch its surface.
"How much would you like to buy?"
Michael smiled. "All of it."
With a wave of his hand, a spherical shadow emerged from his feet and rose up in front of him. A similar whirlpool appeared into its surface, causing the Sand Dollars inside his inventory to radially flow towards the vortex.
Tens of thousands of Sand Dollars were drained from his account each second, all sinking into the endless pit of the vortex.
Serena's eyes widened even further as the exchange went way past a few minutes.
In the end, all 4.3 million Sand Dollars were unloaded.
And as if mimicking Serena's shock, the vortex itself took at least five minutes in complete silence and inactivity.
It didn't expect to handle this much money in a single exchange.
"... this vortex wouldn't scam me, right?" Michael joked.
"Hahaha, no… I think…," Serena awkwardly laughed. Even she didn't know why this exchange was taking this long.
Finally, something changed. The vortex suddenly increased in intensity, its revolution becoming more and more turbulent as the seconds passed.
The dark, stygian tunnel that led to another region suddenly bulged, increasing in girth as it began to convulse.
This chaotic change in the vortex caused micro-tremors all around the Sunken Ship, until after half a minute, everything stopped.
Then suddenly, a dark tinted wine bottle emerged out of the vortex, landing perfectly in Michael's hands.
"Wine?" he asked.
He turned towards Serena for questions, but saw her jaws wide open in complete shock.
"That's… that's father's personal bottle!" she shouted, the scales in her tail flickering in shock.
"What?"
She pointed at the bottle, or more specifically, the label on its surface.
Written using some type of premium seaweed and various coral shavings was the words;
{Ocean King's Gift of Old}
He peered through the dark-tinted bottle. It was hard to see the liquid inside given the opaqueness of the sea glass used, but he could feel it sloshing around as he shook the bottle.
It was viscous, like oil.
There was no mistaking it. This voluminous collection of liquid was none other than the Spirit of Old, or Soo for short.
He'd only ever seen it in drops, so he couldn't quite recognize it the first time.
"Wow… so this is 431 drops of Soo…"
But Serena interjected. "Not just. That's more than 431 drops. That's 500!"