Master of the Deep Sea

Master of the Deep Sea is the first full-length novel by the web author Shenhai Bixi. It began serialization on Qidian in 2015 and concluded on March 1, 2016, running to roughly 1.3398 million Chinese characters across six volumes: Related Works, Volume One, Deep-Sea Mothership, Earth Civilization, Vast Universe, and Cosmic Battlefield. The story is set in an alternate-world China. On July 3, 2015, Lin Fan, a third-year student majoring in maritime command at Dongzhou University, takes a summer job aboard a medium-sized offshore fishing boat at Dongzhou's East Sea fishing harbor. Before setting out he confesses to a female classmate, Guo Yu'er, whom he has long admired, and is gently turned down; then Zhao Tianlin, a wealthy rival, mocks him publicly. Disheartened, he sails with the boat. Mid-voyage, the thumb-sized mysterious metal fragment he picked up on the beach half a year earlier suddenly emits a pale golden glow, and a synthesized voice speaks in his mind, announcing activation of the captain's authority of the Aliya Sai—at only one percent. At the same time, thousands of miles away, in the depths of the Mariana Trench in the Pacific, a huge silver-white pyramid-shaped structure opens a gap and a barracuda-shaped craft breaks out of the water. From then on the deep sea becomes Lin Fan's private domain: using technology and fleets supplied by the alien mothership, he develops seafood trading, rare minerals, and top-grade jewelry, and builds his own maritime power. As his authority rises and his technology expands, his commercial and military reach extends from the high seas to the Solar System and the Milky Way; through the founding of the Earth Federation and conflicts among cosmic civilizations, he ultimately leads his fleet into interstellar war. The work links urban paranormal powers, ocean exploration, and interstellar expansion—a typical low-start, resource-driven power-fantasy novel.