Chapter 27: Harvest and Preparation
Translator: Henyee Translations Editor: Henyee Translations
Bai Wushang knew very well that if he took advantage of this moment to conclude the contract, his success rate would have to be above 90 percent.
After careful thought, Bai Wushang gave up on the idea.
The Fireball Snake was indeed good, and fitted his ideal contractual conditions.
But if the full score was 100, this fireball snake could only get 60, just on the lowest borderline.
Bai Wushang had just obtained the paralyzing venom of the Spectral Viper, and his confidence had increased further.
Plus, it was noon of the second day, and there were still three and a half days of safety left, so it was totally fine to take more chances.
With a swift slash, he killed the Fireball Snake.
Bai Wushang was not a merciful person. If their places had been swapped, the Fireball Snake would have happily eaten him and satiated itself; survival of the fittest was always the case in nature.
[Hunting Success, Gourmet Cell +15]
After death, the Fireball Snake’s boiling carcass gradually cooled.
Taking advantage of this time, Bai Wushang took out a healing medicine like guinea grass, crushed it and put it on his wound, casually tore a clean sleeve, pulled it into a strip of cloth, and wrapped the wound.
After briefly treating his own injuries, Bai Wushang began to clean up the battlefield and count all the loot.
The loot was generally divided into two categories. One was the snake carcass parts, containing various snake skins, teeth, guts, hearts, venom, and flesh… surpassing 100 parts in total. The total value of the snakes was about 600 gold coins without counting the Fireball Snake and the Spectral Viper.
A complete Fireball Snake cost over 200 gold coins. After all, it was covered in precious fire-attribute materials, especially the flaming snake heart, which could be used as a bomb at critical times.
As for the Spectral Viper, the most valuable thing was its paralyzing snake venom, but Bai Wushang was going to keep it for his own use, and the other body parts would only contribute 50 or 60 gold coins.
That worked out to nearly 900 gold coins gained by Bai Wushang in nearly an hour of snake hunting!
What did this mean?
For Bai Wushang, who had been fostered in the Mu Family compound in the past, and had no worries about food and drink or cultivation resources, but likewise had little pocket money, this was enough to be called a huge sum of money.
Unfortunately, the dimensional backpack is only one cubic meter in capacity, so many snakes, especially this Fireball Snake, are too big for me to fit them all. I have to throw something away…
This was something that Bai Wushang was both helpless and heartbroken about. Picking left and right, he discarded a lot of snake meat of low value, and even had to discard part of the Fireball Snake’s carcass to fill up his dimensional backpack as much as possible while keeping 20 percent of the space for emergency use.
“When I get back to the academy and save up some money, I’ll definitely buy a larger storage ring!” said Bai Wushang, making this decision in his mind.
Another category of loot, naturally, was the long-desired gourmet cells.
In total, he had hunted 38 snakes, and putting aside the principle that the same realm and race could not be obtained repeatedly, Bai Wushang had obtained a total of 110 gourmet cells, all of which could be directly exchanged for a First Tier Gourmand Treasure Chest.
After taking stock and disposing of some of the harvest, Bai Wushang was still patient, burying the portion that had to be discarded, and removing any traces of his activity.
Cleaning up trails, if there were any, could prevent many unwanted accidents, and was one of the core skills that wilderness survivors should master.
Bai Wushang might not be gifted with high intelligence, but he was pragmatic, and hoped that he could seize every opportunity to keep trying, keep learning, and improve his overall ability as much as possible.
Strange, I’ve only seen three or four students so far. That’s pitifully few…
Bai Wushang suddenly thought of this. Originally, he was worried that he would encounter other students during the snake hunt, and had specially prepared countermeasures, but he didn’t expect not to use any even till the end.
Well, with an average of 100 students in a trial ground, it shouldn’t be so difficult to bump into others… Bai Wushang slowly contemplated. Perhaps… this trial ground is far vaster than I envisioned, which has led to the wide dispersing of students?
Leaving the suspicions in his mind, Bai Wushang had one more business to attend to.
From the first moment he saw the Spectral Viper, he had doubts in his mind.
It was obvious that it was a dark-type creature with Dark Adaptation that was afraid of sunlight, so why was the Spectral Viper here?
Around this mountain fruit tree, the trees were sparse, and the area was relatively empty. Even though the sunlight in the mystic realm was not as blindingly hot as the outside world, it was still not a small burden for the Spectral Viper. It couldn’t have just happened to reside here.
Associated with the actual effectiveness of the Mouse of Temptation, which made it clear that the effective distance was about 3000 meters, Bai Wushang seriously suspected that there existed a hidden dark-attribute habitat in the vicinity that he had yet to discover, possibly a cave or something else.
This dark habitat, which tends to have a large number of high-end, high-quality transcendent creatures, might just allow me to contract my ideal pet…
Bai Wushang was silent for a moment, and quickly made the decision that he was going to look for this habitat that might exist.
Before launching into action, he gathered some hardwood and diamond-shaped rocks.
Using a dagger, the hardwood was cut, and a short wooden handle over a meter in length and three fingers thick was made, and a simple wooden spear with a stone spearhead was made by fixing a diamond-shaped stone to one end of the handle with a strong rattan rope and a little polishing of the tip.
Due to the lack of tools like chopping axes for making them, it took Bai Wushang a while to make only 12 of these short spears.
Applying the poison was next. Bai Wushang gave priority to applying paralyzing venom onto the spear tips, and after all the venom was depleted, a total of five black-tipped short spears were made. Also, using mixed snake venom, five colored-tipped short spears were made. Finally, two non-poisonous short spears were left to keep as a backup.
After completing the poison spears, Bai Wushang also considered that the space in the dimensional backpack was limited, and that it was more convenient to take something like a weapon with him, so he removed the rat trap he had made earlier, and converted it into a long back basket.
In passing, the basket was lined with ice grass to create a cold and dry storage environment, which could effectively slow down the evaporation of snake venom.
After doing this, Bai Wushang easily carried the long back basket on his back, and began to comb the surrounding area.
An hour later, in a remote corner.
Bai Wushang found a hidden stone cave.
The entrance was small and hidden by the creeping vines that swung down, so if one wasn’t examining closely, it would be quite hard to notice that there was a small dark hole hidden behind it.
Pushing aside the plants in the way, Bai Wushang lifted a torch, and carefully peeked halfway in.
Upon entering the cave, he could obviously feel that it was a bit wet and cold inside.
By the light of the fire, what came into view was a dense inky moss, which still had some faint footprints and claw marks on it, as if some creature had been active.
Farther away, there was endless, deep darkness with no end.
Hu… hu…
An eerie cold wind suddenly blew from the depths of the cave.