Chapter 189: Within the Life Space

Wang Chen walked toward the cages where the ferocious beasts were being held.

As soon as he drew near, a piercing screech echoed through the air.

A raptor-like beast was shrieking atop an iron cage, seemingly intimidating the creature trapped inside.

Inside the cage, a lizard-like ferocious beast was shivering with fear, cowering tightly in a corner.

Seeing this, Wang Chen shouted, "Big鹫!"

Hearing Wang Chen's call, the raptor-like beast flew toward him.

It circled above Wang Chen's head for a moment before landing on his shoulder.

Wang Chen's shoulder suddenly sank. "My goodness, have you gotten fatter again?"

He casually scratched the raptor's wing feathers. "And your talons are getting stronger by the day. If I hadn't padded my shoulders with iron plates, I'd definitely be scratched to pieces by you."

The raptor affectionately rubbed its head against Wang Chen's neck, emitting chirping sounds from its beak.

This raptor was none other than the Dragon-Devouring Vajra Eagle that Wang Chen had rescued from the mountain peak.

After drinking the beast-taming potion, perhaps due to its critical condition and feeble consciousness, it had easily forged a blood pact with Wang Chen.

In the days that followed, nourished by Wang Chen's vital life force, it gradually regained its vigor.

Perhaps also because that life force carried Wang Chen's scent, the Dragon-Devouring Vajra Eagle was exceptionally affectionate toward him.

Wang Chen was pleasantly surprised to see the Vajra Eagle come back to life, gaining an additional helper in the process.

However, the Vajra Eagle was still in its juvenile stage, and the assistance it could provide was quite limited.

Therefore, Wang Chen named it "Big Eagle," hoping it would grow up quickly and become his capable assistant.

A flash flickered between Wang Chen's fingers as he pinched a large chunk of fresh meat and offered it to the Big Eagle to peck at.

The Big Eagle's beak was extremely sharp, and the tough, sinewy meat of the ferocious beast was as crisp and tender to it as vegetables.

With just a few tears and swallows, it finished off the large piece of fresh meat.

Wang Chen then retrieved another piece and continued feeding it.

Feeding the Big Eagle in this manner consumed around ten pounds of fresh meat every day, demonstrating the formidable nature of the Vajra Eagle breed.

When he first started feeding the Big Eagle, Wang Chen had worried whether his fingers might be pecked and injured.

Wang Chen had witnessed the unbreakable sharpness of the Vajra Eagle's beak; if it pecked his finger, the consequences would be unimaginable, likely piercing straight through on the spot.

However, Wang Chen soon realized his worries were unfounded. After establishing a blood pact with the Big Eagle, they had achieved a state of telepathic communication.

Wang Chen's apprehensions could be sensed by the Big Eagle, and when pecking at the meat, it would deliberately avoid Wang Chen's fingers.

"Are you full?" Seeing that the Big Eagle had stopped pecking, Wang Chen rubbed its belly, confirming it was indeed firmly packed.

With a flick of his hand, he tossed the remaining half-strip of fresh meat into the iron cage, where a hyena-like ferocious beast immediately pounced forward and devoured it.

"Go play for a bit then." Wang Chen shrugged his shoulder, and the Big Eagle sprang into flight, soaring straight toward the apex of the living space.

Upon reaching the peak, it plunged downward in a sudden freefall, only to spin and lift back into the air just before crashing into the ground.

This was the Big Eagle's way of playing.

Seeing it thoroughly enjoying itself, Wang Chen turned his attention back to his own tasks.

With a flash at his fingertips, the Xuan-toad Flask appeared in his hand.

Unscrewing the cap, a strong aroma of medicinal wine wafted out.

Wang Chen produced a large stack of glass containers and poured the alcoholic liquid into one of them.

This container looked somewhat like a draft beer dispenser, but it was actually a separatory funnel.

Its capacity looked much larger than the Xuan-toad Flask, yet Wang Chen estimated it would hold the liquid precisely.

The interior of the Xuan-toad Flask remained a mystery to him; its exact volume was still unknown to Wang Chen.

It looked little bigger than an adult man's palm, yet it could actually pour out enough liquid to fill the separatory funnel.

Moreover, this was simply because the refined beast-wine happened to be this amount, not because it could only hold this much.

When Wang Chen first poured the liquid out, he wasn't sure how much there was, so he had prepared separatory funnels of various capacities.

Now, after the wine was refined, he could roughly estimate the output just by hefting the flask in his hand.

Sure enough, the poured liquid filled the separatory funnel to the brim.

Satisfied with his estimation, Wang Chen temporarily put the flask away and picked up individual medicine bottles to fill them.

When a bottle was just shy of being completely full, he would grab a specialized wooden stopper to seal the potion.

With Wang Chen's practiced technique, anyone else watching would not doubt for a second that he was a veteran alchemist apprentice.

Of course, he was only doing the bottling.

Before long, the liquid in the separatory funnel was completely divided, filling about twenty bottles.

"As expected, when I threw two beasts of the same species into the refinement this time, the resulting volume of wine is indeed greater," Wang Chen mused.

He had previously noticed that the Xuan-toad Flask did not restrict the number of fierce beasts taken in, only their level and species.

Thus, he had tried putting in a few more beasts, and it proved entirely viable.

"I wonder what the upper limit of the flask's capacity is, though. If not, wouldn't this be an artifact for area-of-effect attacks? Anything below Platinum rank could be collected en masse."

Thinking about this, Wang Chen ultimately shook his head. If it were truly that absurd, the flask wouldn't merely be of Platinum grade.

There ought to be an upper limit, which he could figure out gradually. There was no rush; he could take his time.

Wang Chen stored the bottled wine away into his ring.

The wine refined this time possessed the effect of amplifying agility.

Afterward, he retrieved the Xuan-toad Flask once more, but before opening it this time, he twisted a dial at the base of the flask.

When the cap was removed this time, there was no scent of medicinal wine.

Wang Chen walked over to a tree and poured all the internal liquid out.

Tea-colored liquid continuously flowed from the spout—this was waste liquid.

This liquid was generated concurrently during the refinement of the medicinal wine, but apart from tasting terrible, it had no other effects.

In Wang Chen's understanding, this liquid was formed by refining the useless parts of the ferocious beasts' bodies.

Therefore, he called this liquid waste.

Although useless, the liquid was non-toxic, making it ideal for watering flowers or flushing the toilet.

From this, it was evident that even though Boss Wang was now wealthy enough to drop millions at the trading house without batting an eye, his thriftiness remained deeply ingrained, as if carved into his very bones.

"Alright, time to continue refining the beasts." Wang Chen finished pouring out the waste liquid and looked back toward the iron cages.

Among the remaining ferocious beasts, any that possessed even a sliver of intelligence were shivering.

They had already witnessed this bipedal upright ape using that shiny black little flask to swallow up numerous ferocious beasts.

Although there were no miserable screams during the process and it seemed uneventful, they vaguely sensed that it was a place of no return.

Wang Chen looked around and selected the lizard-like ferocious beast.

"You get bullied by the Big Eagle every day and have it too rough; I might as well send you on your way early," Wang Chen chuckled.

He unlocked the iron cage, leaped backward, and waited for the beast to crawl out on its own.