Chapter 154: Disdain

Apart from the first time it helped her fell a few trees, the little black-feathered eagle no longer assisted her in logging. Yun Qing crafted a saw, using a row of gale-rabbit incisors for the teeth; while not quite a divine artifact for tree-felling, it was significantly better than an axe.

Because of this, all the timber she used to expand the villa on her base consisted of spirit wood.

Meanwhile, the gale-rabbits, which had initially enjoyed unhindered grazing and rampant breeding, gradually began to relocate frequently and graze with extreme caution. The originally plump gale-rabbits lost several layers of fat. In the end, large numbers of them, taking their families along, fled the little black-feathered eagle's territory.

When it became difficult to encounter even a single gale-rabbit in the territory within a single day, Yun Qing shifted her targets.

Centered around Sunshine Pool, the little black-feathered eagle's territory spanned a radius of twenty miles. Although rich in resources, it was entirely unmanaged, and all spiritual herbs grew wild, many requiring a certain age to reach maturity.

If it were solely for converting energy for her dwelling or for short-term cultivation, the current stock would last for years, but she wanted more.

A month later, under the covert protection of the little black-feathered eagle, Yun Qing’s combat prowess and wilderness survival skills had increased tremendously.

From the gale-rabbits, she learned the Gale Step. In battles against the brute-force bulls, she learned how to use leverage to counter opponents with superior strength. She had also crossed paths with the hyenas—the little black-feathered eagle’s neighbors—several times, and was fortunate enough to taste hyena meat.

She had captured and harvested the venom of the soul-corpse snakes and soul-corpse birds, and even researched their respective antidote pills. Unfortunately, these were two different types of antidotes, meaning that to cure soul-corpse poisoning, one had to gather the exact corresponding venom.

Little silver fish were becoming increasingly difficult to catch, and gale-rabbits were growing scarcer. Brute-force bulls and hyenas were not easily slain, and creatures like soul-corpse snakes and soul-corpse birds were equally hard to fight. Over this past month, her spirit stone income had been modest, yielding only a little over 500 blocks.

Both the leap skill and the stealth skill required 500 lower-grade spirit stones each to upgrade. In order to run faster, Yun Qing chose to upgrade her leap skill into an escape art. As for the stealth technique, she would upgrade it later once she earned more spirit stones.

The escape art had a cooldown period and could not be used consecutively in critical situations. In the future, the cooldown would decrease as her character level increased. Character skill upgrades followed her overall level progression, requiring only skill points.

With secondary energy no longer being used sparingly, her reserves had surged into the five-digit range. Whenever she had free time, Yun Qing would pick plants showing strong spiritual qi reactions within her divine sense and toss them into the energy converter.

In her system backpack, she held quite a few spiritual herbs, alongside beast teeth, sharp claws, and pelts. Yun Qing had no idea how many spirit stones these items could fetch, so she refrained from converting them into energy. Although the system interface showed she possessed spirit stones, her actual purse was entirely empty.

It was worth noting that if body-refinement pills were brewed with superior primary ingredients, they still proved quite useful to her; during body refinement, they granted a greater amount of combat experience. The large eagle disliked body-refinement pills; compared to them, it much preferred better-tasting, delicious meat.

Over the past month, her character level had reached 42, her combat and harvesting experience had hit level 43, while her crafting level remained at 42.

***

Generally speaking, individuals of unknown identity who joined a trade guild were rarely given important responsibilities because they were highly likely to bring trouble to the organization.

However, if someone who sought to join was exceptionally talented, the guild would vie for them. No matter the world, the elite circle remained a tight-knit community, and a powerful alliance was forever the best form of cooperation.

Both Fang Rui and Wei Yi had successfully achieved Foundation Establishment. At under twenty years of age, such aptitude was something only a handful of people across the entire Central Continent could accomplish. Leader Jing used a transmitting flying sword to report this matter upward, along with his speculations regarding their identities.

Based on Leader Jing’s description, the guild quickly formed a hypothesis about Wei Yi’s identity, though Fang Rui’s background remained shrouded in mystery.

The guild wished to recruit Wei Yi, and this arduous task fell upon Leader Jing’s caravan.

Leader Jing promoted Wei Yi to deputy leader of the caravan. Wei Yi declined, stating he preferred to stay alongside Fang Rui, so Leader Jing consequently promoted Fang Rui to the caravan’s strategist.

Originally, large caravans possessed these positions, but Leader Jing’s caravan consisted of only about thirty people, alongside several captains, making so many titles entirely unnecessary.

In order to retain them, Leader Jing deliberately revived these two positions—he certainly couldn’t cede the leader’s position to Wei Yi.

The various captains had reservations about this. The two youths possessed high combat prowess, yet they had only entered the caravan a little over a month ago.

Look at that person called Tang Luo; because of the newly appointed deputy leader’s whim, he had inexplicably followed the caravan right out of Sunshine Town. This was clearly a violation of caravan rules.

***

The little black-feathered eagle was deeply troubled. Because of the cook it had captured, its territory was running out of food.

Objectively speaking, the cook was very diligent and worked hard, yet it watched with its own eyes as its territory was stripped of nearly all edible spiritual beasts by this human.

Was it because the cook ate too much?

No, even if the cook used meat to refine those body-refinement pills and consumed them, her intake was nowhere near its own.

Then why was this happening? Naturally, it was because the cook lacked the prowess to capture spiritual beasts properly. Her presence had turned its territory completely upside down.

It wasn't that the cook couldn't catch any spiritual beasts at all, but watching her attempt it filled the eagle with utter disdain; it had never seen anyone so foolish.

When the eagle hunted gale-rabbits, it would strike silently and vanish with its prey before the other rabbits even realized a companion was missing. Even if it took half of them, they remained oblivious.

The cook’s method of catching gale-rabbits was entirely different. It was a spectacle of chasing them all over the mountains, as if afraid the rabbits wouldn’t know someone was coming to eat them.

Risking her life, she could catch at most three to five a day, resulting in very few rabbits captured overall.

The gale-rabbits couldn't beat the cook, but the cook possessed boundless stamina, pursuing them day and night. Unable to graze in peace or fill their bellies, ninety percent of the gale-rabbits were thus driven out of its territory by the cook.

With the supply of roasted rabbit meat cut off, the cook claimed she had seen wild cattle in its territory—what wild cattle, those were brute-force bulls!

She declared she would make something called steak for it, raising its expectations. Yet it took the cook three whole days of effort just to slay a first-rank brute-force bull.

Forget a third-rank brute-force bull; she couldn't even defeat a second-rank one.

Yun Qing protested: *I am only at Qi Condensation tier two, and I don't know a single spell! Without a suitable weapon, I can't use the mosquito queen's poisonous claws. Second-rank is the mid-stage of Qi Condensation, and third-rank is the late stage. How could I possibly win?*

Yet she would stubbornly charge into battle regardless. In the eagle's eyes, watching her fight a brute-force bull looked simply like two brute-force bulls locking horns.

The brute-force bull she eventually killed had simply been worn down until it was too exhausted to move, only then succumbing to her blows.

Had it not wanted to taste the steak the cook kept talking about, it would never have helped her suppress those second- and third-rank brute-force bulls. Ah! In short, after that incident, brute-force bulls were never seen in its territory again.

With the brute-force bulls gone, the cook then babbled about how hyena hotpot was delicious and went off to hunt hyenas. Fortunately, she showed some restraint this time, otherwise the hyenas would have refused to remain its neighbors.