Taking Stock of the Spoils

"So... you brought me back just so I could grill meat for you?" Ling Li's eyes widened as he looked at the fourth-tier magical beast that the Purple Beast had frightened unconscious and dragged back. He tugged at the corner of his mouth.

Seeing that Ling Li had finally understood its meaning, the Purple Beast nodded excitedly. It then nodded toward the mountain of dry wood already piled up in the cave, indicating that it had even prepared the firewood.

This guy was really putting in the effort just for a bite of grilled meat...

Ling Li rubbed his forehead. Could this thing have been following him all along just for grilled meat?

Although Ling Li grumbled inwardly, he still flipped his hand, summoning a short sword into his grasp, and skillfully began preparing the fourth-tier magical beast.

He had originally intended to use this short sword to practice that Mysterious Tier sword technique, but unfortunately, its quality was inadequate. It could only serve as a butcher's knife.

Skinning, deboning, removing the tendons, scoring the meat, lighting the fire, and grilling it—he completed everything in one smooth sequence. The Purple Beast tried to help during the process, but Ling Li stopped it because it was simply too large.

Grilling a magical beast was a lengthy process, especially one nearly ten meters long. Roasting it whole took considerable effort, but Ling Li was fast enough. With master-level knife skills, he brushed on the oil without worrying about burning it.

For a time, fat dripped continuously from the fourth-tier magical beast, exploding across the burning coals. A rich aroma of meat mixed with the unique fragrance of burning dry wood and spread through the cave.

"Do you have Beast Fire?" Ling Li asked as he turned the skewer, which was made from a tree trunk as thick as a bucket.

Although Beast Fire could not compare to a Mysterious Flame, it was far stronger than Qi-Generated Fire and ordinary flames. It would also make grilling much faster.

Once magical beasts reached the fifth tier, they could understand human speech. Some particularly powerful ones could even speak human language, but the Purple Beast clearly was not among them.

The Purple Beast, which had been staring blankly at the grilled meat, shook its head at his question and continued gazing at it in a daze.

That was more or less the answer Ling Li had expected. If it had Beast Fire, it would not have needed to frighten a fourth-tier magical beast into submission. Besides, Ling Li guessed that the Purple Beast had no offensive abilities at this stage. Otherwise, he would have died long ago.

The beast finished roasting much faster than Ling Li had expected. It was probably because the wood was not ordinary either. Unfortunately, Ling Li had not studied medicinal herbs enough to recognize it.

The magical beast roasted to a golden brown. Once he sprinkled on the seasonings that served as its soul, a wild fragrance bloomed freely throughout the cave.

That's right—the scent of Ju Youjing!

Before Ling Li could spread the seasoning over the beast's entire body, the Purple Beast suddenly pounced with shining eyes. It frantically gnawed at the portions already sprinkled with seasoning, like a starving ghost reincarnated.

Seven days later,

Looking at another fourth-tier magical beast the Purple Beast had dragged back, Ling Li said speechlessly, "Hey, enough is enough. I've used up all my seasoning!"

Because of his own appetite, Ling Li had prepared quite a lot of seasoning. But the Purple Beast was like a bottomless pit. After finishing one beast, it would go out and catch another, over and over again. More importantly, after serving as its tool for seven days and seven nights straight, Ling Li had not gotten a single bite of grilled meat.

The Purple Beast was clearly dissatisfied with that answer. It stubbornly shoved the frightened-unconscious fourth-tier magical beast forward.

Ling Li's response was to point Dark Night's blade at it. After recovering over the past few days, his injuries were mostly healed. At the very least, wielding a blade was no longer a problem.

When Ling Li drew Dark Night, the Purple Beast's expression stiffened. It shrank back into a corner of the cave, as if recalling the terror of being dominated before.

Small, pitiful, helpless—and able to eat.

"Ugh, I really can't do anything with you. But I really am out of seasoning. You should recognize medicinal herbs, right? These are the raw ingredients for that seasoning. Go find more of them." Ling Li flipped his hand and took several dozen ingredients from the System Space. Some of these materials could genuinely be called weeds. At least, Ling Li could not tell the difference between them. But magical beasts had such sensitive noses that they should be able to distinguish them, right?

After thinking for a moment, Ling Li took Wu Ye's severed finger from the System Space, removed the blood-red Storage Ring from it, transferred everything inside into the System Space, then handed it to the Purple Beast. "Here, this is a Storage Ring. See if you can erase the Soul Power imprint inside so you can use it to store those materials."

The Purple Beast glanced at the Storage Ring, and a trace of disdain flashed through its eyes. With a flick of its tongue, an obscure circular formation seemed to appear in its throat. All the ingredients Ling Li had taken out were swallowed into its stomach. When it opened its mouth again, the circular formation reappeared, and the materials floated back out completely intact.

Ling Li froze. Setting up a spatial formation in its own mouth to create an independent space—was that something a fifth-tier magical beast could do? But when he thought of that strange membrane, Ling Li relaxed again. The Purple Beast had never been ordinary. At present, Ling Li could only roughly tell its sex by instinct. He had no idea what species it was.

The Purple Beast seemed very pleased with Ling Li's reaction. It strutted out of the cave with smug little steps. It had an innate sensitivity to certain natural treasures, so finding the things Ling Li had listed would be effortless.

"Did that immature magical beast just look down on me again?"

Ling Li stood there dumbly for a while, then shook his head and took out two scrolls from the System Space. These were the only two items in Wu Ye's Storage Ring. There had been no Gold Coins, medicinal herbs, or anything else.

"No way. He was a Dou Spirit, yet he was this poor?" Ling Li examined the two scrolls in his hand. One was the Mysterious Tier High Grade Shadow Blood Flash, while the other was the Mysterious Tier Low Grade Palm Absorption. The Palm Absorption scroll was made of relatively ordinary material, but the Shadow Blood Flash scroll was made from the same beast hide as the nameless Mysterious Tier sword technique. It was also incomplete.

Both scrolls looked somewhat worn. Ling Li estimated that after being read one or two more times, the Soul Power imprints on them would be completely erased.

Now that he possessed a mid-grade Earth Tier cultivation technique, all Ling Li lacked were combat techniques. The more advanced and strange the combat technique, the greater its enhancement to one's combat strength. When Wu Ye had used Palm Absorption back then, if Ling Li had not already knocked away his heavy sword, the battle would probably have been mostly over after one strike.

Holding the two combat technique scrolls, Ling Li slowly sent his Soul Power into them. As it entered, the information within swiftly flowed into his mind.

Several minutes later, Ling Li rubbed his brow. After this reading, the Soul Power imprints on both combat technique scrolls had become exceedingly blurred. The two valuable scrolls had effectively turned into scrap.

"Palm Absorption is easy enough. It simply uses Dou Qi to generate suction and has no elemental requirements. But Shadow Blood Flash doesn't mention any Dou Qi attribute requirements either. Could it also be an attribute-less movement combat technique?" Ling Li looked hesitantly at the scroll made from special material. He deliberately took out the Mysterious Tier sword technique and compared them. The materials were indeed identical. It was probably something taken from those Ancient Ruins as well.

So... should he practice it?