Preparing to Enter the City

As the morning sunlight spilled down at dawn, a new day arrived once more.

At this time in the past, Chen Xuan would have been preparing to head into the mountains to hunt, striving to free up more time for skin tempering in the afternoon and evening. But early this morning, he did not immediately head up the mountain.

Instead, he made preparations.

His skin tempering had ended. He no longer needed to continue tempering his skin in the afternoons and evenings, which was enough to greatly increase the time he could spend hunting.

With more time to hunt, Chen Xuan naturally had greater expectations.

Especially since he intended to enter the city as soon as possible, he naturally wanted to obtain more prey.

Fortunately, now that his skin tempering was complete, the paths revealed by his Conceptual Ability had undoubtedly increased as well.

Objective: Hunt in the mountains today, obtain enough prey, and return safely (pending confirmation)

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Path One: Head to the back mountain. Five hundred meters to the left of the Old Locust Tree, there is a flock of Mountain Chickens. Arriving in one hour will be enough to hunt the Mountain Chickens. One thousand meters to their right is a stream. In two hours, sika deer will drink from it. Then descend the mountain quickly within half an hour.

Path Two: Ascend from the left side of the back mountain and proceed straight for two thousand meters. In two hours, a herd of Wild Boars will pass by. You must leave after fifteen minutes and return by the original route.

Path Three: Ascend from the left side of the back mountain and proceed straight for five hundred meters, then advance toward the front right. There is a cliff face, with Mountain Goats above it. Complete the hunt within one hour, quickly move away from the right side, then turn left and travel three thousand meters until reaching Big Poplar Tree, then descend the mountain quickly.

Path Four: The location of the large boulder.

New words appeared. Compared with before, not only had the paths offered by his Conceptual Ability increased, but the prey had grown far more substantial as well.

It was also clear that with his skin tempering complete, the range of prey he could hunt was expanding.

Take wild boars, for example. Before completing skin tempering, his chances of hunting one were slim. Even if he succeeded, there was no way he could safely bring back a wild boar weighing several hundred jin, so they had never appeared among the paths. But now that his skin tempering was complete, all of it had become possible, and the path naturally revealed itself.

It was precisely because there were so many more paths that Chen Xuan spent quite some time preparing.

An hour passed before Chen Xuan finished preparing his supplies and set out once more.

This time, he did not choose to go to the Old Locust Tree. Though the Mountain Chickens there seemed to have recovered, and there was even a sika deer.

It was obvious, however, that neither Mountain Chickens nor sika deer were worth as much as Wild Boars.

If he could hunt an adult wild boar, he could go to Chen San Ye's home at the village entrance and exchange it for two taels of silver.

That was a considerable income.

If he hunted a few more Wild Boars, Chen Xuan could gather enough money to settle down in Green Mountain City.

With such value before him, he naturally ruled out every other option and fixed his gaze entirely on the Wild Boars.

Of course, hunting Wild Boars also carried immense danger.

Wild boars were massive wild animals, averaging around 150 kilograms. In areas without natural predators, they often weighed over 200 kilograms, and some regions even had wild boar kings weighing 400 kilograms. At that weight, they could rival large felines, with some even exceeding them. Precisely because of their huge size, wild boars had only two natural enemies: massive tigers and pack-dwelling Gray Wolves. Other animals found it difficult to threaten them.

Wild boars in this world were undoubtedly even larger. Chen Xuan knew that the wild boar at Zhang Shan's home weighed over 200 kilograms, nearly 300. An ordinary hunter would find it almost impossible to kill such an enormous wild boar.

Even Zhang Shan had not hunted that one himself. He had found it.

In his memories, it seemed that no one in the village had been heard of hunting a wild boar for a very long time.

Even the one hunt he remembered had taken place three years ago, when Zhang Shan and seven or eight hunters from the village had hunted one together. It was then that Chen Xuan learned he could trade a wild boar to Chen San Ye for two taels of silver.

Two taels of silver—those were two taels of silver.

Even two hundred Mountain Chickens could not be exchanged for two taels of silver.

Sika deer were somewhat more valuable, but this was not his previous life. By Chen Xuan's estimate, one was worth only around two hundred copper coins, nowhere near comparable to a wild boar.

He shook his head.

Pulling his thoughts back from his memories, Chen Xuan slung the bow and arrow over his back, took hemp rope and a simply made cart, then slowly headed toward the mountain.

The post-autumn sun was still somewhat dazzling, but it no longer carried its usual scorching heat.

The villagers were still busy with the autumn harvest, while Chen Xuan's figure entered the forest.

Following the path shown by his Conceptual Ability, he slowly advanced toward his target.

"Go up from the left side of the back mountain and proceed straight for two thousand meters!"

He murmured softly as he carefully counted his steps.

He had no measuring tools, so he naturally could not judge two thousand meters exactly. But based on his stride, two thousand meters was probably about three thousand steps. As long as he counted to three thousand, it should be close enough. This was experience he had accumulated through his hunting over the past several days.

He had already reduced the margin of error to a minimum.

Three thousand steps was not particularly far. After roughly two hours, Chen Xuan finally reached his destination.

The instant he arrived, he saw a massive black figure not far ahead rooting through the ground. Terrifying tusks gleamed with a cold light beneath the sun, and beyond that enormous dark shape were more dark figures.

Seeing those shadows, Chen Xuan could not help holding his breath, his heart tightening at once.

Even by his initial estimate, these Wild Boars weighed well over two hundred jin, perhaps even reaching three hundred.

Hunting such enormous Wild Boars would undoubtedly be extremely difficult.

His gaze could not help shifting to the longbow in his hand.

Only then did he relax slightly. This time, to hunt Wild Boars, he had brought a more powerful longbow, one he had spent several months making.

Compared with his previous bow and arrow, this one had a longer range and greater force. The arrows were no longer sharpened and charred wooden sticks either. Instead, each had a piece of bone tied to it, ground from mountain goat skulls. Their hardness was no less than steel, making them the killing weapon he had prepared for this hunt.

After all, considering how thick a wild boar's hide was, without sufficient penetrating power, he might not even be able to inflict a fatal wound.

As for iron arrows, he simply did not have the means. The entire Small River Village could not scrape together more than a few iron arrows.

He shook his head and began making preparations.