Jerky

"An Eighth High School senior in the Martial Arts Department..."

"After escaping danger, he called the police as soon as he was sure he was safe..."

"Though he knew there were Ferocious Rats in the alley, he risked staying nearby and stopped two pedestrians from entering..."

Liang Wenbin looked up at Chen Mochuan. Approval softened his tense expression, and he gave Chen Mochuan a firm pat on the shoulder.

"Good lad. You kept your head in a crisis, showed courage and good judgment, and did an excellent job!"

He paused, seeming to feel that words of praise weren't enough. Then he reached into an inner pocket and pulled out something.

"Thanks to your alertness and sound judgment today, we avoided something much worse... Take this. It's a small token of my personal gratitude."

Chen Mochuan hadn't even reacted before a cool, solid object was pressed into his hand. He instinctively tried to refuse. "Captain Liang, this..."

But when he turned his head, Liang Wenbin had already vanished amid the flashing police lights.

Clenching the object in his hand, Chen Mochuan realized that Liang Wenbin had made up his mind. He could only put it away carefully.

Since Chen Mochuan was a busy senior in high school and had already given his statement, the police wouldn't need his help any further. An officer drove him back to the entrance of Star Lake Residential District.

Before Chen Mochuan got out, however, the officer made a point of reminding him not to tell anyone what had happened that night.

Chen Mochuan understood. If the public learned that a Ferocious Beast had escaped—and even if it was only the lowest-grade Ferocious Rat—it would cause unnecessary panic.

At half past eight the next morning, Chen Mochuan slowly woke up.

It was a day off. He hadn't gotten home until nearly midnight, and after intense training he'd faced a life-or-death crisis. His body was depleted and needed proper rest, so for once he'd slept in without setting an alarm.

Just as he was getting dressed to head to Mingxin Martial Arts Hall for training, he noticed something hard in his pocket. Only then did he remember that after coming home exhausted the previous night, he'd casually stuffed Liang Wenbin's gift into his pants pocket without taking a proper look at it.

Chen Mochuan pulled out the hard object. It was a cool-to-the-touch metal box about half the size of his palm.

Inside was a thin, reddish piece about three centimeters square.

"This is... jerky?"

Chen Mochuan had thought it might be a supplement, medicine, or some other kind of martial arts resource, but he hadn't expected a piece of jerky.

Still, this was a gift from a Martial Artist of the Inner Scene Realm. Even at worst, it couldn't be anything ordinary.

He focused on it and noticed a faint red sheen on the jerky's surface, so subtle he might have missed it if he hadn't looked closely.

"It's Ferocious Beast meat... and the quality is high!"

Chen Mochuan's heart stirred. As far as he knew, only the meat of third-tier or higher Ferocious Beasts contained enough Spirit Power to show this kind of faint glow.

An ordinary Ferocious Rat was a lowly beast that hadn't even reached the first tier, while the strength of a third-tier Ferocious Beast was already comparable to that of a Martial Artist in the Inner Scene Realm.

It was only a thin slice of jerky, but it was still an exceptionally rare treat for Chen Mochuan.

Ferocious Beast meat was incredibly expensive. Every New Year, his parents would finally splurge on a single piece of the cheapest, unranked kind to celebrate.

This tiny slice of high-tier Ferocious Beast jerky might be worth over ten thousand.

More importantly, meat of this quality was an excellent supplement.

Suppressing his excitement, Chen Mochuan decided not to go out after all. He returned to his bedroom and took the jerky out of its box.

A faint aroma drifted into his nose, lifting his spirits.

"In a novel, this would probably count as a heavenly treasure."

After examining the jerky carefully and finding nothing wrong with it, Chen Mochuan popped it straight into his mouth.

To his surprise, it wasn't dry or tough. It softened with just a little chewing and quickly went down.

Before long, he felt a warm current rising in his abdomen and slowly flowing through his limbs and bones.

As the warmth spread through his body, his Qi and blood began to churn. His temperature rose rapidly, his skin flushed slightly, and he felt unbearably hot all over.

"That might've been a bit too much nourishment..."

Chen Mochuan endured the discomfort, immediately settling into the sixteenth stance of the Root-Solidifying Stance and trying to calm the churning Qi and blood through Stance Training.

But he soon discovered that the impact of this tiny slice of jerky was even greater than that of the ten Blood Qi Supplements he'd taken when he awakened.

His current Great Completion-level Root-Solidifying Stance couldn't properly guide the Qi and blood.

Under the assault of his restless Qi and blood, Chen Mochuan felt his body swelling. It was a sign that the Qi and blood were beginning to stagnate.

The unrelenting surges of Qi and blood made him so uncomfortable that he almost lost his stance.

He'd never expected such a thin slice of Ferocious Beast jerky to put this much strain on him. Ultimately, his own strength was simply too low to digest the energy it contained.

But he knew all too well that if he lost his stance, his Qi and blood would go unguided, and things would only get worse. He forced himself to focus, steadied his lower body, and struggled to hold the Root-Solidifying Stance.

In that moment, he suddenly remembered the terrifying devouring power that had once emerged inside him on the night he awakened.

Perhaps the memory had stirred in his body. A thought surfaced in his mind with sudden clarity: Spirit Devourer was asking to be unleashed!

Because of the unpleasant experience of nearly being drained dry when he awakened, Chen Mochuan had always resisted using Spirit Devourer on himself, save for absorbing martial arts Spiritual Essence.

But now was precisely the moment for that terrifying devouring power to come into play.

Chen Mochuan stopped hesitating and immediately activated Spirit Devourer. The long-absent devouring force appeared within him once more.

Spirit Devourer didn't disappoint. Like an efficient furnace that refined energy from within, it began gradually devouring the Qi and blood that had started to stagnate. The swelling ache and burning sensation throughout his body slowly eased.

Fortunately, unlike when he'd awakened, perhaps because the Ferocious Beast jerky contained enough energy to satisfy Spirit Devourer's needs, the intense hunger born of his survival instincts never appeared.

This was a relief to Chen Mochuan, and he was glad to see it.

As Spirit Devourer continued to work, related information appeared on the golden screen.

[You devoted yourself wholeheartedly to cultivation and gained a deeper understanding of the Root-Solidifying Stance.]

[Root-Solidifying Stance: Great Completion (30%) → Great Completion (31%)]

...

[You activated Spirit Devourer and efficiently absorbed the energy in the Boiling Blood Beast Jerky. Your Qi and blood were stimulated, and your physical attributes improved.]

[Blood-Qi Value: 3.71 → 3.72]

[Blood-Qi Value: 3.72 → 3.73]

...

Watching the information about his Stance Training and Blood-Qi Value continually refresh on the screen, Chen Mochuan also noticed that it mentioned a Boiling Blood Beast. He knew then that his guess had been right: the jerky really had come from a third-tier Ferocious Beast.