Golden Treasure-Seeking Rat

Watching Uncle Wang and several villagers from the hunting team push their wheelbarrows away, slowly disappearing into the winding mountain path.

The morning mist had yet to fully disperse.

Before, Lin Fan had always entered the mountains with the hunting team. Now, he wanted to take a stroll through the mountains alone.

The villagers' hunting routes were more or less fixed. They would circle around the various traps set across each mountain.

They checked the prey caught in the traps and the trap mechanisms, then hunted small animals such as pheasants and rabbits along the way.

So Lin Fan was not worried about getting lost. Besides, he had nearly reached the Mid Skin Tempering Realm now, and both his speed and explosive power had improved somewhat compared to when he had first entered the Skin Tempering Realm.

Even if he encountered some large prey alone in the mountains, Lin Fan was confident that he could rely on his speed and familiarity with the terrain to escape the forest—or even kill the prey instead.

As he climbed the mountain alone, Lin Fan felt that the forest had become much quieter.

Without the crunching of countless feet trampling fallen leaves and dead branches, it felt as though he were taking a solitary stroll through the wilderness.

Standing halfway up the mountain and looking down at Small Mountain Village and the white clouds in the distance, Lin Fan thought of how, in his previous life, he had toiled like an ox and horse every day, shuttling between an office where day and night blurred together and his home. For the first time, he so vividly understood what magnificent rivers and mountains truly were.

This world seemed far larger than Blue Star in his previous life. As far as Lin Fan knew, the current country was called the Zhao Kingdom, because its imperial clan bore the surname Zhao.

The Zhao Kingdom had more than thirty prefectures. Each had populations ranging from several million to tens of millions. Some prefectures were dominated by mountains, while others were mostly plains.

The place where he currently lived was a rather remote prefecture. When the original owner had fled from the Capital City, he had first ridden on horseback with his younger sister for more than ten days, then hidden and dodged pursuit for another month before arriving here.

Nearly half a year had passed since they fled. Moreover, he was merely from a collateral branch and had only been implicated. The imperial court probably was no longer putting much effort into hunting him down.

According to the original owner's memories, there were dozens of countries like the Zhao Kingdom in this world, and some were even larger than the Zhao Kingdom.

If this world was also a planet, then it should be far larger than Blue Star.

Once one reached the three Inner Force Realms, one could be considered a first-rate expert in the Zhao Kingdom.

Beyond that were the legendary Innate Realm experts. It was said that the founding emperor of the Zhao Kingdom had been an Innate Realm expert, but that had been a thousand years ago.

In the thousand years since, the Zhao imperial family had never produced another Innate Realm expert.

Among the top martial arts factions in the Zhao Kingdom, it was said that even their sect masters were only in the Steel Force Realm.

"Squeak, squeak, squeak!"

As Lin Fan walked and pondered, the sounds of prey fighting reached his ears. He approached and looked over.

A wildcat was trying to catch a huge golden rat. Lin Fan hid behind a tree and watched.

The golden rat was estimated to be over twenty centimeters tall. He did not know what breed it was; it seemed to be a species unique to this world.

Lin Fan searched through all his memories. These Golden Rats in the forests seemed to have keen senses of smell, and some experienced hunters with sufficient skill would train them to search for medicinal herbs and the like.

Thinking of this, Lin Fan had not expected this trip up the mountain to bring such an unexpected harvest.

The wildcat's claws flashed, and several wounds had already appeared on the rat's body. Lin Fan did not dare delay. Gripping his spear tightly, he rushed out from behind the tree, stepped forward, and swung it at the wildcat.

The wildcat, which had been wholly focused on fighting and hunting the rat, was startled by Lin Fan's sudden appearance. It leaped back and howled at him several times.

When it saw that Lin Fan did not charge forward again, it turned and swiftly fled. After scaring the wildcat away, Lin Fan slowly lowered the spear in his hand.

The reason he had not thrust his spear down was that wildcats did not have much meat. Moreover, wildcats in this world were said to carry some poison, so the villagers never hunted them.

The Golden Rat stared blankly at Lin Fan and the wildcat that had fled from sight. It stood frozen in place, as though it had yet to recover from its terror.

Lin Fan took out the dry rations he carried with him, slowly crouched down, and placed them before the Golden Rat.

If he could tame this Golden Rat, he would have another way to earn silver in the future.

However, using a Golden Rat to search for things such as lingzhi and medicinal herbs required entering dense forests that no one had ever explored. Ordinary villagers were unwilling to venture deep into such untraveled mountains, where the dangers were far greater.

But with Lin Fan's Skin Tempering Realm cultivation—and with his imminent breakthrough into the Muscle Refinement Realm—he was not afraid of such dangers.

The Golden Rat twitched its nose, seeming to be confirming whether the rations before it were edible. After a long while, it slowly lay down, grabbed the rations Lin Fan had offered, and began to eat.

Seeing this, Lin Fan slowly stepped forward. Then he suddenly reached out and grabbed the rat.

Lin Fan did not yet know the Beast Taming Art, nor did he know how to communicate with the rat.

He should capture it first, bring it home, and raise it for a few days. Lin Fan picked up the rat. The frightened rat flailed nonstop in his hands, but it was utterly useless.

After a while, the Golden Rat realized that Lin Fan did not seem intent on hurting it further. Its struggles gradually weakened, and it allowed Lin Fan to hold it in both hands.

Lin Fan stroked the rat's fur.

Soft and fluffy—it felt rather nice.

If he trained it well with the Beast Taming Art, giving it to his younger sister Lin Ruoruo as a pet seemed like a good idea too.

He picked up his spear and slung it over his back. Supporting the Golden Rat with both hands, Lin Fan ran down the mountain.

This rat seemed to have a fairly good temperament. After struggling for a while, it settled down obediently, its eyes fixed on Lin Fan as though it possessed considerable intelligence.

He returned to his thatched hut.

It was Lin Ruoruo's first time seeing such a novel living creature. When she heard Lin Fan say he intended to raise it, she happily kept stroking the rat's head.

Seeing that the rat showed no aggression, Lin Fan marveled at how gentle it was. If he did not use it to seek treasure, keeping it simply as a pet would probably be nice as well.

The rat was quite large, and Lin Fan did not know how to keep it for the moment. In the end, he decided to dig a round pit in the ground, then firmly tamp down the soil to prevent the rat from burrowing out and escaping.

He covered it with a somewhat battered wooden board. The gap in the middle of the board was just right for the rat to breathe through.

The rat was quite large, like a two-month-old puppy. Lin Fan did not plan to go up the mountain again for the next few days.

When he cultivated at home during the day, he would let the rat out and watch his younger sister play with it. At night, when they slept, he would lock the rat inside the round pit he had dug.

Several days passed in the blink of an eye.

That day, while Lin Fan was cultivating, the creaking of wheelbarrows in the distance gradually grew clearer.

Lin Fan stopped cultivating and went to the village entrance to meet them.

Once the group arrived at the village, their wheelbarrows were piled high with packages of all sizes. Some contained silver, some held grain and millet, while others carried cloth and assorted goods.

"Lin Fan, these are the books on techniques you asked for. Check them. And here are the remaining thirty-two taels of silver."

Lin Fan accepted the silver and opened the several booklets.

The text and illustrations inside were lifelike. Although the writing differed from that of Blue Star in his previous life, Lin Fan had inherited the original owner's memories after all, so he had no trouble reading it.

"You had a hard journey, Uncle Wang. There's no problem with any of these technique books."

"That's good. We mountain folk don't really understand these techniques and martial arts manuals. Only people like you, with talent and good bones, can cultivate them."