That afternoon, beneath a blazing sun, Li Chen rode his Mechanism Beast, Fang Tiger, along the road back to the Commandery Seat.
Behind him lay the Yellow Azure Beast's corpse on the auxiliary saddle. He had drained all its blood to make it easier to transport, but it had still stained the saddle's surface.
Once he got back, he would probably have to spend some extra effort scrubbing it clean.
Li Chen pondered as he controlled the Mechanism Beast beneath him, letting it race along.
Although plants flourished in places where the wilderness was rich in spiritual energy, and all sorts of wild beasts, demons, and spirits multiplied rapidly, the hunting near the city still wasn't good enough.
After spending most of a day-practically a whole day-hunting this Yellow Azure Beast, I'll probably only get twenty or thirty Talisman Coins for it.
Now I finally understand what Artisan Zhao meant when he always said life was hard for Rogue Cultivators. My father in this life only opened a repair shop and made a living from his craft because he had no other choice.
Considering his own situation, Li Chen realized that if he wanted to truly enter the trade as a Demon Hunter, he would have to set his sights on powerful demons and spirits. Hunting ordinary wild beasts could only keep him fed; there was no future in it.
If I spend every day hunting this sort of prey near the Imperial Road, I might as well stay in the city and live by my craft, like Master Hong the Butcher.
But a craft alone isn't enough, either. Every trade has competition. For an outsider Rogue Cultivator to gain a foothold, he needs a specialty, something like a Secret Art.
Actually, if I could master Shape-Stealing Skin-Painting, I could make a living with it, and even live fairly well.
But if I kept that up year after year, my fighting skills would decline. In the future, I really would be nothing but a cultivator suited to peaceful times, relying on others to protect me.
If the Eastern Victory Continent were peaceful, that sort of life would be comfortable enough. Unfortunately... this world is anything but peaceful!
Li Chen had a clear understanding of his prospects and ways of making a living. Although hunting the Yellow Azure Beast today had given him a good start, that did not mean this path would be smooth.
Sure enough, over the next few days, Li Chen hunted three Roe Deer and a dozen or so wild rabbits in the woods near the Imperial Road outside the city.
A few Talisman Coins here, a dozen there-even added together, these scraps of income barely kept him fed.
Mechanism Puppets needed power, after all. Traveling back and forth consumed Spirit Stones and all sorts of supplies. If he suffered an unexpected injury or lost a Mechanism Puppet, more than half a year's savings, or even an entire year's, could vanish into thin air.
At the end of March, however, he unexpectedly hunted a huge wild boar on the verge of becoming a spirit, weighing a full eight hundred jin.
That single catch sold for over two hundred Talisman Coins, more than all his previous catches combined.
On the first day of April, Li Chen visited the Money House the Creation Sect had established in the Commandery Seat again, preparing to collect his Craftsman's stipend.
It was an allowance of three hundred Talisman Coins, enough to help cover some of his food and lodging expenses.
But prices for everything in the Commandery Seat were soaring, and relying on that alone would not do much good.
Besides, this Craftsman's stipend could be cut off at any time. If, for instance, the three-year term ended without him making any further contributions, the sect would not keep supporting a wilderness Rogue Cultivator for nothing.
"Exchange all of this money for Spirit Stones, please!" After a moment's thought in the Money House's main hall, Li Chen spoke to the young female clerk seated behind the counter.
The clerk had no reservations and immediately counted out three square blocks of Spirit Stone crystal for Li Chen, made up of exactly three hundred small pieces stacked together.
These were mineral crystals containing the spiritual energy of heaven and earth. The Creation Sect used them as the standard backing for its Talisman Coins, opening Money Houses across the land where deposits and withdrawals could be made at any branch without any fees. Of course, no interest was paid, either.
The total amount of spiritual energy within Spirit Stones sometimes varied, just as gold and silver differed in purity. Only long-term storage in a Money House vault could resolve the problem of energy dissipating, so they were not commonly used directly in trade.
But they were essential for charging Mechanism Puppets or running spell formations. Talisman Coins could not replace them in those uses.
After returning, Li Chen took out his Mechanism Puppets in his room and began replenishing their spirit essence one by one.
Using the Mechanism-Performance Method, he opened the abdominal chambers of his puppets in turn, located the energy storage compartments near their Spirit Essence Furnaces, and loaded the Spirit Stones inside with a faintly pained expression.
Before long, the three hundred Spirit Stones had turned into dregs, leaving the Furnaces' energy storage compartments full.
"You certainly have healthy appetites. You eat far more than I do." Li Chen examined the Spirit Stone residue he had cleaned out. No spiritual energy remained, indicating that the Furnaces were well maintained and in good condition. He could not help tapping the Armored Warrior Puppet on the head, his face full of helplessness.
After his sighs of lament, Li Chen began considering how to make a living. He needed to adapt to life in the wild as quickly as possible and dare to venture deep into the old forests to hunt demonic beasts. Only then could he earn more money and acquire the resources needed to advance his cultivation.
Just then, a commotion suddenly rose from the main hall downstairs. Li Chen put away his Mechanism Puppets, secured the windows and door, and stepped outside, only to freeze for a moment.
From where he stood, he could see the hall below. Three injured people were helping one another sit down beside a table, while their Mechanism Beast mounts walked alongside them, carrying a corpse!
Li Chen took a closer look and discovered that the three injured people were actually Huang Yuan'an and members of his team.
What happened to them? After so many days away, only these few came back alive?
The onlookers were clearly very curious about their ordeal as well. Someone brought a bowl of wine to Old Lou, whose injuries seemed somewhat lighter, and asked, "Brother, what happened to you?"
"We... we ran into a tiger demon!" Old Lou's face was deathly pale, and even the hand holding his bowl trembled, as though he were still trapped in the nightmare of a few days earlier.
Another member of the team, surnamed Hou and known as Old Hou, had lost an arm. He looked even worse than Old Lou and answered for him. "We went demon hunting in the deep mountains north of the city these past few days and found a pure-white Fox Spirit."
"It's our own fault for letting greed bewitch us. That beast actually tricked us! It led us into the old forest, where we wandered around for days without finding the way back. Instead, we got farther and farther in and blundered into the territory of a Hanging-Eyed White-Forehead Tiger."
"That thing must have been a top-tier demonic beast with extraordinary natural gifts. It had even cultivated copper skin and iron bones, and it was terrifyingly powerful. There were seven or eight other full-grown tigers just like it following it, and they weren't weak, either!"
As Old Hou spoke, Huang Yuan'an's face was filled with pain, and his body trembled faintly. Everyone could clearly see several long claw marks across his shoulder that had nearly torn his upper body open. Through the rents in his ragged outer clothing, they could see the gauze wrapped underneath. A heavy odor of medicinal herbs wafted out, mingled with the stink of sweat that had gone unwashed for days.
The corpse carried by the Mechanism Beast also bore claw and fang marks. More than half its chest had even been caved in by a tiger's paw, leaving it in an utterly gruesome state.