Crow Brother

The moon was dark, the wind was high, and the village lay silent.

Zhang Yuan climbed out of bed again, quietly left his room, and went into the little courtyard outside.

He drew a deep breath and activated the Divine Nest host, the Black Giant Ant.

Fourfold power enhancement!

Riiip!

In the next instant, the coarse cloth clothes Zhang Yuan wore were forcibly torn apart by his suddenly swelling muscles.

His body shot upward, and all two hundred and six of his bones rang out in unison.

Zhang Yuan's expression changed drastically.

His entire body was like a shrimp thrown into boiling water. His skin turned scorching hot and crimson, while the blood and qi within him ran wild.

The feeling was utterly awful. Zhang Yuan's Five Viscera and Six Bowels seemed to be burning, and every bone in his body groaned beneath an unbearable burden. The situation had completely spun out of control.

Pfft!

He opened his mouth and sprayed out a cloud of blood mist.

At the same time, Zhang Yuan forcibly terminated the enhancement of the Black Giant Ant Power!

"Cough, cough!"

He involuntarily dropped to one knee, coughed up two more mouthfuls of bloody phlegm, and sweated from head to toe as though drenched in slurry.

The sweat was mixed with blood!

Only after a while did Zhang Yuan slowly catch his breath.

The facts proved that with his current physique, he simply could not withstand the enhancement and eruption of fourfold strength.

If he had not noticed something was wrong and stopped in time, he might even have exploded and died.

Playing himself to death would have been the joke of the century!

This painful lesson once again reminded Zhang Yuan that reality was different from a game. He could not forcibly apply the gaming experience from his previous life to his current circumstances, or he would truly suffer a crushing loss.

Zhang Yuan opened the Divine Nest Panel and took a look.

He discovered that his vitality value had actually dropped to a single digit.

Only 5 points remained!

That startled him into breaking out in a cold sweat again.

"Yuan Baby?"

Zhang's Mother's startled, doubtful voice came from the thatched cottage. "Is that you outside?"

Clearly, the noise Zhang Yuan had made had awakened her.

Zhang Yuan hurriedly replied, "It's me. Nothing happened. Go back to sleep."

Zhang's Mother did not suspect anything.

After his mother had fallen asleep again, Zhang Yuan quietly took off his ruined clothes and briefly washed himself with cold water.

Then he returned to his room to rest.

Because his body had been depleted rather severely, he recuperated at home for two days.

Only after his vitality value had fully recovered did he go out again.

Although he had brought this bloody loss upon himself, Zhang Yuan had also gained quite a few important lessons from it.

First, the enhancement power of a Divine Nest host was limited by one's own condition.

He could withstand an eruption of double strength.

But fourfold strength was completely impossible.

Second, one's vitality value absolutely had to remain above 10 points.

Once it dropped to a single digit, the recovery time would be greatly prolonged!

Fortunately, this failure had not damaged his foundation. Two days later, Zhang Yuan was still brimming with life and vigor.

Early in the morning, he slung his bow over his back, carried his Firewood Knife, and headed for Thousand Peak Mountain once more.

At the Mountain Path Entrance, Zhang Yuan ran into two villagers entering the mountain together to gather herbs.

One of them called out, "Yuan Baby, going hunting again?"

"Yes."

Zhang Yuan gave a bitter smile. "If I don't bring back some game soon, the pot at home won't even have anything left to cook."

The villager sighed. "No one has it easy."

Although strange incidents had caused two people to die miserable deaths, the villagers of Chen Family Village were afraid, but they would not stop their hard labor because of it and hide at home behind locked doors.

Otherwise, their whole families, young and old, would truly starve to death!

The village had not been peaceful these past few days either.

It was said that Chen Deping, Chen Yuanwai, was still over in the County Town, though his family had already moved into the Chen Family Ancestral Residence.

The Weasel-faced Advisor continued to swagger through the village with the household servants, forcing several villagers who could not pay their Corvée Silver to sell off their fields as payment.

Next, the Chen Family planned to extensively renovate their ancestral hall.

If things continued like this, it probably would not be long before everyone in Chen Family Village became Chen Yuanwai's tenant farmers, or even his servants and slaves.

But what could they do?

Earlier, a Chen Family Guard and an idle thug had died, and who knew how many people had secretly applauded.

But how much of Chen Yuanwai's hide could that possibly scratch?

Faced with the Chen Family's force and power, everyone dared to be angry but did not dare to speak.

The villager kindly reminded him, "Be careful when you enter the mountain. Don't go too far."

"Got it. You be careful too."

After bidding farewell to the two villagers, Zhang Yuan quickened his pace.

He traveled up the mountain and into the woods, following the familiar route until he reached the little stream.

Just as Zhang Yuan was about to call for the Crow Spirit, he heard the fluttering rush of wings cutting through the air.

The black Crow Spirit appeared on a tree branch.

It looked at him with indifferent eyes.

Yet for some reason, Zhang Yuan actually sensed a trace of displeasure in its gaze.

He quickly bowed. "Many thanks to Crow Brother for saving my life."

Naturally, Zhang Yuan was referring to how the Crow Spirit's Guiding Black Feather had startled Chen San at the Mountain Path Entrance a few days earlier.

In that situation, without the warning from that black feather, he might truly have fallen into Chen San's trap.

And even if he had fought Chen San to the death, he might not have been able to defeat Sun Bodyguard, who had been waiting to play the oriole behind them!

Therefore, Zhang Yuan's gratitude toward this Crow Spirit came from the bottom of his heart.

The Crow Spirit nodded without speaking, spread its wings, and flew toward the right.

Zhang Yuan immediately understood and followed close behind.

After passing through the forest maze once more, he arrived before the little valley again.

At a glance, Zhang Yuan spotted a large Wild Boar, along with several piglets following it around as they foraged!

Holy shit!

Zhang Yuan seriously suspected that this little valley was the Crow Spirit's pig farm.

And this large Wild Boar was a sow.

It had once lived a paradise-like life with the Male Wild Boar, but now it had become a widow pig.

After losing its mate, this sow had not taken the piglets and fled far away. It had actually remained here, living leisurely as before. That was truly surprising.

Zhang Yuan did not care about any of that. Gripping his Firewood Knife, he charged straight at it.

This time, Zhang Yuan also activated the Black Giant Ant, but only enhanced himself with double strength.

As the host of the Divine Nest, he naturally possessed absolute control over his host organism.

There was no suspense and no accident. After a brief struggle, Zhang Yuan hacked down the sow.

The sow was smaller and weaker than the Male Wild Boar.

So even without the Crow Spirit joining the fight, he claimed a complete victory.

As for the piglets, Zhang Yuan chose to spare them.

As the saying went, hunting them all would leave none behind. A hunter's rule was not to kill young animals or pregnant beasts.

Only then could there be an unending supply of prey to hunt.

After killing the sow, Zhang Yuan followed his usual practice and cut open its belly with the Firewood Knife, digging out all the organs inside.

He cupped his fists toward the Crow Spirit watching from a nearby tree. "Crow Brother, today, the intestines and meat are all yours!"

The Crow Spirit responded with a disdainful look. "You eat the meat; I eat the intestines!"

Clearly, it only liked eating organs and looked down on Wild Boar meat.

Fine, then...

Zhang Yuan did not force the matter. He then probed, "Crow Brother, it's still early. Can I look around nearby?"

A level 1 Divine Nest had three nest chambers, but currently, it housed only one type of host organism.

Two remained empty.

So Zhang Yuan wanted to search around and see if he could find a second genetic entity that could be housed.

For safety's sake, his range of activity in the mountain had previously been very limited.

Thus, he had never encountered the specific life form needed to activate the Divine Nest.

Now that Zhang Yuan understood where the problem lay, he naturally had to seize every possible opportunity!

The Crow Spirit flew down onto the Wild Boar's organs and waved its wings.

A black feather shot toward Zhang Yuan.