"Ha!"
Accompanied by a low shout from Xie Wen as he gripped Fresh Knife: White Calm, his skin quickly flushed with a faint red hue. At the same time, the blood vessels on his forehead, the backs of his hands, and several other areas bulged.
After maintaining this state for ten-odd seconds, the red on Xie Wen's body rapidly faded, and the bulging blood vessels settled back down.
Hoo... This body of mine is still too young. Demon Mode can't last for any real length of time, let alone right now when I just had Demon Mode active without making any movements. If I were actually to fight, guessing around five seconds would probably be my limit.
Xie Wen exhaled a long breath of white vapor and shook his head somewhat helplessly.
Although under the state of Demon Mode, Xie Wen could output in five seconds what normally took over ten seconds to dish out in his regular state, his primary problem right now was finishing exploring the entire island as soon as possible, rather than subjugating some monster.
He and Sanji Meow had already lived on this island for a little over a month, and their map exploration rate had merely managed to reach a paltry 7%.
The main reason the exploration rate was so low was that the areas Sanji Meow explored alone did not count toward the map in the Hunter's Notes.
In fact, Sanji Meow had already mastered at least a third of the conditions on this island, but among those were many areas that were the turf of certain beasts or even packs of beasts. For a stealthy Palico passing through, it was not much of an issue, but adding Xie Wen to the mix made things hard to say.
If Xie Wen wanted to finish charting this island as soon as possible, he needed to raise his own strength to the level where he could retreat unscathed from the few most formidable fellows on the island.
Therefore, for over a month now, Xie Wen basically operated near the cave where they lived, spending most of his time exercising his body and training combat techniques. Matters like gathering ingredients were entirely handled by Sanji Meow.
To put it simply, Xie Wen was currently being supported by a cat.
However, there was nothing bad about being supported by a cat. Xie Wen shook his head to cast away stray thoughts and began a new round of exercise.
He had actually mastered pure Long Sword techniques more or less. After all, without actual combat training, sword forms and moves could only be practiced so much; just consolidating them daily was enough. Nowadays, Xie Wen's training focus remained on improving his physical fitness and applying the techniques of other weapons to the Long Sword.
Thanks to the Cat Cuisine prepared by Sanji Meow providing logistical support, Xie Wen did not need to consider physical exhaustion during his workouts. Coupled with the fact that he had collected quite a few fitness videos before transmigrating—remembering at least a bit of those scientific fitness methods—Xie Wen's training efficiency over the past month had actually been quite high.
To be honest, Xie Wen never expected that he, a shut-in who had long been used to laziness, could quickly adapt to this boring exercise. He should have known that back then, even though he collected a huge pile of fitness videos, he basically only persisted for two or three days before giving up, and those videos ultimately just sat in his favorites folder gathering dust.
As for why Xie Wen was now able to enter the state so quickly, aside from a lack of security, it was mostly because...
This crappy place had no internet, no electricity, and no mobile phones. Aside from exercising hard and petting cats, he seemingly had no other forms of recreational activity.
Sure enough, people are driven by necessity.
"Xie Wen, look quick meow! I found a new ingredient again meow!"
Just as Xie Wen was performing who knows what set of burpees for the day, Sanji Meow, who had been out hunting, ran back excitedly while hoisting a beast at least half a size larger than himself.
"Sorry for the trouble."
Xie Wen stopped his workout, stepped forward to stroke Sanji Meow's little head, and then scratched his chin. Only after waiting for him to emit a satisfied purr did he turn his gaze to the "ingredient" brought back by Sanji Meow.
Next, he pulled that "high-tech" Hunter's Notes out of his waist pouch and flipped to the page right after the weapon interface.
At this moment, this page had already been unlocked, and the very top of the page plainly marked the characters "Small Monster Guide".
Xie Wen was not entirely clear on when exactly this page had unlocked. It was when he wanted to rest for a bit after some training one day and casually took out the Hunter's Notes to pass the time that he suddenly discovered this page had been unlocked, with detailed information on two "ingredients" appearing on it.
After several rounds of testing, Xie Wen discovered that he needed to see the other party's complete appearance and have had direct contact with them for their data to automatically generate in the Small Monster Guide. It not only featured colored illustrations of the corresponding animals but also simple descriptions, basically similar to the Hunter's Notes in Monster Hunter Rise.
So presumably, the unlock method for the Large Monster Guide should be the same.
Of course, there were also aspects here different from the game.
Some animals that Xie Wen had never seen before required him to name them himself, and a prompt of (tentative name) would automatically be added after the guide entry...
Most likely, once he found a village in the future or encountered other knowledgeable hunters, he could update it to the official name.
Thus, Xie Wen's naming was quite casual, such as "black-backed white-bellied pig-nosed wolf".
As for the beast Sanji Meow brought back this time, overall it looked somewhat like a wild boar, but it had a head resembling a mouse, yet possessed a wild boar's tusks. Furthermore, its pair of front limbs were not hooves, but long and sharp claws like a mole's, and its hind legs were not pointed like a pig's trotters, but resembled the appearance of horse hooves or ox hooves.
After casually giving it the name "Mole Boar", Xie Wen rubbed his chin and fell into deep contemplation.
Actually, he had already had some doubts previously. Among the animals Sanji Meow brought back, weird creatures like the Mole Boar would occasionally appear.
Although bizarre creatures in the game Monster Hunter were not few, the appearances and ecologies of those creatures followed a traceable logic, designed step-by-step after the game company consulted professional biologists based on a constructed ecological environment.
To put it simply, the creatures in Monster Hunter made scientific sense-or at least, they appeared to make scientific sense.
Yet certain creatures on this island completely ignored this kind of rigor, as if they were thrown together out of a bunch of animal assets at random by a designer who had been drinking.
To put it in a relatively easy-to-understand way... the artistic style of these creatures was just not quite right.
So... is it possible that I haven't transmigrated into the world of Monster Hunter, but rather some other unknown different world?
Or did Monster Hunter release a new sequel later on, and it completely tanked?
However, even in that world without any special powers before his transmigration, there were plenty of bizarre-looking creatures, so having creatures like this in the real world of Monster Hunter: World was perhaps normal?
Without many clues, Xie Wen thought for a moment and still decided to ask Sanji Meow. After all, from a certain perspective, he was the "native resident".
"Sanji, have you ever heard of a creature like this before?" Xie Wen asked, pointing at the Mole Boar.
"No meow," Sanji Meow shook his head, then put his hands on his hips and said with a proud expression, "But don't you worry. As a chef, I can tell what meow can be eaten and what meow cannot be eaten. I definitely won't let you eat something that ruins your stomach meow."
"That's not what I mean." Xie Wen gave a wry laugh, waved his hand, and then shared his conjecture with Sanji Meow.
"...You mean we might have drifted to some other continent meow?" After being stunned for quite a while, Sanji Meow asked back somewhat panicky.
"Pretty much, yeah."
Sanji Meow seemed to have a bit of trouble understanding the concept of a different world. After thinking about it, Xie Wen did not explain further, instead answering along the lines of what the cat said.
"I don't want that meow!"
However, to Xie Wen's surprise, upon hearing his answer, Sanji Meow immediately flopped onto the ground and started throwing a tantrum.
"Granny Cat said some continents don't have Palicos at all! Doesn't that mean I won't get to see pretty Palico big-sister cats in the future meow?! I refuse meow!!!"
Xie Wen: "..."
Is that really the main point?!
Before you continue