"Xiao Tian, you mean there's meat in there like what you ate during the day?"
With their minds linked, Long Qianming very quickly understood what his Martial Soul was trying to convey.
Immediately afterward, Long Qianming gestured for him to lie down. Xiao Tian swiftly dropped to the ground, his beastly eyes still fixed intently ahead. The man and beast crouched cautiously in the grass, quietly waiting for the Shadow Tigers to come out to forage.
Long Qianming had once read about this kind of Soul Beast in the sect's encyclopedia of Soul Beasts. Under normal circumstances, Shadow Tigers lived in groups, with at least two females and one male in a cave.
Although Long Qianming was currently in an area for Soul Beasts under fifty years old, if three or even more Shadow Tigers attacked at once, they would still be somewhat difficult to handle with his current strength.
Thus, waiting and defeating them one by one was the best possible strategy.
After they had waited for nearly half an hour, two Shadow Tigers around 1.5 meters long and roughly equal in size ran out of the cave. Their ages were approximately thirty to forty years.
"Normally, male tigers are only responsible for protecting their territory and breeding offspring. They don't take the initiative to hunt prey. There's no need to look closely to know these two Shadow Tigers are females, and they should be heading out to hunt."
Long Qianming took the Dragon Whisker Needles out of the medicine pouch hanging at his waist, concealing a full eight needles between his fingers.
As the two Shadow Tigers ran forward and were about to pass the grass, Long Qianming gathered strength in both hands. The eight Dragon Whisker Needles between his fingers shot out swiftly toward the two Shadow Tigers.
By the time the two Shadow Tigers noticed something to their side and prepared to swing their claws to block it, it was already too late.
The eight Dragon Whisker Needles struck the two Shadow Tigers in succession, hitting their abdomens, hearts, and throats, while others pierced their eyes from the side and drove straight into their brains.
After entering their prey's bodies, the Dragon Whisker Needles swiftly curled up, churning their vital parts into whirlpools of minced flesh. Before the two thirty- to forty-year-old Shadow Tigers could let out a single roar, they died beneath the Dragon Whisker Needles. Not a drop of tiger blood flowed out of their bodies, and two white Soul Rings gradually formed.
At the sight, a smile that had long been absent spread across Long Qianming's face.
"Sure enough, heading out to hunt Soul Beasts is an extremely lucrative business. Just one dead forty-year-old Shadow Tiger in front of me is worth over a hundred Gold Soul Coins. Its flesh and blood can be eaten, its hide can be sold, and its fangs and some of its internal organs can even be used in medicine."
"Not to mention that there are two such Soul Beasts lying before him."
Since the Soul Beast corpses had not bled, and he had no Storage Soul Tool, he did not immediately begin cutting up and packing their meat.
The man and beast continued crouching where they were. Within two hours, a deep, powerful tiger's roar rang out from inside the cave. Then a male tiger considerably larger than the females slowly stepped out.
"Roar-"
A ground-shaking tiger's roar sent the Soul Beasts lingering nearby in search of food fleeing in all directions. The male Shadow Tiger, over fifty years old, stared intently ahead, letting out a beastly growl.
"Could this male tiger be so alert that he's discovered me hiding in the grass?"
Just as Long Qianming gripped his Dragon Whisker Needles tightly in both hands, ready to respond to the male Shadow Tiger's swift attack at any moment, the male tiger unexpectedly ran toward the dead females instead, sensing the breath of death emanating from them.
"Roar-"
The tiger's roar shook the mountain forest, its voice deafening. In the very next second, with a whoosh, a Dragon Whisker Needle shot straight into the male tiger's throat before he could defend himself.
A heart-piercing pain in his flesh sent the Shadow Tiger toppling to the ground, unable even to roar.
"Xiao Tian, go! Kill him for me."
The black Luo Sanpao immediately charged out of the grass toward the wounded Shadow Tiger, while Long Qianming leaped up and climbed a tree.
This served both to guard against subsequent attacks from male Shadow Tigers and more females, and to better train Xiao Tian's ability to attack.
After all, Xiao Tian was an External Beast Martial Soul. Without relying on Soul Ring skills, he needed a certain degree of attacking technique. Only then could he better bring his advantages into play.
The plump Xiao Tian stretched out his fleshy paws and swiped at the Shadow Tiger, whose injury continued to worsen. Unexpectedly, in the very next second, the Shadow Tiger darted aside, dodging the somewhat clumsy claw strike that offered little in the way of real damage.
The Shadow Tiger swung a front paw hard and slapped Xiao Tian flying. The black ball of flesh tumbled several times before finally coming to a stop more than twenty meters away.
"Not bad. Although Xiao Tian was sent flying with one blow, his plump body can absorb most of the impact. For his first fight against a Soul Beast, doing this well is already very good."
Long Qianming was not disappointed by Xiao Tian's failure. Instead, he continued having Xiao Tian harass the Shadow Tiger with attacks, correcting his methods of attack as he fought.
Even if Xiao Tian was beaten until he dissipated, as long as Long Qianming still had Soul Power and his body had not reached the limits of its endurance, he could keep summoning Xiao Tian to fight.
A man and a beast bullying a Soul Beast whose injury kept worsening-they truly had no shame at all!
After enduring three full minutes of harassing attacks, the Shadow Tiger could no longer withstand this cockroach-like tenacity in battle. His exhausted body collapsed to the ground, his eyes still glaring viciously at Long Qianming up in the tree.
At that moment, Long Qianming's body had reached its limit up in the tree, and he had very little Soul Power left. He withdrew Xiao Tian into his body.
"No matter how fast that Shadow Tiger is, he still falls short in the face of my Martial Soul's relentless harassment."
Enduring the internal injuries caused by the excessive strain of his Martial Soul's repeated dissipation and summoning, Long Qianming took three Dragon Whisker Needles from his waist and shot them toward the male Shadow Tiger.
Only after the Shadow Tiger's white Soul Ring appeared and Long Qianming had recovered some Soul Power through meditation did he climb down from the tree. With Xiao Tian clearing the way, he dragged the three Shadow Tiger corpses into the dim cave.
The cave was not large. Aside from some dry grass and beast bones, its interior held a small shaft leading to the mountaintop and a pool of flowing water that seeped up from the cave floor. Moonlight reflected in the pool, making for a magnificent sight.
"This cave is pretty good. It can serve as a temporary base for Soul Hunting and butchering Soul Beast meat from now on."
Long Qianming immediately placed coverings and a large quantity of beast-repelling powder at the cave entrance, then began dismantling the three Shadow Tiger corpses. He collected their blood and separated their flesh and bones in one smooth process.
He bundled up the unwanted parts and buried them deep in the ground, while the lingering smell of blood was masked with beast-repelling powder and some specially prepared medicinal powders.
Once all this was done, Long Qianming immediately began cultivating, while Xiao Tian stood guard nearby, eating the cut-up Shadow Tiger meat and keeping watch over everything happening outside.
As the sky gradually brightened, Long Qianming left the base carrying Soul Beast meat, beast horns, and other items on his back. The meat he could not take remained hidden deep in the soil. The man and beast thus set off on their return journey.