The clerk bent down and took an exquisite wooden box from a drawer beneath the counter. He opened it with a click and set it on the counter, then turned it around to show Lu Yu the dark yellow Whale Rubber inside.
"Little friend, this is a piece of hundred-year Whale Rubber. Sixty Gold Soul Coins." The clerk held out one hand as he quoted the price to Lu Yu.
Looking at the Whale Rubber, which had already turned black in places, Lu Yu couldn't help frowning. He silently weighed whether to buy it.
"It's already turned black. Can you make it a little cheaper?" Lu Yu shook his head and looked at the clerk, plainly torn.
"Little friend, go ask around. There aren't many places in Nuoding City where you can buy Whale Rubber. Miss this village, and you won't find another shop."
As the clerk spoke, he made to put the Whale Rubber away.
It was only sixty Gold Soul Coins, after all. Lu Yu thought for just two seconds before deciding to buy it. The clerk was right: only nobles could afford this stuff, and Nuoding City was so small that other medical shops might not have any if he left.
Lu Yu pretended to hesitate, then spoke through gritted teeth. "Fifty Gold Soul Coins. If not, I'll..."
Before Lu Yu could finish, the clerk promptly pushed the wooden box containing the Whale Rubber in front of him and spoke.
"Sold!"
Lu Yu froze and blinked. Damn it! What a rip-off! he cursed inwardly, reluctantly taking fifty Gold Soul Coins from his person and placing them on the counter.
As the clerk collected the money, he said to Lu Yu with a cheerful smile, "Take care, honored customer. Come again!"
Lu Yu snorted, shot the clerk a sidelong glance, and turned to leave with the Whale Rubber.
More than twenty minutes later, Lu Yu arrived outside a secluded little courtyard. It was a house he had rented in secret; neither Su Yuntao nor Lu Fei knew about it.
But Lu Yu still lived at Su Yuntao's home most of the time. He had rented this place to make things more convenient for himself in the future.
Take the Whale Rubber, for example. If he consumed it at Su Yuntao's home and someone happened to catch him, it would be troublesome to explain.
Besides, all three of them were weaklings right now. With something like Whale Rubber, the fewer people who knew about it, the lower the risk of it being exposed. Lu Yu would only tell the other two about it once he had enough strength to protect himself.
Lu Yu entered the courtyard, where he had set up a stove long ago specifically to heat Whale Rubber for an occasion like this. He washed the Whale Rubber first, but it remained the same dark yellow, without changing in the slightest.
Lu Yu curled his lip. So what if it looked a little worse? Having some was better than having none.
He put the Whale Rubber in an iron bowl, lit the stove, and placed the bowl directly inside. Before long, spots of red appeared on the bottom of the bowl.
Lu Yu paid it no more attention and turned to the tub on the other side. He had prepared that in advance too. In the fanfiction he had read in his previous life, the seniors had all suffered excruciating pain when taking Whale Rubber. Lu Yu didn't want to go through that.
By the time he had filled the wooden tub with water, the Whale Rubber had melted. A strong fishy stench drifted into Lu Yu's nose, making him frown again.
"Seriously, how did the other transmigrators manage to eat this stuff? Urgh..." Lu Yu looked at the Whale Rubber in the bowl with disgust written all over his face.
The melted Whale Rubber was no longer dark yellow as it had been before, but a pale yellow, viscous liquid.
Lu Yu stripped and sat straight down in the tub. Gritting his teeth and pinching his nose, he poured the Whale Rubber into his mouth.
"Urgh..."
"Urgh..."
Lu Yu covered his mouth with both hands and retched twice more, gritting his teeth to keep from throwing up. His eyes reddened, and tears slipped from their corners. He finally managed to swallow it, but the fishy taste lingering in his mouth nearly made him vomit again.
Lu Yu couldn't spare a thought for anything else. He plunged his head into the tub and began gulping down the water. That was right, Lu Yu was drinking his own bathwater. He didn't want to, but the taste was so overpowering that if he didn't get the fishiness out of his mouth, he was genuinely afraid he would throw up.
After four or five gulps of bathwater, the overwhelming urge to vomit finally subsided considerably. Lu Yu leaned against the edge of the wooden tub, gasping for breath.
"Damn it, no. Next time I eat Whale Rubber, I need to prepare some juice beforehand. This taste... urgh..."
Lu Yu retched again. Just then, a rush of scorching heat spread from his stomach throughout his body, finally seeping into all his limbs and bones.
Wisps of mist rose from the surface of the icy water, and Lu Yu's skin turned bright red. He looked just like a cooked shrimp.
"Damn, it works that fast?"
After that remark, Lu Yu didn't dare delay. He sat cross-legged and began circulating the Taiqing True Qi Manual.
Half an hour passed, and Lu Yu's skin returned to its normal color. Even the water in the tub had evaporated from the heat, its level dropping by a finger's width.
After gasping for breath, Lu Yu felt the inexhaustible strength in his body and the corners of his mouth rose. "Damn, I didn't suffer for nothing! It was worth it! Even my Soul Power went up a level. Maybe it'll rise another level in another ten days or so."
Lu Yu's Soul Power had risen to level twelve. Subtracting the ten levels Great Sage had taken away, Lu Yu himself was only at level two.
Lu Yu's chest, once so thin that his collarbones showed, was now much sturdier. At least his collarbones were no longer so prominent.
Climbing out of the wooden tub, Lu Yu casually threw a few punches, each one powerful. This wasn't an improvement brought about by Soul Power nourishing his body; it was genuine physical strength.
Compared with the improvement that came with Soul Power, Lu Yu preferred this feeling of pure physical strength.
After getting dressed, he noticed that his ankles were still exposed. He tugged at his tight clothes. "Huh? I grew taller from just one piece of Whale Rubber?"
"As expected of Douluo, this rate of growth makes no sense at all!"
Looking down at Great Sage, who was sleeping sprawled on the table, Lu Yu had an idea. Could he feed Great Sage Whale Rubber too? He could start by feeding him a little, and if Great Sage's physique improved too, he would keep feeding him.
After all, Great Sage was a condensed energy body made of Soul Power. Lu Yu didn't know whether this kind of physical enhancement would work on him.
"I still don't have enough money. I only have two hundred and seventy-two Gold Soul Coins left, enough for just four pieces of that inferior Whale Rubber."
Lu Yu gently patted Great Sage's little head to wake him, then went inside, picked up his equipment, and set off toward the Soul Hunting Forest.
Lu Yu's only source of funds now was the money he made by poaching and selling soul beasts.
Outside the Soul Hunting Forest's safety exit.
"Boss, Lu Yu's here!" A tall, thin man with a pointed face and monkey-like cheeks hurried back to the tea stall, bent down, and reported in a low voice beside Jin Erhu's ear.
"You sure?" Jin Erhu looked at the tall, thin man in front of him, suspicion on his face.
With the start of term at Nuoding Academy approaching, Lu Yu had spent the past two days wandering around with Lu Fei and hadn't entered the Soul Hunting Forest to hunt. That was why Jin Erhu doubted what the tall, thin man had said.
"Oh, boss, how would I dare lie to you? That golden-haired monkey is still perched on his shoulder." The tall, thin man slapped his thigh, looking frantic, afraid that a delayed report would bring punishment down on him.
"Damn it, that brat doesn't know the rules at all. He came to the Soul Hunting Forest to hunt and didn't even know to come pay his respects to us. Come on! Let's go teach him what the rules are."
Jin Erhu slapped the table hard and waved his big hand. Four underlings followed close behind him as he strode straight toward the Soul Hunting Forest.