At noon, the sunlight blazed fiercely.
Beneath the dense forest canopy, trees pressed against one another, desperately racing upward as though determined to claim every ray of sunlight between heaven and earth.
A brawny youth dressed in animal skins crouched on a thick branch, watching a clump of bushes swaying faintly in the distance as he waited in tense concentration.
After a while, a large, thick-haired wild boar emerged from the bushes. Its long tusks gleamed silver as it slowly approached the tree where Chen Mu waited.
Chen Mu slowly adjusted his stance and raised the spear in his hand high above him, making not the slightest sound.
He was like a cheetah poised to strike, quietly waiting for its prey to come to him.
When the boar entered Chen Mu's attack range, he moved.
Drawn by gravity, the spear in Chen Mu's hand shot toward the boar like an arrow loosed from a bow. He followed close behind, leaping down from the tree.
Before the boar could react, the spear had already plunged into its back.
Blood sprayed everywhere, and it let out a roar of pain.
Then it saw Chen Mu leap down from the tree. Its eyes turned red in an instant, and it charged at him like a mad beast.
The boar's vitality was extremely tenacious. Though the spear had pierced halfway through its body, the wound was not fatal. Chen Mu did not confront it head-on, instead running around the tree to wear it down.
Sure enough, before long, the boar weakened, running slower and slower.
Chen Mu feared that the commotion would attract other vicious beasts. Seeing that the boar could no longer run, he turned and charged at it.
The boar was extremely cunning and had actually saved enough strength to counterattack. As soon as Chen Mu approached, it lunged fiercely at him with its tusks.
Chen Mu had long been on guard against that move. The runes on his straw sandals glowed faintly, and he leaped with all his might onto the boar's back, then stabbed its eyes several times with the short knife in his hand.
That counterattack had exhausted the last of the boar's strength. Its body swayed, and it finally collapsed helplessly to the ground.
The fight had seemed easy, but it had actually taken a tremendous mental toll on Chen Mu. Every step he had taken had been precisely calculated, which was how he had achieved such a good result.
The boar weighed over two hundred jin. With Chen Mu's strength, he normally could not have lifted it, but he was a Talisman Master and possessed methods ordinary people did not.
Chen Mu dipped his hand in a little of the boar's blood on the ground, then drew a rune directly on its back.
The Transport Talisman was a beginner-tier earth-element talisman art that could borrow the power of the earth element to transport objects.
After finishing the rune, Chen Mu grabbed the boar's hind leg with one hand and activated the rune with his Soul Power. Then he picked up speed and ran toward his lair as fast as he could.
Returning like this drew too much attention. Chen Mu even encountered a wild wolf along the way, though he ultimately drove it off.
Half a shichen later, Chen Mu finally returned to the front of the Heavenly God Cave.
At the entrance to the cave where Chen Mu lived, he had made a hoisting mechanism with vines, wood, and rollers. Only with it could he lift the boar into the cave, two meters above the ground.
When Duoduo saw the boar Chen Mu had dragged back, she hopped about with joy. They could have a change of flavor again. Though she could tolerate the rat meat, she had actually long since grown sick of eating it.
After the winter, Chen Mu and Chen Duo had both grown a year older, and after all the hardships they had endured, both had become much more mature.
It had been more than two months since Chen Mu broke through to become a One-Mark Talisman Master. He had learned many ways to use runes, and because his Life-Bound Talisman was the Five Elements Chaos Talisman, he was most skilled with runes related to the five elements.
Though Chen Mu's Life-Bound Talisman was unlikely to improve again for lack of resources, it was already a top-tier Life-Bound Talisman. Even without improving it, it was far stronger than an ordinary Talisman Master's. Thus, although he currently only had the cultivation of a One-Mark Talisman Master, his talisman arts were no weaker than those of an ordinary Two-Mark Talisman Master.
During his secluded cultivation in the cave, Chen Mu's Divine Soul had also progressed extremely quickly, since he had no distractions and plenty of food. He had already touched the barrier to becoming a Two-Mark Talisman Master and should be able to break through again before long.
Chen Mu had made the area around the cave as secure as a fortress, drawing runes everywhere. Unfortunately, his Talisman Master realm was not high enough to set up a talisman array. Otherwise, even if demonic beasts attacked, they would have nothing to fear.
For the past few days, Chen Mu had been researching how to make a "musket."
As the name suggested, the idea had come from memories of his previous life.
In fact, he had never studied how to make a musket in detail in his previous life. He only vaguely remembered that a primitive musket used burning gunpowder in a sealed tube to propel a steel projectile.
An ordinary person could never have made a musket on that basis alone, but Chen Mu had an advantage of his own: he was a Talisman Master.
Skilled in the Five Elements Talisman Arts, he could use metal- and earth-element talisman arts to extract metal, as well as wood-element talisman arts to alter the growth of a plant's internal structure. After more than half a month of experiments, he had finally achieved a little success.
In his hands was a long wooden weapon about two chi in length, with a smooth surface covered in engraved runes. It was the "musket" he had just made.
The musket was still crude, and Chen Mu felt that many of its details needed further refinement, but its power was already comparable to that of many powerful offensive runes.
Moreover, the musket did not need to be loaded with gunpowder. It only needed enough metal bullets in its magazine. It fired by using Soul Power to activate the fire-element runes inside. Although only Talisman Masters could use it, it was very convenient.
In fact, if he could find ore containing Spiritual Power and use it as a power source, the musket's power could be increased further, and even people without Soul Power could use it.
But Chen Mu clearly did not have the means to do that at present.
Chen Mu gripped the musket with both hands and fired at a large rock in front of him.
Boom! A tremendous blast rang out!
A bowl-sized hole was blasted into the rock, sending stone chips flying.
Chen Mu checked the gun in his hands. It had warmed slightly, but soon cooled down.
A satisfied smile appeared on his face. The gun could generally be fired once every second without issue. Many reinforcing runes were engraved on it, and it could even be used as a melee weapon.
Although Chen Mu had made it based on the concept of a musket, its operating principle was clearly completely different, so he gave it a more suitable name: the "Rune Gun."
With the Rune Gun, hunting would undoubtedly be much easier in the future. Even if he encountered a weaker demonic beast, he would have the strength to put up a fight.