Chapter Eleven: Kill and Eat the Meat

Returning home, Ji Xun finally let himself relax completely.

That serpent demon county lord possessed cultivation far superior to his own; it was fortunate he hadn’t been discovered. Otherwise, the recent incident with the green-black serpent demon might have traced back to him.

Having completed the task perfectly, he handed the remaining half of the blood ginseng to Old Master Lin. It was likely that, from now on, village matters would fall under the old man's jurisdiction. When Old Master Lin passed away, if nothing unexpected happened, the position would probably go to Lin Changshan. This would ease the villagers’ burdens, at least sparing them from freezing to death in winter.

As for Qu Skinner’s son, his post was at least ten days’ journey away from here. By the time he received the news and rushed back, who knew how long it would take.

Now, the most important thing for Ji Xun was to focus on his own development.

“Da Huang, do you remember where you were wounded by that wild boar?” Ji Xun patted the dog’s head.

He took out the barely perceptible demon aura of the wild boar and let Da Huang sniff it.

Da Huang immediately bared his teeth, understanding Ji Xun’s intent. He knocked the door open with his head and bounded up the mountain.

“Slow down, slow down.” It was still daylight, and Ji Xun didn’t want anyone to see him running faster than the dog.

With Da Huang leading the way, they quickly entered the forest.

The woods were filled with trees of unknown species, and the scent of vegetation was thick. In such a forest, it was difficult to track by smell. Even if someone were gravely wounded nearby, beasts would struggle to catch the scent of blood.

Yet Da Huang’s nose was barely effective, but his ears were truly exceptional—he could hear Ji Xun’s footsteps from a hundred meters away.

That was why Da Huang had survived in the village for so long without being cooked for dog meat and was still able to forage for herbs.

In these woods, there was a patch resembling a pine grove. In the past, Ji Xun would occasionally ask Da Huang to keep watch while he searched for pine nuts himself.

Apparently, the plant oil in fresh pine nuts was plentiful, and since his former self rarely got any oil in his diet, he had grown fond of eating them raw.

But one day, he encountered a savage squirrel beast. Thankfully, Da Huang had warned him in time, or he might have met his end there.

After that, he never dared return.

Now, Ji Xun was a changed man—ordinary ninth-grade demons were no match for him.

Suddenly, from the western side of the woods, came a heavy crashing sound. Both Ji Xun and Da Huang crept toward it.

As they drew closer, Ji Xun finally saw what was making the noise.

A massive wild boar, easily seven or eight hundred pounds, was repeatedly ramming several pine trees nearby.

Page 2/3

The pine resin from the trees smeared across the boar’s body.

Once it finished, the boar spat out a pile of shattered bone fragments and then rolled its huge body over them.

The bone bits, wrapped in pine resin, formed a hardened armor on the boar’s hide.

Witnessing this from afar, Ji Xun furrowed his brow.

“Da Huang, how did you escape from this boar’s jaws?”

Da Huang whimpered softly; Ji Xun didn’t understand, so he began analyzing their relative strengths.

The boar didn’t look very bright, likely a savage beast, with cultivation around the eighth grade. Its armor, infused with demon aura, would be difficult to break.

“If it were an eighth-grade deer demon, I could kill it quickly with my full strength, but this wild boar demon...”

In the early stages of cultivation, the disparity between demons was vast. For example, a roe demon without a special bloodline would be killed instantly if it met an elephant demon.

Among low-level beasts without unique bloodlines, power differences were stark.

Just then, the noise in the forest abruptly ceased. Ji Xun sensed something amiss and looked up.

The wild boar was staring back at him, its tiny eyes blood-red.

The enormous boar charged at Ji Xun, its momentum like earth shattering and mountains collapsing.

“Damn it, Da Huang, run!”

Man and dog fled westward, Ji Xun easily outpacing Da Huang.

Before long, Da Huang was about to be overtaken. Ji Xun spun around and lashed out with a whip-like kick to the boar’s head.

With a resounding thud, the boar staggered, but quickly turned its attention to Ji Xun—it seemed the kick had little effect.

Pain flared in Ji Xun’s leg.

He gathered demon aura in his right hand’s index and middle fingers, forming them into a sword and thrusting at the boar’s eye.

The boar promptly shut its eyes; Ji Xun’s sword-formed fingers jabbed its eyelids.

He felt his fingers nearly break, while the boar opened its eyes again, vision only temporarily impaired.

As the boar charged once more, Ji Xun activated a secret technique; his stature grew three inches, his vital energy thick as wolf smoke.

He clasped his right fist with his left hand, using his right elbow as a blade, twisting all his strength into a single blow at the root of the boar’s tusk.

With a terrible howl, the boar’s tusk was shattered at the base, the jaw fractured.

Quick as lightning, Ji Xun yanked out the tusk and drove it into the boar’s eye, then stomped down from above with the force of an axe.

Page 3/3

The tusk was driven deep into the wild boar demon’s eye socket, killing it beyond all doubt.

Leaning against a tree, Ji Xun slowly sat down, his heel a bloody mess and his right arm hanging limply.

“Da Huang, fetch some herbs, then we’ll head home.”

Da Huang nodded almost humanly, rubbed against Ji Xun, and walked away in disappointment.

It seemed even the dog didn’t understand how the boar had grown so formidable.

Once Da Huang was sent off, Ji Xun immediately stored the wild boar demon in the Demon Refining Jar.

He descended the mountain and returned to his thatched cottage.

“Let’s see, what is the boar’s most precious part?”

Sensing carefully, Ji Xun found that the heaviest demon aura was at the tusk.

“No wonder—my blow struck an iron plate.”

He then used the boar’s demon aura to separate flesh from bone.

This was a new technique he had mastered, combining the “Heavenly Demon Mystical Method.”

All the boar meat was stripped away and its entrails thrown into the mist around the Demon Refining Jar, their final destination unknown.

He transferred the essence from the boar’s skeleton into its tusks, a process slow and requiring several days.

[Wild Boar Demon Tusk: Profound-grade, low-tier. The boar demon’s life-bone, exceptionally hard, suitable for forging.]

Once the boar’s skeleton was fully refined into the tusks, the quality would likely rise another level.

As for the hardened armor, with the demon’s death, the power sustaining it dissipated and it became much more fragile.

Ji Xun manipulated the tusks with his intent, slicing through the armor, instantly splitting the pine resin and shattering the bone fragments attached to the hide.

All were refined into essence, nourishing the tusks.

The boar meat he kept for future provisions.

While his consciousness worked in the Demon Refining Jar, Ji Xun’s body remained alert, ready to return instantly should danger arise.

Now the jar contained wild boar meat and skeleton, the nearly refined bird demon beak, the “Heavenly Demon Mystical Method,” a low-tier profound-grade Hundred Beast Grass, the Insect-catching Spirit Pattern Pliers, seven ounces of demon silver, and a heap of copper coins.

Half the Hundred Beast Blood had been refined into Ji Xun’s body, the other half used to nourish the low-tier Hundred Beast Grass.