An oppressive silence fell over the gloomy forest immediately after Old Zhao uncovered the deep indentations in the earth.
Five pairs of eyes, burning with varying degrees of intensity, stared intently at the sharp claw marks embedded in the damp soil.
The edges of the prints were completely fresh, the displaced mud had not yet dried, and the sheer span of the tracks was unnaturally large.
There was absolutely no doubt about it; these marks unquestionably belonged to a pack of wild Iron Fang Wolves.
The Liu twins were the first to break the stillness, exchanging a pair of highly animated, excited glances.
Liu Feng stepped forward, his eyes brightening considerably as if he had just stumbled upon an unworked vein of spirit stones right there on the valley floor.
“Master Zhao, these are definitely the tracks of an Iron Fang Wolf pack,” he said, his voice dropping to an eager whisper.
“Do you have any idea how much their pristine pelts are fetching in the city markets these days?”
Old Zhao remained crouched low to the ground, his calloused fingers meticulously tracing the depth of the claw grooves.
He didn’t offer an immediate response, his seasoned mind seemingly weighing the variables, but Liu Feng was too swept up in the potential windfall to remain silent.
“The primary hide alone can be sold directly to the local talisman masters at a premium.
The coarse fur of an Iron Fang Wolf conducts spiritual energy surprisingly well, making it a highly sought-after material for reinforcing defensive standard-issue robes.”
Chen Hu’s eyes narrowed to sharp slits as he listened, the unmistakable gleam of avarice becoming increasingly visible across his rugged features.
Before anyone else could chime in, the other twin, Liu Yun, immediately added his own piece of market intelligence:
“And don’t forget their tails!
The thick, resilient hair from an Iron Fang Wolf’s tail is the premier choice for crafting mid-grade talisman brushes.”
“Talisman brushes?” Shen Jietian muttered, a look of genuine surprise flitting across his face.
Liu Yun nodded vigorously, a smug grin touching his lips.
“My maternal uncle was a low-grade talisman craftsman in the outer city.
He used to say that a well-balanced brush tipped with the tail hair of a mature Iron Fang Wolf could easily command a price of several low-grade spirit stones among the apprentices.”
Several spirit stones…
Shen Jietian’s fingers unconsciously tightened around the worn hilt of his rusty iron sword.
A single tail was already comparable to several days of backbreaking labor searching for elusive Moonleaf Grass stalks.
Before his analytical mind could fully digest the financial implications, Chen Hu eagerly forced his way into the discussion, his voice tight with growing greed.
“The valuable components aren’t just limited to the pelt and the tail hair.
The fangs of these beasts are worth even more to the right buyers.”
“The fangs?” Liu Feng asked, turning his head, Chen Hu nodded with absolute certainty.
“They are an essential auxiliary ingredient in several low-grade bone-strengthening alchemical pills.
Not only that, but certain low-level artifact refiners constantly purchase them to serve as core materials for spike traps and basic spiritual daggers.
The higher the cultivation layer of the harvested wolf, the denser and more valuable its fangs become.”
His breathing grew noticeably heavier as the theoretical profit margins mounted in his mind.
Shen Jietian listened in absolute silence, standing perfectly still at the rear of the formation.
As his companions bickered over the potential spoils, a ledger of numbers naturally began constructing itself within his mind.
The hide, the tail, the alchemical fangs, the marrow-rich bones, and even the sharpened claws—every single scrap of an Iron Fang Wolf possessed a definitive market value.
The more he computed the total potential yield, the more incredibly tempting the prospect became.
A single successful kill against a low-grade beast could easily net a return that surpassed weeks of tedious, dangerous herb gathering.
Observing the shared look of hunger spreading across the group, Liu Yun smiled broadly, clapping his brother on the shoulder.
“A jackpot.
That’s exactly what these beasts are to a squad of loose cultivators like us.
A walking, breathing jackpot of spiritual resources.”
This time around, no one raised an objection.
Not even Shen Jietian spoke up to counter the claim.
Because deep down in his heart, his cold, calculating logic entirely agreed with their assessment.
The financial rewards were undeniable.
Yet, even as the alluring promise of spirit stones danced before his eyes, he simply could not shake the deep, gnawing sense of unease pooling in the depths of his chest.
Iron Fang Wolves were not weak, passive prey; they were genuine, vicious spirit beasts.
They were lethal predators fully capable of tearing a careless low-stage cultivation guard limb from limb in a matter of heartbeats.
Noticing Shen Jietian’s lingering hesitation and his defensive posture, Liu Yun let out a low, patronizing chuckle.
“Hey, Jietian, why do you always look like you’re attending a funeral?
We’re looking at a fortune here.”
Shen Jietian’s brows knit closely together.
“We explicitly signed a contract to harvest Moonleaf Grass in the outer perimeter,” he said, his voice steady but cautious.
“Now, we’ve crossed paths with a pack of predatory wolves.
Don’t you find the timing a bit too convenient?”
“So what?” Liu Yun countered, tilting his head.
“So, things might not be nearly as simple as they appear on the surface,” Shen Jietian reasoned, his eyes sweeping the dark treeline.
“A sudden migration usually indicates a variable we haven’t accounted for.”
Liu Feng burst into a brief, dismissive laugh, waving his hand as if brushing away an annoying insect.
“You worry far too much, little brother Shen.
They are only standard Iron Fang Wolves, not high-tier mutated disasters.
Sure, they are known to hunt in packs, but the vast majority of the subordinates in an ordinary pack are only at the Early Qi Refinement stage—the First or Second Layer at best.”
He pointed confidently toward the depth of the claw marks.
“Even if this particular pack possesses a matured alpha, the strongest leader among them should only be around the Fifth Layer of Qi Refinement.
We have Master Zhao on our side, we have multiple offensive talismans, and we have the advantage of numbers.
If we coordinate our opening strike and slay the alpha, the rest of the pack will naturally scatter into the brush.”
Chen Hu nodded his head vigorously in agreement, his face flushed with excitement.
“Exactly!
I heard from a seasoned hunter friend back in Black Mist City that Iron Fang Wolves have become incredibly difficult to track down in recent years due to overhunting.
Most independent hunting squads search the surrounding mountain ranges for months on end without ever spotting a single hair.”
He turned his gaze toward the dark, fog-laden depths of the inner valley, his voice almost trembling with a mixture of anticipation and greed.
“Finding their trail right on the edge of our harvest zone is a golden opportunity handed to us by the heavens themselves.”
Shen Jietian remained completely silent, choosing not to voice any further objections.
He understood Chen Hu’s near-manic excitement perfectly well.
A single successful, high-yield beast hunt could completely alter a loose cultivator’s financial situation for months, perhaps even providing the capital to secure better lodgings or stable medicinal pills.
For someone like himself, who was forced to meticulously count every scrap of Spirit Sand just to survive from week to week, the raw temptation was massive.
But his years of solo survival had taught him a fundamental truth of the cultivation world: immense temptation and fatal danger almost always walked hand-in-hand, sharing the same shadow.
The deeper one ventured into the untamed wilderness, the more volatile and unpredictable the laws of nature became.
His eyes unconsciously drifted toward Old Zhao.
The veteran cultivator still hadn’t uttered a single word since uncovering the tracks.
Instead, the old man was thoroughly studying the specific angle of the claw impressions, inspecting the bark of the surrounding ancient trees for signs of territorial rubbing, and examining the texture of the broken twigs on the forest floor.
His weathered face was profoundly serious.
For a fleeting moment, Shen Jietian felt a wave of relief wash over him.
Old Zhao was a cautious survivor; that pragmatic, unyielding reluctance to take unnecessary risks was the precise reason the old man had managed to live to a ripe old age despite remaining a loose cultivator.
Surely, Old Zhao would see the anomalies and call for a tactical retreat back to the safe harvesting zones.
After several minutes of intense scrutiny, Old Zhao finally stood up, wiping the damp earth from his palms.
“What’s the verdict, Master Zhao?” Chen Hu asked immediately, stepping forward with an expectant look.
Old Zhao didn’t answer right away.
Instead, he maintained his grim silence, scanning the immediate canopy before slowly walking several dozen meters deeper into the brush along the path of the indentations.
The rest of the group followed closely behind him, their breath held in anticipation.
Eventually, the old man crouched down once more before a wide clearing.
Here, the ground was heavily disrupted.
More tracks—many more—crisscrossed the soil, indicating a sizeable group had congregated here recently.
Old Zhao’s heavy brows furrowed deeply as he analysed the stride lengths and the depth of the paw prints.
The group waited in a tense, agonizing stillness, the only sound being the distant, ominous creaking of the ancient trees.
Finally, Old Zhao let out a long, slow exhalation, the tension in his shoulders visibly easing.
“There are absolutely no signs of a mature, mutated alpha or a secondary mate.”
The companions immediately exchanged relieved, triumphant glances.
“What exactly does that imply, Master Zhao?” Liu Feng asked, leaning in.
“It means that the physical dimensions of these tracks are entirely consistent with an ordinary, baseline Iron Fang Wolf pack,” Old Zhao explained, his voice returning to its usual gruff tone.
“There are no monstrous aberrations among them.”
The Liu twins instantly broke into broad smiles, and Chen Hu’s greedy grin widened significantly.
However, Old Zhao wasn’t finished.
He cast a cold, sharp gaze across the excited youths, his tone dropping an octave.
“Normally speaking, under standard contract parameters, I wouldn’t even entertain the thought of altering our objective to pursue a beast pack.”
The group fell completely silent, even the boisterous Chen Hu lowering his head to listen with absolute focus.
“I have survived in this cutthroat world for as long as I have precisely because I do not gamble my life on baseless whims,” the old cultivator stated coldly, pointing a calloused finger toward the dark depths of the valley.
“Ninety-nine percent of the dead cultivators rotting in these woods met their ends because they let their greed outpace their actual combat capabilities.”
Shen Jietian secretly nodded along with the old man’s words, feeling a sense of validation.
For a brief second, he genuinely believed that Old Zhao was about to completely reject the hunt and order them back to the safe herb patches.
But then, the old man’s stern visage suddenly cracked, and he let out a low, throaty laugh that filled the quiet clearing.
“But an organic opportunity like this, right on the periphery, is exceptionally rare to come across.”
The twins’ faces instantly brightened with renewed hope.
“If we continue to spend our energy gathering low-grade Moonleaf Grass according to the merchant guild’s static rates, we will certainly earn a decent, safe amount of spirit stones,” Old Zhao reasoned, his eyes reflecting a calculating hunger that mirrored Chen Hu’s.
“But even if we were to painstakingly collect every single harvestable stalk remaining in this entire valley…
the total payout wouldn’t even begin to compare to the immense wealth we can accumulate from successfully skinning and dismantling an entire intact wolf pack.”
No one spoke up to contradict him.
The pure financial temptation was simply too profound for a group of impoverished loose cultivators to ignore.
Old Zhao’s gaze swept across each of them, checking their resolve, before his eyes lingered briefly on the silent Shen Jietian.
“If there is indeed a Fifth Layer leader guiding this pack, my current cultivation base and my Iron Skin Technique are more than sufficient to suppress it directly.
We have offensive talismans to clear out the subordinates, and we have enough capable bodies to manage the battlefield.
As long as we maintain discipline and don’t encounter any bizarre, unexpected anomalies, this specific hunt is well worth the calculated risk.”
Those final authoritative words from their Fifth Layer leader completely shattered any remaining hesitation within the party.
Chen Hu was the very first to nod his head with fierce determination.
“Count me in.
I’m not going to let a fortune walk away.”
The Liu twins immediately followed suit, their voices filled with eagerness.
“We’re in as well.
Let’s strike while the iron is hot.”
Then, the collective gaze of the group landed squarely on Shen Jietian, who remained standing silently at the edge of the clearing.
Inside his mind, a violent collision of conflicting thoughts and tactical analyses was taking place.
What if an unexpected variable manifested mid-fight?
What if they encountered a secondary hidden beast that Old Zhao’s tracks hadn’t accounted for?
And more importantly…
what if his companions decided to turn their weapons against him to increase their individual shares once the danger had passed?
Such a dark betrayal wasn’t merely a paranoid fantasy; in the lawless rogue cultivation world, independent partners slaughtered each other over resources every single day.
Yet, even as his logical caution screamed at him to back away, a desperate, persistent whisper echoed from the depths of his heart.
The hide…
the fangs…
the claws…
the bones…
All of it translated directly into raw spirit stones.
It meant a guaranteed Low-Grade Qi-Breaking Pill.
It meant a pristine, unchipped sword.
It meant the essential cultivation resources he desperately needed to drag himself out of the mud of the Third Layer.
His gaze slowly dropped to the rusty iron sword hanging loosely at his waist.
The steel blade was severely chipped along the edge, and the wooden handle wrap was completely worn down by sweat and age.
Sooner or later, in a true fight for his life, this cheap piece of metal would fail him entirely.
It had to be replaced.
Then, his mind flashed back to the image of the breakthrough pill—the singular, elusive object he had chased through blood and mud for seven agonizing years.
Without a massive influx of spirit stones, that pill would remain forever out of his reach.
His heart gradually became restless, the burning desire for advancement overriding his deep-seated caution.
Old Zhao’s philosophical words about risk and reward resurfaced in his mind like a challenge.
If he allowed himself to be completely paralyzed by fear at every single turn on the path, how could he ever hope to truly pursue immortality?
Shen Jietian slowly raised his head, the lingering doubt fading from his eyes as he looked toward the leader.
“I’ll join the hunt.”
A wide, satisfied grin immediately broke through Old Zhao’s weathered features.
“Good,” the old man laughed heartily, clapping his hands together.
“We’ll definitely need someone with an empty storage bag to lug the heavy carcasses back to the city gates anyway.”
The Liu twins burst into loud, mocking laughter at the joke, and even Chen Hu let out a rough chuckle at Shen Jietian’s expense.
Shen Jietian simply rolled his eyes with a look of mild annoyance, but beneath the surface, the palpable tension within the group eased considerably.
With their objectives unified, the party quickly adjusted their marching formation and began tracking the deep claw marks, venturing further into the dark, unfamiliar depths of the valley.
As time passed and they pressed onward, the physical signs of the pack’s presence became increasingly clear; broken branches, fresh droppings, and the distinct, musky scent of wild predators hung heavy in the damp air.
The wolves were incredibly close.
Gradually, the raw excitement of a massive payout began to entirely replace their initial tactical caution.
The closer they drew to the nesting grounds, the brighter and more confident everyone’s expressions became.
Only Shen Jietian felt an increasingly sharp, ice-cold knot of dread tightening in his stomach.
Something was fundamentally wrong with this environment.
Very wrong.
By his mental map, they had already entered remarkably deep into the treacherous inner sectors of Moonleaf Valley.
Yet, throughout their entire trek along the tracks, they hadn’t encountered a single other species of spirit beast.
Not one.
There were no low-grade spirit rabbits darting through the brush, no passive spirit deer drinking from the creeks—nothing.
The entire forest felt completely hollowed out, as if every living creature had deliberately fled the territory or vanished into thin air.
A sharp chill ran down his spine, prompting him to quicken his pace slightly until he was walking shoulder-to-shoulder with Chen Hu.
“Chen Hu,” he whispered, keeping his voice low.
The man glanced over, his brow furrowing in irritation at the interruption.
“What do you want now, Jietian?”
“You wouldn’t happen to have a spare talisman tucked away in your robes, would you?” Shen Jietian asked, keeping his expression neutral.
Chen Hu’s frown deepened.
“What kind of talisman?”
“Anything at all,” Shen Jietian pressed, his eyes scanning the thick fog ahead.
“A basic low-grade defensive barrier or even a standard attack talisman.
I’ll fully compensate you for the market cost plus interest the moment we liquidate the wolf materials back in Black Mist City.”
Chen Hu immediately shook his head, a cold, sneering laugh escaping his lips.
“Absolutely not.”
Shen Jietian blinked, his eyes narrowing.
“No?”
“No,” Chen Hu snorted disdainfully, shifting his saber away from the youth.
“Why on earth would I lend my precious life-saving talismans to an impoverished Third Layer gatherer?
What if the battlefield shifts and I desperately need them to protect my own skin?
If you were truly this terrified of a hunt, you should have spent your own spirit stones to purchase proper armaments before leaving the city.”
Shen Jietian’s expression darkened considerably at the blunt refusal.
As expected of a rogue cultivator, he thought bitterly.
When the chips were down, no one was going to hand out charity.
But before he could step back into the rear position, Liu Feng, who had overheard the brief exchange from a few paces ahead, suddenly spoke up.
“Here, take these.”
With a smooth motion, the elder twin pulled two glowing yellow paper talismans from his spatial pouch and extended them toward the surprised youth.
Shen Jietian froze as he looked down at the items; one was a standard low-grade Defensive Vajra Talisman, and the other was a basic low-grade Blazing Fireball Talisman.
“Are you certain about this, Brother Liu?” Shen Jietian asked, his voice laced with genuine surprise.
Liu Feng shrugged casually, a relaxed smile on his face.
“I have a few extras left over from my last caravan security contract anyway.
Just ensure you return the equivalent value to me once we divide the spoils after the hunt.”
A deep trace of sincere gratitude appeared in Shen Jietian’s eyes as he carefully took the talismans, tucking them into his sleeves where they could be drawn instantly.
“Thank you, Brother Liu.
I won’t forget this favour.”
The twin waved his hand dismissively, turning back to the trail.
“It’s nothing worth mentioning.
We’re in the same boat right now; keeping you alive means another body to draw attention away from us if things get chaotic.”
From the front of the formation, Old Zhao silently watched the entire interaction out of the corner of his eye.
His weathered face remained a completely unreadable mask, devoid of any approval or disapproval.
He simply continued marching forward through the thickening mist.
A few moments later, however, the old man abruptly came to a dead halt, his boots skidding slightly on the damp moss.
The confident, greedy smile vanished from his face in an instant, replaced by a razor-sharp intensity.
The entire group immediately went on high alert, the atmosphere turning icy cold.
“What is it, Master Zhao?
Have we arrived?” Chen Hu whispered, his hand instantly wrapping around the hilt of his saber as his breathing hitched.
Old Zhao slowly raised a single hand, signalling for absolute silence.
Nobody dared to move a muscle, the entire party freezing in place like stone statues.
Then, the veteran extended his arm, pointing through a narrow gap in the dense, twisted ancient trees just ahead.
The group carefully followed his line of sight, peering through the shifting fog toward a wide, rocky clearing several hundred meters away.
There, moving stealthily through the dark undergrowth, were several large, muscular gray figures.
One…
two…
three…
four…
five.
Five mature Iron Fang Wolves, their powerful, iron-reinforced bodies prowling in a defensive perimeter around the clearing, their low growls vibrating softly through the air.
And right above them, standing proudly atop a massive, moss-covered black boulder at the center of the clearing, was an even larger, far more imposing specimen.
Its thick, silver-grey fur shimmered with a distinct spiritual sheen beneath the fractured canopy light, and its golden eyes burned with a frightening level of cold, calculating intelligence.
The palpable spiritual pressure radiating naturally from its massive frame far surpassed that of its subordinates, causing the nearby air to warp slightly.
Fifth Layer Qi Refinement.
It was the undisputed leader of the pack.
For a brief, breathless moment, no one in the party uttered a single sound.
Then, an intense, near-blinding excitement erupted deep within the eyes of Chen Hu and the Liu twins.
They had successfully tracked down the nesting grounds.
To their resource-starved minds, this terrifying display of apex predators didn’t represent a threat.
It represented an absolute mountain of wealth waiting to be harvested.
In their frantic rush to calculate their impending riches, none of them noticed the faint, microscopic trace of unease that had suddenly begun to tighten across Old Zhao’s features as he stared at the clearing.
Nor did any of them notice the much deeper, horrifically wide claw gouges hidden in the shadows just beyond the massive black stone-marks that were far too massive, and far too deep, to have ever been carved by a mere Fifth Layer spiritual beast.
End of Chapter 2
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