The three Cortos each had a slender build of over 2 meters and weighed around 100 jin.
Stashing these three prey items in his inventory nearly filled up his 1-cubic-meter storage space.
Lin Ke felt a little helpless.
This inventory space was still too small.
Once he started hunting large monsters in the future, a single cubic meter probably wouldn’t even fit a single leg.
It looked like he needed to hurry up and complete the commissions from the cyber world.
Pulling out the Bloodstone and Soul Crystal, Lin Ke examined them with his Eye of Truth.
[Bloodstone (Wingdrake Chip)] Quality: Common Description: A crystallized stone of vital blood energy.
Consuming it increases the user’s current Strength attribute by 0.1.
P.S.
For strength, go hunt even more powerful beasts.
Under the sunlight, a red halo shimmered around the Bloodstone, making it look like a pure ruby.
Lin Ke felt that, given its appearance, keeping it as a collectible might actually be more cost-effective than consuming it.
The Soul Crystal, on the other hand, was a translucent sphere.
Inside, a miniature Cortos was sealed as if in amber.
[Soul Crystal (Wingdrake Soul Fluid)] Quality: Common Description: Contains the refined essence of a Cortos’s entire spirituality.
Pressing it against the forehead increases the user’s current Spirit attribute by 0.2.
P.S.
For the ascension of your soul, go hunt even more powerful beasts.
Both were excellent items for boosting his power.
Lin Ke didn’t hesitate and used them immediately.
Only by becoming stronger could he survive better in this world.
After using the Bloodstone and Soul Crystal, Lin Ke opened his status panel to check.
———— Name: Lin Ke Age: 20 Identity: Player Dimensional Inventory: 1 cubic meter [Hunter’s Notes, burnt phone remains, Sword and Shield, firearms, Cortos carcass × 3] Equipment Slots: 1/3 General Talents: Civilization, Eye of Truth, Learning
–Physical Attributes– Strength: 8 (+0.1) Agility: 7 Constitution: 8 Spirit: 7 (+0.2)
–Class– Class: Hunter Level: 1 EXP: [10/100] Class Talent: Slaughter (Unique) Class Skill: Throw (Novice) ————
“It feels great to grow stronger bit by bit.”
If he kept growing like this, he would one day stand at the absolute top of the New World’s food chain.
Closing his status panel, Lin Ke examined the Popo carcass on the snow, which had been preyed upon by the Cortos.
This Popo measured nearly 4 meters from head to tail and must have weighed at least 2 tons.
Its brown fur was shredded with tears from the Cortos’ sharp claws.
“What a waste.
It’s too damaged to be of any use.”
Just as Lin Ke finished inspecting the badly damaged, thick coat of the Popo, he noticed something amiss.
He squatted down to take a closer look.
A massive chunk was missing from the Popo’s underbelly, its entire thoracic cavity completely hollowed out.
Its organs and the softest belly fat looked as though they had been ripped away and swallowed whole by some massive beast.
Lin Ke’s expression shifted slightly.
*Damn.*
This Popo hadn’t been hunted by the Cortos.
Judging by the shape of the wound, it had to be a Brute Wyvern with a terrifying bite force.
The pack of Cortos had merely been scavenging what someone else left behind.
Looking at the fallen trees around them, Lin Ke could see that many of the smaller trunks had been snapped by sheer, brute force.
*Shit, this is already the edge of the Ancient Forest, yet there are still large monsters active and hunting in this area!*
There was no time to lose.
Lin Ke was worried the gunshots from earlier might draw that monster over—after all, Brute Wyverns were notoriously territorial.
He quickly drew his long blade and severed the Popo’s two relatively intact hind legs at the joints.
He managed to squeeze one of them into his dimensional inventory.
But there was no room for the other.
Lin Ke could only hoist the massive leg over his shoulder and quickly retrace his steps along the path he had trudged through the snow.
With his Strength at 8, Lin Ke could lift objects up to 200 kilograms.
This leg meat, weighing less than 100 kilograms, was not enough to slow him down.
In less than an hour, before night fell, Lin Ke made it safely back to the foot of the rocky mountain.
Following the records in the Hunter’s Notes, he fumbled around the wall next to the slide for a moment and found a rope buried in the snow.
The information provided by the Eye of Truth indicated that this rope was woven from ivy.
Holding the rope with one hand and keeping his other hand free to carry the Popo leg, Lin Ke climbed the slide step by step, returning to the cave on the mountainside.
All in all, his three-hour excursion had yielded a spectacular harvest.
Squatting at the cave entrance, Lin Ke began processing his prey by the fading light of the setting sun.
He placed the 7 fist-sized Scatternuts under his round shield and shook them, extracting over 2 jin of nut kernels.
He used his knife to remove the scales, claws, wing membranes, bones, and organs from the three Cortos, yielding a total of around 200 jin of pure meat.
As for the two Popo legs, they yielded a combined total of over 350 jin of leg meat and two thick thigh bones.
“The resources in the Monster Hunter world are incredibly abundant.
A single hunt is enough to feed an ordinary person for a year.
A pity I couldn’t find any seasoning plants or side dishes to go with the meat.”
He portioned the carved meat even further, separating the fat from the lean meat, cutting it into appropriately sized chunks, and storing them in his inventory to hand over to his other self for cooking.
Butchery proficiency +1, haha.
Lin Ke returned to the cave camp, pulled out his harpoon, and skewered the remaining dozen or so fish in the pool one by one.
He had decided to leave this camp first thing tomorrow morning and head to Astera.
He wanted to see what was left over there; perhaps there would be some unexpected gains.
Having speared the very last fish in the pool, Lin Ke checked the changes in his Throw skill after it leveled up.
[Throw (Practiced)] [Proficiency: 0/600] [Effect: Thrown objects have a 100% hit rate within 50 meters.
Added skill trait: Air Piercer]
Now that his skill had reached “Practiced,” the fish he had speared over the last few days no longer granted him any proficiency.
Lin Ke understood that he would now need to use his Throw skill to hit more powerful creatures from a greater distance.
Still, after reaching “Practiced,” his guaranteed hit distance had increased significantly, and this newly added trait was quite intriguing.
Lin Ke pulled the last chunk of concrete out of his inventory, stepped out of the cave, and hurled it with all his might toward the sea of trees ahead.
There was almost no sound of the object cutting through the air.
The stone dragged a faint afterimage across the sky before plunging into the forest below.
“Does it eliminate the air resistance of the thrown object?
It can fly much farther now, too.”
Not bad at all.
He wondered if, when this skill reached its max level, he would be able to throw things with the force and velocity of an electromagnetic railgun.
Walking back into the cave with a smile, Lin Ke sat in front of the stone oven, waiting to be fed by his other self.
In the kitchen of Gloria’s house, Lin Ke stood before the stove, busy preparing dinner.
He took a piece of fat trimmed from the Popo’s hind leg from his inventory, sliced it into thumb-sized cubes, and tossed them into a frying pan to render the lard.
Then, he filled a soup pot halfway with water and threw in over a dozen meaty Cortos bones to begin simmering a broth.
His class talent was triggered, and his class skill, [Soup], went to work.
The clear water began to turn milky white as the meaty bones gradually dissolved into the liquid.
Finally, after half an hour of simmering, the meat and bones had completely melted into the broth, leaving only a rich, milky-white liquid with a meaty hue.
[Cooking complete.
Obtained: 5 EXP] [Soup Proficiency +10] [Cortos Bone Broth] Extraordinary Soup Quality: Excellent Description: A broth infused with the pure essence of the ingredients.
Drinking it can replenish bodily deficits; long-term consumption can increase bone density.
P.S.
Even a bone sprite would want to marry you after drinking this soup.