“Alright, system task complete.
Now time to process the catch.”
Since the fish’s blood had condensed into a Bloodstone, cleaning it was straightforward.
Lin Ke stepped on the fish’s tail, sliced off the spiky dorsal fin, scraped the scales clean with the back of the knife, and then gutted it.
He threw the removed gills and internal organs into a corner of the cave, then took the fish over to the pool to rinse it off.
After rinsing the abdominal cavity and shaking off the excess water, Lin Ke took out a bottle of Spoiled Potion from his backpack.
Uncorking it, he poured the dark green liquid onto the ground nearby.
It was no great loss—he still had five bottles left anyway.
He rinsed the empty glass bottle in the pool, filled it to the brim with water, and returned to the stone stove.
This half-meter-tall stone stove had a small compartment above the hearth used for burning wood.
This upper chamber was designed for heating or roasting food, separated from the burning hearth below by a thin stone plate.
He pulled a slightly larger wooden board from his backpack and carved it into the shape of a paddle—just the right size to slide into the upper chamber, with a handle sticking out.
Now, Lin Ke was ready to cook.
Without daylight, he had no idea what time it was, nor did he have any concept of breakfast, lunch, or dinner.
All he knew was that after busywork for two hours, he was starving.
Holding this one-pound Pink Aberrant Fish, the information from the Eye of Truth suggested braising was best.
However, stuck in a cave in another world, he had no oil, salt, or soy sauce for seasoning, no scallions, ginger, or garlic to mask the fishiness, and no pots or pans to cook with.
Braising was out of the question; he’d be lucky just to get it cooked through.
Using his knife, he scored crosshatch cuts into the thickest parts of the fish’s flesh, laid it flat on the wooden board skin-side up, placed the glass bottle filled with water beside it, and pushed the board into the upper chamber to start roasting.
Although he wasn’t adept at cooking with such primitive tools and couldn’t gauge the doneness or cooking time accurately, he reasoned that if the water in the glass bottle began to boil, the fish meat should be edible by then.
In any case, as long as it was edible, even if it ended up half-cooked, it was still better than eating it raw under these conditions.
As for whether the glass bottle would crack from uneven heating, he trusted the material quality of items from the Monster Hunter world.
As containers designed to hold various crafted potions, they had to withstand not only violent battles between hunters and monsters without shattering easily, but also endure extreme environments like scorching lava and freezing snow without issue.
While waiting for the fish to cook, Lin Ke pulled the task reward out of his backpack.
It was a fist-sized, polyhedral, colorless crystal.
[Skill Crystal] (Extraordinary Item)
Quality: Rare
Description: A crystalline block containing a trace of cosmic law.
Using it grants the skill “Throw.”
P.S.
Player-exclusive.
Simply crush to use.
*Crack~*
After reading the info, Lin Ke crushed the crystal in his hand.
A specks of light emerged and merged into his body.
[Skill Loaded: Throw]
Class: Hunter
Level: Level 1
EXP: [10/100]
Class Talent:
Slaughter (Unique)
Class Skill:
[Throw (Novice)]
[Proficiency: (0/300)]
[Effect: Throw objects with 100% accuracy within 10 meters.]
Current Task: None
The skill effect was simple and direct.
Although limited to a ten-meter distance, in this dog-eat-dog natural wilderness, those ten meters served as sharp fangs and claws extending from his body—a true life-saving tool.
Not to mention, a 100% hit rate felt almost linked to causal “absolute hit” laws.
A great skill!
System products truly were top-tier.
Lin Ke felt immensely excited.
In the early stage, he could use it to hurl stones at small critters like Pilot Hares or Downy Crakes.
In the late game, once his Strength attribute increased, this skill would turn into a precision-guided missile!
Right then, a sizzling sound came from the chamber.
The fat in the fish skin was being rendered out by the high heat, frying the fish meat.
A wisp of roasted fish aroma drifted out of the stove—a special scent released when fats and proteins were heated.
Smelling it made Lin Ke’s stomach rumble.
Sitting on the stone stool, Lin Ke leaned forward to peer into the cooking chamber.
Under the high heat inside, bubbles were rolling up one after another in the glass bottle.
“Should be ready to eat in a moment.”
Thinking about eating, Lin Ke realized he still lacked utensils, so he carved a rough but usable wooden spoon from a piece of wood.
By the time the spoon was done, the water in the chamber was boiling and the meat was cooked.
Bubbles tumbled violently from the bottom of the glass bottle to the top, spewing a jet of steam from the bottle mouth.
Lin Ke pulled out the wooden board, using the adjacent stone stool as a dining table, and set down the board holding the food and water.
The roasted fish on the board had curled edges and golden-brown, sizzling meat.
It actually looked pretty decent.
[Plain Grilled Fish] (Food)
Quality: Poor
Description: Fills the belly and maintains basic nutritional balance.
P.S.
Tastes awful!
*Well then!*
A Common-quality fish had dropped a tier after his culinary effort.
Just reading the text description destroyed any lingering hope Lin Ke had for the flavor.
Still, bad taste or not, he had to eat.
Beggars couldn’t be choosers in a place like this.
Lin Ke held two thin wooden sticks in his right hand to act as chopsticks, held the knife in his left hand, sliced off a piece of fish meat, blew on the steam, and popped it into his mouth.
Lin Ke smacked his tongue, frowned, and then chewed with a face full of agony.
The texture and taste of the fish meat was like fishy rubber—tasteless, tough, and genuinely terrible.
Yet he had no choice.
If he didn’t eat, he’d starve, and if he starved, he’d die.
Compared to death, this bit of hardship was nothing.
Fortunately, the fish had no fine bones.
Swallowing the chewed-up fish meat into his stomach, Lin Ke sliced off another piece and popped it in.
Piece by piece, he forced down the entire one-pound fish, leaving only the head connected to a main spine studded with meat scraps on the board.
After finishing the fish, the temperature of the water in the glass bottle had cooled down.
He cupped the bottle with both hands, took a sip of hot water at the bottle mouth, and felt a warm current flow down his throat into his stomach.
A few gulps later, his whole body felt comfortably warm.
[Boiled Water] (Drink)
Quality: Common
Description: Drinking while warm restores core body temperature.
P.S.
Drink plenty of hot water.
Sated, Lin Ke cleaned up and sat on the stone stool, pondering his next move.
He wouldn’t lack food and water in the short term, but the firewood was only enough for two days, and he had no way to acquire warm clothing.
Unless he took a gamble and disassembled the camp tent and sleeping bag, using needlework to sew the beast hides into warm clothes, then dug through the ice and snow to chop wood outside.
However, doing so would make sleeping a major issue.
The cave floor was uneven and rocky; even lying down fully clothed would be painfully uncomfortable.
Besides, he had zero interest in needlework, had never watched videos about it, and had no way to learn it now.
Fortunately, things hadn’t reached a desperate point yet.
While his current self in this world had no good solutions and was trapped in a cave, his other self in another world had been freely trekking across a wasteland for nearly two hours.
Lin Ke flicked his wrist, and a smartphone appeared in his hand—identical in appearance, model, and internal data to the one he had used earlier to start the fire.
“Ah, brother, it’s good to see you again.”
Are there other identical selves across the multiverse?
When the barrier between worlds was pierced by the supreme power of the system, what miraculous reaction would occur?
Lin Ke’s consciousness spanned boundless dimensions, connecting to his other self in a different world.
Dawn broke faintly as darkness gradually receded.
Light spilled over from the edge of the horizon, cloaking Lin Ke, who had been trekking across the wilderness for two hours.
Wearing the same autumn clothes, possessing the same body shape and handsome face, the Lin Ke walking across the yellow plains was no different from the Lin Ke in the Monster Hunter world.
It was an anomaly.
For unknown reasons, after crossing over, Lin Ke discovered he possessed two bodies: one woke up in a freezing mountain cave, while the other opened its eyes in a deserted wasteland.
Though they were two separate bodies, they shared the exact same memories, thoughts, and singular consciousness.
It was somewhat like the avatar incarnation technique in mythical legends—both of them were Lin Ke.
Under the supreme power of the system, the wasteland Lin Ke could even use the identical personal status panel to retrieve the Sword and Shield stored in the dimensional backpack by the Monster Hunter Lin Ke.
Now, he was a man with two lives.
If he encountered an insurmountable threat, he could afford to go crazy without care.
Still, he had to play it safe.
Dying once meant losing an entire world.
That would be a massive loss.
Bypassing a cluster of Joshua trees huddled together, Lin Ke continued toward his goal—a building that looked like an abandoned factory.
After walking for so long, human structures finally appeared in his sight.
As for why he didn’t chop down those Joshua trees and store them in his backpack to burn for heat for the Monster Hunter Lin Ke?
Because of the information provided by the Eye of Truth:
[Joshua Tree]
Description: Genetically engineered in a laboratory using BioTechnica.
Its root system stabilizes sand and resists dust storms, adapted to survive in post-war polluted environments.
P.S.
Because the trunk and branches have absorbed chemical pollutants from the soil, the smoke produced by burning it is extremely harmful to the human body.
Never try to burn it for fire!
He genuinely didn’t dare burn it for fire; he didn’t want to send his other self to an early grave just yet.
Dammit, anything growing out of the dirt on this wasteland carried a bit of toxin.
Whether it was the Joshua trees or those unknown shrubs, if you dared to burn them, the smoke would knock you flat on your back.