Chen Yu still did not understand what the Hōgyoku was doing earlier.
Inside his Sea of Consciousness, the cracked sphere had suddenly glowed brightly before becoming calm again.
But no matter how much he observed it—
nothing else happened.
So Chen Yu temporarily stopped thinking about the strange reaction and focused on his next actions instead.
Inside the reinforced Z-steel prison room, Chen Yu imprisoned another creature for future experiments.
This time, it was a three-eyed silver Mentos Methas creature.
Its silver body was larger than ordinary creatures, and its strength had already reached primitive level.
To prevent accidents, Chen Yu tightly restrained all four of its legs using reinforced alloy chains before locking the creature inside the prison completely.
After confirming everything was secure, Chen Yu left Steel Armor Shelter and met Han Yufei outside the shelter gates.
Now both of them planned to begin hunting mutant creatures.
Mutant creatures were far more dangerous than primitive creatures.
Most mutant creatures moved in groups.
Even skilled humans inside the First Sanctuary could die instantly if surrounded.
Because of that, Chen Yu and Han Yufei spent two full days scouting nearby territories carefully.
They observed:
roaming patterns
water sources
creature tracks
isolated hunting areas
Finally—
near a forest lake—
they discovered a lone mutant creature.
A four-legged single-horn boar quietly drinking water near the lakeside.
Its dark armor-like skin looked far tougher than primitive creatures.
A sharp black horn extended from its forehead.
Chen Yu and Han Yan immediately hid behind separate rock formations.
Then—
both silently exchanged glances.
The plan was simple.
Attack simultaneously.
One attacks the head.
One attacks the stomach.
No mistakes.
Moments later—
Chen Yu moved first.
He rushed forward instantly and slashed toward the mutant boar's head.
At the same time—
Han Yan burst from the opposite side and stabbed toward the creature's stomach.
The mutant boar roared furiously after noticing both attacks.
But before it could counterattack—
both strikes landed simultaneously.
Blood splashed across the lakeside.
The giant mutant boar staggered several steps before collapsing heavily onto the ground.
A notification immediately appeared before Chen Yu.
[Wild Single-Horn Boar killed.]
[Beast Soul gained.]
Chen Yu froze instantly.
His eyes widened slightly.
The Hōgyoku…
did not absorb the beast soul.
For several moments, Chen Yu remained completely silent while staring at the notification.
Then—
countless thoughts rapidly appeared inside his mind.
Previously:
ordinary beast souls were absorbed
primitive beast souls were absorbed
sacred beast souls were absorbed
But now—
a mutant beast soul was ignored completely.
Chen Yu slowly narrowed his eyes.
Then he finally understood.
"It's full…"
That was the only explanation.
The Hōgyoku absorbed beast souls by level.
Once a level reached its limit—
it stopped absorbing lower-ranked beast souls completely.
And now—
after absorbing a sacred beast soul earlier—
the Hōgyoku no longer cared about lower-ranked souls like:
mutant
primitive
ordinary
Chen Yu's breathing slowly became heavier.
Because this discovery was extremely important.
That meant—
if the Hōgyoku ever absorbed a super beast soul in the future…
then it might completely ignore sacred-blood souls afterward as well.
For the first time in a long while—
Chen Yu finally smiled slightly.
Because now—
he could finally keep beast souls for himself again.