Although she was in terrible pain—
Pain in her organs, pain in her ankle—
She simply couldn’t suppress the excitement surging through her heart.
A tiger this big… how large must its crystal core be?
Combined with the small crystal cores from the mutated rats back at home, it might even be enough to raise both of her abilities by another level.
Although Su Yue couldn’t walk, she could still use her powers.
She summoned a vine and guided it into the tiger’s eye socket, probing through the hole in search of the crystal core.
Before long, she found it.
But a new problem arose.
The crystal core was too large and had become lodged in the eye socket.
It was diamond-shaped, and no matter how Su Yue twisted it—left, right, up, or down—with her vines, she couldn’t pull it out.
Not a single angle worked.
Su Yue felt both delighted and worried.
Delighted because the crystal core was indeed enormous.
Worried because it might be too large to extract.
She used her vines to drag over her water cup, opened a nutrient capsule, sprinkled it into the water, and took several sips.
The moisture felt like rain on drought-stricken land.
Strength slowly returned to her body.
Her foot wasn’t going to recover anytime soon, so she needed something to help her walk.
Looking around, she picked up the chicken-beak knife that had been thrown aside during the battle and gathered several sticks of suitable thickness.
Then she began making a crutch and a splint.
The crutch was easy.
One of the sticks was about as thick as three fingers. It wasn’t perfectly straight, but it would do.
After trimming it to the proper length with the knife, she had herself a serviceable crutch.
As for the splint, she bound several sticks to her injured ankle with vines.
The arrangement helped stabilize the injury and prevented the bone from shifting if she accidentally bumped it while walking.
Once the tools were ready, Su Yue used the crutch to stand and hobbled toward the tiger’s head.
Now how was she supposed to get that crystal core out?
A mutated tiger’s skull was incredibly hard—the toughest bone in its entire body.
Even Li Zheng’s energy guns might not be able to blast it open in a single shot.
So breaking the skull was out of the question.
Her gaze suddenly fell upon the tiger’s lower jaw.
Right.
Near the throat, beneath the lower jaw, there was no skull bone blocking the way.
She could cut through the skin there and retrieve the crystal core from underneath.
Without hesitation, she got to work.
Using the chicken-beak knife, she sliced into the tiger’s throat area.
The hide was astonishingly tough.
Even with the sharp knife, she had to exert considerable force just to cut through it.
Back when she hunted mutated rats, the same knife had killed them with effortless single strikes.
Once she opened a passage, she sent her vines inside.
This time, retrieving the crystal core was surprisingly easy.
She poured water over it, washing away the blood and bits of tissue.
Under the afternoon sunlight, the crystal reflected dazzling colors onto the ground.
The crystal core was as large as a young woman’s fist.
A truly gigantic crystal core.
Nearly ten times larger than the one she had extracted from the Reedflower Chicken.
The sight made her forget her pain.
She wanted desperately to absorb it immediately.
Yet she restrained herself and carefully tucked it into the hidden pocket against her chest.
It was too beautiful.
She couldn’t bear to handle it carelessly.
Su Yue was happy once more.
And the crystal core wasn’t the tiger’s only treasure.
Its hide.
Its fangs.
Its meat.
Everything was valuable.
She took out her detector and checked the radiation level of the meat.
She wasn’t hopeful.
Adult mutated animals usually had extremely high radiation levels.
As expected:
[Target radiation level: 18,632. Consumption not recommended.]
She sighed.
Still, there was the hide, the fangs, and the bones.
The problem was that there was simply too much to carry home.
She could only take the most valuable parts.
The rest would either be hidden somewhere for later retrieval or marked and sold as a resource location.
The fangs and bones were impossible for her to remove.
They were far too solid.
Instead, she focused on the hide covering the body.
After cutting it free, she rolled the enormous sheet into a bundle.
Once she’d recovered a little more strength, she planned to gather grass and firewood to disguise it before taking it home.
She worked in short bursts.
A little work.
A little rest.
She couldn’t rest for too long, though.
There were only three hours until sunset, and she had to return to the refugee district before dark.
She also removed the hide from the tiger’s limbs.
Four smaller pieces.
Enough to make two pairs of leather boots.
These she folded and stuffed into her cloth bag.
Everything else had to stay behind.
The meat would probably be devoured by scavengers overnight.
But the bones and fangs wouldn’t disappear.
Very few people came to this side of the mountain.
She could return tomorrow, hide the remaining skeleton, and slowly transport it piece by piece in the future.
By the time she finished harvesting the hide, another hour had passed.
Throughout the process, her healing ability had been constantly repairing her injuries.
Each bit of recovery eased her suffering.
Leaning on her crutch, she stood once more.
Using her vine ability, she gathered firewood, wrapped vines around her knife to cut grass from a distance, and had all ten vines working simultaneously.
Before long, she’d collected a massive pile of grass and wood.
She buried the rolled tiger hide beneath the grass.
Then stacked firewood around it.
The entire bundle was tightly bound with vines.
At a glance, it looked exactly like a normal load of winter fuel.
Many people gathered firewood for heating during the cold season, so carrying large bundles up and down the mountain wouldn’t attract attention.
She also stuffed extra grass leaves on top of her cloth bag to conceal the smaller pieces of hide underneath.
With that done, she still had to deal with the blood covering her body.
The leg of her pants around her injured ankle had long since been soaked red.
She cut that portion away.
Her cotton jacket was stained too.
But she absolutely refused to cut it apart.
Fortunately, the blood hadn’t soaked through the thick fabric.
The inside remained clean.
People here wore all sorts of ragged, mismatched clothing.
No one would care if a jacket was worn inside out.
But large bloodstains would definitely attract attention.
So she removed her coat, turned it inside out, and put it back on.
The bloodstained side was now hidden.
Problem solved.
As for the blood on her face, she used some water from her cup to wash herself and wiped the remainder off using a patch of fur still attached to the tiger’s carcass.
By the time she finished cleaning up, evening was approaching.
From her battle with the tiger before dawn until now, nearly eight or nine hours had passed.
Her body had recovered considerably.
Her left foot could finally touch the ground, albeit barely.
The disguised bundle of firewood weighed heavily on her back, causing a dull ache in her damaged organs.
Still, she gritted her teeth and started down the mountain.
I have to become stronger.
Su Yue repeated the thought to herself.
Strong enough that she would no longer have to hide everything she possessed.
Living this cautiously—
Always worrying—
Was exhausting.
If she became powerful enough, she wouldn’t have to fear others discovering her wealth.
Of course, her abilities themselves would probably need to remain secret forever.
If the people at the top learned what she could do, they would undoubtedly drag her away for research.
She had no intention of becoming a laboratory rat.
Lost in thought, she walked, rested, and walked again.
Finally, just as dusk faded into darkness, she descended the mountain and returned to the refugee district.
The streets were nearly empty at this hour.
Without the noise of traffic or city life, the moon and stars above shone brilliantly.
It was mid-September, and the moon was almost perfectly full.
Moonlight spilled across the roads, illuminating the night.
This was the first time since transmigrating that Su Yue had truly looked at the moon of this world.
It was beautiful.
It would have been even more beautiful if she hadn’t been injured.
After admiring it for only a minute, she hurried home.
Not because she was tired.
But because she could hardly wait to absorb that crystal core.