Chapter 3: Metal Essence Grass
Zhu Xiaoye didn't bother dodging as he used one of his old basic skills called Rapid Assault. This was a technique that would enhance the speed of the user depending on how well their precision was. By striking in a certain way, the speed of attacks would increase because of less air resistance.
Bang! Bang! Bang!
With three rapid hits, one to the head to move it away, and the other two to the body, the leopard flew back a few feet before rolling on the ground a distance away. After a pause, the leopard stopped moving altogether.
Zhu Xiaoye walked over and checked the leopard out to see if there was anything worth taking and keeping. With a couple of moments passing and a few pat-downs on the dead leopard, he could only leave in disappointment.
Animals and regular beasts didn't have things like money and valuable items hidden away. Things like these would only be found on humans or other intelligent beings since they knew how to store away treasures.
Passing through the jungle area, he let his mind, map out the areas he would travel, so he could avoid getting lost. Before he left, he brought a small amount of bamboo with him for later use and decided that the small clearing with bamboo trees would be his territory.
While he didn't read into it too much, making the bamboo clearing his territory could only be accused on another one of his new animal instincts.
Taking note of the scenery around him, Zhu Xiaoye wondered if he was in the wilderness. If he was to go by what he saw, the sight of humans in the large jungle should be rare. Having experienced one on his first day, he blamed his luck for being terrible.
The farther he walked, the fewer trees he saw. He could tell the direction he was going, was leading out the jungle area. Instead of turning in a different direction since he wanted to look for herbs to promote his strength, he kept going out of curiosity.
After hours of going in the same direction without encountering a single animal or beast, he got his first look at the area outside the jungle. It was a wasteland.
Dirt, sand, dried up ground with cracks running through it, lifeless trees scattered out thinly with no leaves, and strong winds blowing was the sight that greeted him.
This area looked even larger than the jungle had. If he wanted to cross this land, he believed he would need greater strength than what he had now. Was this the area separating beasts from humans? Or was this the area cutting off unknown lands?
Though these thoughts passed his mind, he couldn't answer any of them. In the future, he would find out all these things, he decided. There was one thing this did tell him though, his territory was only on the outer edges of the true jungle.
Following that mindset, there would sure to be stronger beasts farther in. Backtracking to an area close to his bamboo clearing, Zhu Xiaoye once again returned to looking for areas that might produce the herb he needed.
The herb he was looking for was Metal Essence Grass. This type of grass was very common in his past life. The nature of this herb would be to grow around areas that had trees brunched close together, which made this jungle-like area very suitable.
Farther more, most beasts would stay clear of this type of herb because the smell it gave off, caused a feeling of hunger for metal like things. Since forest areas usually didn't have metal and beasts tended to be instinctual creatures, they would starve themselves to death.
Of course, for human like-minded beings, ignoring one's instinct would be no problem. In truth, the effect it had on the mind wasn't strong and it could easily be solved by eating something. Once one ate some kind of food, the Metal Essence Grass would become completely harmless.
While Zhu Xiaoye didn't know if this new world had it, with his knowledge from his past life and his animal instincts to avoid danger, he was sure finding the Metal Essence Grass would be easy as long as it existed.
Watching the trees for groups that would grow close together and areas that looked abandon by animal life, Zhu Xiaoye finally got a scent of it before he saw it. Unlike how he remembered, the grass was silver like in color which had also spread to the beginning trunks of the trees nearby.
Its essence also seemed to be very rich as it gave an extremely faint glow of white light. If this was his past, the grass would only have traces of silver on the edges of the tips and it would not spread to any other areas.
The herb in total was a grass with four leaves about 5 to 6 inches long and the roots buried deep down in the ground twice as long. With the current Metal Essence Grass being so potent from the looks, he wasn't sure how big of a difference it would have on the body.
There was also two ways to collect this type of grass herb. The first was to dig around the roots and avoid damaging them as they would also be part of the herb and gave an even better effect than the leaves themselves.
Or the second method being, to pour extremely hot liquids like water on it, which would make the roots lax and the inside more sturdy from its metal properties. With this method, one could just pull it right out of the ground with no worries of it breaking apart.
While the second method was usually used, he didn't have any hot liquids so he could only go with the first method. This method was also better since there were fewer chances of the body of the grass being damaged.
Just when he finished his thoughts on which method to use, he felt an intense hunger come over him. This was completely different from how it used to be where one would feel like eating. The hunger was so great, it felt like his stomach was trying to engulf itself for needed body nutrients.
He had to ponder, was the effects so strong because he was now an animal with strong acute senses? Was it the rich essence the Metal Essence Grass had flowing through it? Or was it just the differences between the two worlds?
Feeling the hunger to eat metal grow to a point where his stomach was making noises and could be seen wiggling as if it started to eat of itself, Zhu Xiaoye took the small amount of bamboo he grabbed earlier and started chewing before swallowing.
Unfortunately after waiting a moment, the effects did not die down but grew stronger. Would he be eaten alive by his own stomach? Not wanting to give up, he tried thinking why it didn't work and what could solve his situation.
It was only after gathering all his thoughts that he realized the biggest problem. The symptoms he thought earlier only applied to beings who have already enter the Hide Solidify Stage or greater from building up a resistance to the Metal Essence Grass.
His body didn't have any metal essence flowing through him. Essence, in general, was a type of lesser energy that would slowly be nurtured into the body during the Beast Transformation Realm to prepare for a greater type of energy called Qi.
To solve this, he would need to use the Metal Essence Grass quickly before his stomach gave out. The major problem with this was, there was no water source. Since he got to this land, he had yet to see a water source.
No! That was wrong thinking!
The bamboo clearing he first appeared in, should have some type of water nearby. The reason for this was that he had met two encounters in the bamboo clearing. The only reason an animal or beast would be nearby or anywhere in the area would be because they had excess to a water supply.
With no water to drink, all living beings tended to avoid such places if possible. Seeing how he couldn't solve his hunger problem without the Metal Essence Grass, he could only choose to gather up the herb grass first.
In all, there were three Metal Essence Grasses. Not leaving a single one behind he dug them out carefully while fighting the hunger the whole time. It was then he got a good idea. Why couldn't he use the Suppression Sphere to suppress the feeling of hunger as much as possible?
This should work since the suppression would still be applied to himself in the end. With great concentration, he tried to strengthen the effect of the suppression feeling near his stomach as he already been using the suppression to help train his body.
As his face and body turned red trying to fight over control with the Suppression Sphere, gradually the feeling became lesser and lesser. A smile slowly spread across his face as he thought that maybe the Suppression Sphere was a treasure after all.
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