Chapter Nine: Instruction (Part Two)

Ling Mo nodded with approval. “Very good, you have excellent perception. Now, think about this: your speed has at least doubled compared to before, but the energy you consume during movement has increased more than fivefold. Even if your body still stores food and energy, your lungs simply can’t keep up with the demand. Remember the distance you just managed to burst forth with that explosive speed—this distance marks the line between life and death when you hunt in the future.”

Catherine slowly stood up from the ground. Just moments ago, she had been hovering between ecstasy and agony, her whole body aching. According to her experience, such intense muscle soreness would usually require a day or two of good rest to recover. Yet now she felt her body rapidly returning to peak condition as she inhaled more and more air. This frightening rate of recovery, if known to the world’s athletes, would certainly leave them flabbergasted.

“Master, then how do I deal with this? Surely my combat ability won’t forever be limited to just a few hundred meters?” she asked.

“Of course not—this is only the current stage,” Ling Mo replied with a chuckle, waving his hand. “Don’t get ahead of yourself. Your martial aptitude is impressive, but ‘oxygen deficit’ is the first major threshold in martial cultivation. Once you surpass it, you’ll be considered an Intermediate Warrior. I suppose magic has similar barriers, doesn’t it?”

Relieved at his words, Catherine exhaled deeply. “Yes, Master. So, for now, I should focus on training to expand my lung capacity, right?”

“For now, yes,” Ling Mo replied, a mysterious smile playing on his lips. He did not continue the topic but instead asked, “Your body’s fully recovered now, hasn’t it? Earlier you were too busy retching to notice. Now, focus and sense your body—what might you have overlooked?”

Overlooked something? Catherine closed her eyes in confusion, preparing to scan her body for anything amiss. As soon as her awareness sank in, a strong wave of hunger surged up. Although not as soul-wrenching as the first time, it was still overwhelming, filling her thoughts with a single word: eat!

This time, having experienced it before, Catherine wasn’t entirely governed by instinct and managed to restrain herself a little. She managed to force out a few words, “Why am I so hungry?”

“Did you really think such a powerful recovery wouldn’t consume anything?” Ling Mo laughed heartily. “Muscle soreness throughout your body, plus all the scrapes from tumbling on the ground—injuries like these take an ordinary person days to heal, yet you recovered in minutes. How much energy do you think that needs?”

Catherine was silent. Ling Mo pointed deep into the Monster Beast Rainforest, laughing. “Welcome, my apprentice! The Monster Beast Rainforest is full of feasts. Now, follow me!”

——— I am the dividing line ———

Despite the “monster beast” prefix, the Monster Beast Rainforest wasn’t significantly different from any ordinary rainforest in terms of environment: humid, oppressive, with towering trees everywhere. The gaps between the trees were small; each one stretched its crown desperately skyward, competing for sunlight. This made the forest interior feel dim and gloomy. The trees’ respiration released vast amounts of pale mist, so visibility beyond a dozen meters was virtually nil.

The humidity wasn’t the worst part, though. It was the pervasive stench of rot. Every rainy season, the rainforest endured months of continuous downpours, soaking everything. Tree bark, rotting leaves on the ground, and animal carcasses left in the water for various reasons—all these mingled into a thick, nauseating miasma. Anyone wishing to survive here had to get used to it.

The deeper they ventured, the stronger the stench became, far worse than at the rainforest’s edge. Following Ling Mo, Catherine restrained the urge to pinch her nose. Desperate not to vomit, she spoke to her livestream viewers, trying to distract herself.

“Looking back, I really was overconfident. Surviving in the conifer forests of the Northern Beastman Empire gave me a completely wrong impression of forest environments. I thought the air here would be fresh, but reality has given me a hard slap—the smell in the Monster Beast Rainforest is simply atrocious!”

She shook her head in annoyance, trying in vain to dispel the omnipresent stench, only to feel more irritated. “You probably can’t tell, but although I’m starving and there’s nothing in my stomach, I feel like stomach acid is about to reach my throat! This smell is like boiling a pile of ten-day-old, unwashed socks in soy sauce!”

“Ugh, that description is disgusting, streamer!”

“You described it so clearly—have you actually boiled socks before?”

“What does boiled sock even smell like? Can someone explain?”

“I have! When I was a kid. Don’t remember the smell, just remember my dad hanging me up and beating me for it!”

“Legendary daredevil spotted!”

“Streamer, stop talking—the more you talk, the more stench you’ll inhale, and the worse you’ll feel!”

“You don’t get it! Your mouth can’t smell, so even if you inhale more, it’s not that bad.”

“Hah, streamer must be faking it, right?”

“Exactly—just acting up for attention. How bad can a forest smell anyway?”

On DouShark, trolls were never in short supply. Catherine’s sudden surge in popularity, after that earth-shattering display earlier, was like digging up their ancestors’ graves—the trolls pounced immediately. Though the moderators quickly banned them, Catherine still saw their comments. She paid them no mind and smiled. “To find out if the smell is real, just ask any of the adventuring parties at the rainforest’s edge. But those trolls actually gave me a great idea! When I leave, I’ll capture ten bottles of compressed air from the stinkiest spot and give them to lucky viewers as gifts! To enter, just send the message ‘Sister Kate is the cutest in the world!’ in the chat. There are only ten bottles—first come, first served!”

“Streamer, you absolute genius!”

“Who gives something like that as a prize? I’m reporting you!”

“Evil streamer! I’m reporting you!”

“Sister Kate is the cutest in the world!”

“Sister Kate is the cutest in the world! Sister Kate is the cutest in the world! Sister Kate is the cutest in the world!”

“Damn, report! Report! Sister Kate is the cutest in the world!”

“Evil Sister Kate is the cutest in the world!”

“Viewer ‘The Big Bad Wolf of Storytown’ has gifted a Chaotic Meteor to the streamer! Message: Please save one bottle for me! Sister Kate is the cutest in the world!”

…

Rows of “Sister Kate is the cutest in the world!” swept past on the screen. Catherine’s eyes curved into happy crescents. She was just about to say something else when Ling Mo called out, “Enough playing around, come here.”

Catherine immediately composed herself, closed the chat overlay in her left-eye’s field of view, and hurried to Ling Mo’s side. “Master, what do you need?”

Ling Mo pointed at a tangled mass of vines ahead. “Look. What’s different there?”

The pile of vines was about five meters away. Catherine focused her gaze and soon noticed the anomaly. Among the vines was one that looked distinctly out of place. After a careful study, she realized it was actually a slender, blue-gray snake, hanging upside down from a branch, perfectly camouflaged as a vine. Its blue-gray skin and faint brown mottling blended so well that, unless you looked closely, it was nearly impossible to spot—even up close.

“Snakes are among the most common predators in the Monster Beast Rainforest. From what I know, there are at least a thousand different species here,” Ling Mo explained. “They usually camouflage themselves with patterns and colors. The ones hanging on trees use one of the dumbest tricks. Let me teach you how to spot them.”

He motioned Catherine to come closer, then pointed to the hanging snake. “Just pay attention to the thickness of the vines. Real vines grip the branch firmly at the top, so they’re thickest where they wrap around, then taper as they hang down. But a snake, eager to bite prey, usually hangs head-down. This creates a camouflage that’s thick at the bottom and thin at the top—much easier to spot.”

Seeing Catherine study carefully, Ling Mo nodded in satisfaction. He flexed his arms and said, “This Tier 2 beast, the ‘Leaf Green Snake,’ is an important food source for you. Watch closely—I’ll suppress my strength and speed to match yours. Observe how I catch it!”

With that, Ling Mo approached, reaching slowly for the disguised snake. His hand took an unusual posture, palm up instead of the common palm-down. When his hand was barely a foot from the snake, it suddenly moved!

The snake’s tail tensed into a clear bow shape, a wave of energy rippling from tail to head. In a flash, the dangling head lashed upwards, mouth wide, two sharp fangs snapping at Ling Mo’s wrist like lightning.

Just as the bite was about to land, Ling Mo deftly flipped his wrist, lifted his arm slightly, and grabbed—the snake’s head slipped right into his hand, and he caught its vulnerable neck perfectly!

Ling Mo tightened his grip. The snake, wracked with pain, opened its jaws to an impossible angle, forked tongue darting wildly. It thrashed about, its tail whipping free from the branch and lashing straight toward Ling Mo’s face.

Ling Mo didn’t dodge at all. He let the tail strike him, gripping the snake’s head seven inches down with his right hand. With his left hand shaped like a knife, he sliced upward with force. The snake’s head came off as if cut with a sharp blade, landing on the ground and twitching madly.