He had just rolled up the still-dripping pig hide and was about to stuff it into his pack.
Before he could even wipe the stench of blood from his hands, a strange sensation shot up from the soles of his feet straight to his skull.
The Swift Ant Gu parasitizing the meridians in his calves suddenly transmitted a dense, rapid series of vibrations.
These weren't like the heavy footfalls of an Ironhide Boar.
They were more like countless raindrops drumming against a taut surface—quick and chaotic.
At the same time, the Red Mud Gu in his aperture sent out a warning.
It had detected several clusters of heat signatures moving rapidly, fanning out from downwind in a flanking formation.
Lin Mu's head snapped up, his pupils contracting sharply.
In the distance, a thicket of shrubs rustled silently.
Several pairs of glowing green eyes lit up in the shadows, radiating a cunning and cruelty that made his heart clench.
Wind Wolves. And not just one—a pack.
"I can kill one Wind Wolf. I can outrun three. But this is at least seven or eight..."
Lin Mu made his decision in an instant.
He didn't even spare a glance for the half-butchered boar carcass at his feet—his body was already in full retreat.
Wolves knew coordination. They understood tactical encirclement.
Even a Rank 2 Gu Master caught in their trap would lose a layer of skin.
His newly advanced Rank 1 mid-stage cultivation? He wasn't even enough to pick their teeth.
And this Black Wind Ridge was crawling with such pack predators. Every shadow concealed lethal danger.
In truth, the clan's mandatory mission had always been a calculated scheme.
It wasn't just about squeezing supplies from the branch families—it was about using the mountain's dangers to rapidly temper soldiers.
Even the deaths of branch disciples were considered acceptable losses.
Right now, most of the branch disciples were still hesitating at the stockade gates, busy recruiting companions to form teams, none daring to enter alone.
Only Lin Mu, armed with nothing but guts and grit, had plunged solo into this crisis-ridden old forest.
"Awooo—!"
Before Lin Mu could think further, in a flash of lightning-fast movement, the alpha wolf let out a long howl.
The lurking pack instantly shed their concealment and exploded forward—gray bolts of lightning hurtling toward him.
A race between speed and death.
Lin Mu didn't run in a straight line. Trying to outpace Wind Wolves in a straight dash through the jungle was suicide.
He took a deep breath, flooding his legs with dark green Primeval Essence.
"Earth Ring Body!"
Dark-red mud rings instantly locked around his ankles.
He kicked off hard against the trunk of an old tree, using the powerful rebound to launch himself like a gecko up a three-meter rock face.
Still mid-air, he pulled a packet from his chest—strong beast-repelling powder bought from the caravan market—and scattered it downwind without looking.
Puff—
A cloud of pungent yellow smoke erupted behind him.
The wolves at the front caught the powder unprepared. Agonized sneezes burst from their throats as their sensitive noses went blind. Their pursuit formation dissolved into chaos.
Seizing the brief window, Lin Mu scrambled up the rock face hand over foot.
A few bounds later, he vanished into a dense thicket of thorns, erasing all trace of himself.
Half an hour later, Lin Mu crouched in the fork of a towering fir tree, peering coldly through the dense foliage at the scene below.
The wolf pack had lost their target. They now circled the Ironhide Boar's carcass.
They tore at the remaining flesh with savage abandon. The sound of splintering bone echoed far through the silent forest.
That bloody scene struck Lin Mu like a warning bell: here, the roles of hunter and prey could switch at any moment.
Once he confirmed the wolves had departed, Lin Mu didn't rush back to the stockade.
The encounter had been harrowing, but it had also exposed his weaknesses.
The Earth Ring Body existed in embryonic form, but it was too crude, too stiff. In a true life-or-death sprint, even the smallest mistake could be fatal.
"Since I'm here, I won't leave empty-handed."
Lin Mu replotted his route.
He deliberately avoided the windy zones where wolves were active, targeting instead the low-lying, muddy territories of the Ironhide Boars.
These lumbering beasts made the perfect live targets. The perfect sparring partners.
Over the next two days, this muddy basin became Lin Mu's personal training ground.
He no longer sought one-hit kills. Instead, he became a patient "feeder"—drawing out attacks to hone his responses.
Facing a red-eyed charging boar, he didn't retreat. He advanced.
Only when the tusks were about to graze his clothes did he activate the Red Mud Gu.
Dark-red mud rings materialized instantly at his ankles. Sidestep. Slide. Deflect.
He carved a strange arc through the mire. The boar blasted past his nose, its slipstream stinging his face.
Once. Twice. Ten times...
The process wasn't smooth.
At first, his control over the red mud rings was still rough. Once, a boar changed direction too quickly; the ring formed half a beat too slow.
He dodged the tusks, but the steel-needle bristles raked across his thigh, stripping away a chunk of flesh.
The searing pain warped his movements. He nearly had his ribs crushed by the follow-up trampling.
But Lin Mu didn't stop.
After a quick field dressing, he went right back to provoking the next boar. Pain was the body's best teacher.
After each fight, he'd tear strips from his clothes for bandaging.
But the Red Mud Gu would actively seep a thread of mud over the wound.
The faint toxic heat was agonizing, yet it stanched the bleeding and eased his muscle aches. Lin Mu was growing accustomed to this fight-poison-with-poison pain—an unexpected bonus from his two days of "feeding."
From initial stumbles and bloodied wounds to calm, fluid evasions.
Through countless close-quarters clashes with wild beasts, Lin Mu continuously adjusted the thickness and placement of his mud rings, fine-tuning his Primeval Essence output.
He even deliberately activated localized red mud shields to tank boar tusks head-on, testing the limits of his defense.
BANG!
Another collision. Lin Mu skidded back three steps.
The red mud shield on his chest shattered—but his ribs remained intact. He wiped the blood from the corner of his mouth, eyes blazing with controlled fervor.
Beyond defense and evasion, he practiced drawing his blade while moving at high speed.
The Iron Leaf Gu was no longer just a straight-flying hidden weapon in his hands. It had become a scythe for reaping lives in mobile warfare.
He learned to flick the iron leaf mid-sidestep, using momentum to slice precisely through the weakest joints of the pig hide.
Two days of intense training drained massive amounts of dark green Primeval Essence from his aperture.
But the Liquor Worm kept slowly purifying his essence, making his recovery nearly twice as fast as an ordinary Rank 1 Gu Master.
This was one reason he could grit his teeth and keep training through his injuries.
Two days later, when the last sparring boar collapsed at Lin Mu's feet, something in him had changed.
His gray cloth garments had long since become a mud-caked mess, but his eyes blazed with frightening intensity.
Around his ankles, the dark-red mud rings no longer needed a full breath to form. Now, the moment his will flickered, they materialized instantly.
His movement through the mire was no longer stiff and awkward, but fluid—like a slippery eel.
Earth Ring Body: Minor Accomplishment.
Looking at the boar carcasses strewn across the ground, Lin Mu felt little satisfaction. Ordinary Ironhide Boars no longer challenged him.
This one-sided slaughter yielded nothing but wasted Primeval Essence and piles of cheap pig hide—minimal benefit to his actual strength.
"Time for a new opponent."
Lin Mu sheathed his steel blade, preparing to withdraw toward the perimeter and turn in his mission.
Suddenly, a mark in the mud caught his attention.
It was a massive hoofprint, as wide as a washbasin, sunk half a foot deep into the earth.
The soil around it was scorched black, as if seared by intense heat.
Not far ahead of the print, a tree trunk thick enough to require two people to embrace had been snapped clean in half.
Wood splinters scattered everywhere, as if struck by a heavy hammer.
"This kind of destructive power... no ordinary Rank 1 beast could do this."
Lin Mu crouched down, pinching some of the charred soil and bringing it to his nose.
A faint sulfurous smell filled his nostrils. His heart pounded twice, hard.
He knew that when a beast mutated—or when a wild Gu worm parasitized its body—it could gain power far beyond its kin, becoming the king of its herd.
A Mutant Ironhide Boar King.
Lin Mu made the assessment instantly. A glint of greed flashed through his eyes.
Ordinary wolf pelts and pig blood could satisfy the mission quota, but that was just paying tribute to the clan's exploitation.
For someone desperate to advance his strength, their value was limited.
But this Boar King was different. Those scorch marks meant it almost certainly hosted a wild Gu worm of the Fire Path or Strength Path.
That was the real treasure.
"I have the Earth Ring Body for protection. I have mid-stage Primeval Essence for bursts of power. I have the Red Mud Gu for recovery."
"If I play this right, I might just be able to punch above my weight."
Fortune favors the bold.
Lin Mu hesitated no longer. He rose to his feet—but didn't head toward the stockade.
Instead, following that trail of massive hoofprints, he turned and slipped deeper into the darker, more dangerous shadows of Black Wind Ridge.