Chapter 17: Wild Boar King
To her utter disbelief, the wild boar devoured the stash of rabbit meat—which she had painstakingly prepared to last her for several days—in just a few greedy bites. Once the snacks were gone, it immediately locked its eyes back onto her and resumed the chase.
Lu Yunxi: !!!
This oversized pest is seriously just holding a grudge, isn’t it?!
Seeing that the monster was absolutely determined to hunt her down, a surge of pure fury cut through her panic. Utilizing her high agility, she leaped and ducked through the brush, using the frantic dodging window to scout her immediate surroundings. Her eyes locked onto a massive, ancient tree boasting an incredibly thick, well-developed network of roots.
She bolted over and planted herself firmly between the gnarled roots, wedging her feet tightly into the grooves to ensure she wouldn’t lose her footing and skid down the steep mountain slope.
Once her stance was secure, she hoisted her bow, notched a fresh arrow, and began firing in a rapid, continuous sequence.
Her heart hammered wildly against her ribs, the adrenaline rush vividly reminding her of the very first time she had faced the village field mice. Except, while a field mouse’s capacity for harm was severely limited, this wild boar was colossally massive, and the restricted, uneven mountain terrain gave her very little room to maneuver. Yunxi had to carefully budget her movements, forcing herself to slow her pacing just enough to cleanly evade the boar’s brutal thrashing while simultaneously lining up her return shots.
Fortunately, after a few tense exchanges, her muscle memory adapted, and she was able to steadily accelerate her firing speed.
The wild boar barreled toward her at a terrifying velocity.
She executed a crisp, split-second sidestep, releasing a double-shot in the same breath. Twang! Twang!
The beast dug its hooves into the dirt, pivoted, and thundered back toward her position. She ducked beneath a low-hanging branch and loosed another arrow straight into its flank.
She repeated the grueling pattern, over and over.
Unfortunately, the boar’s skin was incredibly thick and its flesh was dense and armored. Every single arrow that hit its massive frame only yielded a pathetic -5 or -6 floating damage indicator. The rate of its health reduction was agonizingly slow.
After about a quarter of an hour of non-stop maneuvering, Yunxi managed to steal a brief second to wipe the sting of sweat from her forehead. She glanced up at the beast’s health bar, only for her brow to furrow deeply. The red line had barely receded—it was still well over five-sixths full!
If she kept burning through her resources at this rate, she was going to completely run out of arrows long before the beast dropped! And if she failed to bring the wild boar down, her life would be forfeit.
Realizing the futility of her current strategy, she stopped shooting. While focusing entirely on evading the creature’s relentless charges, she scanned the surrounding forest floor with hyper-fixated intensity, desperately praying for a tactical advantage.
Suddenly, her heart skipped a beat. Tucked away near the damp base of a rotten log was a massive, brilliantly colored mushroom.
The vibrant, unnatural hue looked incredibly familiar. It looked exactly like a notorious strain of lethal fungi.
She instinctively activated her Appraisal technique.
[Death Cap Variant]: A highly toxic wild mushroom. Strictly avoid direct skin contact. Exposure exceeding 30 seconds will result in lethal blood poisoning and swift death.
Yunxi read the description, gritted her teeth, and spun around to track the wild boar as it reared up for another charge.
Moving with frantic precision, she dragged her remaining arrowheads aggressively across the bright mushroom cap, coating the tips in the thick, viscous fungal juices. She carefully drew her bow string and loosed the tainted projectile.
Thwack!
The arrow struck true. Following the standard -5 impact damage, fresh floating text began to rapidly tick above the beast’s head: -10, -11, -10… Poison damage!
The wild boar immediately realized something was wrong. It let out a horrific, high-pitched squeal, pure unadulterated fury burning within its round, bloodshot eyes. Its lethal white tusks gleamed in the dim forest light as it launched itself forward with even more savage, reckless ferocity.
Having tasted sweet success, Yunxi didn’t hesitate. She scrambled back to the patch, aggressively thrusting her remaining arrows into the toxic mushroom before firing them off in rapid succession.
After taking dozens of poison-laced arrows directly to its chest and torso, the wild boar’s massive health bar was finally chipped down to absolute zero.
With a thunderous, resounding thud, the colossal beast collapsed limply onto the dirt.
Yunxi stared at the unmoving mountain of flesh, and the suffocating breath she had been holding in her lungs finally broke free. The absolute tension holding her limbs together vanished instantly, leaving her body shaking violently. Her legs buckled beneath her weight, and she slid down against the roots of the tree, gasping for air as her chest heaved.
Right then, a chime echoed out.
[Ding! Congratulations on defeating the Wild Boar King! You have unlocked the unique title: “Wild Boar King”!]
The crisp, mechanical sound resonated directly in her ears. Intrigued by the new auditory alert, Yunxi pulled open her system character panel to investigate. She noticed that a brand-new settings module had been integrated into her user interface.
Upon expanding the tab, she discovered that the system had automatically upgraded itself, unlocking a convenient text-to-speech voice broadcast function.
After pondering it for a moment, she chose to leave the voice broadcast active. Having a real-time system assistant verbalizing notifications would undoubtedly make it much easier to detect sudden, hidden hazards in the wilderness.
Closing out the menu, she glanced back at the dead beast and the patches of deadly mushrooms nearby. A lingering sense of unease crept over her; the area felt profoundly unsafe. She forced her shaking limbs to move, crawling a safe distance away from the toxic zone before closing her eyes to let her stamina regenerate.
She had lost a significant chunk of her own health during the chaotic scuffle with the beast. If I had known things would get this messy, I should have stocked up on blue-tier health-replenishing seafood meals! Unfortunately, the dry travel biscuits she had baked only provided satiety and a minor anti-toxin buff—they did absolutely nothing for active health regeneration.
She rested in the quiet shade until her strength returned to a manageable level. Just as she gathered her things and prepared to make her descent, a brilliant, piercing white light erupted right from her chest.
Yunxi froze in absolute bewilderment. “What in the world…?”
She reached into her collar and retrieved the small cloth sachet she always kept tucked against her skin. Staring at it, she was utterly stunned.
Inside the sachet was the vibrant green jade bracelet her mother had left her—the heirloom supposedly passed down from her maternal grandmother.
It was actively glowing.
She carefully pulled open the intricate stitching of the handmade sachet to get a better look. To her utter amazement, the stray blood dripping from the superficial cuts on her hands and arms was actively being pulled toward the polished stone, absorbed by the jade bit by bit.
The bizarre, supernatural sight made her eyelids twitch violently.
“What the heck?!”
This heirloom is a literal bloodsucker?!
She instinctively reached out to wipe the smudges away, entirely forgetting that the shallow scrapes on her palms were still actively bleeding. The moment fresh droplets coated the surface, the white light radiating from the jade bracelet flared with blinding intensity.
The very next second, a sharp whoosh echoed directly inside her mind.
The physical bracelet vanished from her hands entirely.
Simultaneously, a massive torrent of ancient information flooded Yunxi’s consciousness.
As the knowledge settled, she realized the truth: one of her mother’s distant ancestors had been a powerful cultivator, an immortal who had meticulously forged this jade artifact specifically to safeguard their lineage. The bracelet wasn’t just a piece of jewelry; it was an anchor to an independent, pocket dimension.
The spatial realm possessed a perfect preservation field, capable of keeping any organic matter indefinitely fresh—whatever state an object was in when deposited would remain entirely unaltered upon extraction. Best of all, the spatial capacity was completely limitless; she could hoard an infinite bounty of resources inside it.
An infinite spatial dimension!
This was the holy grail of legendary webnovel treasures!
A wave of intense, giddy excitement washed over Yunxi. Yes! Now she could finally discard her frustrations regarding storage. With a boundless, flawless pocket dimension at her disposal, she could completely abandon that garbage, bugged system inventory that only let her hoard items without ever letting her take them back out!
“ROAR—”
A deafening, primal screech shattered the forest tranquility, sending flocks of terrified birds scattering into the sky from the canopy above.
Yunxi’s playful smile vanished instantly. She moved like lightning, mentally sweeping the toxic mushrooms, the colossal wild boar carcass, and her harvested wild herbs directly into her newly unlocked spatial dimension before turning to bolt down the mountain path.
She only had two arrows left in her quiver. If she crossed paths with whatever monster had just roared…
A cold shudder ran down her spine, and she dramatically accelerated her pace, flying down the dirt track. Fortunately, despite the terrors of the upper ridges, her descent remained uneventful, and she safely crossed the village threshold.
As she neared the front gates of the Lu courtyard, she spotted Grandma Li pacing back and forth in a frantic circle, her face a mask of pure, grandmotherly anxiety. The moment the old woman caught sight of her, her eyes flared with relief, but her expression rapidly shifted to horror when she noticed the splatters of crimson staining Yunxi’s clothes.
“Xiaoxi! Where on earth have you been these past few days? Why are you covered in so much blood? Are you hurt?! Where does it hurt? Let me see, child!”
“Grandma Li, breathe. I just went hunting up on the ridges. Don’t worry, I promise I know how to look after myself,” Yunxi said soothingly, patting the elderly woman’s shoulder as she spun a comforting lie. “This blood isn’t even mine—it belongs to the game I tracked! It’s a real shame, though; the beast was simply too massive for me to haul down the slopes by myself, so I had to leave it behind for the forest scavengers to clean up. Otherwise, I would have brought some back for you to taste!”
In reality, the wild boar’s flesh was completely saturated with deadly mushroom toxins, making it entirely inedible anyway. What a waste! If she had simply prepared a larger stockpile of standard arrows beforehand, she would be drowning in fresh, untainted pork right now.
Grandma Li’s anxious expression melted into a fond, teary smile. “Oh, you sweet girl. It’s enough just knowing you thought of this old lady. You don’t need to risk your life bringing things back for me!”
Then, her maternal fretting resurfaced. “But Xiaoxi, you must promise to be infinitely more cautious the next time you go up those peaks! The wilderness is far too dangerous for a young girl. How about this? Focus your energy on learning how to cook properly, and I’ll start scouting around the neighboring areas to find you a good, honest young man. Once you’re happily married, you won’t ever have to endure the grueling hardship of mountain hunting again!”
Yunxi’s eyelid twitched violently. Maintaining a polite but fiercely firm smile, she resolutely shut down Grandma Li’s terrifying match-making schemes.
