The 1347th Year of Dali, the 4th Year of Qianyang. Yun Cang Town, White Egret Prefecture, Lingnan Province.
It was the height of summer, and the sun had been a scorching furnace for seven straight days, making people sweat and suffer in the intense heat.
Boom... A rumble of thunder rolled in, the wind roared, and layers of dark clouds obscured the sky, pressing down heavily. Raindrops, the size of beans, began to pour, quickly forming a continuous curtain of rain.
"It's finally raining."
Under the thatched leaves, rainwater streamed down the straw curtain, splashing into the muddy water below and hitting the feet of a slender, pale young man.
Su Yan didn't care about the murky yellow mud. His eyes flickered with a bright, lucid gleam.
He turned and went back into the thatched hut, deftly removing a straw rain cape and hat from the wall and putting them on.
Su Yan was only fifteen or sixteen years old, but his complexion was ashen like white paper, and his figure was gaunt. Even with the ragged cape on, his thin frame was noticeable.
He finished dressing, tucked a torn fishing net into the basket on his back, picked up the well-worn machete beside him, and fastened it to the wooden sheath at his waist.
He looked up at the sky; it was dark and gloomy, like night.
The rain curtain obscured the nearby Cloud Ridge Mountain, which was a hazy expanse, its undulating range resembling a hundred-mile-long python lying across the land.
He strode into the rain. His thin figure beneath the cape gradually moved away, heading quickly towards the great mountain.
Yun Cang Town is bordered by the eight-hundred-mile Cloud Ridge Mountain to the south, a deep, ancient forest that is a labyrinth. To the north lies the six-hundred-mile White Reed Lake, with countless tributaries winding like soul-hooking curves.
The mountain and water sustained the villages large and small in Yun Cang Town, as well as its hundreds of thousands of residents.
Mountains and waters are places of many treasures—precious fish, rare beasts, spiritual plants, and exotic herbs. But retrieving them is difficult. Hunters, fishermen, and mountain-men like him make their living from this.
'The mountain rain is chilling to the bone, and the mountain paths are treacherous. No wonder Uncle Xie repeatedly warned me not to go into the mountains in the rain.'
Large raindrops smeared his eyes, blurring his vision. The already muddy mountain path became almost impassable.
Su Yan slogged through one mud pit after another, his gaze firm as he hurried toward Cloud Ridge Mountain.
A mountain-man survives not because of great skill, but because he knows where the danger is, and where he should or shouldn't go.
He was a mountain-man. Although he'd only been one for five months and four days, he understood the necessary knowledge.
However, this trip was mandatory.
It wasn't because of greed, coveting treasures found in the rain.
It was to get a chance to turn his life around.
Five months ago, he was a law student preparing for an entrance exam. After studying late into the night, he unexpectedly crossed over after saving someone, becoming the same-named teenager Su Yan of Cloud-Front Village.
His mother died of illness years ago, and to save her, the family incurred a large debt. With tax season approaching and the time to repay the ruffians' debts due, the original Su Yan's father took a desperate gamble, climbing a cliff to harvest Stone Ear Grass, but ended up with his bones unrecovered.
Thus, Su Yan was reborn into this life.
The rain beat down, making the ancient trees in the forest sway and groan with eerie creaks.
A chill gradually seeped through the cape and spread across his back.
Su Yan tightened his rain cape, wiped the rain off his face, oriented himself, and rushed towards a small trail. The machete at his waist was already in his hand. Both sides of the path were overgrown with bushes and wild branches that had to be chopped down to pass.
'The bushes are lush, and no one has walked this way. That place should be undiscovered.'
The state of the path made him feel slightly relieved.
He hurried along. The muddy mountain path caused him to stumble a few times, leaving him covered in mud. The inside and outside of his cape were completely soaked long ago.
Even so, Su Yan refused to stop.
Finally, he pushed aside the bushes, and the area suddenly opened up. Two moss-covered stones came into view.
A crevice formed between the stones, and a small stream flowed out of the gap, gathering beneath the stones into a small pool about four or five square meters wide.
Fish surfaced in the pool, exhaling air that rose in small, pearl-like strings.
Su Yan's eyes lit up, and he took out the torn fishing net from his basket.
However, he didn't move to use it, but instead quietly hid to the side of the pool, concealing himself and his cape within the bushes.
Su Yan remained motionless, holding his breath and staring intently, like a stone.
Rain hit his body, soaking his coarse clothes, and the coldness raised goosebumps on his skin.
He gritted his teeth, forcing himself not to tremble, the knuckles of the hand holding the fishing net turning white.
'Treading thousands of mountains to seek treasure, only to become a withered bone in the mountains.''The life of a mountain-man is cheap; they trade their lives for treasures with the Mountain Master. If I don't wait for the Dark Water Centipede today, this body might be taken by a single cold.'
A cold requires treatment, and treatment requires money.
But he had no money.
Su Yan was gambling, betting on a chance to turn his life around.
When he first arrived, who wouldn't want to try something new for a way out?
However, that thought was quickly dismissed.
Not only was he penniless and the world difficult, but the taxes on the mountains and the head taxes for being a low-caste mountain-man could crush a person until they couldn't breathe.
More importantly, in this world, Martial Artists were the supreme power.
'When individual martial power can far surpass ordinary people, a small gathering place set up by a city can suppress large and small villages for two hundred years.'
In such a world, it was too hard to rise above his station.
Su Yan's heart sank as he recalled the scene of a prominent figure from the small mountain association taking action to suppress a Desolate Beast in the mountains.
With a few light steps, he could cover hundreds of meters, and a low shout would summon a four-to-five-meter-tall black wolf phantom to rise from his body.
With just a finger point, the six-meter ferocious tiger that had killed hundreds of hunters and mountain-men was struck down.
With such martial power in a single person, he knew that no number of ordinary people could overthrow this regime.
'The lower class is just crop after crop of leeks. To turn things around, one must practice martial arts!'
The sound of the rain gradually lessened, and the intermittent noises in the mountain forest began to fade.
"Rustle..."
A faint sound came, and Su Yan immediately held his breath, his eyes fixed on the pool.
The water-soaked moss rustled. A flash of dark purple quickly crossed the stone crevice.
Hearing the sound, Su Yan tensed up and immediately stared, watching the dark purple thing crawl out from the moss in the stone crevice.
What a strange centipede!
The centipede was three fingers thick and as long as a forearm. Its dense, segmented legs, like a thousand black needles, clung to the rock and moss.
[Dark Water Centipede (Unranked)][A centipede that gradually gains spiritual characteristics by absorbing primal energy from common insects. It lives near water, appears after the rain, is good at swimming, and can be used in medicine.][Refinable]
Su Yan concentrated, and the information about the Dark Water Centipede appeared before his eyes.
The bright three words, "Can be Refined," made his eyes shine with delight.
He had waited for months, adventuring back and forth in these mountains, risking danger to see many poisonous bugs, and finally, he had found an Exotic Species that could be refined.
The two antennae of the Dark Water Centipede swayed slightly, and suddenly it shot into the water like an arrow.
Before the swimming fish in the water could react, one side of its body was broken. A black fish, nearly the same length as the centipede (about a forearm's length), was instantly bitten and held fast by the centipede. In less than an instant, it stopped moving, and a black line appeared on its body.
'Now's the time!'
Su Yan immediately cast the torn fishing net in his hand. This was a net he had specifically bought for 100 copper coins from an old fisherman. He had stitched and patched it up until the large net was barely complete, only about three or four square meters in size.
Fortunately, he wasn't fishing; he was catching a bug.
The net falling into the water startled the Dark Water Centipede. Szzzz... A stream of black venom spat out and landed near the bushes. In just a few breaths, the grass struck by the venom withered slightly.
Su Yan watched, startled, but pulled hard on the net, dragging the Dark Water Centipede along with the net out of the water. The centipede's thousand legs were usually its climbing advantage, but now its many limbs were tangled with the net, twisting into a ball on the muddy ground.
The Dark Water Centipede wasn't large, but its strength was considerable. It thrashed on the muddy ground, tearing the net in several places.
Seeing this, Su Yan grabbed a crooked stick nearby and struck down. He hit hard. Uncle Xie had told him while mountain-trekking that all Exotic Creatures are much more troublesome than common creatures. Even an Exotic Bug could not be easily subdued with just one or two blows, and he was advised to be extremely cautious.
Three or five solid thwacks rang out, like knocking on a hard-shelled coconut, causing the Dark Water Centipede to curl into a ball, its struggles gradually weakening.
In his Sea of Consciousness, a Qing-colored Bug Cauldron sat—three legs, two ears. The legs were long bugs, the ears were vicious bugs, and the cauldron's body was covered with what seemed like a thousand vicious insects, lifelike and ferocious, vying to devour each other.
The Bug Cauldron vibrated. Su Yan's eyes flashed.
'It's done.'
As the Ominous Bug Cauldron emitted an ancient, desolate aura, the Dark Water Centipede, like an ant, dared not move at all.
Su Yan reached out and touched the Dark Water Centipede. A stream of light entered the cauldron, and the following information appeared before his eyes:
[First-Order Bug Master: 1/100][Bug Realm: 1 cubic meter][Mountain-Trekking: 94/100 (Initiate)][Dark Water Centipede: 1/100 (Nascent Stage)]