"Brother, I heard there's some kind of auction happening in the city."
Tang Wen had come to the blacksmith's to pick up his arrows when Li Daniu pulled him aside to talk.
"What are they auctioning?"
"Everything. Mostly Mutated Beast Meat, the Three Treasures of Mutated Beasts... And I hear you might even get to see the Queen!"
At the mention of the Queen, Li Daniu's face filled with reverence.
It wasn't just him. The common folk in the camp, Tang Wen included, respected the Queen. They were even grateful to her.
In the camp, bullying the weak and harming others was forbidden!
It was an ironclad rule set by the Queen.
And there was no room for sophistry. For instance, if someone deliberately provoked another—say, by insulting a man's family to his face and goading him into a fight—and then killed him, claiming self-defense...
...once the matter reached the Guards, they had unique ways of making it impossible for people to lie.
And once lies were off the table, the truth would quickly come to light.
The evildoer would naturally find it impossible to escape death.
They would either be cut a few times and dragged into the mountains as bait, or be hung from a flagpole to wail until death, serving as a warning to other would-be criminals...
It was precisely this ironclad rule that gave countless ordinary people a sense of security, making them willing to take up Farming.
After all, law-abiding people who kept to themselves were still the majority.
As for the Three Treasures of Mutated Beasts that Li Daniu mentioned, they were the brain, heart, and liver.
Eating the Three Treasures was said to make a Martial Artist even stronger, and could even help them break through their bottlenecks!
Mutated Beasts varied in strength. The stronger the beast, the rarer it was, and the more potent its Three Treasures.
'So what Level of Mutated Beast would the Three Treasures have to come from to make it to the auction?'
Tang Wen thought of the Silver Wolf he had encountered before.
He asked, "Can we go see the auction?"
"Er, we can, but it's 1 tael of silver just to get in the door, and it's non-refundable." Li Daniu didn't seem interested.
Tang Wen wanted to go, mainly to broaden his horizons.
But he felt the money in his pocket and decided against it.
'I have a Cultivation Technique and an Experience Panel. The most important thing right now is to use every moment to improve myself, not to go looking for excitement.'
Li Daniu spoke again. "There was that whole Silver Wolf problem a while back. I heard our Queen took action herself! She captured a Silver Wolf and has it locked up right here in the city."
"Alive? Why not just kill it? Keeping it alive is such a waste of food."
"Tell me about it. They say it's locked in a cage with iron bars as thick as a wrist, kept in a basement somewhere."
"Aren't the people living nearby scared?" Tang Wen had personally experienced the Silver Wolf's oppressive presence. Just thinking about it sometimes made him tense up. That terrifying roar had robbed him of even the thought of resisting.
"Don't know. The place is pretty remote, I think. Besides, you can pay a few Copper Coins to go see it. A new recruit from the Guard unit went in, and guess what happened?"
"What happened?" Tang Wen prompted.
"He pissed his pants!" Li Daniu said in a low, amused voice. "Don't spread it around, but that greenhorn really wet himself! Scared stiff! He'll never live it down in the barracks now. Hilarious, right, brother? He paid money to become a laughingstock. Other commoners have gone in and come out scrambling and crawling, having nightmares for days..."
"How much does it cost to see it?"
Tang Wen didn't laugh. He figured that if he were to face the Silver Wolf up close, with all of its oppressive presence focused solely on him...
'...I'd probably wet myself and come scrambling out too.'
"I think it's 10 Copper Coins." Li Daniu looked up, stunned. "What? Brother, you're not thinking of going, are you?"
Tang Wen shook his head. "Not right now. Maybe I'll go check it out later. I am a hunter, after all. It would be good experience."
Li Daniu rubbed his bald head. "Brother, this hunting business of yours is truly dangerous. You'd be better off becoming a Guard as soon as you can. With your skills, after a few years of hard work, you could probably even make captain. Best would be a city wall captain. They get a monthly stipend of rice and meat, there's no danger, and the work is easy..."
As he listened, the corners of Tang Wen's mouth turned up.
It reminded him of when he had just graduated from college, how his elders had tried to persuade him to take the civil service exam.
Back then, he had been completely against it. 'How much money can you even make as a public servant?'
Now, however, he desperately wanted to be a Guard, because the strongest among them could handle a Silver Wolf.
'By becoming a Guard, maybe I can obtain more advanced Martial Arts Training methods!'
Leaving the blacksmith's, Tang Wen didn't head home.
Carrying his Copper Token, he went into the city and asked a butcher shop owner for the exact location where the Silver Wolf was being held.
"What's this? You want to see the Silver Wolf, young man?" The butcher sounded surprised.
The people around them all turned to look, their eyes full of the kind of anticipation one has when watching a show.
Tang Wen's expression remained unchanged. "I just want to know the location so I can tell my family and friends which area to avoid."
"Ohh," the butcher said, sounding a little disappointed. "Well, just avoid the northeast corner of the city. The Silver Wolf is being kept in that area."
After thanking him, Tang Wen took a roundabout path toward the city's northeast corner.
He turned from the main street onto a smaller road, which eventually led him into an alley.
At the end of the alley stood a building with its main doors wide open. Under the gateway, three Guards in Armor were warming themselves by a fire.
Before Tang Wen could speak, one of the Guards waved a dismissive hand at him. "Go on, get out of here. How old are you, kid? Trying to see the Silver Wolf like everyone else! Be careful you don't get scared to death. Now, go, go, go!"
Tang Wen wasn't the least bit offended. He walked up with a smile. "Thank you for the warning, sirs. You'll probably laugh, but I once saw a Silver Wolf from a distance out in the wilds. I was so scared I could barely stand. When it roared, I fell right on my ass!"
The three men exchanged a glance. The one who had spoken first asked, baffled, "If you know to be scared, why would you come back for more?"
"I'm a Medicine Gatherer for the clinic, so I often have to go outside the camp. I was wondering if I could train my nerves a bit, without actually having to see the Silver Wolf. That way, if I run into another Mutated Beast in the future, I won't be so scared and can run for my life a little faster."
Tang Wen's tone was sincere and calm, and the three Guards looked moved.
The leader of the group sized him up and said, "It's rare to see someone think like that. All right, it's not out of the question. Go through the gate and walk about fifty paces in. There's a room with an opening in the floor and stairs leading down. Just standing at the edge of the hole, you'll feel the difference. If you're not afraid of the Silver Wolf suddenly roaring, go on in and give it a try."
"Thank you. How many Copper Coins is it?"
"It's 10 Copper Coins just to enter."
Tang Wen counted out the Copper Coins, then carefully hugged the wall as he stepped inside.
"AWOOO—"
A sudden roar erupted from below ground. Tang Wen shuddered, his legs turning to jelly, and he quickly steadied himself against the wall.
"That kid's got some bad luck. The Silver Wolf roared the second he walked in."
"Haha, let's just hope he doesn't piss himself in there."
The three Guards continued to chat and laugh by the fire, their expressions unchanged, completely unfazed by the howl.
'This Silver Wolf... no, this environment. How can I use this? Should I practice a Skill?'
Shaking off the fear from the Silver Wolf's roar, Tang Wen clutched his wildly pounding chest and began to think.
'Sword Practice?'
'But what if the Silver Wolf roars while I'm practicing? The blade might fly right out of my hand.'
'I might even overreact on instinct and end up hurting myself.'
'No Sword Practice, then.'
After thinking it over, Tang Wen carefully entered the room, found a corner by the wall, and began practicing his Pile Skill.
'The Eight Vajra Techniques can't be revealed publicly. Flying Stone and Flying Blade aren't suitable for this place either.'
'The only thing that fits is the Pile Skill.'
But Pile Skill required one to 'Embrace the Origin and Guard the One,' which demanded a calm mind.
Staring at the gaping, dark opening, he couldn't calm his mind at all.
He couldn't stop imagining that in the next second, the ferocious Silver Wolf would burst out of the hole and swallow him whole, as easily as a wild boar gulping down a potato!