Chapter 23: An Inch of Time is Worth an Inch of Gold

The door lock of this miniature container featured facial recognition. Lin Li approached the container and brought his face close to the electronic screen mounted on it.

The electronic screen began the human recognition process. Once the identity of the ordering customer was confirmed, the electronic lock on the container opened automatically.

Subsequently, Lin Li began moving the rabbit beast and the wild boar beast into the container.

The rabbit beast, which stood nearly a meter tall, weighed only a few dozen pounds, making it very easy to place inside the container.

The wild boar beast, however, weighing around three hundred pounds, was more difficult to handle. Lin Li had to exert a tremendous amount of effort to drag it into the container.

"Whew..." Looking at the carcass of the wild boar beast that had taken so much strength to load, Lin Li panted lightly and wiped the sweat from his forehead with his hand.

Now he understood why other beast hunters formed teams to act collectively. Besides the increased safety factor of group action, when you hunted a large beast, having companions meant having extra hands to help carry the prey.

The interior space of this miniature container was quite large. Even with the three-hundred-pound wild boar beast and the rabbit beast inside, it didn't feel crowded at all. Lin Li estimated that he could fit another wild boar beast in there.

After loading the prey, Lin Li closed the container door.

As the door closed, the electronic lock emitted a crisp "beep," and a confirmation option for the return trip appeared on the electronic screen.

Lin Li reached out and tapped the option. The unmanned transport drone, which had been hovering in mid-air, immediately began to increase its flight altitude.

"Whirrr..."

The propellers on the eight wings of the unmanned transport drone emitted a loud hum as the miniature container, holding over three hundred pounds of beast meat, was easily lifted by the drone.

Once the drone reached an altitude of three hundred meters, it began flying toward the urban area.

"Done. Now I just have to wait for the money to hit my account." Standing by the muddy pond, Lin Li watched the departing drone, his heart full of anticipation... He couldn't help it; he was simply too poor right now.

"That battle with the wild boar beast exhausted most of my psionic energy, and my body is extremely fatigued. I'll call it a day! I'll go home and rest, then fight again tomorrow."

*Rustle, rustle, rustle...*

Suddenly, a sound came from the bushes behind Lin Li, and a rabbit beast jumped out from the foliage.

Lin Li, who was planning to head home to rest, locked eyes with the suddenly appearing rabbit beast. His eyes lit up, and he immediately abandoned the thought of going home. "It won't be too late to rest after I finish off this rabbit beast."

…………

*Puchi.*

"Huff... huff... huff..." Panting heavily, Lin Li swung his weapon—a spiritual tool longsword radiating a faint golden light—and thrust it fiercely into the rabbit beast's neck.

He had been working since morning, only resting briefly for lunch. After such a long period of exertion, his physical strength was greatly depleted, and his accuracy had dropped significantly.

He had intended to strike the rabbit beast's head, but instead, he hit its neck.

Furthermore, although his spiritual longsword had pierced the rabbit beast's neck, it had not gone all the way through.

The heavily wounded rabbit beast went into a frenzy. It twisted its neck, broke free from the spiritual sword, and lunged violently at Lin Li.

Unfortunately, the gap in their strength was quite large, and since this rabbit beast was only at the early stage of the first rank and heavily injured, it was kicked away by Lin Li the moment it lunged toward him.

*Bang.*

The rabbit beast was sent flying, tumbling several times across the ground. Just as it was about to scramble up from the grass, Lin Li rushed in front of it. He gripped the hilt of the spiritual longsword with both hands, pointed the tip downward, and stabbed forcefully into the rabbit beast.

*Puchi.*

The longsword entered the brain, the strike piercing directly through the rabbit beast's head and pinning it firmly to the grass.

"Whew..."

Panting heavily, Lin Li looked at the dead rabbit beast and muttered to himself, "I really don't have the strength to fight another beast. I need to get home and rest immediately."

Pulling the spiritual longsword from the rabbit beast's head, Lin Li crouched down, reached out to touch the carcass, and stored it within his mysterious island. Then, he immediately ran toward the urban area.

...

The rabbit beast's blood flowed across the ground, staining a small patch of grass red, and the metallic scent drifted deep into the wilderness with a gust of wind.

*Rustle, rustle, rustle...*

A lithe figure moved through the lush bushes, occasionally sniffing the bloody scent in the air to determine its direction.

Ten minutes after Lin Li had left, a gray wolf beast—covered in gray fur, one and a half meters long, and eighty centimeters tall—arrived at the spot where Lin Li had just killed the rabbit beast.

The gray wolf beast lowered its head to sniff the soil soaked in the rabbit beast's blood and scanned its surroundings, but it found no carcass.

"Awoooo..." Having traveled all this way only to find nothing, the gray wolf beast let out a disappointed howl.

Then, with its stomach growling from hunger, the gray wolf beast ducked into the thick bushes to head toward its usual hunting grounds in search of prey.

Fortunately, Lin Li had returned to the urban area immediately after killing the rabbit beast; otherwise, he would have been ambushed by this gray wolf beast following the scent of blood.

…………

The sun hung low on the horizon as a figure holding a spiritual longsword walked briskly through the bushes. When he saw the straight highway appearing in the distance, a bright smile instantly spread across his face, and he quickened his pace toward the road.

"I've finally made it out."

Lin Li was cautious throughout his journey back, but the moment he stepped onto the flat highway, his mind and body completely relaxed.

Reaching this point meant he had entered the safe zone, but he still had nearly half an hour of walking to reach the urban area.

This was because his current location was still a significant distance from Chenghua Avenue, where taxis were willing to go.

"I can't walk this stretch every time I go to the wilderness; it takes an hour round trip! One hour once, ten hours ten times, a hundred hours a hundred times... time is more precious than gold!"

After entering the safe zone, Lin Li placed his spiritual longsword onto the mysterious island and thought to himself as he walked toward Chenghua Avenue.

At his current stage, he didn't have enough money to buy a car, so he had to settle for a second-best option: spending money to rent a used car for transportation.

"I remember on the way to the market to buy beast meat, there was a used car rental company that hadn't been open very long. I'll check them out tomorrow morning... if the rent is cheap, I'll just rent one there."

…………

(End of Chapter)