Chapter 15：Making A Small Fortune (1/2)

After waking up the first thing Lin Mu sensed was that the air was much colder than normal in the shack. He opened the door of the shack and felt a gust of chilly air hit his face. Looking around he took a breath of relief at the absence of any snow in the surroundings.

'It's good that it did not snow in the night, though the temperature has fallen even more. I probably have at most a month till winter sets in.'

Once winter came it would be much more difficult for Lin Mu to catch beasts with traps, if he wanted to hunt beasts he would have to go much deeper in the forest and that would be dangerous. Lin Mu had to get enough money within this one month to rent a place to stay in the town and have enough left to tide over the winter. If he could not, it would be harrowing to stay in the hunting shack as there was no way it could provide adequate protection from the cold.

'I should go check the traps and see if there's anything caught in them. I hope there's no stronger beast near the traps like before.'

Lin Mu made his way towards the trails where he had set the snare traps, trying to make as little noise as possible. This time the heavens seemed to be happy with Lin Mu as he found that the first snare had caught something.

He walked closer to take a look and thanked the heavens on spotting what was caught in the snare — it was a Snow veiled hare.

Snow veiled hares were quite a rare beast in the northern forests. Even though they were only low tiered beasts having the strength equivalent to that of the 2nd stage of body tempering realm, they were incredibly fast and could camouflage in snow, not to mention they would only come out once the snow was knee-deep.

Finding one this early before winter was very unusual, even veteran hunters would only be able to catch one every few years. The flawless white fur was prized by the women of affluent families in the city and would sell for a small fortune.

Lin Mu grasped the squirming Snow veiled hare firmly, finding it a little difficult because of the strength of the beast. Lin Mu wanted to keep the Snow veiled hare in the ring and not skin the pelt by himself. He did not think he had a skill good enough to avoid damaging such a precious pelt, and he did not have the right tools either. He would rather just sell the whole beast alive.

Lin Mu did not know whether he could actually keep the beast alive in the ring, as he had never tried that before. Not wanting to experiment it on the Snow veiled hare, he tied its limbs tightly with some vines he found nearby, and coiled them multiple times around the limbs to make sure it does not snap them.

He slung the beast on his back and went ahead to check on the other snares. The second snare was triggered and the noose of the snare was ripped, most likely from a bigger or stronger beast. He examined the footprints and found them to be hoof prints.

'Seems like a deer passed through here, that's strange as well they don't wander out here either.'

'First, the Snow veiled hare, and now a deer is something scaring the low tiered beasts and animals here.'

'Wait, could it be the same beast that destroyed the surrounding area of my traps?'

Lin Mu did not want to go near the area, but his curiosity won in the end. Lin Mu silently approached the area, keeping his eyes wide open and legs ready to run at the first sight of danger. The area looked the same as before, with broken trees lying around and claw marks and paw prints everywhere.

He examined further and there were no new beast tracks there either. The other beasts were most likely avoiding the area because of the scent of the beast which destroyed the area. He saw the path on which the beast retreated; it went deep towards the forest.

Having satisfied his curiosity, Lin Mu checked upon the remaining four traps. Two of them were not triggered again, these were the same ones that were not triggered the last time he had checked. The last two traps were successful. There was a Black horned rabbit caught in one and in another a Thorn tailed rat.

Lin Mu wanted to experiment whether he could keep beasts alive in the ring, thus these two would become his subjects. He held the Black horned rabbit and stored it in the ring. Lin Mu then pulled it out from the ring after 10 seconds.

The Black horned rabbit was still alive and squirmed in his hands. He put the Rabbit back in the ring and waited for 5 minutes to see if it was still alive after that. 5 minutes passed and he withdrew the beast from his ring, this time it was dead.

'Why did the rabbit die after 5 minutes and not before? Could there not be any air in the ring for the rabbit to breathe?'