Chapter 23：First Battle (2/2)

The panther released a loud roar while trying to break free of the ape's grip. Lin Mu reached the side of the panther and slashed the short sword at its neck, but missed and cut its back instead, as the beast shifted.

The panther attacked Lin Mu with its hind limbs, which were free and nearly injured him, but Lin Mu could dodge it by sidestepping. The ape's grip on one forelimb of the panther weakened, and the panther pried it free.

Lin Mu slashed again and completely missed as the panther was able to twist and turn to dodge his attack. Noticing that the panther was about to break free, Lin Mu held the short sword with both his hands and jumped at it, ignoring the idea of getting injured. The beast clawed at Lin Mu in response which missed his torso and grazed his left arm leaving a shallow cut on it.

Lin Mu put all his weight in and stabbed the panther all the way through its chest. Lin Mu then rolled away, escaping another strike of the panther, leaving the short sword stuck in the panther. Seeing that he was successful in stabbing the panther beast, Lin Mu put distance between him and the panther.

The panther wailed in anguish but could not do much to remove the sword. Now that the ape was dead and had let go of the panther it tried dragging itself towards Lin Mu in a final attempt to attack him, but was too weak and collapsed after not even three steps.

Lin Mu waited for 5 minutes before approaching the panther. He carefully poked the panther with a stick and checked whether it was still alive. Confirming that it was dead, Lin Mu pulled out the short sword from the chest of the beast. A stream of blood then started flowing from the hole in the panther's chest.

Lin Mu put the corpse of the panther into the ring and did the same with the corpse of the ape as well. He then approached the spirit herb and plucked the fruit hanging from it. He was about to pull out the stalk from the ground as well when it withered in an instant and turned to dust. This surprised Lin Mu as he was not expecting this to happen.

Lin Mu examined the small grape-sized purple fruit in his hand. No wisps of spirit qi could be seen rising from the fruit anymore after it was plucked from the stalk. Lin Mu stored the fruit in the ring and prepared to leave the forest.

Lin Mu was lucky enough to not only acquire the fruit of the spirit herb today but was also able to obtain two corpses of possibly high tier beasts. He was lucky that the merchants would be arriving at the town tomorrow and he would be able to sell the corpses along with the box made of fragrant wood. He will definitely be making a lot of money tomorrow, which will hopefully last him the entire winter.

When Lin Mu reached the hunting shack 3 hours later, the first thing that came to his mind was to build a sled so that he would be able to carry the beast corpses to town. He could not let anyone see his usage of the ring, thus could only use this method.

He chopped down some suitable trees and tied them with some tough vines to form a flat sled. He then wove the vines together and attached them to the ends of a wooden pole he made from a sapling, to make a handle with which he could pull the sled.

By the time he was done with all this, it was nighttime. Lin Mu had already set up some meat and rice to cook, so could eat as soon as he finished building the sled.

After eating dinner, Lin Mu immersed himself in practicing the boulder collapsing fist. He practiced all the way until midnight when his concentration finally broke, and he sat down to chant the calming heart sutra.

With the practice that he did in the morning, Lin Mu already sensed that he was close to a breakthrough and thus was not surprised when he finally did, after assimilating all the vital energy from the meat. He felt his skin tingle and itch when he broke through to the 6th stage of the body tempering stage.

He was about to stand up when he felt the ring buzz and lost his balance as a spatial rift appeared right where he was sitting.

”Oh, F*ck.” Cursed Lin Mu as he shifted to the side to prevent himself from falling into the rift.

His arm was completely sucked into the spatial rift, leaving him stuck in an awkward position on the ground. If another person was to see Lin Mu in this position, they would probably burst out in laughter.