"And the track stops here. How troublesome, you just have to come to this place of all the places."
Xiao was currently tracking a rare beast. All the body part of this beast can be good material, and Xiao needs its horn as he was constructing a weapon.
Xiao has been following the beast for nearly a week. It always runs away before Xiao managed to even lay an eye on it.
According to the encyclopedia book that Xiao had learned, what makes the beast so hard to track down was its unique ability to detect "heat" from its predator.
After a week of trial and error, Xiao finally found a way to counter its ability.
On Xiao's hand was a bottle of special made crystal. This crystal has a temperature of at least minus 50-degree Celcius, and it will mask Xiao's presence to track down the beast.
Xiao continues to follow the foot track for a few more minutes. He then stops at a bush and lowers his body to ground level.
"Alright, got you in my sight." Xiao rejoices as he spotted his target. He quietly hides behind the bush and observes the target no far away from his position - a black four eyes stag deer.
"No running away this time, just as I expected. This crystal hides my presence."
Xiao took out a dagger with a green tip, which can temporarily paralyze the target for a short duration.
Xiao aims at the stag deer's body. After a moment of focus, Xiao throws out the dagger with small movement.
The stag deer realize something was coming fast, but it was too late as the dagger hits its body, making the stag deer jumps in pain. It then tries to escape, but the paralyze instantly takes effect, making the stag deer falls to the ground, twitching as it tries to get back up.
"Alright!" Xiao came out from hiding and walks toward the stag deer.
The stag deer stares at Xiao as if it was begging for mercy.
"I'm not going to say sorry. You should know the rule of the jungle already," said Xiao as he brandishes a short sword.
Xiao steel his heart and penetrates the sword into the stag deer's throat, swiftly ending its misery.
"Thank you," Xiao whisper quietly as he touches the stag deer body.
After that, Xiao takes out his tools and start harvesting its body part with ease, for he has already reached a certain level of mastery in doing it.
It has been a month since Xiao starts his life in the jungle, and he had learnt firsthand about the Law of the jungle, the weak dies while the strong lives.
Every living being in this jungle strives to fight for survival every day. Each of them has a role to play, one being the prey and one being the predator, and no one will ever stay as the predator forever.
As Xiao was almost finishing packing his stuff, he notices something wrong was going on around him.
"They always have to show up at the worst timing, must be the blood that attracts them," Xiao sighed as he put his harvest to the ground. He then wears a military gas mask that he had made for himself and draws out his short sword and a long blade.
The long blade was without a cross-guard, and it has a black handle with 3 buttons on it. The blade part resembles a cutter blade, meaning it was made out of 7 small razors that assemble together.
There was a ruckus going on at trees and bushes around Xiao. After a while, multiple green hideous creatures jump out from all over the place.
"Goblin again, just as I thought, you guys never get tired of stealing other people stuff, eh?" Xiao sighed again, thinking of how troublesome he had to deal with them, which already happened multiple times before.
This was not the first time Xiao got ambush by the Goblin, which happens to be many in this jungle. 9 out of 10 will Xiao encounter them whenever he was out hunting.
With each Goblin ambush, Xiao was getting more and more used to their tactics and fighting style, to the point that he got bored and tired of it because it was a waste of time and resource for him.
(Well, whatever, I'll just use this opportunity to test out my latest weapon.)
Xiao took a deep breath and start constructing his strategy.
18 Goblin was surrounding Xiao. Each of them was showing bloodthirst and already eager to lunge at Xiao any time.
"Well, let's get this over with, come get me!" Xiao provoked them as he shouted out loud.
All the Goblin rushes towards Xiao at once from all direction. They plan to seal up any opportunity for Xiao to escape or dodge.
"Coming in together? Bunch of idiots," Xiao smirk as he presses one of the buttons on the black handle.
"Second Form - Goat Scream," said Xiao as the hilt of the black handle open up and pop out three white balls while Xiao leaps backwards.
As the 3 white balls hit the ground, it immediately blasted out a blinding light, instantly flood the area with light, which resulted in stunning all the Goblin that would attack Xiao.
The Goblins closes their eyes and shouted in agony as they got blind by the light.
"They always fall for this, well, time to kill."
The reason why Xiao was affected by the flash was because of his mask. Xiao designed his military gas mask with his other weapon in mind. Flashbang, smoke bomb, and poison gas will be rendered useless by this custom-made mask.
Seeing as all the Goblin shut their eyes, Xiao swiftly slashed through two Goblins' throats, standing in front of him with his short sword.
Xiao got used to knowing Goblin's weak spot that the two Goblin died a few seconds after they got their throat slashed.
Xiao didn't stop with just 2. He immediately leaps forward to do a horizontal slash with his long blade to the other Goblin next to the two he just killed.
Both of Xiao's blade dance flurry around the Goblin as he continues his onslaught. One of the Goblin with a giant tumour on its nose. It was about to run away in panic by the sound of its comrades scream.
"I see you, tumour man." Xiao didn't directly look at the runaway Goblin, but a red dagger has already flying towards it.
The red dagger penetrates into the tumour Goblin's back, resulted in it tumbling to the ground and crash to its comrades.
"BANG!"
Right after a few moments, the red dagger exploded, turning the giant tumour Goblin and its two friends besides into chunks of meat.
The rest of the Goblins slowly recover from the flashbang. What they saw in front of them was the dead body of their comrades.
One of the Goblin took out a crossbow from its back and was about to shoot Xiao.
"Long ranged weapon? Good timing, I was thinking of trying out the latest form," said Xiao as he got excited and presses one of the buttons on the black handle.
"Second Form - Cobra Fang."
Xiao lunges his long blade forward. The edge extends, with a wireline attached between each razor, which turns the long blade into a razor whip.
Xiao dodges the upcoming arrow while the razor whip's edge already slashes the Goblin's head, who shoots him.
The leftover Goblin tries to charge towards Xiao before realizing something was wrong with their body, hindering them from moving as usual.
"You guys only figure out now? Too late!"
Xiao redirects his razor whip to the rest of the Goblin, which he effortly cut anything within 10 meters into ribbons.
When Xiao was done cutting, all except one Goblin that was further away from Xiao already dead.
"First form - Lion Claw."
Xiao turns his razor whip back to his long blade as he walks towards the last Goblin.
The Goblin tried to raise its club to fight back, but it kept having problems controlling its arm, and its muscle kept twitching oddly.
"Still has no clue on what's going on?" Xiao was already standing in front of the Goblin, readying his long blade to do a vertical slash.
"Goat Scream is not only a flashbang, but it's also a paralyze bomb. Not that you will understand what I am saying."
As Xiao finish his pointless explanation, he slashes the Goblin's head without hesitation, adding another strike to its throat to confirm the kill.
Xiao was not affected by his flashbang plus stun grenade was because of his custom-made armour.
The chest part was made out of elemental crystal and fuse with iron plating in a full grey leather trench coat.
Xiao's pant was tailored with a dagger holster and multiple small pockets that let him store item, mainly bombs.
Xiao's pant, high boot, and gloves were also infused with the elemental crystal, which was made possible because of alchemy.
Xiao designed his armour in such a way was because he prioritizes agility, which he can dodge and counter-attack easily.
Like his mask, Xiao's armour was also made with his other weapon in mind, which means all his weapon's effect will never affect him.
Xiao went back to his backpack, took out a cloth and wipe off the blood from his weapon.
"Guess that's a success for the third form, Cobra Fang. I may need to adjust the speed of the retraction." Xiao was already thinking of fine-tuning his weapon as he cleans his sword.
"Well, that's another form for the Hundred Form Switch Knife, Chameleon. I should start designing a new form already!"
After Xiao finish cleaning up his weapon, he then took out his tools and start harvesting the dead Goblin around him.
Blood, tooth, bones, Xiao didn't waste any of the Goblin parts as he skillfully harvests everything and packs it into a package. These were all excellent material for Xiao to create something. Paralyze dart, poison gas bomb, or even glue, all of these were made possible with the Goblin parts.
When Xiao finishes harvesting every Goblin, it was already sunset.
Xiao packed up his things and checked around to see if he missed anything before returning to his lair.
And that was just another ordinary day for Xiao.