Once the mountain hunt began, Autumn Maple town's youth of different strengths shot into the woods, with the Ye family and the Song family in the front line.
Birds flew around in a rampage and loud growls of wild beasts shook everyone's eardrums. In an instant, the entire Seven Stars Mountain trembled nonstop.
Once everyone left, Old Town Leader Liu walked to a deserted corner where a luxurious horse carriage had parked at. In front of the carriage, two handsome horses stood. One of them was white while the other was black, and both looked at least twice the size than the regular horses.
"Sir, the hunt has begun." Old Town Leader Liu looked completely different from the kind and friendly image he had earlier. His back was completely straight, like a precious sword about to make its cold and fierce attack.
Inside the carriage sat a vague figure. Even though there was a curtain separating them, the figure's extremely dignified aura stopped anyone from daring to look into the carriage.
"Hm." A low and lazy voice trailed out from within the horse carriage.
Suddenly, a breeze blew past. Old Town Leader Liu merely felt a chill against his cheek when the horse carriage trembled lightly and the person in the horse carriage immediately disappeared.
In the Seven Stars Mountain, with Ye Sheng as their leader, four other Ye family members stood at the center of the waist of the mountain. As a strong breeze blew at them, the remaining Ye family members rubbed their hands together, ready to start.
"The mountain hunt will continue for three days and nights. The party that hunts the most number of wild beasts will be the winner. During the last mountain hunt, Sister Liuyun had just gone out of town to further her studies. Hence, the Song family took the chance and won the competition. With that, they ended up getting the first mining rights to the northern hill's largest mining mountain. But this time, we must win and take back the mining mountain no matter what!" Ye Sheng said proudly and determinedly.
"The Ye family will win!" Ye Lingyue and her cousins all shouted in unison.
Behind them, several growls made the Ye family freeze.
Growl… Growl…
Behind them, they saw a large entourage behind them. It turned out that after the Song family members had entered the mountain, they instantly abandoned their horses and followed after the Ye Family. However, there was a snow-white mastiff running ahead of the Song family entourage.
"Song Guangyi, you brought a snow mastiff for the mountain hunt?!" When Ye Sheng and the rest saw that the snow mastiff was the size of a wolf cub, everyone's expression changed instantly.
The snow mastiff was a low-level spiritual beast. Their noses were especially sensitive and they were very good at following people. Just a snow mastiff was worth a thousand white silver taels in the county city. To win this time, the Song family had actually made use of their snow mastiff.
"Who forbid us from using snow mastiffs for the mountain hunt? Besides, didn't you bring a dog with you as well?" Song Guangyi and his brother scoffed as they glanced at Ye Lingyue.
Ye Lingyue had a yellow dog following beside her as well.
Squeaky, that lazy bum, was the one that brought it along… Ye Lingyue laughed bitterly. She didn't plan to bring it with her.
Seeing Da Huang, the snow mastiff felt especially arrogant and proud as it angrily growled at it.
Suddenly, a claw appeared on Da Huang's neck and a ball-like thing appeared.
Squeaky had brought its ride. It had been hugging Da Huang's neck the entire way and the bumpy ride made it down. It instantly crawled onto Da Huang's head and shouted sharply at the snow mastiff.
"Squeak!"
It shocked the snow mastiff. It was initially fierce, but it suddenly fell silent and moved behind Song Guangyi.
"You useless thing, why are you hiding?! Let's go!" Song Guangyi kicked at the snow mastiff. He then glanced at that useless mix-breed dog and hummed lowly.
"Ye Lingyue, just you wait." Song Han had already changed into a clean set of clothes, but he still had a swollen face that looked like a pig's head. When he passed by Ye Lingyue, he ruthlessly glared at her.
The southern hill of the entire Seven Stars Mountain was very huge, but it was difficult to find a large beast, too.
"Let's go in too." Although Ye Sheng was angry that the Song family violated the rules, he had no other solution about it. So the five of them hurriedly advanced into the mountain together.
"Lingyue, thank you for earlier." Ye Lingyue and Ye Ning were the only girls in the team. Since their cultivation wasn't too bad, they calmly followed after the rest of the Ye family members into the mountain.
"Ye Ning, why are you thanking her? I could have dealt with Song Han even if she did nothing. Don't think that I will thank you." Ye Qing was unhappy as he glanced at Ye Lingyue and recalled the humiliation she gave him during the inter-family competition.
Why would she be so nice to help him? To be frank, she was just acting kind.
"I just helped since we're all Ye family members." Ye Lingyue nodded at Ye Ning. She then approached Ye Sheng, for she was too lazy to talk to Ye Qing.
"Big Cousin, since the Song family has a snow mastiff, it would be a lot easier for them to find a wild beast. How about we go to the top of the mountain and specifically hunt advanced-level beasts? In that case, we'll have higher chances of winning," Ye Lingyue suggested.
Of course, Ye Sheng thought about Ye Lingyue's suggestion before.
In the mountain, there were three types of beasts fit for hunting, namely elementary herbivore wild beasts, intermediate carnivore wild beasts, and advanced carnivore wild beasts.
From those, an advanced carnivore wild beast was equivalent to ten elementary wild beasts and five intermediate wild beasts. However, most of the advanced wild beasts lived at the top of the mountain.
"Alright, we'll listen to you. Let's walk towards the top of the mountain. However, the top of the mountain is very dangerous. There are all sorts of poisonous snakes and wild fierce beasts in there. Everyone, please be careful. None of us should break out of the team no matter what." Ye Sheng decided almost immediately and changed their route to the top of the mountain.
The closer they were to the top of the mountain, the harder it was to walk. They could see Pine and Cyprus trees taller than ten meters everywhere, together with wild bushes covered in sharp pricks.
Growl!
Suddenly, a wild black panther appeared from behind a rock. It bared its white and sharp teeth, and with a simple jump, it pounced towards Ye Sheng, who was closest to it.
The wild black panther was a type of carnivorous wild beast. Its limbs were extremely strong while its sharp claws were its best weapon.
The moment the black panther pounced over, a strong force different from elementary force enveloped it.
Clang! Ye Qing quickly punched out. Five thunder rays ruthlessly struck at the black panther's waist that its spine cracked with a loud cackle. It died straight away as its body fell on the floor, bones poking out of its back.
"A wild black panther's attacking strength is alarming. It is terribly quick as well. However, when it uses all of its strength and is in the middle of a jump, its body defense force is at its weakest. That is the best time to attack. When you come across it, you must take the chance and never back away like a coward," Ye Sheng hurriedly explained as he showed them how to. He was the strongest amongst the five, being at the seventh level of body tempering. At the same time, he was the only one who had taken part in the mountain hunt before.
As he spoke, another loud growl trailed from within the woods. It turned out that the black panther's growl earlier had alerted its friends over.
Several black panthers appeared from all around and attacked the remaining Ye family members.
The remaining three hurriedly regained their senses and took on a black panther each.
There was a loud crack.
Ye Sheng raised an eyebrow. From his left, Ye Lingyue stretched a hand forward and aimed straight for a female panther's neck. Like she was cracking a piece of rock, she broke the neck quickly and simply. She killed the panther with ease.
This… Ye Sheng broke out into a smile. It seemed like he had been worried for nothing.