The sound of flesh being cut and the tearing of hide along with the squelching of internal organs sounded in a small area near Pure-Pond Village, it had been just over an hour since the Razor Wolf had been dealt the finishing blow and Gong Jie of the Crystal Coral Sect trio had gone ahead and brought over their carriage, along with a borrowed trailer so they could haul the corpse to a more suitable place.
Now, they were busy extracting all they could from the lifeless body, a spirit beast's corpse was filled with valuable material, even more so when it was close to Satiated like this beast was. The corpse was large enough that they could work on it all at once, so it was surrounded on all sides as it laid across a large stone patio.
First, the pelt was skinned from the body and laid out to dry, it was damaged but it still held value, then the external valuables like fangs and claws were removed carefully as the blood was drained from it, they could be made in to Low Mortal grade tools and weapons, then the eyes were taken, medicinal recipes or alcohol brewers might use such a thing though their value wasn't too high, unless the beast had a unique ocular technique.
After that, it was split open at the belly as it and the GI tract were removed, these were almost worthless, at most they can serve as feed for other Spirit Beasts, after that the organs were removed one by one and stored, each one had different uses from food, medicine to research and everything between.
The carcass afterwards would be split up with bones and meat, to be eaten if edible, or to feed special livestock.
And finally…
'It's quite big…' Shu He thought as he held a large crystalised stone like object in his hands, it was silver with a tinge of red here and there, the colours flickered continuously as it seemed like the contents were shifting constantly.
"That's definitely a Satiated rank Spirit Heart… It's amazing that you managed to take it down" Tao Yan commented as he sucked his breath in staring at the large crystal.
It was in the shape of a heart, not the cartoon representation of one, but an actual animal heart, it was like it had been fossilized, except it became a weird crystal instead of stone.
'It almost resembles some weird disease…' Shu He remembered some odd conditions he had read about back in his previous life, stones growing inside of people, their bones overgrowing and damaging their body.
"Have you seen many Spirit Hearts before?" Shu He asked, curious.
"You haven't?" Tao Yan replied to which Shu He shook his head "It's my first time seeing one in person, I've seen plenty of diagrams though".
"Really? I thought for sure you were experienced in hunting them…" Tao Yan frowned slightly "I guess big sects really are different…" he murmured to himself. Wang Kang then interrupted them "Are you sure you're fine with us taking this much? We didn't do any of the work…".
"It's fine, think of it as payment for the lift; And I would have been in trouble had you not put up those barriers, taking that technique once was painful enough, that second one was far more powerful" Shu He explained, waving away their concern.
He was telling the truth… kind of, truthfully he would be able to manage if he used up the rest of his Qi to form a barrier of trees, it may have taken a bit more effort to finish off the wolf afterwards, but he felt he could have done it.
"Stop complaining you two, he's giving it us so let's take it!" Said Gong Jie as she slapped her two fellow disciples on the back causing them to wince.
Shu He chuckled before looking back at the Spirit Heart, he was entranced with it but not simply because it had a macabre beauty to its living crystal form, there was something he could see which others could not.
And that would be Golden Qi of course.
The Spirit Heart had a complex array of vein like threads composed of the Golden Qi, it was like they were controlling the flow of Qi inside of the heart itself, he hadn't seen such a thing before since he had never been able to see inside of a Spirit Animal to get a look, but he couldn't help but think they were similar to formation engravings.
'I wonder if formations were initially developed from observing things like this…' He pondered as he traced the lines across the crystal, there were too many to count and he got lost doing so, it was too complex for him to memorise.
He then put it away in its own pouch that was thick and padded, it was quite durable in itself, but it was better to be safe than never.
After another half hour the butchering was complete and everything was stored on the wagon, in the end Shu He only took a couple of the best claws and fangs along with the Spirit Heart, he wasn't interested in the other materials.
The Spirit Heart was, of course, the most important part of the wolf, Spirit Hearts act as a core of cultivation for Spirit Animals unlike humans who have theirs isolated from the world, because of this it contains everything cultivation related, it can be used as an element-based Qi Stone, used in formations, ground up and used for pills, but of course there were other more practical uses.
One was to become a Lifeblood cultivator, Shu He didn't fully understand the process or the technique behind this, but he understood that a Spirit Heart was key, it would allow the cultivator to become something akin to a human-beast hybrid, this was demonstrated by Tai Min who could become a shadowy substance, a innate technique that belonged to a specific Spirit Beast known as a 'Shadow Demon'.
The other was a large gamble, the innate technique of a Spirit Beast is inscribed within their Spirit Heart, and so a cultivator can attempt to learn, or glimpse inspiration from that technique by steadily meditating and cycling Qi with the Spirit Heart as a catalyst, doing this consumes the Spirit Heart and doesn't guarantee that you can learn anything, so it's seen as a waste a lot of the time.
For Shu He, he was going to keep it to study, he didn't have any use for it right now and he might just sell it to the sect if he needed funds, he had no intention of gambling on the technique either because while the wolf's technique was fearsome, it was quite simple in essence.
Shu He sighed as he looked up at the sky, the light was beginning to dim and a pale orange light was creeping over them, it wouldn't be long until nightfall now.
'Just one last thing, and my first outing from the sect will be finished'.
…
Deep in the forest, under the dark of the newly fallen night, a single man laid against the dirt floor covered in bushes as he breathed as steadily as possible, his silver robes were stained with blood that was beginning to dry and he shook weakly as the bite of the cold began to set in.
"Shit, shit, shit! What the hell! Why was such a monster in this region?!" He murmured under his breath, trying his best to keep his voice down but his frustrations were beginning to get the better of him.
He had been laid here for hours, after barely escaping death by watching his hired guard get cut in half before he took the rest of the blow he consumed whatever pills he had left to stop the bleeding and close the wound, but it still stung heavily.
"At least I've still got the stones…" His hand touched the brown pouch that was tied to his waist, it was filled to the brim with the stones everyone had collected, he may not be strong in a fight, but he had plenty of ways to steal from people! It was always his calling, from being a street rat to a cultivator, his way of the sticky fingers has never led him astray!
Well… it may not have gone smoothly all the time, but he just needed to use some other people as protective cushions and he'd get out alive.
Just like this time, his plan was simple, get everyone to let their guard down by making them think he'd try to pull something at the end of the gathering, then rob them blind as soon as he could and run like the wind!
Bang! Blindsided!
It was brilliant!
At least he thought so.
He'd even paid a little up front to get a guard for himself, of course he never intended to pay him the rest for his work! And he would take his initial pay back as well!
That is… how it was meant to be.
"That damned wolf…" he cursed again, then thought back to the figure that was seen chasing it "That runt, it's his fault! I'll get my own back someday…"
"If he's even still alive that is, heh".
Of course, he had ran as soon as he could, he had no idea what happened afterwards.
"Quack".
"Huh?"
Suddenly, he found himself face to face with a duck, its pure white feathers and yellow gold beak reflected the moonlight beautifully.
"The hell is a duck doing here? Go away, you'll blow my cover!" He tried to shoo it away, but it danced around him before snapping at the brown pouch, tearing a hole in it as stones came pouring out, over 20 in total!
"You little-! Come here!!" He stood up from his cover in a rage and tried to chase the little duck, but it suddenly looked up before running off.
"What the hell-" He muttered, yet just as he said that, he heard a slight whistling sound; He heard it, but didn't react fast enough.
*SWOOOSH*
Before he knew it, he felt a pain in his left leg.
And then his right left.
Then his left thigh, right thigh as he toppled over and felt pinned to the ground.
He couldn't process what was going on.
It was then the felt four more jolts of pain, in his forearms and hands.
Before he knew it, in under a second, he was nailed to the ground with arrows!