"Could these husks have been left by other Fur Beast Slaves?" Yuan Ming looked around, but didn't spot anything else of note.
Suddenly, his gaze sharpened as he looked towards a large tree not far away.
A silver cat, about half a foot tall and resembling an ordinary house cat in size, was sitting on a slender branch of the tree.
The cat was completely covered in silver-white fur without a single blemish, looking extremely beautiful. One of its eyes was golden while the other was amber, like two gleaming gems, and it was staring right at Yuan Ming.
As their gazes met, the silver cat immediately turned and darted away, jumping agilely from tree to tree and vanishing in an instant.
"Why run? I'm not going to eat you! That silver cat sure is skittish," Yuan Ming said, not particularly concerned, and continued searching the area.
After a moment, he let out a light "hmm," fixating on some grass on the ground not far away and halting his steps.
There on the ground was a shallow human footprint that looked quite fresh.
Yuan Ming pondered briefly, then moved in the direction of the footprint.
The owner of the footprint didn't seem to be trying to hide their tracks, making it easy to follow.
About a quarter of an hour later, a region of hard mountain rock appeared ahead, where the trail of footprints abruptly ended.
Yuan Ming frowned and stood silently for a while, then continued onward.
Upon emerging from the rocky area, his view lightened to reveal a vast, dusky lake.
The lake wasn't very large, roughly ten acres or so, calm and undisturbed. It was surrounded by weeds as tall as a person. Even though it was clearly summer, the temperature near the lake was notably lower than in the woods.
Yuan Ming squatted by the edge of the lake and touched the water with his hand, a chilling cold seeping through.
At that moment, the nearby grass "whooshed," and a silver shadow sprang out.
Yuan Ming braced for a confrontation, but when he got a clear look, he was slightly surprised.
The silver figure wasn't anything else but the silver cat he had encountered earlier; it had a black object in its mouth and its tail was cocked high.
Upon seeing Yuan Ming, the cat appeared startled and immediately turned back, diving into the grass, dropping the black object from its mouth.
"There's that silver cat again." Yuan Ming quickly moved forward a few steps, but the tall weeds swallowed up the cat the moment it entered them, erasing any trace of it.
He let out a sigh of regret. In fact, he quite liked the appearance of the sleek silver cat. If he could catch and tame it, it would make for a nice diversion during breaks from cultivation.
Yuan Ming moved forward, then something occurred to him, and he turned back a few steps to pick up an object from the ground — the black object the cat had been carrying. He examined it closely.
The object appeared to be a piece of leather with exquisite patterns on it, clearly man-made.
"There's no way such a thing could be found in these deep forests; could it have been left by someone?" With this thought, Yuan Ming hurried over to the grass where the silver cat had emerged but found nothing.
He examined the black leather in his hand again, bringing it to his nose to sniff.
A fishy smell assailed his nostrils, but it wasn't the odor of an animal's mouth; it was more akin to the rotting smell of aquatic plants.
Yuan Ming's gaze shifted to the verdant lake, and then he began searching along its shore, soon making a discovery.
On the damp soil by the lake's edge, there were a few shallow cat paw prints.
Following the prints, Yuan Ming pushed aside a patch of thick grass nearby, his pupils narrowing slightly.
There lay a large corpse, its upper body almost skeletal and its lower body embedded in the mud by the lake, obviously dead for a long time. Its clothes were rotted through, and it wore a black leather jacket on its upper body — the same kind of leather the silver cat had dropped.
Yuan Ming's eyes fell on the corpse's waist, where a piece of black Beast Skin was wrapped around. It appeared to be Furred Beast Skin.
He crouched down beside the corpse, touched the black Beast Skin for a moment, and untied it.
This item was entirely different from his White Ape Beast Skin; it was hairless and covered with dim white lines, with a gel-like substance resembling scale armor on its back, seemingly the outer skin of some aquatic Fierce Beast.
The rest of the Beast Skin was mostly intact except for a palm-sized tear at the back, likely penetrated by some sharp weapon.
Yuan Ming carefully pulled the corpse from the mud; several ribs around its heart at the back were broken, a fatal wound probably inflicted in a surprise attack from behind.
He searched around the body for a while but didn't find any clues. The corpse's Blood Storage Bag was also missing.
"It seems this person was more likely killed by another Fur Beast Slave rather than by a Fierce Beast," a chill crossed Yuan Ming's mind unbidden.
Fur Beast Slaves are both beast and slave.
Trapped within the Ten Thousand Mountains, it's the law of the jungle, survival of the fittest. Just as you eye your prey eagerly, aren't you the prey in someone else's eyes?
"That's right, Elder Hu Huo once hinted that these Beast Skins from Biluo Cave were laboriously refined by the Sect and are quite precious. Each skin has a magic mark embedded within. Whenever a Fur Beast Slave dies, the Sect sends someone to retrieve the Beast Skin following the mark. Why didn't they take this one?" Suddenly recalling this, Yuan Ming was puzzled.
He looked thoughtfully at the torn part of the black beast skin, pinched his fingers to release the White Ape Transformation, then channeled his mana into the black beast skin to activate the Fur Cloak Skill. The beast skin, however, remained motionless.
"It seems it's broken, and that's why no one came to retrieve it. What a waste of time," Yuan Ming murmured to himself, discarded the black beast skin, and turned to leave.
But after taking a few steps, he seemed to think of something, picked up the black beast skin again, and walked towards the woods by the lake. Soon, he arrived at a secluded spot.
Yuan Ming sat down, spread the beast skin out in front of him, and then summoned the Mysterious Incense Burner.
His white ape skin had undergone a subtle change upon touching the incense burner. Perhaps, it could also have some impact on this black beast skin, though that remained to be seen.
Of course, he didn't expect the incense burner to repair the black beast skin; he just wanted to take the opportunity to learn more about this green incense burner.
Yuan Ming placed the incense burner on the beast skin. As soon as they touched, the Mysterious Incense Burner suddenly lit up. A green light emanated from it, pouring a warm current of air into the black beast skin.
The dim white lines on the surface of the black beast skin, when merged with the green light, spread out like water entering a channel. Wherever the light passed, the faint lines brightened, and the entire black beast skin began to tremble slightly.
The green light swiftly flowed through every part of the beast skin, converging towards the tear at the back. There, the white lines were exceptionally dense, seemingly a crucial junction.
It was no wonder that the beast skin was rendered useless with such an area destroyed.
The green light surged around the tear, the white lines there flickering ceaselessly. Soon, a somewhat blurry phantom emerged from the tear in the beast skin—a toad with a large head and a round body, its limbs splayed out.
"What's this? Could it be the soul of a toad fierce beast? My white ape skin also revealed a phantom of White Ape under the influence of the incense burner before. It seems that all Fur Beast Skins contain a beast soul," Yuan Ming thought quietly.
The toad phantom within the green light gradually solidified and, after letting out a "croak," vanished in a flash into the tear, leaving no trace.
With a slight "sizzling" sound, the white lines around the tear stretched out like living things, bypassing the tear and rejoining together.
"It can actually repair itself like this!" Yuan Ming exclaimed, both shocked and delighted.
Once those white lines reconnected, a subtle ripple of energy appeared across the entire black beast skin, clearly fully repaired.
Not only that, but the black beast skin also appeared as good as new, its natural patterns much clearer, as if it had just been skinned, similar to what happened to the white ape skin after the influence of the incense burner.
Yuan Ming channeled his mana into the black beast skin, activating the Fur Cloak Skill.
The black beast skin wrapped around his body like a living thing, covering every part of him. He quickly completed the transformation.
His body was now covered in black beast skin, his back speckled with bulging black lumps that looked very sturdy. Webbed membranes grew out between his fingers and toes, and his eyes heavily drooped.
Yuan Ming put away the incense burner and went to the lakeside to look at his reflection. At this moment, he looked very much like a humanoid toad.
"No wonder I heard some strange noises earlier. It turns out to be a toad skin. When I first got the white ape skin with no offensive capability, I was frustrated enough. I didn't expect someone else to be worse off than me. What good is a toad?" Yuan Ming said somewhat speechlessly as he looked at his ugly reflection in the water.
Yuan Ming moved his body, feeling for the abilities that came with his toad transformation.
He felt a faint current within his chest cavity, and his belly appeared to have grown much larger. Each breath was much deeper than before, and the intervals between breaths grew longer and longer.
Yuan Ming took a deep breath, and air rolled into his body, causing his belly to expand continuously until he looked like a woman in the late stages of pregnancy.
However, he didn't feel uncomfortable at all and stood still, holding his breath.
A quarter of an hour passed, and Yuan Ming still felt no discomfort or shortness of breath; he could move with ease.
He leaped into the lake and dove toward the bottom.
The lake's surface rippled and then calmed quickly, returning to serenity.
After another quarter of an hour, water splashed on the opposite bank of the lake as Yuan Ming's figure emerged, leaping ashore.
A glint of excitement flashed in his eyes. The toad beast skin had allowed him to go without breathing for two whole quarters of an hour.
Wulu had mentioned that some parts of the Ten Thousand Mountains were filled with deadly Poison Miasma. With this toad beast skin, should he unfortunately encounter it, at least he'd have enough time to escape.
In addition, after transforming into a toad, his swimming speed in the water was quite fast, making it a decent means of escape.
Compared to the toad's effortless movement in water, its mobility on land was much less efficient, restricted to somewhat clumsy hopping without much offensive capability—at least he hadn't discovered any yet.
With this in mind, he couldn't help but feel some sympathy for the fellow who used the toad skin for his Fur Beast transformation.
Yuan Ming pinched his fingers to release the toad transformation and carefully stored away the black beast skin.
The combat capability of the black toad seemed far inferior to the White Ape Transformation at present, but in certain environments, it might prove to be highly useful.
However, the greatest gain today was the further understanding of the green incense burner.
This Mysterious Incense Burner seemed capable of restoring damaged Beast Skins in some way, and perhaps it could even draw out some of the skins' latent abilities. This was something he could utilize in the future.