"But Senior how do I go about taming a beast?" Lin Mu asked with curiosity.
"Well, first of all you would need to find that beast. The best way would be to use a bait to attract it. You've already seen the actions of the Brown Shrubby Forest Cat, so you should have an idea about what to do first." Xukong replied.
"Ah yes! Since that beast seems to be interested in food, I just need to cook some to attract it. Then whether it is the food itself that it wants or the fire, it doesn't matter." Lin Mu answered.
"Exactly. But, beast taming is much more than that. The next step in beast taming is understanding the beast. You would need to use your spirit sense to probe its mind, and find out its desires. Then you should try to fulfill those desires, but here comes the problem, beasts won't really speak to you as they don't understand the human tongue.
The difference in beast taming talent lies here. It depends on how well you can understand the beasts' emotions and desires without directly talking with them. Then once you know that, you communicate with them using your spirit sense.
This is also the most dangerous part, as the cultivator can be quite vulnerable in this stage. Not only would he put all his focus on establishing the connection, but he would also have to be careful about external threats that may attack them.
Even the formation of a connection between the beast and the cultivator is a sensitive process, and any mistake during in the stage can result in damage to the cultivator's mind. The most important thing to do before this is to ensure that the cultivator's spirit sense is stronger than that of the beast. This increases the success rate greatly.
Finally, if the beast accepts and the connection is established, then the beast can be said to be tamed." Xukong explained.
Lin Mu was surprised that the process would be so complex and had not expected there to be such intricacies.
"But you have an advantage here. The beast in question does not have spirit sense of its own, not to mention that it is much weaker than you, so it shouldn't pose much problem to you." Xukong added.
"I understand senior." Lin Mu replied in a grateful one.
Having learned the process, Lin Mu focused back on to the task at hand. The meat was still cooking.
'Ugh, I forgot that I still need to skin and prepare all these beast carcasses.' Lin Mu thought to himself.
He then got to prepping the beasts while alternating between cooking the meat. The remaining part of the day went by in this fashion and midnight had arrived by the time Lin Mu was finished with everything.
~Phew~
"At least I won't have to do this again for a while, and it will also make it much more convenient for me." Lin Mu stated to himself before having his last meal of the day.
Lin Mu assimilated the vital energy and immediately went to sleep appearing in the Sleepscape. There he first refined more liquid spirit qi drops and infused half of them into the tissues of his stomach according to the nameless technique of the lost immortal.
After being done with this, he practiced the Thousand armament blade scripture till he felt utterly exhausted and left the Sleepscape, entering deep sleep. In the morning he woke up with vigor feeling unbearably hungry as always and instantly pulled out the previously cooked beast meat before devouring it.
~Phew~
"I wonder if I'll ever get used to this…" Lin Mu muttered to himself with a wry smile.
He stood up and looked outside, hearing the sounds of people talking.
'Hmm, what's going on? Oh right, the hunters should be leaving by now.' Lin Mu realized.
"I should get going too," Lin Mu muttered to himself as he left the room.
A mild breeze tousled his hair as he looked up at the sky, finding it to be much clear than yesterday. He left the courtyard and headed towards the exit of the town while hearing the conversations of the town's residents on the way.
"Ah, finally we can hunt again. I was getting sick of staying in the town."
"Yeah, but what would we have even done. It's too cold to wander out, anyway."
"I hope that the hunters have good luck and hunt plenty of beasts, the kids are getting sick of eating the same food now."
Lin Mu could hear a plethora of people from all walks of life talking around him. With his enhanced hearing, he did not even need to stand close to them to listen to their conversations. Most of the conversations were rather mundane and seemed like the usual banter.
That was until Lin Mu's ears picked up something interesting which almost made him stop.
"What do we do now, we have been laying low for a while now do we just watch as it is or act? We can't even go to the warehouse anymore it's been discovered and is being watched by those guards." A voice spoke around the corner.
Lin Mu could not see who had spoken as they were in the corner of an alley, but he could hear them.
'Hmm? What's this?' Lin Mu internally questioned before extending his spirit sense.
Hidden in the alley, he found three people talking to each other. They were dressed in the clothes of commoners and but were unfamiliar to Lin Mu. He didn't go further from there and instead went to sit at a stall near the alley so that he wouldn't seem suspicious.
The stall was selling some warm buns, so Lin Mu bought some and ate them while listening to the three men.
"Don't worry, master understands that the situation is risky and has not ordered us to do anything yet. The other teams have taken up the workload and now the sacrifices will be coming in from the eastern town instead."
As soon as Lin Mu's heard this, his eyes went wide and the bun in his hand fell.
"Finally!" He muttered.
