Chapter 232: Bounty

"At that time they weren't yet beasts in human robes, but if things kept going, would a bench end up as the shopkeeper? This really is hard to say...." The world was most normal when Bai Lang first arrived; now, with time passing, it's becoming more and more distorted—that's Bai Lang's view. Right and wrong are still hard to say.

The two beastly shopkeepers still haven't started wearing clothes; when they do, this anomaly will probably be over. Bai Lang spent his remaining money eating well at the tavern—the food itself isn't distorted, and Bai Lang's true qi furnace together with the White Tiger's killer qi can still decompose and absorb the twisted qi contained in the food.

Bai Lang's training speed here will be very slow, but as long as he can keep himself safe, that's enough. Given the current level of distortion, even trying to draw the world's qi for combat might cause some abnormal changes.

Bai Lang rented a room here, where he rests and also thinks carefully about his future movements—he touches the jade fish hanging at his chest. Bai Lang has used this jade fish many times; it's been with him for years, and now it has become an exquisitely curved fish carved from superb, warm jade, full of spirit. Just by touching and looking, Bai Lang knows the fish is already filled with some energy.

"More than I imagined—could slaying monsters in the wilderness also count as charging?" After thinking it over, Bai Lang figures that's probably the case.

Two days later, just as Bai Lang was heading out to cause trouble in the wilderness again, he saw four people rush out of thin air from the place he'd come from—four sorry-looking individuals. Before he could make out their faces, one of them turned and slashed with a blade—this blade was exaggerated, long and wide, at least a bit longer than the wielder's height.

"With a blade like that, this person...... why does this silhouette look a bit familiar?" As the blade was swung, Bai Lang knew without doubt it was the level of an Innate Expert, and the blade technique was probably even more exquisite than his own martial arts—as for which martial art is stronger, that's hard to say, after all, it's people who use martial arts.

From this blade Bai Lang sensed the intent of lightning; it seemed to be controlling and transforming into heavenly thunder, the punishment of heaven. The target of the slash also vaguely appeared as a clothes rack—"This thing!" Bai Lang sat up straight instantly; this aura was fresh in his memory—wasn't it exactly what had made him a bit embarrassed that night?

This blade should be able to draw down heavenly lightning or itself become heavenly lightning; in Bai Lang's view it would be somewhat useful against that weird thing. Yet the blade's result was that lightning flashed across the ground, striking the person who swung it and his three companions—those running together must have been his teammates.

Those four people were shaking all over from the lightning; Bai Lang even thought he saw four skeletons—but luckily, in the next moment, accompanied by a strange fluctuation, the four vanished. Bai Lang sprang to his feet: "Adventure Hall? This broken thing still isn't broken?" He also realized a fact—he had already left the Adventure Hall's system, ever since he pulled out that demon head.

Bai Lang touched the wound on his chest bound with bandages, staring at the spot where those people had disappeared for a long time without speaking—the invisible strange beings that had been with them also vanished on their own after the four disappeared. "Was that blade just now Heaven's Disdain or the result of twisted qi?" Bai Lang couldn't tell, but he knew he'd better use his wind techniques as little as possible.

If it were flames or an ice tornado, that would still be okay, but if the tornado turned into an earthquake and heavenly lightning striking down, that would be no fun. "Who exactly is it? The Weiwei Manor too, and now...... I'm sure I've seen this person." Bai Lang thought for a while, then let it go—anyway, it's not relevant to him right now.

Bai Lang returned to the outpost, entered the tavern to fill his stomach—needless to say, the food here is pretty good; the ingredients from the wilderness beasts are indeed raw material for delicacies, and the cooks here, though rough, have refined a method that brings out the original flavor's beauty, making Bai Lang very satisfied. "Just the combination of pure fire and spices—even grilled meat with the local brew is delicious."

Not long after he walked into the tavern, something new caught his eye. It was a paper posted on the tavern wall, headed "WANTED!" Bai Lang instantly became interested: "A bounty! Now that's got the Wild West vibe!" He examined the bounty notice.

The tavern's bounty notices had two rows: the top row had three, the bottom row had over a dozen. The bottom row, as Bai Lang could see, were all large wild beasts or carnivorous monsters that roam the wilderness; the bounty was for their biological materials—actually, calling it a purchase notice would be more fitting.

The style of those three top notices was completely different from the bottom ones. Bai Lang saw on the first one a picture of something towering high in the wilderness...... "A shark fin? Is this inland? Is this the wilderness? How would a shark appear on land?" Bai Lang rubbed his eyes; the shark fin was about forty percent mechanical, and there were even smokestacks like pipe organs belching black smoke wrapped around its lower half, venting smoke.

This is typical of the creature-machine hybrids Bai Lang once encountered in the Steam Land; the bounty's description below also roughly says what it is: "Wilderness Shark, habitat...... that's probably a coordinate system. It caused over a thousand casualties. The problem is that even after killing so many people, we have no size data or weapon info—just how useless is it? The bounty amount is not bad, over thirty thousand. But would anyone really go kill this monster?"

Then the monster on the second bounty notice was even stranger, also giving Bai Lang a special sense of familiarity—a giant mammoth, but without legs; its lower body below the belly is a huge tank chassis, and on the mammoth's back are three smokestacks in a row, while the mammoth's trunk points straight forward, looking more like a gun barrel......

This thing likewise roams a certain area of the wilderness as a monster, having wiped out an entire adventuring party and their transport vehicles, with a bounty over fifty thousand.

Bounty notice number three shows a metal ant queen dragging a big belly; it too has killed many people, but this ant queen has a fixed location—eighty thousand bounty, noting there are many guard soldier ants. Bai Lang muttered, "Getting more and more familiar. Will there be more bounty notices later? One can be sure there will be."

The distortion hasn't stopped; what's appearing now are still comprehensible things, but Bai Lang doesn't know when something utterly incomprehensible will show up as a bounty—maybe even him. Still, for now it wouldn't hurt to check out these monsters' situations; this time Bai Lang feels he must make something operable—even a Yellow Fish Cart would do.