Chapter 134: Beast Hide
Chapter 134: Beast Hide
When he heard Su Chen’s words, Gu Jintang’s expression tightened. Spending ten thousand Origin Stones to use it as a cushion? Brother, your pretentiousness has reached a whole new level.
However, he thought about it more and realized that Su Chen wasn’t acting pretentiously at all.
To him, a few ten thousand Origin Stones really was just a small amount.
After experiencing two more rounds of bidding, Su Chen finally got the hide for seventy thousand Origin Stones.
This was the last item that he purchased from the auction.
After he got it, he immediately activated his microscopic eye and inspected the hide. However, he discovered that this hide was composed of countless microscopic organisms densely interwoven into layers, forming an extremely strange scene that was hard to describe.
Even with Su Chen’s eyes, he couldn’t tell what exactly they were. He could only suppress his curiosity for the moment, and he left with the hide.
As they held everything they had won from the auction, everyone returned to the Wandering Wind Pavilion.
Because they had won quite a bit, everyone returned to their own rooms to play with their “new toys”.
Gu Qingluo didn’t play around with the few treasures that Su Chen had given her. Rather, she held a needle threaded around the Algae Thread Coral as she carefully embroidered this treasure.
While Gu Qingluo was embroidering for Su Chen, Su Chen wasn’t doing nothing either.
Underneath the light from the lantern, he stared at the hide in his hand, Patelocke’s spectre right next to him.
“Do you know what this is?” Su Chen asked.
The auction host had said that it was a relic from an ancient era, so only Patelocke might know about it.
Patelocke took a close look at it, thought for a moment, then replied, “If I remember correctly, this box should be a Breeding Box.”
“A Breeding Box?”
“Yes. It’s specifically meant to breed microscopic organisms. Because of their unique situation, they can go dormant when they lack food. This beast hide is actually a form of camouflage formed from these microscopic organisms.”
When he heard this, Su Chen couldn’t help but admire him.
Based on the analysis of his microscopic eye, the situation was exactly as Patelocke had said. This hide was actually composed of countless microscopic organisms. This was why they could not possibly be separated, because as soon as they were, these microscopic organisms would lose their nourishment, meaning they would die extremely quickly.
“What’s the use of cultivating these microscopic organisms?” Su Chen asked.
“For a long period of time, cultivating these microscopic organisms was extremely popular within the Arcana Kingdom. Arcana Race individuals with high social status believed that these small organisms could do many things that they couldn’t. If they were ever able to control them, they would be incredibly useful. This ended up being true in many cases; a lot of famous inventions are closely related to these little things.”
“”Then what about the one we have?”
“I don’t know. There are all kinds of microscopic organisms. Looking at them won’t give you any information,” Patelocke shrugged. “You need to do your own research in order to find out.”
“How should I do the research?”
“Use your consciousness energy. Consciousness energy are your formless hands that can help you interact with these organisms.”
Su Chen tried to let out his consciousness tendrils, but it didn’t seem to do much.
Patelocke said, “They’ve been asleep for tens of thousands of years within this Breeding Box. Before you try to interact with them, you’ll need to wake them up.”
“Wake them up? How do I wake them up?”
“That depends on what they want. Different microscopic organisms have different needs – rotten vegetation, Origin Energy, fresh blood, beast meat, mud, plants…… who knows? Try out a few different things. Who knows, you might be able to find something that they like. Remember, when you feed them, you also need to stimulate them with your consciousness a bit so that they can sense the presence of food.
“……”
In the following days, Su Chen began to try to use all kinds of items to “provoke” the hide, but without exception none of them resulted in any response.
But when he thought about it, he realized that wasn’t too surprising either. The Sea of Clouds Pavilion spent thirty years researching this hide, and without a doubt it had come into contact with a lot of things. However, they weren’t able to discover anything in the end. Not just any common item could satisfy their needs.
As such, Su Chen was no longer in a hurry. There was no need to rush things. However, Su Chen built up a habit – no matter what the item was, he would place it in the box to test.
Apart from researching this hide, Su Chen spent his remaining time analyzing that top-quality Awakening Medicine. After trying out a bunch of different things, he had already developed a rough understanding of how to concoct the medicine, but making it perfect would need some time.
The rest of the time Su Chen spent with Gu Qingluo. The young couple were usually apart, so it wasn’t surprising that they weren’t willing to be apart.
Gu Jintang wanted to try and convince her to leave early, but it was incredibly awkward for him to do so. The two of them were infatuated with each other, so how could he ruin things? He could only silently slink away and go mess around with Cloud Leopard and Iron Cliff.
The two of them had also gone to visit Shi Kaihuang. The old man gratefully accepted the tea brick, but refused all of the Origin Stones Su Chen wanted to leave for him. However, he was much more interested in the Primordial Blood Medicine Su Chen had come up with and asked for the recipe. He believed that this might be able to help him complete the technique for charging into the Light Shaking Realm without a bloodline.
Today, Su Chen and Gu Qingluo were on a walk through Long Coiling City’s red maple forest in the northern areas of the city.
Because it wasn’t the right season, the red maple forest wasn’t in its prime yet – the leaves had yet to turn red, and there many people walking there. But they only had eyes for each other; they didn’t care about any scenery. To Su Chen and Gu Qingluo, the red maple forest was just an excuse for them to get together. As long as both of them were happy, that was enough.
The two of them strolled through the forest. As they walked deeper and deeper, they began to stray from the path. Eventually they lost track of where they were exactly.
As they were talking, a snake suddenly shot out at them.
Su Chen reached out and grabbed it. He took a look and said, “It’s a poisonous snake.”
He casually pulled out the Breeding Box and stuffed the poisonous snake inside. Then, he used his consciousness to prod the box. This was already the habit he had built up in the past few days. No matter what he obtained, he would stuff it into the box as an experiment.
He originally wasn’t hoping for much, but unexpectedly as soon as the snake was put in, his microscopic eye saw those microscopic organisms beginning to move and squirm. The organisms, which originally seemed like they were dead, suddenly began to move in tandem, swarming like ants towards the snake.
The macroscopic result of this was that the beast hide actually strangely began to curl up, wrapping around the snake.
“Hm? What’s going on?” Gu Qingluo said in amazement when she saw this.
“They’ve found some food,” Su Chen replied.
Su Chen was also excited. Did these guys prefer to eat snakes?
He had tried to get them to eat the flesh and blood from other beasts, but there had been no reactions. Were they just picky and only ate snake meat?
At this moment, the beast hide had wrapped itself around the snake, which was thrashing furiously, as if it were experiencing something incredibly frightening. However, regardless of how hard it struggled, it was only met with an even tighter constriction.
A brief moment later, the snake finally stopped its thrashing, and the beast hide returned to its original, quiet state.
Su Chen discovered that the snake lay on the beast hide perfectly fine. Its body hadn’t been damaged at all, but it had already died.
What was going on?
Su Chen picked up the dead snake in shock.
There was no damage.
This implied that these microscopic organism weren’t actually interested in the snake at all.
Then what were they interested in?
The answer to this question was actually very simple. He just needed to figure out what was missing from the snake’s body.
Su Chen very quickly discovered that it was the poison!
The snake’s poison had disappeared without a trace.