Demon Horned Sheep

After classes, Nie Li dragged Lu Piao to the library. He knew that Du Ze spent most of his time in the library. The kid was very responsible and hardworking. He reached Golden rank by the time of the attack on the Glory City and died protecting it. And in the novel, he was a person Nie Li could rely on.

He was right, Du Ze was looking through some books. Most of the books were in a modern language and were about common cultivation techniques the Institute provided. They were very weak techniques and were mostly donated by noble families of the city. It's a wonder that Du Ze was able to reach Golden rank with these kinds of techniques. It's another indicator of Du Ze's talent. If he was born in a noble family he could have received some miraculous elixirs and his talent could have been no worse than Ye Ziyun, Xiao Ning'er, and Shen Yue.

But that's not a certainty. Because only the most powerful of the noble families could afford it. For example, Nie Li's Heavenly Marks family couldn't afford it. Yeah, the situation in Glory City was bad. Even such basic elixirs are considered rare commodities.

There were also a couple of books in ancient languages in front of him. It looks like Du Ze was trying to find cultivation techniques from ancient books. Looking at their name Nie Li could see those books were written in the language of the Snow Wind Empire era and the Sacred Empire era and were about inscriptions. There is no way Du Ze could read those books. He must have just taken them hoping that they were about cultivation techniques.

Nie Li, Lu Piao following, walked up to Du Ze's desk and asked:

"If you're looking for books on ancient cultivation techniques you must look at western corner, last row. There were some books in the Woodland Empire language there. Being the last era before the Age of Darkness their language is easier to learn"

"You can read ancient languages?" asked Du Ze excitedly. He had asked around about them and came to the conclusion that there was nobody that could read them. Even if there were some, they worked for the Major families and no one knew about them.

"Yeah, some" Nie Li didn't deny the fact. "Those books in front of you are about inscription arrays though"

"Oh, can you help me with finding a cultivation technique? I'll pay you" said Du Ze. Even though he didn't have much, he's not going to be a freeloader.

"Don't worry, I have a better offer" responded Nie Li and sat down next to Du Ze. Lu Piao brought a chair from another table and sat down also.

"What offer?" asked Du Ze.

"Yeah, I am interested too. If I could reach the Silver rank, my father wouldn't beat me up anymore" muttered Lu Piao.

"We will create a study group." It was a term from Robert's world that fit the situation most. "We will help each other with our studies. If you can invite more students it will be even better".

"You're a noble. Why would you help us, commoners?" asked Du Ze a bit suspiciously.

"Because I'm not much of a noble. Even though Heavenly Marks family is a noble family, it's not rich. And secondly, we are all protectors of Glory City, and the stronger each of us is, the safer the city will be" answered Nie Li, and it wasn't a lie. With the dangers coming, Glory City needed strong defenders.

Du Ze looked at Nie Li with respect. Not all nobles are like Shen Xiu or Shen Yue. Some of them are really noble at heart, he thought.

"Okay, I'll invite some guys" replied Du Ze and asked, "So, what are we going to do?"

"First of all, we need money. A lot of money"

"If it's just money, it's easy" interrupted Lu Piao. "How much do you need? I have a lot. I saved up two thousand demon spirit coins. If I can become a Demon Spiritualist, I can afford to spend it all."

Nie Li looked at Lu Piao deadpan "I am talking about millions, tens of millions of demon spirit coins"

Du Ze and Lu Piao were speechless. Because a million spirit coins are big deal even for Major Families. Commoner family's annual income is around two to three thousand spirit coins. A Bronze rank Fighter in the army would get five to six thousand a year.

"Don't worry, I have a plan" said Nie Li. Hunting Horned Sheep is the easiest way to gather initial money. He couldn't think of any other way to make money from almost zero. So like in the novel he sent Lu Piao to buy crossbows and crossbow bolts.

Meanwhile, Nie Li and Du Ze bought Black Pool Grass collected some Zoysia Grass to make a paralyzing agent for Horned Sheep. Demon Horned Sheep was one of the weakest demon beasts. But they breed quickly so they were ideal for school Hunting Grounds. Any student below Silver rank could enter hunting grounds to train or hunt beasts here. Anything obtained from the beasts belongs to the students themselves and they can do anything with it.

It was a good place for students to train and learn to hunt demon beasts in a relatively safe environment. Some poor students even used these grounds for some financial support for their families. And now Nie Li was planning to hunt down beasts on an industrial scale. If there were Greenpeace in this world they would have been horrified.

But Nie Li didn't care. Because humans were rare creatures in this world and there are maybe billions or maybe even trillions of Demon Horned Sheep outside. Even if they will hunt down all of the demon Horned Sheep inside the hunting grounds Principal would just bring more from outside.

Nie Li explained his plan to his friends and they began their hunt. They took only horns, a bit of wool from the neck area, and a demon crystal from the hunted animals. The rest of the body was a waste. Demon beasts' meat was mostly inedible. If this was Robert's world there may have been a way to use the remains too. But in this world where demon beasts outnumbered humans millions of times, no one cared about the efficiency of harvesting the demon bodies.

Nie Li didn't care either. He could have tried to find a way to use other parts of the Horned Sheep, like making some kind of rough material from unusable wool or making some kind of armor from their skin. But it will take time and that was one resource he didn't have enough of.

They attended lessons during the day and hunted sheep at night. And sold the parts they took to the vendors. If they could find a single demon spirit they could have sold it for thousands of spirit coins, but for the weak demon beasts like Horned Sheep possibility of an appearance of a demon spirit is negligible. Even then they made up to 2000 spirit coins a day. It was huge money for them.

During those times Du Ze brought three commoner students to their study group. Their names were Wei Nan, Zhu Xiangjun, Zhang Ming. Nie Li suspected they were the ones joining them in the novel as well. But Robert's memory wasn't that good to remember these kinds of things.

Nie Li wanted to invite them to sheep hunting as well but decided not to. Because by that time they had almost halved the number of Horned Sheep in the hunting grounds and in another couple of days they would have to stop hunting anyway. The results of their hunting attracted the attention of the Institute Administration as well. So before someone cracked down on them they had to stop.