Monster core

[You have slain Mud Fang: Body tempering – 2nd Realm!]

"Huh, is that it?" Ying's gaze fell upon the system interface, eyes widened in dismay. "I just killed a monstrosity that was an entire level above me and the only thing I got was an automated congratulations?! What the hell?!" He thought, his mind reeling with a mix of surprise, disappointment and annoyance.

Ying didn't believe it. Surely some sort of adequate compensation was on the way; after all, he didn't just risk his life for nothing… Right?

'Right?!'

Sadly, the algorithm couldn't care less, its indifference only fanning the flames of Ying's frustration.

'Damn Trevor Lavender, what happened to a sufficient recompense for every triumph, huh?!' He cried.

Ying was quite upset by the developments; his sentiments, however, didn't persist. There was nothing he could do about the situation right now anyway, so what was the point of fussing over it?

"Sigh, must be their idea of making the game as realistic as possible… cruel bastards."

With a sigh, as well as a shrug, Ying chalked it all up to the game developers once again and returned to the present. He allowed his gaze to wander, and soon it fell on the Mud Fang's limp corpse.

Perhaps there was something else he was missing?

'If my years of webtoons and web novel reading have taught me anything, it's that monsters like these always have something valuable inside them…' Suddenly, an idea sprouted within him.

It was a rather... Distasteful one.

Ying flinched at his own thoughts, then turned to give an unenthusiastic look to the limp carcass, clearly unwilling to go through with whatever his sick mind had conjured

'…Do I really have to do this? Do I honestly have to…? Urgh… Is it even worth it? Sigh, I need as much advantage over the others as I can get, and besides…'

'…No player in their right mind would ever think of, or do something like this.'

With that, Ying bent down – leaning towards the carcass – he used his eyes to analyze the mangled interior through the sizable gash that had by now bled dry, scanning for anything that looked valuable.

From what he knew, the beast had essentially the same biological makeup as just about any dog from Earth.

It was quite bizarre, the tremendous detail that this world possessed, and supported by the fact that the beast didn't just erupt into a million brilliant lights; it was easy to forget that this was merely a world crafted from a bunch of 1s and 0s.

Leaning even closer towards the bloody corpse, Ying winced as the acrid stench of blood filled his nostrils, and while holding back the urge to throw up, he squinted his eyes, hoping to spot something of value.

Since he'd out rightly refused to make contact with the cadaver, the task proved much more daunting than it would have been, until…

'Bingo!'

Ying suddenly caught glimpse of a faint glimmer and without thinking twice, he reflexively went after the expensive looking shine.

Sticking his arm into the viscera in an unrefined act of desecration, he pulled out a marble-like object. It was small, about the same size as two thimbles. The system's notification echoed in his head:

Ding!

[You have obtained a Beast Core!]

'Yes! This is it! The Monster Core!' The message arrived, but Ying barely even registered it, his attention fully enraptured by his newfound boon.

It had a murky brown tint, similar to that of the beasts' hide. It was also perfectly smooth, aside from some clammy substance that coated the vast majority of its surface.

'Sticky...'

It was only then that the realization of his earlier actions finally dawned on him.

''Blergh!" Ying could just barely hold the contents of his virtual stomach together as a wave of disgust washed over him, he stared at his hand, revolted by its very sight.

Despite being merely Virtual, the sensations felt all too real. Reluctantly, Ying wiped his arm on the furry hide of the lifeless carcass, not forgetting to curse everything he could think of while doing so.

After which, he transported the lifeless body into his inventory. As expected, his entire reason for coming here was to hunt AND sell the carcass after all.

'Speaking of sensations, it seemed that pain is the only one which was not as emphasised, maybe about 40 to 30 per cent of what it would be in real life…

I've never been attacked by a Super Powered Wolf before, so I guess I am just spitballing here. But still, I could more or less imagine what it would feel like from the nose injury.' Ying reasoned while caressing his broken nose.

It stung, but not as much as it could have.

Wincing in slight pain, Ying sighed and pulled the massive sword up from its dormant position on the ground. Then, he trotted over to a nearby patch of green under a shade and sat down, deciding to take a breather to recover from his injuries.

He checked his HP level.

The recovery process was slow.

'It's already been three minutes, that's around 2HP per minute… I lost 65HP in total, so I still need about thirty more minutes before I'm back to full strength.'

Ying sighed in resignation, then he slowly started recalling the events of the battle. In hindsight, the entire thing happened so fast, but there were undoubtedly more than a few small… concerns.

First, the stupidly large sword.

Although Ying doubted he would ever become accustomed to the horrible weight of the massive blade, now that he was calmer and thought about it, it was not that surprising.

'Well, I guess it makes some sense…This is a damned Cultivation world after all.' Ying idly thought as he skimmed through his knowledge of things relating to the genre in his head. He came to a subtle epiphany.

Out of practically every fictional genre in the world, fantasies like this were the most outrageously stupefying of them all!

'Hate to say it – well, not really – but Taoist dramas are the most idiotic and implausible type of fiction in existence. The good ones are so basic it's annoying and the worse ones are just downright brain cell-o-cidal!'

Ying stole a glance at the terribly inconvenient weapon which lay beside him in case of emergency.

'Only the really good ones are worth reading, but the majority of them are so-so.' Ying concluded. When he got to the city, he would consider replacing his weapon.

That left the second, and perhaps the most fatal problem.

'That damned noise. Could I turn it off?' Ying immediately began navigating the settings, in search of a way to be rid of the accursed noise that plagued his mind each time he took damage.

The system was one such that more or less reflected the notifications in his mind as well as in reality, thus making it terribly distracting in battle, doubly so for battles that directly tasked the body.

It did not take too long for Ying to find what he was looking for, and he wasted no time in turning off the in-battle notifications.

'Good, at least now I know I won't get killed by a damned headache…' Ying thought in relief.

With that, he had more or less dealt with his major problems, and since continuing the hunt was too risky with his low HP, he turned his attention back to the monster core.

"Maybe I should cultivate some…" He muttered as he observed the brownish object within his grasp.

He felt the need to utilize the loot, but he did not quite know how to. Summoning all the knowledge from the web novels he had read during the course of his life, he came to a quick decision.

'Maybe it's a pill? Then, all I need to do is just swallow it… Right?' Ying thought as he stroked the Beast Core with his finger.

It glowed with an incandescent light from within, but its outer shell was as cold and stone-like as anything.

What were the chances that something like this actually tasted like the delicious candy-like pills which they were depicted to be in the various works of fiction?

There was only one way to find out.

'Well, a Cultivation world does not truly exist. So I'd think they would take inspiration from the works…' He thought suspiciously.

'Ah, screw it all! Bottom's up!' Before he could allow logic to dissuade him from the act, Ying tossed the marble core into his mouth.

PLOP