Chapter 21: Stimulate

Chapter 21: Stimulate

"Could these fruit shells have been left by other beast slaves?" Yuan Ming looked around but didn’t see anything special.

Suddenly, his gaze froze as he looked at a large tree not far away.

On a slender branch sat a silver cat about half a foot tall, about the size of a house cat.

The cat’s fur was all silver-white, without a trace of impurities, and it looked very beautiful. Its eyes were one golden and one amber, like two sparkling jewels, looking straight at Yuan Ming.

Their eyes met, and the silver cat immediately turned and leaped away, jumping agilely from tree to tree, disappearing in an instant.

"Why run away? I won’t eat you! This silver cat is really timid." Yuan Ming didn’t pay much attention and continued searching around.

After a while, he stopped and stared at some shallow footprints on the ground in a nearby patch of grass.

The footprints were fresh, and their owner didn’t try to hide their tracks, so it wasn’t difficult for Yuan Ming to follow them.

After about fifteen minutes of walking, he came to a rocky area where the footprints abruptly disappeared.

Yuan Ming frowned and thought for a moment before continuing forward.

As he emerged from the rocky area, he saw a vast lake ahead of him.

The lake wasn’t very big, about a dozen acres, and it looked calm. The surrounding grass was as tall as a person, and even though it was summer, the temperature near the lake was noticeably cooler than in the jungle.

Yuan Ming crouched down by the lake and touched the water with his hand, feeling a chilling sensation.

Just then, there was a rustling sound from the nearby grass, and a silver figure darted out.

Yuan Ming was about to attack, but when he saw it clearly, he was slightly surprised.

The silver figure was none other than the silver cat he had encountered earlier, holding a black object in its mouth with its tail held high.

When it saw Yuan Ming, the silver cat seemed frightened and quickly turned and disappeared into the grass, dropping the black object.

"It’s that silver cat again." Yuan Ming took a few steps forward, but the grass was too tall, and the silver cat disappeared immediately.

He sighed with regret. He actually quite liked the handsome silver cat and thought it would be nice to catch and tame it to relieve boredom during his cultivation.

Yuan Ming continued forward and suddenly remembered something. He turned around and walked a few steps back, picking up something from the ground. It was the black object that the cat had just dropped, and it looked like a piece of leather with exquisite patterns, definitely something that was artificially made.

"This deep mountain forest couldn’t possibly have something like this. Could it have been left by someone?" Yuan Ming thought and hurried to search the nearby grass where the silver cat had disappeared, but found nothing.

He carefully examined the black leather in his hand and sniffed it.

A fishy smell wafted over, not the smell of an animal’s mouth but something similar to the rotting of water plants.

Yuan Ming’s gaze turned to the green lake, and he began searching along the shore. Soon, he found several shallow cat paw prints on wet soil.

Not only that, but the black beast skin also appeared brand new, with its natural patterns much clearer, as if it had just been peeled off, exactly like the white ape skin after being affected by the incense burner.

Yuan Ming activated his mana and poured it into the black beast skin, urging the transformation technique.

The black beast skin wrapped around his body like a living creature, covering every part of his body, and quickly completed the transformation.

His whole body was covered in black beast skin, with bulging black bumps on his back, looking very sturdy. Webbed membranes grew between his fingers and toes, and his eyes drooped a lot.

Yuan Ming put away the incense burner and came to the edge of the lake to look at his reflection in the water. At this moment, he looked like a humanoid toad.

"No wonder I heard a strange noise just now. It turns out it’s a toad skin. When I first got the white ape skin, which had no attack power, I was already frustrated. I didn’t expect someone to be even worse off than me. What can a toad do?" Yuan Ming looked at his ugly reflection in the lake water and said somewhat speechlessly.

Yuan Ming moved his body, sensing the abilities he gained after transforming into a toad.

He felt a faint flow of air surging in his chest, and his entire abdominal cavity seemed to have expanded a lot. Each breath was much deeper than before, and the time between breaths grew longer and longer.

Yuan Ming took a deep breath, and the air rolled into his body, causing his abdominal cavity and stomach to swell continuously, quickly resembling a pregnant woman in her tenth month.

However, he didn’t feel uncomfortable and stood still, holding his breath.

After a full quarter of an hour passed, Yuan Ming still didn’t feel any suffocation and could move freely.

He leaped into the lake water and dived towards the bottom.

The lake’s surface rippled and soon calmed down, everything returning to tranquility.

Another quarter of an hour passed, and Yuan Ming’s figure emerged from the water’s edge on the opposite side of the lake, leaping ashore.

Excitement flashed in his eyes, as the toad beast skin allowed him to go without breathing for two full quarters of an hour.

Wu Lu had once mentioned that some areas deep in the Hundred Thousand Mountains were filled with highly toxic miasma. With this toad beast skin, if he were to encounter such a situation, he would at least have enough time to escape.

In addition, after transforming into a toad, his swimming speed in the water was quite fast, which could also be considered a good means of escape.

Compared to the toad’s smooth swimming in the water, its ability to move on land was much worse. It could only walk by hopping clumsily, and its attack power was almost nonexistent, at least not yet discovered by Yuan Ming.

Thinking of this, he couldn’t help but feel sympathy for the fellow who had transformed into a toad.

Yuan Ming released the toad transformation and carefully stored the black beast skin.

The combat power of the black toad was far inferior to that of the white ape transformation, but it might be useful in specific environments.

However, the biggest gain today was his further understanding of the green incense burner.

This mysterious incense burner seemed to be able to repair damaged beast skins through some means and perhaps even stimulate some of the latent abilities of the beast skins. This could be utilized in the future.