Chapter 152: Gale Rabbit

Fourth-tier! An eagle at the Foundation Establishment stage was packed with treasures from head to toe. Yun Qing asked, "Big Eagle, is that eagle dead or alive?"

"Yesterday, I asked to borrow one of its claws, and it refused, so I had to take matters into my own hands. It resisted fiercely, and before I knew it, it stopped breathing."

Yun Qing was speechless. Who on earth borrows a claw like that? Your claws are attached to your own body; if I borrowed your claws to scale a fish, you'd be extremely unhappy as well.

"I wonder if its other claw is still intact?"

"You're just killing a small silver fish; one claw is more than enough."

"Fourth-tier eagle meat should be quite fragrant when roasted. The Big Eagle will surely love it."

The little black-feathered eagle said in a cold voice, "Although it is not of my kind, we share a certain origin. I will not eat it."

Yun Qing sighed inwardly. What a waste of a fourth-tier eagle. Not eating eagles didn't matter; there were plenty of other things to eat.

As a self-taught amateur cook, Yun Qing's culinary skills might be lacking, but her tongue was sharper than anyone's.

Coming from an era of information explosion, she was very knowledgeable and knew all sorts of recipes. During her boring days with the caravan, she often listened to little Jing and the others boast, picking up the art of bluffing along the way. Now, it was her turn to shine.

Before transmigrating, she only knew how to use an appropriate amount of salt. After transmigrating, in the kitchen of the Ye family village, she had learned how to use scallions, ginger, garlic, and how to marinate and roast meat.

During breakfast, she chatted animatedly with the Big Eagle about various ways to prepare food—different seasonings yielding different flavors, stir-frying, stewing, steaming, deep-frying, quick-frying, pan-searing, roasting, marinating, braising, smoking, gelatinizing, tossing, and so on. Her descriptions left the little black-feathered eagle full of anticipation, making the small silver fish in its mouth seem suddenly less appetizing.

Yun Qing spun tales as brilliant as falling blossoms, and the little black-feathered eagle was deeply intrigued.

However, it was truly lazy and didn't want to exert itself. It figured that the cook simply didn't want to fish and was tricking it into hunting, only to end up eating its kill. It had captured her to catch fish for it, not for it to hunt for her.

The little black-feathered eagle thought of the gale-force rabbits in its territory that gave it such a headache. Those creatures were all bones and little meat, with thick fur and tough skin, poor texture, a strong gamey odor, and tasted terrible. They possessed very little spiritual energy, yet ran fast and hid well, making them a huge hassle to catch.

Knowing it disliked eating their meat and didn't want to waste effort catching them, these fellows had actually settled down in its territory, while the natural predators of the gale-force rabbits were too afraid of it to step foot here.

It wasn't that it couldn't tolerate them. What drove it to its limit was their terrifying reproductive rate and dreadful stench. When there were too many and the smell became unbearable, it had to let the hyenas into its territory to cull their excessive numbers.

"Fruit-flavored roasted first-tier gale-force rabbit. Make it for me as soon as possible." Just as Yun Qing was speaking with great enthusiasm, she suddenly heard an order echoed in her mind.

***

Yun Qing had seen rabbits before. She had hunted ordinary rabbits back when she was in the hunting group. At that time, they wouldn't specifically go looking for rabbits to hunt; they hunted whatever they encountered, using ranged weapons to shoot them down if they crossed paths.

She had roasted rabbits before, even roasting one for little Ye Lang. The gale-force rabbits probably required a similar method.

"Big Eagle, do you know where I can find gale-force rabbits?" Please go catch a rabbit for me; she wanted to try whether she could make fruit-flavored roasted gale-force rabbit.

"Five miles to the west, there are several nests of first-tier gale-force rabbits. Go catch them. There are plenty of fruit trees in the forest; pick whatever you like." Those were just the nearest nests; further away, there were even more.

"But I... I won't be able to catch them..."

"Hmph! If you can't even catch a first-tier gale-force rabbit, I'll throw you into the hyena zone to train your speed."

Yun Qing wept bitter tears inwardly. How wonderful her Big Eagle was! After only a few days together, it was no longer thinking of throwing her to feed the hyenas, but was instead figuring out ways to help her build up her strength.

"Liu Liu, did I dig a hole and jump right into it myself?" She actually had to catch them herself, and if she couldn't, she'd be threatened.

Liu Liu remained silent. Even if it were a first-tier gale-force rabbit, it still didn't like eating the meat.

Fortunately, the dish ordered by the little black-feathered eagle was only a first-tier gale-force rabbit, so hunting rabbits shouldn't be too dangerous. However, "five miles to the west" meant she was still within the little black-feathered eagle's territory, and the most dangerous and powerful entity in this territory was naturally her Big Eagle.

Looking at the fully bright sky, Yun Qing desperately wished she could go online to check the habits of gale-force rabbits—what time they came out to forage, cunning rabbits having three burrows, whether she could dig up rabbit holes to catch them, and so on.

This was an era without the internet or search engines; much of the knowledge relied on oral transmission and people's reliable memories to be passed down.

With no references to consult, Yun Qing could only ask her Big Eagle: "Big Eagle, what do gale-force rabbits like to eat, and where do they usually hang out?"

Without even opening its eyes, the Big Eagle replied, "Don't you know a hundred ways to cook a gale-force rabbit? Don't tell me you were lying to me. Don't bother me again with trivial matters like catching a gale-force rabbit."

Yun Qing felt depressed. Why did she have to boast? She made a fierce vow in her heart: What's so hard about catching a gale-force rabbit? Just wait, I'll kill all the rabbits here and sell them for money to buy spell techniques.

Five miles to the west was very close. Yun Qing got up, cloaked her presence and aura, and headed west.

Soon, she reached a place about five miles away from the pool. The vegetation here was lush, and there was no obvious sign of gale-force rabbit nests.

Nothing displaying a level value was visible to the naked eye. She probed underground with her spiritual sense; hindered by the soil, her spiritual sense could only penetrate a dozen meters deep, but that was enough to discover whether a rabbit burrow existed underground.

After some probing, Yun Qing actually discovered a burrow about a foot wide underground, winding downwards. Following the tunnel upwards, she found an entrance covered by dense weeds in a patch of thick brush. If one didn't observe carefully, it would be quite hard to spot.

A rabbit warren usually had more than one exit, and she had no idea if this burrow was currently inhabited by gale-force rabbits. With a thought, Yun Qing materialized two pieces of wood to block the exit and continued probing with her spiritual sense.

Her spiritual sense followed the direction of the tunnel, probing deeper and deeper. Suddenly, within her spiritual sense, a shimmering black shadow flickered rapidly through the tunnel and darted toward the other side.

It was undoubtedly a gale-force rabbit. The moment the thought arose, red text appeared on the system interface: Gale-force rabbit, level 42, with a fairly long health bar.

The gale-force rabbit flashed past in Yun Qing's spiritual sense, but at the same time, Yun Qing's spiritual sense startled the creature.

Within her spiritual sense, the spiritual energy on the gale-force rabbit shone like a beacon in the dark, illuminating the path of Yun Qing's pursuit. Not only that, but how the gale-force rabbit utilized its spiritual energy while running, and the technique for running at maximum speed with minimal spiritual energy consumption, were simultaneously perceived by Yun Qing's spiritual sense.

The gale-force rabbit fled underground while Yun Qing chased above ground. Lacking any lightness techniques, she ran at her absolute fastest speed, barely managing to keep up with its pace.

Soon, the level 42 gale-force rabbit burst out from a tunnel. Unrestrained by the narrow space, its speed abruptly increased. Yun Qing, who had been barely keeping up with all her might, ran huffing and puffing for another hundred meters before completely losing its shadow.

"Liu Liu, as a dog, why didn't you chase the rabbit?"

"Yun Qing, as a level 41 cultivator, why couldn't you catch a first-tier rabbit?"

Why couldn't she catch a first-tier rabbit? Because she didn't know any lightness techniques.

Her Big Eagle had said that if she couldn't catch a rabbit, it would let the hyenas be her sparring partners to train her speed.

Yun Qing had no desire for toothy beasts to be her sparring partners, so she had no choice but to figure out how to catch that rabbit.