Chapter 99

After resting for three days, Tang Jie once again entered Tiger Roar Valley.

This time, he was much more familiar with the valley's conditions, and nothing like the previous incident where he was chased by a spotted snake occurred.

A day passed quickly. After checking his gains for the day, he found that even after deducting the loan and rent, there was still a small surplus. Tang Jie did not continue hunting but instead headed towards Tiger Roar Peak again.

Standing in front of the stone stele, the tiger had already reappeared on the mountaintop.

It still looked at Tang Jie with cold eyes, the character 'Wang' on its forehead wrinkled.

Tang Jie smiled.

Then he continued to step forward.

Stepping on the blood-red stone slab.

One step!

Two steps!

Three steps!

He kept walking until the tenth step, then stopped.

The demonic tiger did not attack, but continued to watch him.

Tang Jie continued to move forward.

He took another step forward, then stopped.

Whoosh!

The wind rose!

The tiger pounced!

Tang Jie activated the Purple Lightning Leap, moving like lightning.

The tiger's roar shook the valley again, but this time it only made Tang Jie's heart tremble slightly and did not interrupt his technique.

The tiger's claw struck the red stone slab, raising a cloud of dust.

When the dust settled, Tang Jie stood outside the boundary, a thin stream of blood flowing from his arm.

It was a hidden air blade in the storm that had cut him.

The broken stone slab automatically mended itself.

The demonic tiger took a few steps back, let out a warning growl, and turned to leave.

Tang Jie stepped in again, and the demonic tiger glanced back at him but ignored him.

"Brother..." Yi Yi, who was lying on Tang Jie's shoulder, spoke softly.

The last time Tang Jie provoked the demonic tiger, she was asleep and did not see it.

But this time, she saw clearly that the demonic tiger pounced with lightning speed, its strength and ferocity far beyond what Tang Jie could resist.

"I'm not afraid," Tang Jie gently patted Yi Yi. "Do you remember what I told you before we came?"

"Uh-huh!" Yi Yi nodded seriously.

"Then go ahead."

"But I'm scared..."

"Don't be afraid, Yi Yi. It's not interested in you!" Tang Jie said calmly.

Yi Yi tilted her head, not quite understanding why the demonic tiger was not interested in her.

As a rare spirit creature with high spiritual energy, she was the best supplement for all demonic beasts.

Tang Jie smiled and said, "Because it only has eyes for me... It hates humans."

He looked at the demonic tiger, their eyes meeting.

Yi Yi slid off Tang Jie's body, flashed into the nearby grass, and the demonic tiger did not even glance at her.

They remained in a standoff.

After a long time, Yi Yi reappeared by Tang Jie's side, leaning close to his ear and saying, "Done."

Tang Jie then took out a piece of wolf meat and placed it on the ground, then shouted at the tiger, "Next time I come to see you, I hope you can be more polite. I have no intention of killing you; I just want to talk... I know you can understand me. You are different from them; you have wisdom!"

"Roar!" The demonic tiger responded with an angry roar.

Tang Jie shook his head and then stepped out of the boundary.

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From that day on, Tang Jie officially began his plan to make money in Tiger Roar Valley.

In reality, even with Tang Jie's current strength, it was extremely difficult to maintain a steady income while living freely in Tiger Roar Valley.

First, there were various unpredictable risks, and not every time could Tang Jie turn danger into safety. Yi Yi's presence allowed him to find things others couldn't, but it also made demonic creatures more likely to notice him.

On his third entry into the valley, Tang Jie unfortunately encountered a Terror Lizard, which chased him for a whole day. Although the lizard was slow and couldn't catch up to Tang Jie, it was very patient and never let him go. Its sense of smell was also very keen, and it could track him no matter where he went.

As a result, Tang Jie didn't manage to kill a single demonic beast, and often had to flee halfway through a fight due to the Terror Lizard's intervention.

This day became Tang Jie's Waterloo, resulting in a direct loss of over a hundred coins, with only some herbs to partially make up for it.

With no choice, he had to borrow money from Shu Mingyang and others again to enter the valley for the fourth time.

This time, his luck was better, and he made some profit.

Unfortunately, on his fifth entry, he was again chased by demonic beasts, this time a group of Windstorm Ferocious Wolves that pursued him relentlessly, forcing Tang Jie to teleport away. Fortunately, he had already made some gains before that, barely preserving his capital.

In addition, there was an unexpected problem that greatly reduced Tang Jie's income.

That was the issue of the number of demonic beasts and spirit plants in the valley.

The rate of reproduction could never keep up with the rate of slaughter!

No matter what protective measures Tiger Roar Valley took, the valley's own output was far from enough to meet the needs of the students' trials.

Therefore, every so often, the Moon Washing Academy would send people to capture a batch of demonic beasts and collect some spirit plants to place in the valley.

This was also a long-term task for the disciples of the Moon Washing Sect.

However, replenishment could not be done every day, generally every three months.

If students entered frequently during this period and killed many demonic beasts, the number of demonic beasts in the valley would decrease.

Due to the strength of the students, the ones that decreased were generally the weaker demonic beasts and the easier-to-find and pick spirit plants, leaving the remaining ones extremely difficult to deal with.

Therefore, Tiger Roar Valley also had peak and low periods.

When encountering a low period, even Tang Jie could only strive to break even.

This was not surprising, as risk and profit were directly proportional.

The safety of Tiger Roar Valley reduced the risk, the entry threshold increased the cost, and the nature of the investment reduced the expected return—no one should expect the Moon Washing Sect to place a world-class immortal herb in Tiger Roar Valley.

There wasn't even one worth over a hundred coins!

But Tang Jie still insisted on entering the valley every day.

The days of entering the valley and facing dangers passed day by day.

A month quickly passed.

In this month, after deducting the rent, Tang Jie did make some profit, but the surplus was far less than expected. In a month, he only earned three hundred coins.

To be fair, three hundred coins was not a small amount, but the problem was that these three hundred coins were earned at the cost of stopping his daytime practice.

Taking the Yuan Cultivation Pill as an example, a bottle worth 1,200 coins could only bring a student a progress increase of 40 to 60 days. Stopping thirty days of practice to earn three hundred spirit coins, when calculated, was essentially a waste of time.

For this reason, many people mocked Tang Jie for being a gambling addict, thinking highly of himself, and wasting time in Tiger Roar Valley.

With this energy, they could have had a few good sparring sessions in the training ground, competing for a ranking on the list, which would have been more cost-effective than going to Tiger Roar Valley.

Even Shu Mingyang, Cai Junyang, and others had advised him several times.

But Tang Jie still insisted on his actions.

After each hunt, as long as he wasn't driven out, he would go to Tiger Roar Peak.

At first, the demonic tiger was very wary of him.

Every time Tang Jie came, it would appear immediately and try to kill him.

But the fact was that it was becoming increasingly distant from killing Tang Jie.

As the time of contact grew longer, Tang Jie became more and more familiar with the demonic tiger, knowing its abilities.

As a high-grade spirit beast, this tiger had four innate techniques.

One was the Wind Leap technique, similar to the Purple Lightning Leap, with extremely fast short-range speed but not suitable for prolonged battles.

The second was the Earth Spike technique, which could control the ground to produce spikes to attack the target. Although its power was average, it was a large-area damage technique and posed the least threat to Tang Jie.

The third was the Tiger Roar, which had the power to intimidate and could even disrupt spellcasting.

The fourth was the ability to emit air blades to attack from a distance. These air blades were quite powerful, and even if Tang Jie activated the Formless Golden Body and the Condensed Water Shield, he would still suffer significant damage.

Its true strength lay in its terrifying physical power. Its claws could easily tear apart any object in front of it, its teeth were sharper and harder than high-grade magical tools, and its tail was like a whip, capable of shattering gold and splitting jade.

Its techniques might only be equivalent to the Spirit Spring stage, but its body was definitely comparable to a Transcendent Realm body cultivator.

Moreover, Tang Jie suspected it might have a fifth technique.

This demonic tiger was clearly a wind and earth element creature. The Tiger Roar was a bloodline power and could be ignored. The wind element was adept at speed, so its Wind Leap was extremely fast, the best among its techniques. The earth element was adept at defense, so the technique it had never used was likely something similar to a rock armor, but Tang Jie had never been able to force it to use it, so he had never seen it.

The deeper the understanding, the harder it was for the demonic tiger to kill Tang Jie.

From the first time it severely injured Tang Jie, to the second time it lightly injured him, and later, it couldn't even hurt him.

When the tiger realized it couldn't kill him, it stopped paying attention to Tang Jie.

Tang Jie's range of movement then expanded.

The demonic tiger would chase again.

Still ineffective, it would give up again.

Tang Jie's activity area thus expanded in a cycle of chasing, giving up, chasing again, and giving up again.

From ten steps, it expanded to eighteen steps.

Every time Tang Jie left, he would leave some food there.

But the demonic tiger never ate it.

Over time, the demonic tiger simply ignored Tang Jie, even if he walked twenty or thirty steps, it wouldn't attack him, seemingly acknowledging Tang Jie's right to exist there.

Unfortunately, no matter how Tang Jie tried to communicate, the demonic tiger ignored him, as if it couldn't understand him at all.

So Tang Jie did not continue to advance but used twenty steps as the safety boundary, never leaving this circle.

Thus, the two of them remained in a standoff. Tang Jie continued to enter and leave Tiger Roar Peak daily, as if entering his own courtyard, and both sides seemed to have gradually adapted to each other's presence...

Today, Tang Jie came to Tiger Roar Peak again, and the demonic tiger still lay lazily on the large rock at the peak, not even looking at Tang Jie.

Letting Yi Yi continue her work, Tang Jie walked around in his activity area.

He strolled leisurely and suddenly saw a small red flower behind a nearby rock, with a bright red fruit the size of a pomegranate on it.

"Red Pulp Fruit?" Tang Jie exclaimed softly.

The fruit in front of him was clearly a Fire-type spirit fruit, the Red Pulp Fruit, and it was in its fully mature stage.

The Red Pulp Fruit was not too rare among spirit fruits, with a fiery nature that had value in both cultivation and medicine.

However, the Red Pulp Fruit had a long maturation period, often taking several years to fully mature. Cultivators usually had no interest in waiting so long, as no one could monopolize a specific area. Therefore, they often picked the fruit as soon as it began to mature, making fully mature Red Pulp Fruits extremely rare in Tiger Roar Valley.

The Red Pulp Fruit in front of Tang Jie was fully mature, much more valuable than ordinary Red Pulp Fruits. If he could pick it, it would be worth at least 150 coins.

Tang Jie then realized that this place was a place of concentrated heaven and earth energy, and the Moon Washing Academy had likely planted spirit seeds on the peak. However, due to the presence of the demonic tiger, not every student could come to Tiger Roar Peak, so many good things had not been picked, and this Red Pulp Fruit had clearly been preserved due to the demonic tiger.

The fruit was just a few steps away from him, outside his self-defined safety zone.

At this moment, the demonic tiger had not moved, and the Red Pulp Fruit was right in front of him. Tang Jie's eyes flickered, and he suddenly dashed towards the fruit.

Just as he left his safety zone.

The tiger's roar suddenly rose!

The demonic tiger had suddenly stood up and pounced down, like a thunderbolt!

However, as it pounced, Tang Jie suddenly stopped.

He abruptly halted his forward momentum and turned to run towards the boundary.

Boom!

The tiger's claw hit empty air.

At the same time, Tang Jie had quickly run to the boundary, and Yi Yi's figure quickly appeared, tightly gripping Tang Jie, looking nervously at the demonic tiger.

"Roar!" The demonic tiger, missing its target, was very angry and roared at Tang Jie again.

Tang Jie just smiled.

Now standing on the boundary, he said calmly, "Don't be surprised that I was prepared. I told you I knew you were pretending to be stupid."

The demonic tiger glared fiercely at Tang Jie.

"I just want to talk to you... Unfortunately, your hatred for humans is too deep. It seems I have to defeat you before you will talk to me. Fine, I will come to defeat you. I hope you can be more calm then." With that, Tang Jie turned and left.

———————

PS: Three things to say.

First: The event starts tomorrow. Anyone who donates has a chance to receive a prize from the Reader God's Pattern. I will provide the list at the end of the month (I have the backend records), and the reward rules are detailed in the relevant instructions.

Second: About the backlog. The backlog must be maintained at about fifteen days, which is thirty chapters or 100,000 words at two chapters per day. Recently, regardless of the highs and lows, I have been updating twice a day, causing the backlog to drop by more than half. I am now catching up. However, the process of catching up also has its highs and lows, and there will be temporary additional updates, so it will take some time to complete the fifteen-day backlog. Once the backlog is complete, I will write at the standard speed. Oh, there will be double updates tomorrow.

I'll reveal a little secret.

Actually, it's very simple to know if the writing is going well.

It's not about how much I update on a given day, but about how active I am over the past few days. The more active and shameless I am, the better the state. If I don't show up for several days, it means I'm not in a good state, and because I'm not in a good state, I don't have the mood to chat with everyone.

From the PS I wrote today, you should know my state.

The last thing.

Since I'm writing a PS, I might as well ask for some monthly votes.

Well, is this too insincere? I should say something inspiring?

Okay, I'll try, cough, cough.

"Comrades, we must fight, fight, fight! We can lose the battle but not the war. We can't be weak in spirit. Brothers, vote for me, and next month I will definitely add more updates... two chapters."

That's it, I'm done.

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