Chapter 003: His First Meal In Another World

The Brown Forest Mice spirit beast despite being Ominivorus. It is a scavenger type of spirit beast with almost zero kinds of offensive capabilities, and it barely survived off from the remaining leftovers and the breadcrumbs of other spirit beasts.

However, its small agile and very nimble body is made to be easily able to escape from any incoming large predators, like a typical small house mouse. It could easily outrun and quickly evade the capture of other carnivorous types of spirit beasts, but Yao Zi Chen was different. He uses his head more often than his brawns.

Yao Zi Chen is slightly above average within thinking capabilities, his human intelligence is quite normal. Those who are often labelled as loners tends to be quite quick and possibly overthink thinkers, as they mostly keep their own thoughts to themselves, and steadily observed their entire surroundings.

The moment that Yao Zi Chen had activated his spirit ability, he could instinctively feel the connection establishing between himself and the surrounding tall grasses, within a meter radius of himself and his surroundings. With himself being at the centre focal point of it all.

'Wrap!' Yao Zi Chen made a mental thought command through the transmission of spiritual energy that is connected to the tall grass.

Like a pact of slithering snakes, the tall grass blades that surrounded Yao Zi Chen then began to have a minds of its own, as it then started to slowly rush on over towards the Brown Forest Mice spirit beast's direction. Before it then started to rapidly pile upon, wrapping its tall long grass body around the small agile Brown Forest Mice spirit beast.

"Squeak! Squeak!" The Brown Forest Mice spirit beast having sensed that something was immediately wrong.

It then immediately tried to get out from withinside the facility of Yao Zi Chen's grass manipulation spirit ability, but it was already too late. Despite having evaded many of Yao Zi Chen's tall grass blades initially, at the start. In the end, the tall grass blades were too numerous, too much to count, in a field of tall grass, that the Brown Forest Mice spirit beast was easily subdued within a couple of seconds.

'Hmmm...' Yao Zi Chen then thought something to himself.

He hisses. 'Well, that was boring. The fight didn't even lasted for a single minute, and it already ended. Or maybe I was too strong for the single Brown Forest Mice spirit beast to handle.' He thought.

Withinside the field of tall grass. So long as there is any blade of grass withinside the facility, then Yao Zi Chen has the absolute sole advantage. In addition, snakes eat mices. The absolute predators of mices within the wild. So it was the absolute win for Yao Zi Chen.

Yao Zi Chen then slowly slithers on over towards the now struggling and tightly wrapped around the Brown Forest Mice spirit beast, like a predator eyeing it's prey before going in for the kill.

His forked snake tongue then slithers in and out, salivating the taste of the fear stricken Brown Forest Mice spirit beast that is about to enter into his tummy, or snake stomach.

Without even uttering another sound, Yao Zi Chen then opens his mouth wide, stretching his snake jaw beyond their normal usual limits. And within seconds, he sunk his pair of snake fangs into the main body of the trapped Brown Forest Mice spirit beast.

"Squeak!! Squeak!!!..." The desperate dying sounds of the constricted Brown Forest Mice spirit beast.

Yao Zi Chen then passively releases his weak paralysis snake venom through his bite, secretly secreting through the slight venom canals that are hidden within his snake fangs.

The constricted body of the Brown Forest Mice spirit beast then reacted uncontrollably for a couple of seconds, almost like it has no control over its own body, as Yao Zi Chen's weak paralysis snake venom is steadily being circulated throughout the Brown Forest Mice spirit beast's body and the blood circulation system.

The muscles withinside the Brown Forest Mice spirit beast's body then began to tense up,and locked itself into place. Having reacted negatively to Yao Zi Chen's weak paralysis snake venom.

Afterwards, Yao Zi Chen's snake venom has unexpectedly caused the blood vessels withinside the Brown Forest Mice spirit beast's body to clogged up. With the lack of oxygen being carried and supplied to the body. The body will eventually shut down and die off.

The Brown Forest Mice spirit beast's heart is working continuously hard to try and pump the blood through the clogged blood vessels around body. Eventually, it couldn't handle anymore, and shuts down in evidently, which would lead to the Brown Forest Mice spirit beast's death.

Lifelessness then started to disappear from the Brown Forest Mice spirit beast's eyes. Its own desperate dying cries then suddenly becomes quiter until it eventually stops. That is when the last wisps and sliver of life has vanished from the Brown Forest Mice spirit beast's body, when it dies. The Brown Forest Mice spirit beast then dies.

Its body then becomes all limp and motionless, still and quiet, withinside Yao Zi Chen's mouth. This then immediately signals Yao Zi Chen that the Brown Forest Mice spirit beast has died.

'It's dead...' Yao Zi Chen thought so to himself, as he could instinctively sensed that the Brown Forest Mice spirit beast's heart has somehow finally stopped beating.

It's quite obvious from Yao Zi Chen's point of view that the Brown Forest Mice spirit beast is dead. As usually, when you breathe in, your chest and lungs would then expand to a certain size, to be filled with oxygen and CO² molecules in the air. So when you breathe out, your chest would then deflate, and the carbon dioxide that is produced as a product of aerobic respiration is then pushed out, thereby expelled from the main body.

Another quite obvious sign that the Brown Forest Mice spirit beast is currently dead, is the very obvious fact that it is currently not moving. The Brown Forest Mice spirit beast was quite energetic and loud, squealing desperately for its own life, until a couple of seconds ago. And now it is lifeless and still.

After killing it, Yao Zi Chen then steadily retracts his pair of snake fangs from the dead Brown Forest Mice spirit beast's carcass, before attempting to swallow the dead Brown Forest Mice spirit beast whole.

'Thank God. I'm smart enough to know how an actual snake eats, rather than trying to chew my own food with my nonexistent teeths.' Yao Zi Chen thought so to himself.

It is quite a common knowledge that snake do not actually chew their foods, rather they simply swallow them whole, and patiently waits for their strong stomach acids to slowly dissolve their foods. Well, most of the time, the prey either dies from constriction beforehand or simply suffocated to death withinside the snake's stomach.

Otherwise, they could slowly suffer a painful and agonising death from having the snake's venom slowly destroy your own body from the inside and out. As most snake poison are not actually deadly in being extremely fatal, but rather the irreversible damage they can can cause amongst the living survivors of those that were unfortunately bitten by venomous snakes.

Ding!

Yao Zi Chen then heard the familiar sounds of the divine beast cultivation system prompt notification ringing withinside his head.

[You have successfully killed and consumed the dead body of a 2-year-old Brown Forest Mice spirit beast!]

[Your spiritual energy count has been forcefully increased by 17.4 points!]

[You have obtained 2 blood essence points!]

A small portion of the dead Brown Forest Mice spirit beast's spiritual qi energy is then added onto Yao Zi Chen's spirit beast cultivation base, and the rest is then used to forcefully strengthen one's own mortal and physical body.

Some spiritual qi energy is also lost within the process of being steadily transferred to the next occupant of the food chain.

[Advice: Blood essence is basically the life essence and vitality of the individual's body. So the bigger and more vitalise the individual is, the more blood essence points the user would obtain from consuming the creature.]

[Advice: Blood essence points can be used to forcefully increased one's own innate spirit beast bloodline, strengthen one's own physical attribute stats, or forcefully caused a mutation of a specific body part.]

100 blood essence points is equivalent to 1 attribute stats points.

1000 blood essence points is required to upgrade Yao Zi Chen's ordinary Plant Land Snake Spirit Beast bloodline to the next sub-tier. There are four sub-tier; initial, middle, high, peak before the spirit beast bloodline is then upgraded to the next tier which is Uncommon.

Spirit beast mutation can be artificially triggered by the divine beast cultivation system in exchange for a certain amounts of blood essence points, but the features are currently locked now until the user has met the necessary conditions to unlock the system itself, or advanced far enough within his cultivation base to unlock the system feature.

"Hiss... (Interesting...)" Yao Zi Chen lightly hisses, with slight amusement over what he saw about blood essence points from the divine beast cultivation system.

° ° °

Sometime later, Yao Zi Chen then began to practice his own unique way of spiritual beast cultivation, whilst at the same time, putting his recently learned skills into practice.

Through some simple breathing exercises, Yao Zi Chen was then able to spiritually connect with his surroundings area, due to his innate nature attribute spiritual energy. He is able to passively absorb spiritual qi energy from his surroundings, though at a much slower rate if he were to not fully concentrate upon simply cultivating and self meditation to forcefully increased his beast dantian.

At the same time, with minimal amounts of control, mental power and spiritual energy is required to activate his spirit skill grass manipulation ability. It does not consumed alot of spiritual energy to extend the duration of his control over the numerous grass blades, rather than sprouting new ones out of the dirt ground, from nowhere.

Yao Zi Chen is able to recover more spiritual energy than consuming by utilising this slow and stead spiritual beast cultivation method, which is only suitable and tailored to himself only.

Ding!

Yao Zi Chen then heard the familiar sounds of the divine beast cultivation system prompt message ringing withinside his head, and a blue virtual display screen interface panel then appears in front of him.

[Skill proficiency has reached a designated degree! The skill {Basic Breathing Exercises Lv.8} has levelled up and become {Basic Breathing exercises Lv.9}! ]

[Skill proficiency has reached a designated degree! The skill {Basic Spiritual Energy Absorption Lv.7} has levelled up and become {Basic Spiritual Energy Absorption Lv.8}! ]

[Skill proficiency has reached a designated degree! The skill {Basic Spiritual Energy Manipulation Lv.5} has levelled up and become {Basic Spiritual Energy Manipulation Lv.6}! ]

[Skill proficiency has reached a designated degree! The spirit skill {Grass Manipulation Lv.4} has levelled up and become {Grass Manipulation Lv.5}! ]

• • •

[Skill proficiency has reached a designated degree! The skill {Basic Breathing Exercises Lv.26} has levelled up and become {Basic Breathing Exercises Lv.27}! ]

[Skill proficiency has reached a designated degree! The skill {Basic Spiritual Energy Absorption Lv.23} has levelled up and become {Basic Spiritual Energy Manipulation Lv.24}! ]

[Skill proficiency has reached a designated degree! The skill {Basic Spiritual Energy Manipulation Lv.19} has levelled up and become {Basic Spiritual Energy Manipulation Lv.20}! ]

[Skill proficiency has reached a designated degree! The spirit skill {Grass Manipulation Lv.11} has levelled up and become {Grass Manipulation Lv.12}! ]

[Spiritual Energy Count: 121.6 ]

Watching as the time slowly trickles by, it soon reaches passed the hour mark, and Yao Zi Chen has managed to make some significant amounts of progress withinside his spiritual beast cultivation and training, since the time that he first entered this world.

'The grass manipulation spirit skill seems to be levelling up quite slowly than usual when steadily being compared towards my other skills.' Yao Zi Chen thought so to himself.

It is only then that he suddenly realised that he hasn't really been doing anything major with his grass manipulation spirit ability instead of just learning to maintain the grass manipulation spirit ability with the minimal amounts of spiritual energy that is required, over a long span of time.

[Advice: Would you like to consume the remainder of the unclaimed 21 Low-Grade Spirit Gathering Pills? At most, the user will be automatically able to advance from 1 years of spiritual beast cultivation to a 100 or 200 years of cultivation at most.]

'That is a pretty good idea, System! Now bring it on. Give me the Low-Grade Spirit Gathering Pill.' Yao Zi Chen thought.

He then started to have second thoughts. 'Though, I'm not sure my own can handle all of that said amounts of condensed spiritual energy at once.'

[Advice: Do not worry! Though the user's physical body and conditions have improved after officially becoming a Spirit Beast and training as one. You are definitely strong enough to handle multiple Low-Grade Spirit Gathering Pills at once, but it is still best recommended to take a couple at time, at most one or two, and give some time afterwards for your spiritual beast cultivation base to stabilise and become firm enough to build a foundation base...]

The System's advice feature was starting to make a whole lot of sense, and never seems to give any sort of bad pieces of advice to Yao Zi Chen. As it's only main goal and purpose was to help out its user and player of the System as intended.

Yao Zi Chen then mentally prepares himself. 'I'm ready now, System.' He thought so to himself, and the divine beast cultivation system has recognised his decision.

"Hiss! (Now bring out the Low-Grade Spirit Gathering Pills. I can handle it...)" Yao Zi Chen hisses with his snake tongue.

The moment that Yao Zi Chen has said that, two faintly glowing light blue coloured marbles then appeared in front of him, out of thin air. Without even uttering another sound, Yao Zi Chen then immediately opens his mouth wide, and snatches the two floating Low-Grade Spirit Gathering Pills in the air.

He then closes his mouth shut, thereby swallowing the two Low-Grade Spirit Gathering Pill whole, with it..

Onced the two Low-Grade Spirit Gathering Pill has landed within Yao Zi Chen's stomach, the pill's outer casing then started to crumble, thereby forcefully releasing all of that said trapped condensed spiritual qi energy withinside the Low-Grade Spirit Gathering Pill.

Like in the previous case, when Yao Zi Chen has consumed the single Low-Grade Spirit Gathering Pill, when he was still an ordinary beast, with no ounce of spiritual cultivation. His immature snake-like body then started to rapidly bloat up, as it couldn't really fully handle all of that said large amounts of spiritual qi energy from withinside the Low-Grade Spirit Gathering Pill.

The amounts of spiritual qi energy was twice the amount of the previous case, but this time, Yao Zi Chen has already been completely awakened as a fully formed spirit beast.

His beast dantian then suddenly went wild, circumventing all of the gathered spiritual energy to the rest of his body, and trying its best to desperately absorbed all of that said excess spiritual qi energy from the two consumed Low-Grade Spirit Gathering Pill into his spiritual pool.

Ding! Ding! Ding!!...

Yao Zi Chen then began to hear frequent sounds of the divine beast cultivation system prompt message ringing withinside his head, and numerous virtual blue screen display panel kept appearing one after another, blocking his field of vision.

[Your spiritual energy count has been forcefully increased by 1.6! ]

[Your spiritual energy count has been forcefully increased by 1.9! ]

[Your spiritual energy count has been forcefully increased by 1.4! ]

[Your spiritual energy count has been forcefully increased by 1.7! ]

• • •

'Yes, I could instinctively feel my spiritual qi energy pool slowly rising, after consuming the low grade spirit gathering pill. And I am steadily approaching the next breakthrough of my spirit beast cultivation base.' Yao Zi Chen thought so to himself.

In under a minute or two, Yao Zi Chen's spiritual qi energy count has greatly exceeded the two hundred energy point limit. So an extra year is then added upon Yao Zi Chen's original spirit beast cultivation base.

[You have reached a threshold, your spiritual beast cultivation base has been increased by 1 year!]

[Spiritual Qi Energy count is 201.3! ]

[Your spirit beast bloodline and physique has been strengthened in proportion to your increased within spirit beast cultivation base. All attribute stats value has been increased! ]

As each time Yao Zi Chen has managed to make a small breakthrough withinside his spirit beast cultivation base, his small snake-like body then started to grow a couple of millimetres in length.

Usually, a spirit beast would slowly grow, evolve, and get stronger in due time, but the whole process is somehow skipped or maybe somewhat possibly accelerated due to the existence and intervention of the divine beast cultivation system.

What usually would takes years for a spirit beast to cultivate and grow their spirit beast cultivation base is now happening to Yao Zi Chen in a matter of minutes.

The spiritual qi pressure that is being generated, radiates off strongly from Yao Zi Chen's body in the form of colourless smoke and steam, much like the ones that comes off from a thermal heat radiator.

However, this short of a happy little incident, whilst Yao Zi Chen was busily cultivating and attempting to forcefully increased his spirit beast cultivation base with Low-Grade Spirit Gathering Pills. It didn't really escape the attention of other spirit beasts that are quite sensitive towards the changes of spiritual qi energy withinside the surrounding within the facility.

A Horned Rock Claw Squirrel spirit beast, with at least twenty to thirty years of spiritual beast cultivation base has then spotted the short increased within Yao Zi Chen's spirit beast cultivation base, and started to eye him down from above a tall forest tree.

The Horned Rock Claw Squirrel spirit beast for the most part resembles an ordinary squirrel from Earth in terms of appearances, but that immediately changes when you see the long spike spiral horn that is growing out from the Horned Rock Claw Squirrel spirit beast's frontal forehead.

And there's a clear big difference in the genders of Horned Rock Claw Squirrel spirit beast as indicated by the number of spike spiral horns. Male Horned Rock Claw Squirrel spirit beast usually only have one horn for the rest of their lives, and they are tend to be much bigger and stronger than the female counterpart.

Whilst, the female Horned Rock Claw Squirrel spirit beast has two small additional spike spiral horns growing along the sides of their forehead, not including the main one their racial species typically have.

Like its own name implies, the Horned Rock Claw Squirrel spirit beast has claws, four razor-sharp two to three inches long blades that are able to tear through human flesh and tree bark with ease.

Its black beady squirrel eyes then stares ominously at Yao Zi Chen's figure, being slightly visually distorted by the heat and spiritual qi pressure that is being constantly generated from his body.