Amidst the howling winds, Zhang Lie again leapt down from the hill. This time, by the time Zhang Lie escaped from the valley, he had over a hundred stalks of blood whiskers in his backpack.

Zhang Lie had spent a significant amount of time preparing for this collection attempt, so he would obviously grab everything he could.

Because the properties of the blood whiskers had yet to be discovered, and because no one had figured out how to efficiently harvest them, there had to be over ten thousand stalks in this valley alone.

Given Zhang Lie's current harvesting rate, even if he collected a hundred stalks each time, it would take over a hundred glides for him to collect them all. Zhang Lie gave himself a week to do all this.

It seemed as though the backpack he was using wouldn't be sufficient anymore. Once he returned to the settlement, he would have to take a short detour to the nearby swamplands to hunt some potbellied toads for their soulshards.

These blood whiskers were a necessary ingredient for Zhang Lie, so he had even devised a series of backup plans if his original harvesting method had failed.

Unfortunately, there would always be variables he couldn't account for. On his tenth descent, a vibrating chitter reverberated through the valley. 

The next moment, a blood-red shadow rushed out from its depths. Its body was as large as a carriage, its pincers the size of polearms, its transparent wings criss-crossed with bloody streaks of red, and its huge eyes colored a deep crimson.

"A superior-grade blood ant!"

Zhang Lie's face turned pale. He activated his galewolf soulshard immediately, then rushed toward the valley exit. He was fast, but the superior-grade blood ant's attack was even faster!

A blood-red arrow shot toward Zhang Lie, so quickly he couldn't react in time! The moment the arrow had shot out, Zhang Lie had had a premonition of danger and had tried to shift to dodge the blow. However, by the time his body began to move, the arrow had already exploded upon impact with his left shoulder, careening him into the distance.

Luckily, Zhang Lie was able to adapt to the shock almost immediately. With both [Rippling Walk] and his galewolf soulshard activated, he twisted in mid-air and used the momentum of the explosion to launch himself toward the valley's exit.

"Ka, kaka!"

The superior-grade blood ant glanced around the valley. When it discovered that its target had vanished, it clicked its mandibles a few times, emanated a deep, vibrating chitter, and then retreated back into the depths of the valley.

Deep within a nearby forest, Zhang Lie let out a sigh of relief after hearing the deep chitter. That was far too dangerous—he'd only been collecting a few blood whiskers, but somehow a superior-grade blood ant had appeared!

And it even attacked Zhang Lie immediately.

He glanced at the crystallizing wound on his left shoulder, chuckling bitterly to himself. How hostile, to have shot a blood arrow at him right after its appearance! If not for his white-grub armor, he'd have been dead by now.

Zhang Lie began to circulate his genetic energy to prevent the spread of the blood ant's peculiar strain of genetic energy.

The blood arrow that the superior-grade blood ant had shot at him was a long-ranged attack that would gradually cause the blood in the affected region—and then his whole body, if untreated—to crystallize, turning him into a sculpture of blood.

It took him a whole hour to localize the blood ant's genetic energy and stop the spread of the crystallization. If not for his armor and the boost to his constitution from his ten superior gene fragments, he would surely have died then and there.

The appearance of the superior-grade blood ant marked an end to Zhang Lie's harvest.

Instead of retreating back into its anthill as Zhang Lie had expected, it instead stood guard at the top of the largest of the crystal hills in the Bloodcrystal Valley, leaving Zhang Lie no choice but to retreat.

Of course, his retreat would only be temporary. Once the superior-grade blood ant returned to its anthill, Zhang Lie would certainly continue harvesting these blood whiskers. Without risk, there was no reward. These blood whiskers would be a second source of wealth for him, and he wasn't about to give up on them so easily.

Since he wasn't able to gather more blood whiskers at the moment, Zhang Lie headed toward the swamplands.

During this period of time, he collected a few herbs that were easily found all over the region and hunted a few more lifeforms to fill up his gene capacity.

A giant swamp, shaped somewhat like a prayer mat, lay at the heart of the swamplands. It was the natural habitat of the potbellied toads, regular-grade lifeforms beloved by most hunters. Their soulshards were particularly useful, and almost every hunter who entered the dimensional world would get their hands on a few.

Zhang Lie immediately spotted a potbellied toad peeking its black head out of the surface of the swamp. Although the toads were commonplace, their soulshards were particularly difficult to obtain, for two reasons.

First, regular-grade lifeforms didn't have a high probability of condensing soulshards. Second, the swamp was a very difficult terrain to fight in, and there were quite a number of other lifeforms around—some mutated-grade, and a few even superior-grade.

Even those hunters who had reached their mutated gene threshold wouldn't dare to charge straight in.

Hunting the swamp's potbellied toads required more than brute strength. For others, this might have been a problem, but for the reincarnated Zhang Lie, this was a trivial issue to solve.

While travelling to the region, Zhang Lie had already worked out a plan. He started a small fire by a clearing near the swamp, where he began to roast a one-eyed pheasant that he had caught not too far from the area.

A salivating scent spread throughout the swamp, and all the potbellied toads began to croak as they smelled it. Unfortunately, they quieted down the moment they swam to the edge of the swamp, as if forcing themselves to resist the temptation.

Zhang Lie had expected this. He retrieved what looked like a four-leaf clover from his backpack, crushed it, then spread the pieces over the roasting pheasant. When crushed and roasted, this plant would release a curious smoke that would attract all frog-type lifeforms close by.

A blue fog, barely visible to the naked eye, spread out from the fire and into the swamp. When it reached the potbellied toads, they immediately rushed out of the swamp toward the direction of the scent. They were surprisingly large, about half the size of an adult male.

As soon as the potbellied toad at the very front saw the smoke wafting from the one-eyed pheasant, it immediately opened its mouth, attempting to snare the pheasant with its tongue.

Of course, Zhang Lie would stop it from doing so. With a few waves of his sword, all the potbellied toads that had tried to stick their tongues out found them severed.

The next moment, Zhang Lie activated his galewolf soulshard and charged toward them.

[Three-Wave Crescendo]—each palm strike struck with the force of a tidal wave, and the potbellied toads that were unfortunate enough to be caught in the attack all collapsed.

The toads' only real danger came from their long, sticky tongues, as well as their ability to stuff just about anything down their throat. However, given the large disparity between their strength and Zhang Lie's, he had nothing to fear.

As the smoke continued wafting around the swamp, more and more toads began to surface. In a flurry of blows, Zhang Lie swept through the toads like a sickle through wheat. It took a dozen kills, and as many shattered soulshards with relatively useless capabilities, before Zhang Lie finally obtained his first potbellied-toad soulshard.

[Soulshard designation: storage-type (spatial).]

Upon activating the soulshard, a miniature pouch appeared in Zhang Lie's hand. The pouch possessed the property of spatial miniaturization; although it wasn't much larger than his hand, it could store up to a truckload's worth of space.

However, even that wasn't enough: the pouch would fill up after storing a dozen toad carcasses. Zhang Lie couldn't be satisfied with just one such pouch. Since he was at the swamp already, he might as well get a full dozen.

The blue smoke continued attracting toads, and Zhang Lie began his slaughter in earnest, wishing that he had a multi-target offensive technique. With his palm attack and his blade, another dozen toads lost their lives, producing one more soulshard.

Just as Zhang Lie was about to pocket the soulshard, however, a mutated-grade potbellied toad, about twice the size of a regular one, appeared from the swamp. Zhang Lie was hoping for exactly such an opportunity: after all, it meant that he would soon be able to have a mutated-grade potbellied-toad soulshard.

The resulting mutated pouch would be at least thrice the size of a regular one. If he could obtain multiple copies of it, he wouldn't have to worry about storage space ever again.

He activated [Calm Waters], flung a few toad carcasses toward the mutated toad, and followed up with a blow from Galewind. As he circulated his genetic energy, his blade took on a pale blue sheen, and he reached the toad in an instant.

He had obstructed the mutated toad's vision with the carcasses of the regular-grade toads, and that momentary distraction was sufficient for Zhang Lie to approach. By the time it sensed danger, a pale blue longsword had already impaled its head. The mutated-grade potbellied toad slumped in death, without even having time to croak.

As Zhang Lie smashed a regular-grade potbellied-toad soulshard to pieces, a soulshard condensed over the mutated-grade toad's carcass. He'd acquired its soulshard!

With that soulshard in hand, Zhang Lie began slaughtering the other toads even more quickly. Countless toads that jumped out of the swamp fell to his blade. 

After another ten minutes, when the smoke finally dissipated, the potbellied toads stopped splashing out of the swamp. During the ten-minute bonanza, Zhang Lie had obtained thirteen regular-grade and two mutated-grade soulshards, a large haul by any standard.