A Fountain Starfish

In the dim and damp sewer, the scene of a young man and a white bear standing in front of a headless rat corpse was quite strange.

Ji An examined the headless body of the gray-spotted rat for a few seconds.

The headless rat's body was about the size of a medium-sized pet dog, and it was covered in sparse gray and black fur.

Black hair was more than gray hair which was distributed in a regular pattern like gray spots. Thus the name "gray-spotted rat".

Ji An quickly retracted his gaze.

With just a few glances, he already had a rough idea of the gray-spotted rat's strength.

The gray-spotted rat was only an evolved creature, not a Transcendent race.

Some of the weaker evolved creatures, such as evolved insects, didn't even have the strength of a Transcendent race that had completed their first Morphing.

Among the stronger ones, the strongest evolved creature would only be equivalent to a lower-class Extraordinary-level race that had gone through their fifth or sixth Morphing.

The gray-spotted rat was quite common among the evolved rats.

An adult gray-spotted rat was not the weakest evolved creature, but it was not considered strong either.

At most, it was equivalent to a normal wind-chasing dog that had gone through its second or third Morphing.

The gray-spotted rat in front of him was undoubtedly an adult, judging from its size.

It was probably close to the third Morphing level.

However, in the face of Ping An's Cold Air, it had almost no ability to resist.

"It seems that Ping An's Cold Air is quite effective in actual combat."

Ji An retracted his gaze and didn't delay any further. Instead, he took out a boning knife from his backpack and prepared to go to work.

Although the gray-spotted rat had been killed, the mission was not considered complete.

He had to take out the most valuable item on the gray-spotted rat, the poison sac.

The gray-spotted rat was an evolved creature that had evolved to possess the poison attribute.

Of course, this poison was only effective on ordinary creatures.

To extraordinary creatures, the so-called poison was just a joke.

Even so, the poison sac that contained the poison of the gray-spotted rat was a good material.

The Association's bounty required this material as proof of completion.

Moreover, the poison sac must be fresh. The time interval between obtaining it and passing it up must not exceed 24 hours.

This was to prevent anyone from buying poison sacs to complete the bounty.

Ji An held the boning knife and cut open the gray-spotted rat's belly with one slash.

He put on rubber gloves and rummaged through it.

Then, he used the boning knife to cut the fascia.

Soon, he plucked a dark blue object that was the size of a baby's fist.

It was the gray-spotted rat's poison sac.

Ji An put the poison sac into a bag, then into his backpack before continuing to work on the gray-spotted rat's bloody corpse.

If it was a young man who was facing such a scene for the first time, he would probably feel his stomach churning in the face of such a bloody scene.

However, Ji An's expression didn't change as he brandished the sharp blade. There was only the joy of earning money in his eyes.

During the half a year he was a beastmaster retinue, he was, most of the time, the one responsible for breaking down the materials from the familiars the beastmasters hunted.

Later on, when he was struggling to survive in several colonies, Ji An even relied on this skill to make a living.

By now, he was already as familiar with dissecting familiars and getting the materials as a butcher dismembering an ox.

The so-called materials were familiars' parts that had specific uses.

These special parts were called materials because of their extraordinary effects.

Different familiars yielded different materials, and they were even divided into different grades, from the first grade to the tenth grade.

The poison sacs of the gray-spotted rats could barely be classified as first-grade common materials.

In the same grade, there were rare materials and precious materials above the common materials.

The sharp knife in Ji An's hand danced as he removed the four claws, two front teeth, and a section of the rat's tail from the rat's body.

Of course, these things could not be considered first-grade materials.

However, as the most valuable material from the body of an evolved creature like the gray-spotted rat, these materials could be considered secondary materials.

The so-called secondary materials were those that could not even be considered first-grade materials, but still had some special characteristics and uses.

Secondary materials were naturally not as valuable as first-grade materials.

However, to Ji An, who was penniless, this was still an additional source of income.

He divided the materials and put them in his backpack.

He then had Ping An spit out a mouthful of Cold Air, freezing the gray-spotted rat's tattered body and isolating the smell of blood.

After that, they left.

After spending another half an hour in the sewers, Ping An's sense of smell caught something again.

A second grey-spotted rat's tracks had been exposed.

Ji An hurriedly followed Ping An and charged over.

This time, to make Ping An move faster, Ji An even removed the gravity rings from its body.

After removing the gravity rings, Ping An's speed was clearly faster than the gray-spotted rat.

Although the grey-spotted rat hiding in the shadow of the passage was very alert and had discovered Ping An in advance, it still couldn't escape in time.

As Ping An pursued the rat, it quickly closed the distance between them.

When the distance between the two was less than thirty meters, the gray-spotted rat inevitably came into contact with the spreading Cold Air.

The cold air quickly froze the back of the gray-spotted rat.

With that, its speed and reaction speed were greatly reduced, just like the previous rat.

This time, Ji An instructed Ping An in advance not to use Monstrous Strength to attack the gray-spotted rat's head.

This was to prevent the gray-spotted rat's head from being smashed into pieces like the last time.

To find the two front teeth of the gray-spotted rat that had been sent flying just now, Ji An had spent a lot of effort.

It was also because of his repeated warnings that the gray-spotted rat had died in a much better manner this time.

It was killed by Ping An's Ice-breaking Palm.

Ji An went to work again, and soon, a few more materials appeared in his backpack.

His mood improved as he gained more and more material appear.

The joy of making money was irreplaceable.

After a short half an hour, when the third unlucky gray-spotted rat had been dissected by Ping An, he looked at the small bag space left and immediately decided to reward the white bear cub with a meal in advance.

Ping An, who was holding its milk bottle and gulping the milk down, was very satisfied with Ji An's decision.

It thought it had conquered its beastmaster through its hard work.

In reality, Ji An only felt that the two liters of sweetgrass milk simply took up too much space.

After gulping down the sweetgrass milk, Ping An perked up again and began to look for traces of the gray-spotted rats.

Ji An, who no longer had to carry two liters of sweetgrass milk, felt as if a heavy burden had been lifted off his shoulders. A lot of space had also been freed up in his backpack, which allowed him to store more materials.

Soon, Ping An, who had gotten used to the smell of the sewer, sniffed and seemed to have made another discovery.

Ji An didn't suspect its abilities and quickly followed it.

But this time, his luck seemed to have run out.

After following Ping An to a rather spacious underground cave that had probably been excavated by a group of rats, he didn't see any gray-spotted rats that were alone. Instead, he saw a large group of rats.

Among them, there were not only gray-spotted rats but also Transcendent creatures with silver-gray fur and a pair of conspicuous steel teeth protruding from their upper lips, steel-toothed rats!

Ji An looked from afar and was shocked.

He hurriedly pulled back the winter bear cub that was still charging forward, and the thought of retreating appeared in his heart.

This group of gray-spotted rats could only be considered a small group, but there were more than thirty of them.

Without any help, it would be difficult for Ping An alone to deal with them.

In addition, there was also the steel-toothed rat that was obviously not to be trifled with.

It was better not to risk it.

The right way was to fight steadily and find the rats who were alone.

Just as Ji An was about to retreat before the group of rats noticed him, he could vaguely see that group of rats seemed to be surrounding a pale golden thing in the middle.

Squeak!

The leading steel-toothed rat suddenly let out an ear-piercing cry.

A few of the fattest grey-spotted rats immediately rushed towards that thing.

Bang! Bang!

A white water column gushed out.

The few gray-spotted rats were instantly knocked over.

Even the surrounding rats were caught off guard and their formation was broken by the powerful impact of the water pillar.

Ji An took the opportunity to look through the gap in the rat swarm and see what the pale golden object that was surrounded by the rats was.

It was a pale golden five-pointed star.

Or rather, a pale golden starfish!

Ji An's expression was one of surprise as he said, "A fountain starfish? How could there be such a Transcendent creature here?"