Screech! Whoosh! Boom!
Li Fan slashed wildly with his blade in the cave training ground, not stopping even when he hit the ice wall.
"What... what's going on? Why are they all standard slashing motions?"
Yudora watched for a moment, her voice filled with shock.
The assimilation effect of the Dragonfang gear was a strong urge to slash, so normally one would just swing wildly and be done with it.
"Perhaps Li Fan has trained so many times that these movements have become instinctual, meow."
Dilo analyzed.
After hacking away for three hours like this, Li Fan collapsed from exhaustion.
When he regained consciousness, he was already lying in a warm tent.
"How do you feel, meow?"
Dilo brought a bowl of hot soup.
"It... felt pretty good."
"Meow?"
"Yeah, it felt really good. Just slashing freely, not having to think about anything, my mind completely blank."
Li Fan recalled.
The adaptation training continued for four days.
On the fifth day, Yudora had barely started practicing in the cave when a loud "boom" echoed.
The walls on either side of the cave entrance suddenly cracked. Li Fan saw several fissures spread to his feet and quickly yanked, pulling Yudora up.
Boom! The two of them and the cat, hanging in mid-air, were holding onto a Wirebug, while the cave training ground below had collapsed over a large area.
Did he just train the training ground out of existence? Ice layers really weren't very stable.
No matter how much Li Fan considered, he hadn't expected something like this to happen.
After landing on the snow, Yudora took off the Dragonfang helmet. The remaining three pieces of Dragonfang gear could be resisted with willpower, so she put them on.
"I was planning to adapt to the full set of gear today, and now it's all ruined."
A dejected Yudora picked up a wool hat and put it on.
"It's good that everyone's alright. We can find another place."
Li Fan remained optimistic.
"So much monster meat, meow..."
Dilo's eyes gleamed as she looked at the collapsed ruins.
"Monster meat?"
Li Fan followed her gaze.
A cave about the same size as the training ground was revealed at the fractured ice surface.
Peeled chunks of frozen meat were piled in the corners, looking like a frozen food aisle in a supermarket from a distance.
The team moved closer. Li Fan picked up a chunk of frozen meat and saw the rough tearing marks on the edge, realizing it wasn't stored by humans.
"It even had the hide removed for refrigeration. This is a meticulous monster, I'd say."
Li Fan commented.
"There's a hole above, similar to the training ground's ceiling, but this one seems to have been blocked."
Yudora pointed to the ice layer at the top of the cave.
"Blocked? Could it be..."
Thinking of something, Li Fan stepped out from the ice fracture and released two Wirebugs to climb the ice. He reached the top of the ice layer.
After a brief search, he dug in an area with shallow snow and soon touched a circular ice block formed from crushed ice.
After shattering it with his Dragonfang Great Sword, it was almost identical to the training ground's ceiling hole, except for its larger diameter.
"What is Li Fan doing up there, meow?"
Dilo asked, tilting her head curiously.
"This cave isn't natural. It's a monster's nest."
"Ah?"
"Meow?"
Hearing Li Fan's conclusion, Yudora and Dilo froze.
The team quickly regrouped below, and Li Fan began to explain.
"If I'm not mistaken, this is a dual-cave nest, capable of storing food. The owner hasn't returned for a long time, so there are no obvious signs of life in the cave used for resting. Of course, it's also possible the owner is busy hunting, or for other reasons, hasn't moved in."
"Can you tell what kind of monster it is?"
Yudora inquired.
"Based on the crushed ice blocking the storage cave entrance and the marks on the meat chunks, the Icefang Wyvern is the most likely candidate."
"Could it be that Snow Shadow?"
Yudora's eyes lit up with anticipation.
"I'm not sure, but the guild's description mentioned fur and carapace leaning towards gray, so it should be easy to identify."
"What should we do now, meow?"
Dilo asked, sitting on top of the pile of frozen monster meat.
"I haven't figured it out yet, but if we transport these meat chunks back to the camp, we'll have plenty of time to think."
The team immediately got to work.
The little dummy flew back and forth five times, carrying food, and finally cleared out all the meat chunks in the cave.
If a hunter team didn't have to worry about finding food, they would have a lot of free time each day.
So, after lunch, the team began discussing their plan and researched until after dinner, concluding that adaptation training would be temporarily suspended, and they would monitor the collapsed cave.
The primary reason was naturally to attempt to fulfill the hunting contract.
The secondary reason was that an Icefang Wyvern whose base had been stolen, and no one knew what actions it might take.
Moreover, the camp was too close to the cave training ground. If the camp were attacked and destroyed, the team would be in a bad situation.
The next day, the two people and one cat began their rotating outdoor stakeout.
The specific method was to select a high vantage point on a nearby slope.
After concealing themselves, they would maintain a twenty-four-hour watch on the collapsed training ground.
With a small team of only two people and one cat, executing such a deployment would have been difficult before.
However, with an abundance of food, they could now focus on the stakeout.
During extremely harsh weather, monsters also tended to reduce their activity, so the team decided to only conduct surveillance under normal weather conditions.
One day, two days, three days...
On the afternoon of the fourth day, as Yudora was calling Li Fan to switch shifts, two Icefang Wyverns appeared in their sight.
Yudora quickly crawled on the ground, pulling the camouflage net with white leaves closer to herself.
"Half of me is exposed..."
Li Fan sighed helplessly and pulled the camouflage net back a bit.
The two of them tacitly moved closer to each other and raised their binoculars simultaneously.
On the white snowfield, two Icefang Wyverns were walking slowly, one in front of the other.
The larger one in front, with its light gray fur and carapace, was extremely conspicuous against the snow.
It was like a shadow cast on white paper.
The smaller Icefang Wyvern behind had the usual white fur and carapace. If not for the pair of amber fangs in its mouth, resembling those of a saber-toothed tiger, it would have been difficult to spot its tracks on the snowfield at first glance.
"No wonder the guild named it Snow Shadow. When moving across the snowfield, it truly looks like a shadow."
Yudora exclaimed.
"This carapace color probably isn't advantageous for hunting or evading predators."
Li Fan deduced.
"Uh... its appearance here means the collapsed cave training ground was its nest. If it discovers its nest has been destroyed, will this Snow Shadow go berserk?"
Yudora asked with concern.
"Not necessarily. Monsters express their emotions very differently from humans, but it's definitely going to be unpleasant for it."
Li Fan judged.
The two Icefang Wyverns unhurriedly ascended a snow slope and reached the highest point.
The collapsed training ground cave was directly below, corresponding to this location.
*Pat!*
The Snow Shadow froze for a moment, then dropped the brown-furred Snow Deer it was carrying onto the snow.
The Icefang Wyvern behind it came to the cliff edge, stretched its neck to look down for a moment, tilted its head, and fell into thought.
"Ahem..."
Yudora coughed lightly.
"They didn't communicate properly. What can I translate?"
Li Fan felt speechless.
This state lasted for about two minutes. The smaller Icefang Wyvern's gaze swept sideways, glancing at the Snow Shadow.
*Slap!* Its black, three-toed wing claw slammed onto the snow. It threw its head back, turned, and left.
Roar! .... Roar?
The somewhat bewildered Snow Shadow hesitated for a moment, then picked up the Snow Deer again, ran quickly to the Icefang Wyvern, and placed it in front of it.
The Icefang Wyvern wagged its tail and walked around it.
The Snow Shadow watched the departing figure, its eyes gradually dimming.
"You don't need to translate this scene, I know what happened..."
Yudora said with a sigh.
*Whoosh!* The Snow Shadow suddenly sprang up and leaped into the air.
As its wing membranes spread to their maximum on both sides, it dived and glided downwards.
After falling into the collapsed nest, the Snow Shadow sniffed the residual scent, used its claws to remove crushed ice, and repeatedly examined the fractured ice layer, seemingly unwilling to miss any relevant traces.
Finally, the three-toed claw marks covering the ice surface plunged the Snow Shadow into thought.
"Do you think it will fall for it?"
Yudora asked uncertainly.
"We don't have Bulldrome materials, so the possibility is slim, but at least it can steer them away from thinking about hunter teams."
As Li Fan spoke, the Snow Shadow quickly climbed back up the snow slope, picked up the Snow Deer, and swiftly returned.
Using its wing claws to hold it down, it began to gnaw and tear.
The still steaming monster meat was placed in the cave, which had been exposed by the ice collapse.
The scarlet blood on its wing claws, which was about to freeze, was smeared on the surrounding ice.
"The food storage cave is exposed, why is the Snow Shadow still putting meat in it?"
Yudora asked, confused.
"Could it be... it's trying to set up an investigation for the real culprit?"
Li Fan speculated.
After carefully observing the surrounding environment, the Snow Shadow leaped up again. After several climbs and jumps, it reached a higher slope top.
It used its wing claws to stir up snow and cover itself.
After completing its camouflage, its amber eyes narrowed into thin lines, and it stared at the collapsed nest.
"This Snow Shadow is so smart."
Yudora was also surprised, not expecting it to have a plan similar to a hunter team.
"I feel like its grayish carapace is what made the Snow Shadow like this."
Li Fan guessed.
"Oh? Does that color indicate a subspecies with particularly high intelligence?"
Yudora inquired.
"It's not a subspecies. Judging by its appearance and mate selection, it's just a simple color mutation."
A change in simple external characteristics, though very slight, was still a mutation.
"Then why is the Snow Shadow so intelligent?"
Yudora couldn't understand.
"Children who are ignored tend to be more self-reliant. I suspect the Snow Shadow's carapace color mutation might be congenital, causing it to be disliked by its own kind from a young age, forcing it to evade pursuit and also greatly restricting its hunting. But it didn't give up; instead, through constant practice, it found a survival path suited to itself."
Li Fan explained.
He felt that neither the guild nor the hunters had accurately perceived this difference.
"So... its intelligence was forced into existence?"
Yudora tentatively asked.
"Yes, that's a good summary. It's roughly that feeling."
"It seems like a waste to kill such a hardworking individual Icefang Wyvern. Why not try to capture it?"
Yudora suggested.
"It's probably difficult. This kind of individual is extremely cunning, and even tracking it is a challenge... However, a monster is still a monster. What if we provoke it now? Perhaps it will lose its reason."
Li Fan vaguely sensed an opportunity.
"It feels a bit forced. Since we're on a long-term stakeout, if the Snow Shadow has no source of food, dragging it out will definitely be more advantageous for us."
Yudora proposed.
Before witnessing it, they didn't even know the monster's species, so the team couldn't make any prior arrangements.
"That's true. Let's wear it down for now, but we'll need to be more discreet when changing shifts in the future."
Li Fan agreed.
Three days passed in the blink of an eye. Apart from intermittent disappearances of ten minutes or so, the Snow Shadow basically hadn't moved from its spot.
Yudora even felt like it slept with one eye open.
On the team's side, as long as there wasn't extremely harsh weather, they were living quite peacefully.
On the afternoon of the fourth day, Li Fan skillfully climbed to the side and raised his binoculars.
"Doesn't something feel off? Why do I feel like the Snow Shadow has gotten fatter?"
Li Fan knew the standard body size of monsters, so he was particularly sensitive to this aspect.
"It does seem a bit. Could it be sulking... and its whole body swelled up from anger?"
Yudora tried to explain.
"That's unlikely. Even if there were inflatable organs on its surface, its whole body wouldn't get fat."
Li Fan said as he flipped through the observation records, discovering that the Snow Shadow's departure times were clearly insufficient for hunting, but they were very regular.
"Wait a minute... Could there be another food storage cave!"
Li Fan suddenly remembered Zhao Dehan.
"Ah!"
Yudora was so surprised she almost stood up, but then she thought about it and felt it wasn't reasonable.
"If the Snow Shadow really had another food storage cave, why didn't it show it to that female Icefang Wyvern before?"
"Perhaps that Icefang Wyvern left too resolutely, which made the Snow Shadow sad."
Li Fan guessed.
"Ugh! All our efforts these past few days are wasted."
Yudora covered her head with her hands and buried her face deep in the snow.
Seeing her state, Li Fan could roughly guess why the previous teams had gone crazy.
"Don't rush. We haven't lost anything. If the Snow Shadow just eats and then lies around, its physical ability will definitely decline."
Li Fan comforted her.
"Really?"
"Yes."
With renewed confidence, Yudora continued to observe and collect information, searching for any possible turning point.
After his shift, Li Fan also released Puff for combat drills.
It was true that some Mizutsune individuals could adapt to extremely cold environments, but that was the result of long-term adaptation.
Just suppressing the secretion of its frothy mucus required a long period of practice.
Puff's advantage was that its gliding posture was perfect. It could adapt to icy surfaces almost without training.
Watching the graceful Puff glide at high speed on the ice, Li Fan began to ponder.
In that case, the best place to engage in combat would be on a wide ice surface, with no high ice cliffs or walls around.
If it wanted to escape, the little dummy could easily intercept it by diving.
However, this also limited the use of paralysis traps...
As he was thinking, a series of booming sounds echoed through the mountains.
"This rhythm, this sound... it's a Brachydios!"
Li Fan suddenly stood up and put Puff back into its sphere.