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Gourmet Hunter - Chapter 120
🕑 Added 2024-04-05 08:10:30 +0000 UTCChapter 120: Entrance Method
"Crack."
Luo opened a canned drink, tilted his head back, and gulped it down, finishing it in just a few sips.
The laxative component in the drink was extracted, naturally turning it back into a regular drink. Even if the laxative component had not been extracted, Luo drinking it wouldn't have affected him.
In his previous life, the fruit he consumed granted him a special constitution that made him immune to various toxins and substances like laxatives that could have a negative effect on his body.
Luo initially discovered this after being bitten by a venomous snake. Afterwards, for safety reasons, he didn't dare to test the limits of his resistance to poison. However, a strong laxative was nothing to him.
After finishing the drink, Luo casually disintegrated the can into particles, scattering them on the ground covered in rotten leaves and vines.
"Luo, won't Tonpa be too late for the exam this way?" Buhara too, finished his drink in a few gulps, then tossed away the can.
Luo indifferently said, "It was his choice."
"Oh," Buhara responded, then took out some jerky from his bag and started chewing on it.
Luo glanced back in the direction they came from. It was unclear whether the large dose of laxatives injected into the stomach could be fatal, but if Tonpa were to die from it, Luo would know immediately.
This was because, the moment the laxatives were injected into Tonpa's body, his name was already recorded in the book. Should he die, Luo would sense it right away.
Up to now, the book had 648 pages, but its thickness hadn't changed. Only by opening the book could one understand the vastness contained within.
Out of the 648 pages, 73 had been used; 69 pages were blackened, and 4 remained unblackened: one for Hisoka, one for Wogret, one for a virus patient from the slums, and one for Tonpa.
Walking through the dark, silent forest, Luo wondered if Tonpa was now suffering from severe diarrhea. He didn't know what would come next, but it was certain that Tonpa would have to withdraw from this year's Hunter Exam early.
"If possible, see you next year."
Luo thought silently to himself, then quickened his pace.
This year's Hunter Exam was going to be Tonpa's most miserable nightmare, and it might even continue for several more years…
As the two of them walked through the forest, although the scenery seemed unchanged after each distance, it was actually different.
With Buhara's company, Luo wasn't lonely.
On their way to the exam site, they saw many bloodstains but no corpses.
They encountered man-eating flower buds, flipping them over to find many pale bones, a black long-toothed leopard that was three meters long, knocked down by Buhara with a punch, and also snail-mouthed worms, crushed under Luo's foot.
Compared to the man-eating flower buds and the long-toothed leopard, the snail-mouthed worm was unpredictable, bursting out from the ground. Its spiral mouth filled with sharp teeth could instantly grind a human into minced meat, and its mouth was large enough to easily swallow an adult.
The traces they came across were signs of candidates losing their lives along the way, and they also killed many creatures that attempted to ambush them.
Since they started at different times and were delayed on the way, Luo couldn't save people even if he wanted to. Creatures with culinary instincts like rotten spiders weren't common; other creatures wouldn't leave their prey alive.
Luo could only judge that someone had died here through the remaining bloodstains; there was nothing else he could do.
Realizing he couldn't save anyone, Luo sped up, naturally encountering and killing more creatures along the way.
Luo wished to encounter B-grade creatures like the Hand Hand Berserk Bear and the Butterfly Patterned Giant Snake, but it wasn't easy to come across them; most were E-grade ingredients.
During the hours-long journey, the jerky exchanged from Amarlo village was almost completely devoured by Buhara as snacks.
Having no choice, Luo picked out a giant wild boar with skin as hard as granite from the many attacking creatures for Buhara to carry as food for the coming days, just in case.
After all, among so many ingredients, only the wild boar meat was more appetizing, and wild boars weren't something you could encounter whenever you wished.
The two of them walked until the evening before finally emerging from the dense forest onto an open land. The first thing that caught their eye was a red rock mountain.
The area near the rock mountain was solid and hard red ground, without any trees or vegetation.
From the air, it looked like a bald spot on a head that couldn't grow hair, except this "bald spot" was
as high as a swelling.
The red rock mountain was over a kilometer high, resembling a round pudding. The top of the mountain was a smooth cross-section, and so were the mountain walls, almost without any protrusions.
The mountain, true to its appearance, was called Red Pudding Mountain.
The Amarlo River flowed through a hole at the bottom of Red Pudding Mountain, like a train passing through a tunnel, leading to the other side of the mountain and further beyond.
According to the hints, this should be the end of the journey, meaning this was the location of this year's exam.
Of course, this conclusion was drawn because there were already quite a few people gathered on the red land below the mountain.
From afar, when Luo and Buhara emerged from the forest, those gathered here all looked towards them.
To be precise, they were looking at the giant wild boar Buhara was carrying on his shoulder, which was seven or eight times larger than Buhara himself. Such an entrance was indeed eye-catching.
A rough estimate of the scene counted about eight hundred people. Even spread out, they only occupied about one-tenth of the area of the red land.
Among these people, a muscular man in shorts stood out. He was sizing up Luo and Buhara, seemingly unconcerned with the giant wild boar.
When his gaze fell on Luo, it suddenly sharpened.
This man was the examiner for the first round, also the man previously standing on top of Red Pudding Mountain, named Dafei.
He normally wouldn't have used his energy to specifically observe the candidates arriving at the site. It was only after seeing a spider crab being overturned from the top of Red Pudding Mountain that he decided to take a closer look.
Out of the total 821 people present, he saw that 11 people had a rudimentary understanding of Nen, and now there was one more person who seemed strong, Luo.
From the stability and solidity of the Ten, one could judge whether a Nen user was qualified. In Dafei's view, out of the 821 people, only 12 understood Nen, and only Luo was above the threshold.
"Could it be him?"
Dafei thought to himself, then withdrew his gaze from Luo.
The first round of the test was set to start on January 7th, and with still half a day to go, 821 people had already arrived. By tomorrow, this number was expected to at least double.
"At least seventy percent must be eliminated."
Dafei stroked his chin, thinking about how many candidates there would be and that the difficulty might need to be increased accordingly to eliminate most of them.
Luo and Buhara casually found a spot to sit down and rest, with the wild boar corpse tossed aside.
They thought there was still some distance to the exam site and didn't expect to suddenly emerge from the dense forest and arrive at the test location.
Luo quietly observed the candidates gathered at the scene, focusing his energy on his eyes, trying to see how many Nen users were among so many people.
Soon after, he quickly noticed Dafei, whose presence was simply explosive. Whether it was his rock-like muscles or his shorts, it was almost as if "I am the examiner" was written on his body.
With so many people gathered in one place, forming small groups, the noise was not weak.
The sun was about to set, and the sky was dyed the color of flames.
Dafei looked up at the sky and suddenly said, "The first round of the test will start at noon tomorrow. Until then, we will not provide accommodation or meals."
His deep voice instantly overpowered all other sounds at the scene, quieting the noise.
No accommodation or meals meant they would have to stay here overnight and sort out their own meals.
As the sky grew darker, were they supposed to go back into the dense forest to hunt?
Suddenly, everyone instinctively looked towards Luo and Buhara, or more precisely, at the giant wild boar.
"I didn't do it on purpose."
Dafei looked up at the sky as night approached.
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