Chapter 86: Chapter 86: Grinding Proficiency

But that didn’t matter. He wasn’t the same man he was a few days ago.

With Archery Mastery, the Compendium of Wild Flora and Fauna, and the Tool Compendium at his disposal, dealing with a few wolves wouldn’t be too difficult.

But he didn’t want to act rashly. A wolf pack was a group of cunning hunters, and what they showed you was often only a fraction of their true strength.

For all he knew, there could be many more Yukon Wolves hiding in the bushes on the bank right now!

’Where the hell were those things hiding just now? How did I not notice them at all?’ 𝐟𝗿𝐞𝚎𝚠𝐞𝚋𝕟𝐨𝚟𝐞𝕝.𝕔𝕠𝚖

He wrung out his pant legs, squeezing out the excess river water to avoid catching a cold from the chill and dampness clinging to his body for too long.

This section of the Yukon River was only leg-deep. Even dogs could swim, so these Yukon Wolves certainly could too.

Both sides knew full well that neither would dare enter the river in front of the other. Doing so would just make them a target waiting to be slaughtered.

Lin Chen took a long look at the situation on the opposite bank, then turned without a second thought and walked into the forest, heading toward the potato patch.

’Huh? Wait, what’s this...’

He hadn’t gone far when he stopped in his tracks. He bent down and pulled aside a patch of trampled weeds, revealing a huge footprint underneath.

He held out his fist to compare; it wasn’t even half the size of the print.

’Five toes, claw marks up front, an irregularly oval palm... This is a bear track!’

A Black Bear’s paw was only about a size larger than his own hand, but this print was more than twice as large. It had to be a brown bear’s.

So that was it.

He straightened up thoughtfully, his gaze sweeping over the nearby grass. He quickly found a series of tracks.

Although he had redeemed all sorts of knowledge, his attention was often drawn to the surrounding plants when he walked. That was the skill he had relied on for survival early on, and it had become a habit.

As a result, the already well-hidden tracks beneath the vegetation were easily overlooked. Unless he was actively looking for them, they wouldn’t catch his attention.

If his eyes didn’t spot them, the related animal knowledge wouldn’t be triggered.

To put it bluntly, he had just crammed a ton of information into his head but lacked the practical experience to apply it at all.

’Looks like from now on, I need to focus more on observing the traces left by animals. That’s the only way to slowly build the habit and truly internalize my knowledge about them.’

He had no intention of tracking the brown bear. Instead, he started wandering around the area, occasionally parting dense grass or bushes to see if he could find any special marks left by animals.

’The grouse I caught last time was hiding in a berry bush. Based on their feather color and size, short, dense places like this are indeed more suitable for them to hide.’

Parting a patch of somewhat withered berry bushes, he checked four or five different spots before he finally found several rows of messy, chicken-like tracks.

He looked up, staring at the lowest branches of a few nearby spruce trees that weren’t very tall.

’The needles on the lower parts of these two trees are clearly much sparser, and they seem to be leaning to one side. It doesn’t look natural; it looks more like the marks left by spruce grouse pecking at them.’

’Spruce grouse build nests in spruce trees during the winter. Since they can’t fly, their nests shouldn’t be too high up—three or four meters should be about right... There!’

At the junction where a thick branch met the trunk of one of the spruce trees, the corner of a nest-like shape was faintly visible. Two jet-black eyes, the size of soybeans, were peering at him through a narrow gap.

’Forget it, I’ll leave it for Andre. This is his territory, after all. There are still seventy-six days until the survival challenge ends, and it’s not like I’m short on protein. It’d be nice to have someone to talk to.’

In the later stages of survival, the hardest part wasn’t getting food, but rather the endless loneliness.

Scattered all over the ground were dense clusters of pinecone-shaped fruits. They were spruce cones that had fallen from the trees, their tightly packed scales hiding seeds inside.

He picked up a few and broke them open. The seeds inside some were still intact, while others were completely empty.

’The main animal that eats spruce seeds is the Alaska red squirrel. Grouse might eat them too, but it’s unlikely in winter. Besides, a spruce cone pecked by a grouse wouldn’t be this intact.’

He wandered through the forest for a long time, probably for more than two hours. He found some moose tracks, quills from a porcupine’s back, and feathers that looked like they had fallen from a pigeon.

Aside from these creatures with relatively obvious features or larger body weights, the traces of other wild animals were much harder to find.

More traces of animal activity would only be left after a rain, when the forest soil became damp and soft.

’The potato patch is just ahead. Looks like Andre has dug up quite a bit these past two days. I wonder if that old guy learned my method for extracting potato starch. Though with his cooking skills, he probably couldn’t make any decent dishes even if he did.’

Twenty-four straight days of living in the wild had made him noticeably leaner. With plenty of physical labor and an ample supply of protein, he hadn’t lost much muscle; instead, he had burned off a lot of fat.

As he became leaner and stronger, his stamina also increased.

From leaving the shelter to checking traps, crossing the river, and then hiking through the forest, nearly three hours had passed. Yet he only felt slightly tired. After a simple five-minute rest, he began digging up potatoes.

Digging up potatoes was actually quite simple. You just had to loosen the soil near the plant with a shovel to reveal the potatoes hidden underground.

The things didn’t just grow right under the plant; they spread out in patches, so potatoes could be hidden anywhere in the surrounding ground.

Due to the lack of human intervention like pruning and fertilizing, the wild potatoes were extremely small. The largest one he had harvested so far was only the size of a normal potato, and the average was about half a fist.

He had no intention of leaving any seed potatoes behind. Big or small, if he saw a potato, he took it.

Potatoes weren’t suited for growing in the winter anyway. They would just die if left here. It was better to hand them over to him; at least they could be transformed into a delicious meal.

He dug another full basket of potatoes, weighing around twenty pounds. It nearly filled his entire backpack. The weight was heavy on his back, the straps digging into his shoulders and making them slightly sore.

’Alright, time to think about how to get home.’

He hitched his pack up higher on his back and glanced up at the sun, which was now directly overhead. Its rays felt warm on his skin.

He held his breath and focused, listening intently for a moment. Then he lay down and pressed his ear to the dirt, listening again before choosing a direction and setting off.

"I wonder if anyone knows what that action—me putting my ear to the ground—means?"

As he walked, he murmured softly to the camera, "Back in ancient times in Great Xia, during wars, scouts would often use this method of listening to the ground to determine if a cavalry was approaching from a certain direction."

"Of course, that’s not what I was listening for. I was trying to hear the sound of flowing water. Unfortunately, it doesn’t seem to have worked."