He placed the nine wild boars into his System Space. Despite stacking them as efficiently as possible, they still took up about three cubic meters. A small area at the top was used to store Spiritual Medicine and other supplies. In other words, his eight-cubic-meter space seemed large, but he was only now discovering how small it truly was.

’Time for an upgrade!’ Li Xiang thought, pulling up the system panel to browse. He had seen a "storage expansion" item in the system store before. It was a bit pricey, but he had plenty of Achievement Points now, didn’t he?

’Besides, storage space is a fixed asset,’ he reasoned. ’It’s not like a monthly service. Once I expand it, it’s permanent, and I’ll always have a use for it.’

’Maybe I’ll get a storage expansion as a reward when I break through to a new Realm or kill some high-level Mutated Creature,’ he mused, ’but I can’t wait. I need it now.’

’So, just how much should I expand it?’ Li Xiang wondered. As an Extraordinary Being, his brain immediately began running mathematical formulas to make an estimate.

’A large, adult male wild boar weighs about 400 pounds and is roughly two meters long. If I assume its width and height are both half a meter, that’s about 0.5 cubic meters of space per boar. A hundred boars would be 50 cubic meters.’

’A typical sounder consists of one adult male, two to three adult females, and a number of piglets. The sows are usually smaller; 200 pounds would be considered pretty big for one.’

’Catching ten sounders would be about 100 boars, and adults would only make up about a third of that number...’

Li Xiang’s mind raced, and he quickly reached a conclusion. Doubling the side length would be plenty.

’The side length was two meters, so making it four meters will give me 64 cubic meters.’ Li Xiang selected the "4m x 4m x 4m" option. After paying a hefty 512 Achievement Points, his System Space expanded with a RUMBLE, upgrading from a tiny studio to a large one.

It still wasn’t massive, but it was more than enough to hold a hundred adult wild boars.

After upgrading his space, Li Xiang continued his exploration. Instead of using his drone, he directly activated the Divine Movement Technique, planning to give the Primeval Forest a quick sweep.

Before long, he came across another adult male wild boar, weighing around 350 pounds, gnawing on a pine tree.

At first, Li Xiang thought it was so hungry it had resorted to eating bark, but he quickly realized he was mistaken.

’This boar is making armor!’

After tearing off the bark, the boar began rubbing its body vigorously against the tree. Soon, its coarse bristles were sticky with pine resin.

If it hadn’t run into Li Xiang, the boar would have finished with the resin, found a pond, and rolled around in the mud to forge its own thick, sturdy coat of armor.

’It’s a solitary boar, driven out of its sounder!’

Only solitary boars, lacking the security of a sounder, would resort to making this kind of armor.

But having met Li Xiang, it wouldn’t need to complete the process.

With a push of his foot, Li Xiang’s body shot forward weightlessly, landing behind the boar. It was so busy rubbing against the tree that it failed to notice him, his aura concealed to a Mild Radiance. Li Xiang didn’t even bother activating the White Fang Dagger’s Wild Boar King’s Suppression. He launched a sneak attack, grabbed a hind leg, and tossed the beast into his System Space.

Damn, the boar was completely bewildered. It soon felt an endless suffocation before dying a thoroughly baffling death.

Li Xiang didn’t care whether the boar had felt fear before it died or if it would affect the quality of the meat.

Still, he felt his method of killing the boars counted as ’swift and decisive.’ Even if the boar felt fear and stress, the dying process was so short that it shouldn’t have had time to secrete hormones like adrenaline.

Only chronic pre-slaughter stress—like the jostling during transport, the anxiety of arriving in an unfamiliar environment like a slaughterhouse, or not being killed cleanly—would deplete the pig’s stored energy. These factors affect the final pH value 24 hours post-mortem, causing the meat to become dark, firm, and dry (DFD).

’Damn, here I am catching wild boars and thinking about all this stuff. I’m way too professional! That Boss Huang is making a killing off of me!’ Li Xiang thought with a shake of his head and a smile, then continued his search for more boars.

This boar probably wasn’t far from its original sounder. Li Xiang followed its tracks and, sure enough, soon found a group of twelve, rooting through the thick snow on a hillside for food.

The lead boar weighed at least 500 pounds and had three sows as mates. Li Xiang figured the solitary boar from before must have had its family usurped by this one!

’Don’t worry,’ he thought, addressing the dead boar. ’Since I took your life, it’s only right that I avenge you!’

The lead boar and the three sows cleared a path at the front, with the other boars following behind. The piglets, in particular, would have been completely buried in the deep snow if the four adults weren’t paving the way.

The adult boar rooted around for a bit, then, perhaps out of boredom, turned and mounted one of the sows.

The scene was an eyesore, so Li Xiang didn’t watch any longer. His body moved like a flash of lightning as he pounced.

That poor 500-pound boar. It had just usurped another’s family and was in the middle of doing the deed with its new mate when Li Xiang activated the White Fang Dagger’s Wild Boar King’s Suppression and captured the entire group in one fell swoop!

There were too many boars in this group. If he hadn’t used the White Fang Dagger and just tried to grab them by force, they would have scattered in all directions. Even with three heads and six arms, he wouldn’t have been able to catch them all.

At four in the afternoon, as the forest grew dim, Li Xiang called it a day and headed home for dinner.

Truth be told, if he were alone, he could have brought enough rations to stay out for days and nights. Camping in the open, bathing with snow—it would all be perfectly fine. He could probably even livestream it to get some views and donations. Back in the day, his Instructor used to stand by a well and bathe in cold water on snowy days. As an Extraordinary Being, was he supposed to be afraid of the cold?

But if he didn’t go home, his grandmother would worry.

So, Li Xiang used the Divine Movement Technique. It took him about an hour, and he arrived home smoothly around five o’clock.

By now, he had caught a total of 88 boars and stored them in his System Space: 27 adults ranging from 150 to 500 pounds, and 61 piglets from 20 to 100 pounds. But Li Xiang felt that wasn’t enough. He planned to round it up to an even hundred.

So, after dinner, he waited for his grandmother and Third Granny to fall asleep before sneaking out again.

He had the Night Vision Technique, after all, so the dark was hardly different from daylight for him. Besides, moving at night was safer and offered more freedom.

The Primeval Forest wasn’t huge, but it wasn’t small either. The wild boars within had almost no natural predators and were extremely numerous. He picked up his exploration where he’d left off and also activated the Mutant Creature Identification Function, intending to harvest some Achievement Points and Spiritual Medicine along the way.

Suddenly, a system prompt appeared: "Tier Three Mutated Creature discovered: Golden Rattan Wood."