The small pill around the size of a ping pong ball seemed to shine with its own light. No matter how I attempted to discern any sort of texture of its exterior that would hint what kind of ingredients it was made of, all I could see was just this shiny light emitted by this strange entity.

The process of making this pill was actually an accident. When I was sweeping all of the remaining resources from my storage ring that lingered there from times back at the wandering sword sect, I accidentally placed some medicinal herbs and magical beast parts into my item randomizer.

At first, I thought that all that could happen would be the items going to waste by creating some strange mix of metals, fur and herbs, but while the hard materials indeed ended up in trash, as soon as I threw them away, I felt a powerful suction on my mana, that I wasn't able to stop at all!

Only after my normal cultivation got dried for three times over, did the suction stop with the item randomiser spewing this strange pill away. If not for my insane ocean of mana that constantly resupplied energy in my dantian, this pill was more than enough to dry all my life away at not even be completed!

With such a huge sacrifice, I thought that its effects would be at least as great as the price a normal cultivator would have to pay for creating it, but in the end, it can only release exactly as much energy for the one who would consume it, as it stole from me. While it transformed my mana into uniform energy that wasn't afflicted with my own ego and nature, outside of supplying someone with abundant amount of energy, it didn't have many uses.

"Just as you might judge from its look, this pill garners immense amount of energy, that is comparable to three times the amount of developing core cultivator entire strength! If you imagine all the energy that you had to assimilate to reach the developing core stage, then multiply it by a three and at least this much worth of nourishment this pill garners!"

Even if I knew for sure that my way of cultivation resulted in far greater advancements, I had no way of directly quantifying the difference. Even if it was obvious that there was a lot more energy inside this pill than what I told to the public, I think anyone that will be able to0 get their hands on this pill wouldn't be stupid enough to risk consuming it directly, before carefully inspecting it to the most of their abilities!

"The bids will start this time with… five hundred arena coins!"

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Living in this city while being a demonic beast forced one to strictly follow a preplanned schedule. After the hunt was done, you need to carry all the prey you can handle to your hideout and bid your time to slowly consume all of it. No matter how weak those rodents and trashdwellers are, there is still a hint of energy lingering in their bodies, allowing me to slowly grow.

Thanks to the years of hard work and experience, I managed to climb my way from a mere soul hazard puppy to something about enriching essence. Not like I know what those terms mean, the humans that saw me used those words to describe me.

With all the harsh experiences that I obtained from years of surviving in the harsh environment of this city, I know that breaking my schedule can be deadly. It's thanks to breaking this rule that the last ones of my breathing that were living alongside me, got hunted down. Lured by some precious food, they couldn't hold back their urge to advance and reach the evolution stage, that would allow us to break free from the confines of this city and go back to our home, with enough strength in our muscles to fend for ourselves!

As I continued to slowly feast on my prey, I tried my best to not let even a single droplet of blood spill as I slowly munched on the juicy meat of the rodents. This was also the time when I cursed my fate the most. From what I saw back in the forest, as soon as my kind evolves, so does our muzzle. While the one I currently have is great for reaching the throat of my enemies… It is simply too inefficient in terms of drinking the blood of my prey!

But what's this smell?

Despite the small pile of the meat still being more than enough for a whole day of munching and two weeks of assimilating the energy, as soon as I felt this insane fragrance coming from above, I couldn't be bothered with this punny meat anymore!

As my paws involuntarily stepped towards the entrance to my small hideout, I had to forcefully ram by back legs into the ground to stop my body from moving forward.

I can't go out in the day!

It might be evening, but there are still some humans roaming the streets! If even a single one sees me, it will be the end!

But this fragrance… It's simply too alluring!

Unable to hold myself back, I fell all my pawns making me almost float into the air, as if my nose was able to lift me up for the sake of following this insane smell.

While I'm intoxicated by this and I know that I won't be able to hold myself back if I won't at least take a small peak at the thing that is emitting such a beautiful and energy-rich smell, some of my instincts that were beaten into my head through the years are still forcing me to flit through the shadows near the corners of the walls. Even without being able to stop myself from heading towards the source of this fragrance, I am sober enough to pick the smaller and more desolate streets!

The closer I get to the source of this smell, the stronger it pulls me towards itself. As my rationality wavers, I can't stop nor control myself anymore. I can only run towards this fragrance. I already know that if I manage to swallow whatever is emitting this smell, not only will I be able to reach my evolution but maybe even get close to the next one!

As a high wall suddenly appears between me and my destination, I gather the strength in my back legs, using the full extent of the power of my body for the first time in ages. Living in the city forces one to conserves one strength, not wastefully use it. But even I know that such brightly lit place will have loads and loads of those pesky humans in there!

It also makes sense for such a treasure to appear among those damned apes! I can only hope that by going at full speed, I will be able to snatch the source of this great smell and run away before they will manage to react! If I will be lucky and fast enough to do so, I might very well just run away to the forest right away! No matter what, without hours of preparations, those dumb monkeys would never dare to enter the woods!

Jump!

As my back legs lose contact with the ground I can hear some humans speaking.

"Five thousand for the second time and sold!"