Rustling sounds came from the weeds, and a grey animal resembling a mouse crept out stealthily from within. It was said to resemble a mouse, but its size was a full circle larger than an ordinary rabbit. Such animals were the most numerous in this small grove of trees, and Ye Dui called them grey rats.
Grey rats were gregarious animals that appeared in groups, though occasionally there would be lone ones, just like this one.
It thought itself safe, so it began confidently using its small claws to paw at the serrated leaves of the weeds below, sending them into its mouth to eat.
The delicious food made it momentarily sluggish.
It was precisely because of this that a terrifying large hand stretched out from the side, grabbing it by the back and lifting it up. It struggled fiercely, thrashing its body, yet it could not break free from that strong and powerful hand.
“Look what we’ve found? A lone grey rat!”
The owner of that large hand was a man who had previously hidden behind a black tree nearby. Now, holding the grey rat, he happily addressed the others hiding in the distance, Ye Dui and his group, smiling as he said: “Its protein can provide us with energy for several days!”
As he spoke, the man used the knife gripped in his other hand to stab into the grey rat’s body with one strike. The grey rat struggled briefly before dying immediately, accompanied by a flash of white light, transforming into a block of brown meat and a bundle of fur.
The knife in the man’s hand was precisely the one Ye Dui had obtained from purchasing the VIP service. This knife had now upgraded from an extremely sharp knife to a “super sharp knife”, and if used two thousand times, it would evolve into a “knife of mysterious origin”.
This made Ye Dui firmly believe that if he kept upgrading it continuously, one day it would evolve into a dragon-slaying treasure knife that could kill with a single strike…
After obtaining the meat block and fur, the man first tucked the knife into the small pouch at his waist, then cupped the meat block in both hands, turning his body towards Ye Dui and his group, an action that felt just as if Ye Dui and the others were cameras. He took a big bite directly into the meat block, chewing it raw while saying to Ye Dui and the others: “Oh, the texture is crunchy, and the taste is just like chicken meat…”
Ye Dui and the others were all speechless: “…”
The man was undoubtedly the “man standing at the top of the food chain” that Ye Dui had summoned, Bear Grylls, or Mr. Bear. Ye Dui had unlocked an entire season of Man vs. Wild to obtain the summoning spirit of Mr. Bear, and for reality shows like Man vs. Wild, the points required for summoning were pitifully low, only a mere three hundred points, after all, Mr. Bear himself was just an ordinary person.
After summoning him, he did not possess any combat abilities. Of course, because this character came with his own buff, ordinary wild beasts and poisonous insects could not harm him; encountering him meant only becoming food. Additionally, under Ye Dui’s magic, he had gained some magically modified traits, such as,
“I picked another one of these grasses. I never expected this secret realm world to have such seasonings; it tastes somewhat like a mix of pepper and rosemary. When we get back, I must transplant a few to try…” Grylls said as he carefully bent down to pick a strange plant growing on the ground.
That plant was covered with small black berries, and when cracked open, they revealed a pale red powder inside, which could be used as a seasoning.
There was no such strange seasoning ingredient in the outside world, and their ability to discover it relied entirely on Mr. Bear.
Right after summoning Mr. Bear, he would basically shove anything he did not recognise into his mouth for a taste, and given that this was a secret realm in a fantasy world, he basically recognised nothing… Various insects, plants, and animals were all tasted by him, scenes that made Ye Dui and the others feel their stomachs churning while standing nearby.
Even Debbie complained to Ye Dui that he should not abuse the summoning spirit like this.
Abuse? Ye Dui had just sneered at the time; Mr. Bear was enjoying it, was he not!
From the time he was summoned until now, more than a dozen hours had passed, and during this period, they had witnessed a magically modified live version of Man vs. Wild.
“I have never seen this kind of insect before; I want to taste it. Oof, the insect’s final revenge is to defecate in your mouth, but I can feel the rich protein flowing smoothly in my mouth.”
“This feels just like someone stealing your steak and then wrapping it in shit before shoving it into your mouth.”
“This one tastes like you gathered all your friends’ shit, stuffed them into a sausage, and made you eat it.”
“This insect looks very strange, but as long as you remove its head, the other parts can all be eaten; it is even salty, so we can use it as salt.” (Ye Dui, Grylls, Debbie, and the others together: “Absolutely not!”)
…
Ye Dui soon realised that the purpose of summoning Mr. Bear was to help them “test the waters”.
He would personally taste and experience things in the fastest way to determine the safety of this small grove, helping Ye Dui identify every blade of grass and tree here, whether the animals and insects were poisonous, and of course, whether they were tasty, how much protein and energy they provided…
In just over a dozen hours, Ye Dui and the others had gained a general understanding of all the plants, animals, and insects in this small grove, knowing which wild fruits were edible, which were poisonous, which plants could serve as seasonings, and which animals’ meat tasted like chicken and was quite good…
Mr. Bear had helped them an incalculable amount.
When tasting a strange mushroom growing under the roots of a large tree, Mr. Bear quickly cried out in agony and collapsed to the ground. Undoubtedly, that mushroom was highly toxic. Clutching his stomach, he groaned: “Everyone must be careful with that mushroom; it contains deadly poison. My intestines and stomach now feel as if they have been stirred into a mess…”
Seeing Mr. Bear in such pain, Lessa could not bear it. She hurriedly said: “Let me use a healing holy word to treat him, though I do not know if it will work…”
“No, no need…” But Mr. Bear grabbed a tree trunk and straightened his body again. He staggered towards the deeper forest nearby. “I do not need rescue; I can handle this plant poisoning myself. Looks like I need to make myself a shit…”
Ye Dui and the others: “…”
Soon after, a spine-chilling scream echoed from the depths of the forest.
Then, a few minutes later, Mr. Bear returned to Ye Dui and the others fully restored.
“So, let us continue and try the taste of this plant again?”
Ye Dui and the others continued: “…”
Later, when Mr. Bear climbed a black tree to try picking bird eggs from it, he suddenly screamed and fell from the tree. When Ye Dui looked over, he discovered a black strange snake crawling on the branches of that black tree. The snake’s body was flat, and when attached to the trunk, it could only barely be distinguished as a simple bulge, looking dangerous and terrifying.
Undoubtedly, this was a venomous snake. Mr. Bear’s face quickly turned deep purple, his body convulsing continuously, foam at his mouth, but he still refused Ye Dui and the others’ rescue. As he twitched, he said intermittently: “Do not mind me; let my body work a bit harder. I am about to produce antibodies against this snake venom…”
About ten minutes later, the symptoms on Mr. Bear that made him seem ready to meet God at any moment miraculously disappeared. He stood up from the ground and satisfactorily examined his body: “This snake venom is extremely potent; an ordinary person bitten would probably die within a minute. But everyone need not worry; I am now immune to this snake venom. If you are bitten by it, you can use my blood to detoxify.”
Ye Dui and the others were shocked at the time; Mr. Bear could even provide antidotes!?
For magisters and swordsmen, some ordinary toxins were ineffective against them. Even if poisoned severely, they could use light magic or healing holy words for treatment, though not every poison could be cured, for instance, the Cicada Fort assassin they had encountered before, who was a powerful swordsman yet still died from his own deadly poison. Mr. Bear’s ability to produce antibodies and turn his blood into an antidote was simply powerful!
However, Mr. Bear’s greatest strengths were not limited to these. As they witnessed more and more of Mr. Bear’s abilities, Ye Dui increasingly felt that this summoning spirit was incredibly worthwhile.
Mr. Bear was absolutely an essential summoning spirit for surviving in secret realms.
At this moment, accompanied by an animal’s wail, moments later Mr. Bear dragged a monster beast weighing over a hundred jin out from the nearby woods. That beast looked like a wild boar but was even more ferocious, with bulging muscles coiled on its body. It was far more difficult to deal with than an ordinary wild boar, but under the trap Mr. Bear had constructed, it was quickly subdued completely.
Mr. Bear dragged this beast, which we shall call a wild boar, to Ye Dui and the others, then used that “super sharp knife” to stab it right in the heart, killing it instantly. The wild boar immediately scattered into three meat blocks and two pieces of fur.
The meat blocks dropped by the wild boar were much larger than those from grey rats or black crows, appearing to weigh twenty or thirty jin, with clearly more succulent meat quality, counting as medium meat blocks.
The meat blocks were not some specific cut from the killed animal. The effect of Ye Dui’s VIP knife was to separate all the meat from the prey at the moment of death, condensing it into meat blocks after deboning, while useless parts were automatically excluded and vanished.
Because Mr. Bear was Ye Dui’s summoned spirit, he could also use this knife, which was perfect. Ye Dui did not even need to lift a finger; he could let Mr. Bear accumulate food for them while upgrading the knife.
As for those furs, though Ye Dui called them furs, they were actually nearly complete hides, and these hides were of great use in Mr. Bear’s hands.
After Grylls stored away those meat blocks, Mr. Bear picked up the dropped furs. He looked at Grylls, who immediately understood and took out several accumulated furs from the storage space. Ye Dui had already confirmed that items brought in from the outside world through the magic tome would suffer time corrosion if taken out, but things from the secret realm, if put into the storage space and then taken out, would not be affected by time corrosion.
Grylls handed the furs to Mr. Bear, who immediately squatted down to begin processing them.
“Processing these furs requires skill. Here, you just need to tie a simple reverse hitch…”
Then he stood up, and those furs had perfectly fused together into a blanket large enough to cover one person, the entire process taking no more than ten seconds, leaving Ye Dui and the others in awe…
Well, this was also one of Mr. Bear’s magically modified abilities. He could set up traps to capture wild beasts at will and turn materials from the beasts into useful tools, such as turning beast fur into blankets, beast bones into knives, or even beast urine into clean water, the latter two of which were obviously useless to Ye Dui.
Taking the blanket from Mr. Bear’s hands, Ye Dui saw that Debbie, Harley Quinn Dani, and Lessa all showed tired expressions. The secret realm had no day or night, but it had been over a dozen hours since they arrived. It seemed everyone was quite fatigued, so Ye Dui waved his hand to recall Mr. Bear.
“It looks like we can rest for a bit,” he said.
Moments later, a beautiful small building woven from wooden vines rose in the middle of the forest. This was Ye Dui’s wood release magic; he could condense a place to live but could not create bedding or tools. However, now these were no issues. Besides bringing them a large reserve of food, Mr. Bear had also prepared a warm and comfortable blanket for each of them, allowing them to rest well in the wooden house and enjoy a big meal.
He did not know what the other princes had encountered, but Ye Dui and his group were now experiencing the unique flavour of a secret realm vacation…
Thanks to Mr. Bear.
