Chapter 1006 Food Attraction
As the smell of blood became more pungent, the number of beasts attracted to the area also increased.
Besides snakes and hyenas, gorillas, crocodiles, leopards, jaguars, and even an elephant came to the river.
Nevertheless, not all of them were attracted by the blood and hostile to Leon and Rainshine; some came to drink water from the river.
However, they quickly fled after catching the sights of their natural predators.
Of course, those that didn't flee were quickly attacked. Alas, the hostile beasts were outmatched when they saw Leon as prey and targeted him.
Leon caught the neck of a jaguar with his vice-like grip when it pounced at him. He easily snapped the Rank 1 Transcendent-level jaguar's neck with a bit of force and killed it.
The jaguar's body was casually tossed aside shortly after.
Afterward, Leon glanced back at the trail of carcasses along the riverside left by Rainshine before he paused in thought.
"Interesting…" Leon muttered.
Leon discovered that hostile beasts would rather hunt fresh living beings than eat from the already-dead carcasses of other beasts along the riverside.
If the beasts were simply hungry, they would ignore the amount of food lying on the ground.
It became clear to Leon that the hostile beasts had a clear target in mind when they came to the river.
This could be clearly seen from the fact that the hyenas, jaguars, and leopards ignored each other. Rather, they were working together.
Perhaps they were under orders from a higher-ranking beast that ruled the territory.
"Rank 2 Transcendent-level beasts have started appearing… Are they trying to gauge our strength?" Leon casually shook his head.
It was a meaningless endeavor.
Leon suddenly raised his hand and drew blood essences from all the beast carcasses along the riverside towards him. Then, he refined them and absorbed their origin blood into his bloodstream, increasing his accumulated origin blood types to 615.
Shortly after, Leon grabbed a hyena's leg and dragged its somewhat-intact carcass over to the river for a quick wash. The blood was quickly drained, and the fur was removed with fire.
Afterward, Leon removed the organs and stuffed some spirit herbs inside.
Then, Leon took some powdered dry herbs mixed with freshly squeezed herbal essence from the Worldspace before marinating the hyena's carcass in the caramel-like mixed herbal juice.
Rainshine was curious about Leon's actions before she gradually realized her master was cooking the hyena.
However, Leon wasn't just cooking; he was experimenting and baiting.
The marinated hyena carcass didn't look all that appealing, nor did it smell great.
But once Leon placed it over a spitfire that he made on the spot and started roasting the marinated hyena carcass, an incredibly appetizing and pleasant aroma surged out from it explosively.
Rainshine took one whiff of it before she subconsciously started drooling and gazed at her master's food with desire.
At the same time, the explosive aroma spread far and wide, attracting all the beasts within several tens of miles.
Rainshine had never had cooked food before.
As such, the hyena carcass's transformation was like magic to her, which further heightened her anticipation and expectation regarding its taste.
However, the growing number of beasts in the area quickly snapped Rainshine out of her reverie as her eyes flashed with coldness.
"There's no need to kill arbitrarily if they don't attack us first, Rainshine," Leon casually said while squatting over by the spitfire, slowly rotating the marinated hyena carcass over the fire.
After hearing that, Rainshine immediately noticed the beasts were gathering, but they weren't attacking.
They only kept a safe distance and watched from afar.
Rainshine confirmed that the beasts weren't attacking despite the growing desire in their eyes.
Thus, Rainshine shifted her attention back to the marinated hyena carcass that started to shine with caramelized color.
It was starting to look very soft and tender.
As Rainshine watched marinated hyena carcass rotate intently and up close, a piece of firewood suddenly cracked apart, and embers flew about, startling her.
Rainshine quickly retreated with a short hop and raised her paw at the flying embers as if wanting to smack them and fight back.
Leon slightly smiled at Rainshine's antics in amusement.
"Are you curious about its taste?" Leon casually asked.
Rainshine shifted her gaze to Leon and nodded repeated eagerly.
Leon was also curious about the taste.
As such, he decided to peel off a piece of meat and let Rainshine taste-test for him. The meat broke off from the carcass with little-to-no resistance.
It was incredibly tender.
Although Rainshine was eager to try, she carefully accepted the piece of juicy meat from Leon's hand in fear of accidentally cutting his fingers with her exceedingly-sharp fangs.
The moment Rainshine swallowed the food, she immediately gave a shrill cry of joy and rolled on the ground as she relished in the aftertaste.
At the same time, she felt a warm power flowing through her body, mildly improving her physique.
After Leon watched Rainshine's reaction, he also peeled a piece for himself and tasted it.
'The taste is excellent but not as exaggerated as Rainshine makes it. It still falls short of eating fresh sea monster meat dipped in special sauce,' Leon evaluated.
Nevertheless, Rainshine probably enjoyed it much more as it was something different from what she usually eats, which also makes it more exciting.
'Overall, this food is comparable to tier-2 cultivation pills," Leon continued assessing his first attempt at spirit cooking.
'But considering I used some tier-3 spirit herbs to produce this, some energy was definitely lost in the cooking process…'
'This attempt was a failure, huh?' Leon thought.
A true master of spirit cooking wouldn't allow any energy loss in the cooking process. Leon still had a way to go before reaching such a level.
That being said, it was not bad for his first attempt.
Roar!
The mighty roar of Peak Rank 2 Transcendent-level beast suddenly echoed throughout the area, causing Leon's eyes to flicker thoughtfully.
It was undoubtedly the roar of a lion.
"Looks like we've successfully attracted a king of the jungle with the scent of food," Leon commented with a slight smile.
However, Rainshine immediately revealed a look that implies she wouldn't share the food with anyone besides her master.