77: Night Snatchers

“So that’s what it’s called. Should I get it? Probably not. They aren’t very good in terms of ranking,” he thought.

The Cottontail Rabbit, seeing Ning Ruogong standing there, felt threatened and decided to attack him, immediately pouncing and butting its head against his chest.

Ning Ruogong allowed it to do so; he was too strong and didn’t care about the attack of a Qi Condensation Realm monster. The rabbit couldn’t make Ning Ruogong budge, let alone harm him.

It tried a few more times but failed to cause any damage. Finally, it decided to run away. “Oh, you’re leaving now? Let me take you with me, just in case I don’t find any others,” Ning Ruogong said, preparing to reach out and grab the rabbit.

Suddenly, there was a Swish from the sky, and the rabbit vanished from before him. Ning Ruogong barely saw the flash in front of him as the rabbit disappeared.

He immediately extended his hands to stop anything moving. Telekinesis.

A sleek black figure stopped in front of him, holding the Cottontail Rabbit. Ning Ruogong was surprised by its aesthetic. “So black,” he thought. He walked forward and took the black figure into his hands.

As he got closer, he saw that it was a bird. From its appearance, he thought it resembled an eagle. He had kept many birds in the past, so he was familiar with them.

However, he had never seen a bird so black. In fact, he doubted he had ever seen a bird blacker than this one. Not a crow, nor a buffalo. This was a different kind of black, like those birds that hide in the night without a single reflection.

“Hmm… you’re highly ranked, aren’t you? I wonder why,” he tried to recall, but he had no information. He quickly used the second layer of Qi Cultivation Analysis to examine the bird.

Qi Condensation Second Realm: Night Hunter

“Night Hunter, huh? Too bad, I still can’t remember anything about you. System, give me some intel on this Night Hunter.” He commanded.

As always, the system presented him with different options for different levels of knowledge he could purchase. Unfortunately, any knowledge above the beginner level was just a wish for him.

He spent 10 million energy on the beginner-level Night Hunter knowledge and began to understand it.

The Night Hunter is an extremely strong and gluttonous avian monster that prefers to hunt at night. Its black feathers have no reflection, allowing it to completely hide in the darkness, making it difficult for even cultivators to find it.

Coupled with its extreme speed and astonishing accuracy, it can snatch prey from great distances. It is said that Night Hunters with higher realms can turn day into night when hunting. However, that is just a rumor.

A more terrifying rumor is that they have the bloodline of ancient gods, and with enough cultivation foundation and sufficient resources, they can evolve into ancient gods.

However, Ning Ruogong could not see any more information about these things.

Ning Ruogong used the information in his mind to judge the bird’s size, realizing it was less than a decade old in bird years. He walked over to the bird, looking at its face and the rabbit it held.

The rabbit was already dead, its sharp talons deeply embedded in its body. The bird struggled to move, so it opened its mouth and said: “Hungry. Need food. Stuck.”

“What? Did I just… what?” Ning Ruogong was startled. He stopped speaking and listened again to the bird, which repeated the same words.

“Hungry. No food. Stuck.” Ning Ruogong could now definitely hear the bird speaking. “But why?” He was surprised; he had no skill that allowed him to hear birds speak.

“Is that so?” he asked doubtfully, immediately opening his status page.

[Status: Name: Ning Ruogong, Energy: 26,000,000, Separated Energy: Thermal Energy: 454,000, Sonic Energy: 98,000, Qi Energy: 25,448,000, Skills: Synchronized Mind, Intermediate Map, Omniscient Klavis Language, Candlelight, Yin-to-Yang Conversion Technique, Night Vision I, Cross-dimensional Storage (Time Stop; 112 kg), Air Cutter, Telepathy, Yin-to-Sound Conversion Technique, Water Filtration, Mundane Jade Cultivation Method, Sun God’s Morning Purification Technique, Qi Cultivation Analysis, Body Cultivation Analysis, Basic All Languages, 2x Qi Adaptation Rate]

There was no skill for beast language.

However, there was a basic All Languages skill.

“Is that why I can understand it?” He was greatly surprised. He had thought “All Languages” referred to all human languages. However, if it referred to “any language”… then the situation was different.

“Damn, the system didn’t lie when it said the Omniscient Language skill was discounted. Such a broken ability should have cost much more than it did,” he thought.

He looked at the Night Hunter and asked, “Do you want to eat?”

The bird twisted its head to the side and stared directly into his eyes. “I. Food. Hungry.” The bird spoke haltingly. Ning Ruogong couldn’t tell if it was because it had a basic language skill or if it was actually a monster with limited intelligence unable to form a coherent sentence.

Ning Ruogong immediately released a bit of Telepathy, allowing the bird and its dead prey to slowly descend to the ground. “You can eat it here,” he said.

The bird seemed to understand him and began tearing the rabbit apart and eating it. Ning Ruogong sat down and watched the bird, which was only 30 centimeters long.

The eagle ate the rabbit clean, then stopped and looked at him. Ning Ruogong felt a bit strange about the way the bird looked at him and asked, “Are you still hungry?”

The bird didn’t react or move, just looked straight at him and said.

“Hungry. Need more food.”