"A team of five Energy Gathering cultivators brought that thing in this morning," Borin continued, his tone laced with a challenge, oblivious to Rhys’s inner turmoil.
"It took them half a day to kill it, and two of them lost their lives. Its hide can deflect normal steel blades. If you can so much as make a clean cut through one of its scales, I’ll give you a chance. If not, get out of my sight."
This was enough to create a terrible premonition in Rhys.
Two Tier 2 cultivators had lost their lives fighting a single Stage 1 Feral, and it had taken them half a day.
What if more such monsters emerged?
Energy Gathering cultivators were the backbone of any family. The Ashtons had only fifteen elders in Tier 2.
The death of such powerful members was a huge blow, but the possibility of a beast tide filled with such monsters terrified him even more.
"What? Scared already?" Borin sneered, though his eyes showed disappointment.
It was an impossible test for a Tier 1 cultivator, but Borin had expected the mysterious young man before him to at least try.
That way, even if the boy couldn’t cut the carcass, he could act as if he were doing him a favour and hire him.
After all, the Dismantling Center truly lacked manpower.
"Should I start?" Rhys simply asked, moving closer to the monster carcass.
Borin with a surprised expression on his face, nodded at one of the workers.
The worker tossed Rhys a standard-issue butchering knife. It was heavy, more like a short sword than a scalpel, its edge chipped and worn.
Rhys ignored it, instead pulling out his own weapon: the evolved Shadow-Sting Dagger.
Its matte-black finish and elegant, ergonomic design stood in stark contrast to the crude, functional tools around him.
Borin raised an eyebrow at the quality of the weapon but said nothing, assuming it was a treasure the boy couldn’t possibly know how to use.
He had seen his fair share of arrogant youngsters.
Rhys approached the massive carcass, feeling the gazes of the other workers on him, most filled with pity or amusement.
He took a deep breath. He had no practical experience, only the theoretical knowledge from the Viper’s Kiss manual, which was a combat art, not a butchering skill.
He placed the tip of his dagger at a seam between two of the croc’s armoured scales and pushed, channeling his body’s immense physical strength.
His first cut was clumsy. The angle was wrong. The dagger scraped against the stone-like hide with a grating screech, and the cut was shallow and jagged.
He had applied too much force from his shoulder and not enough from his core. The poor technique bruised some of the surrounding meat, a clear sign of an amateur.
Borin grunted, a smug look on his face.
"See? Not so easy, is it? Strength isn’t everything, boy."
He was a little surprised by the strength the boy had shown, but that was it. Not every task required brute force; butchering was a highly skilled profession.
Rhys ignored him as the System chimed in his mind.
[Host is performing the action of ’Butchering’. Rudimentary practical knowledge is being acquired.]
[Analysing host’s movements... Comparing with theoretical ’Perfect Butchering’ knowledge... Identifying 17 points of inefficiency.]
[Suggestion: Alter blade angle by 5 degrees. Follow the grain of the muscle fiber. Use a pulling motion, not a pushing one.]
Rhys adjusted his grip. He positioned the blade again, following the System’s silent guidance, and pulled the dagger toward him.
The result was completely different. The unnaturally sharp blade, guided by his monstrous strength, slid through the Feral beast’s legendary hide as if it were soft leather.
A clean, deep, and perfect incision appeared, severing the connection between the armored plate and the muscle beneath.
The yard, which had been filled with the sounds of work and mocking laughter, fell silent.
Borin’s jaw dropped. The snickering workers stared with wide, disbelieving eyes. A cut like that should have been impossible for a Body Tempering cultivator.
Hell, even their most experienced butchers would have needed several tries and a heavy, Qi-infused cleaver to achieve such a result.
But this boy had cut it like tofu.
Rhys didn’t stop. He moved to the next section. With the System feeding him real-time corrections, his movements became smoother and more fluid with every cut.
The initial awkwardness vanished, replaced by an eerie, machine-like precision. He was no longer just cutting; he was dismantling.
He separated muscle from bone, ligaments from joints, and organs from cavities with a grace that was both beautiful and terrifying to watch.
He was learning at a visible, impossible rate. What started as a clumsy attempt had, in the span of minutes, evolved into the work of a master.
The crowd of onlookers grew, the entire Dismantling Center grinding to a halt as every worker gathered to witness the miracle unfolding before them.
Hours passed. Rhys was lost in a state of pure focus, his mind and body working in perfect sync with the System’s guidance.
As the sun began to set, casting long shadows across the yard, he made the final, perfect cut, separating the last piece of valuable meat from the skeleton.
The entire Swamp-Scale Croc, a beast that had required a team of powerful cultivators to kill, now lay before him in perfectly sorted piles of hide, meat, bones, and organs.
Not a single valuable part was wasted.
[Repetitive, focused action under pressure has resulted in a breakthrough. Skill ’Basic Butchering’ has been comprehended to Perfection.]
Rhys stood up, wiping a thin sheen of sweat from his brow. He looked at his work, then at the stunned, silent crowd.
Borin was the first to break the silence. He walked down from his platform, his face a mixture of awe and disbelief.
He circled the perfectly dismantled carcass, his one good eye examining every cut. There were no mistakes.
It was the most flawless butchering job he had ever seen in his forty years in the business.
"You’re hired," Borin said matter-of-factly. "Ten gold coins a month. You start tomorrow."
He didn’t even try to exploit the situation; acquiring such a skilled worker outweighed his desire to hire cheaply.
Ten gold coins was an astronomical sum for a labourer, enough to support a mortal family for a year.
Rhys simply nodded, his expression unreadable behind his ordinary, disguised face. Inside, he was amused.
Ten gold coins was pocket change compared to the small fortune of over a hundred low-grade spirit stones and thousands of gold coins already nestled safely in his high-grade spatial pouch.
But the experience—the mastery of a life skill—that was priceless.
He returned to the inn that night, physically tired but mentally energized.
’Tomorrow, I should go and collect some formation scrolls.’
He could learn formations after that. Of course, ’collecting’ meant stealing.
Luckily, butchering wasn’t a daily job, so with the System’s comprehension ability, he had plenty of time to master formations, alchemy, and enchantments in one month.
Then he could finally leave this town and hunt in the forest.
And so, Rhys started his simple, mundane life, unaware of the undercurrents stirring all over the Azure Province.