“Drink!”

With a low shout from Xie Wen, who held the fresh knife, Bai Na, his skin quickly flushed with a faint red hue. At the same time, the blood vessels on his forehead and the backs of his hands swelled.

After maintaining this state for about ten seconds, the redness on Xie Wen’s body rapidly faded, and the bulging blood vessels settled down.

“Phew... My body is still too young; I can’t hold the demon transformation for very long. Not to mention that just now I was only in demon transformation without making any moves. If it comes to actual combat, I’d probably only last about five seconds at most.”

Xie Wen exhaled a long breath of white mist and shook his head somewhat helplessly.

Although in the demon transformation state Xie Wen could deal damage in five seconds that would normally take over ten seconds in standard condition, his primary concern now was to finish exploring the entire island as soon as possible, rather than hunting down a monster.

He and Sanji Meow had been living on this island for over a month, yet the map exploration rate had barely reached 7%.

The reason the exploration rate was so low was mainly that the areas explored by Sanji Meow alone did not count towards the Hunter’s manual map.

In reality, Sanji Meow had already mastered more than a third of the island; however, many of those places were territories of certain ferocious beasts. While the stealthy Ailu Cat could navigate through without much trouble, Xie Wen's presence complicated things.

If Xie Wen wanted to quickly complete the island's map, he needed to enhance his strength to a level where he could safely retreat in front of the strongest beasts on the island.

Thus, for over a month, Xie Wen had mostly been active near the cave they lived in, spending most of his time training his body and honing his combat skills while tasks like gathering food were all handled by Sanji Meow.

In short, Xie Wen was currently being supported by a cat.

However, there was nothing wrong with being supported by a cat. Xie Wen shook his head to clear his thoughts and began a new round of training.

He had already mastered the basic techniques of the katana; after all, without real combat training, no matter how much he practiced those techniques, it would yield limited results. A little daily reinforcement was enough, and now Xie Wen’s training focus was on improving his physical fitness and applying techniques from other weapons to the katana.

Thanks to the cat food prepared by Sanji Meow, Xie Wen didn’t have to worry about physical exhaustion during training. Additionally, he had collected several fitness videos before crossing over, so he still remembered some of those scientific fitness methods. As a result, Xie Wen's training efficiency over the past month had been quite high.

To be honest, Xie Wen didn’t expect that he, a lazy homebody, could adapt so quickly to this monotonous training. He had collected a huge stack of fitness videos before but typically only stuck with them for two or three days before giving up, leaving those videos to gather dust in his favorites.

Now, being able to get into the training state so quickly was not only due to a lack of a sense of security, but also because...

This godforsaken place had no internet, no electricity, and no phone. It seemed he had no other form of entertainment besides training hard and petting cats.

Indeed, people are pushed to their limits.

“Xie Wen, look! I found a new ingredient!”

Just as Xie Wen was in the middle of what must have been his umpteenth set of burpees, Sanji Meow returned from hunting, happily holding up a beast that was at least half again as big as he was.

“Thanks for your hard work.”

Xie Wen stopped exercising and approached to pet Sanji Meow's little head, then scratched his chin. After Sanji Meow let out a satisfied purr, Xie Wen turned his gaze to the “ingredient” that Sanji Meow had brought back.

Then, he pulled out the “high-tech” Hunter’s manual from his waist pouch and flipped to the last page of the weapon interface.

At this time, the page had been unlocked, and the top of the page clearly marked the words “Small Monster Compendium.”

Xie Wen was unsure exactly when this page had been unlocked; it was only after a training session one day when he wanted to take a break and casually took out the Hunter’s manual to pass the time that he suddenly discovered this page had been unlocked, showing detailed information on two “ingredients.”

After several tests, Xie Wen discovered that he needed to see the complete appearance of the creature and have direct contact with it for its information to automatically generate in the Small Monster Compendium. The page not only contained illustrations of the corresponding animals but also brief introductions, which were basically similar to the Hunter’s Notes in "Monster Hunter: Rise."

So it seemed that the unlocking method for the Large Monster Compendium should be the same.

Of course, there were also differences from the game.

Some animals that Xie Wen had never seen before required him to name them himself, and the compendium would automatically add a (tentative name) note...

Most likely, he would be able to update them to their official names once he found a village or encountered other hunters who were knowledgeable about the situation.

Thus, Xie Wen's naming was quite casual, such as calling one “Black-backed White-bellied Pig-nosed Wolf.”

The beast that Sanji Meow brought back this time looked somewhat like a wild boar but had a head resembling that of a mouse, along with wild boar tusks. Its front limbs were not hooves but had long, sharp claws like a mole, and its hind legs resembled horse or cow hooves rather than pointed boar hooves.

After randomly naming it “Mole Wild Boar,” Xie Wen fell into contemplation.

He had indeed been somewhat puzzled before, as among the animals Sanji Meow brought back, there occasionally appeared bizarre creatures like the Mole Wild Boar.

Although there were plenty of strange creatures in the Monster Hunter game, those creatures’ appearances and ecologies were traceable; the game company consulted professional biologists and designed them step by step based on constructed ecological environments.

In simple terms, the creatures in Monster Hunter were based on science, or at least they looked like it.

Yet some creatures on this island completely disregarded that rigor, as if the designer had drunkenly pieced together a bunch of animal materials randomly.

To put it in an easily understandable way... the design of these creatures was off.

So... what if I didn’t actually cross over to the world of Monster Hunter, but to some other unknown world?

Or did Monster Hunter release a new installment and it flopped?

However, even in the world before crossing over, which had no special powers, there were plenty of bizarre-looking creatures, so it was also quite normal for such creatures to exist in the real Monster Hunter world.

Lacking much of a clue, Xie Wen decided to ask Sanji Meow, as from a certain perspective, he was the “native.”

“Sanji, have you ever heard of this kind of creature before?” Xie Wen pointed at the Mole Wild Boar and asked.

“No, meow,” Sanji Meow shook his head, placing his hands on his hips and proudly said, “But don’t worry, as a chef, I can tell what can be eaten and what can't. I absolutely won’t let you eat something bad, meow.”

“That’s not what I mean.” Xie Wen waved his hand with a wry smile and then recounted his suspicions to Sanji Meow.

“... Are you saying we might have drifted to another continent, meow?” Sanji Meow asked back somewhat flustered after a long pause.

“Pretty much.”

Sanji Meow seemed to have some difficulty understanding the concept of another world. After Xie Wen thought for a moment, he didn’t explain further but went along with Sanji Meow’s words.

“I don’t want that, meow!”

However, what Xie Wen didn’t expect was that after hearing his response, Sanji Meow immediately flopped onto the ground and started throwing a tantrum.

“Grandma Cat said that some continents don’t even have Ailu Cats, so I won’t be able to see pretty Ailu Cat older sisters in the future, meow! I don’t want that, meow!!!”

Xie Wen: “...”

Is that really the main point?