Chapter 248: Chapter 248

"That place is quite far from here. If it's not suitable, don't blame me," the girl said weakly. She didn't know if others would be satisfied with this location of hers.

"It's fine. Walking around is no problem. Along the way, you can introduce your situation. Oh, you don't need to tell me your background, just tell me about your Lion's Power situation," Xiaoyao was afraid the girl would misunderstand and immediately added an explanation.

"My situation is very simple. I've only cultivated to the basic skills level," the girl said weakly.

"How many years have you been cultivating? When did you start? How long do you cultivate each day?" Xiaoyao asked consecutively. He needed to know all these details to deduce some things.

"I started cultivating when I was seven years old. It's been eight years now. The time I cultivate each day varies, when I don't have food, I cultivate more to forget about being hungry. When I have food, I cultivate less. On average, it's probably around three hours," the girl said.

From the girl's words, Xiaoyao obtained some information. First, this girl was fifteen years old. Second, the girl cultivated more likely to make herself forget about being hungry, which meant this girl probably had irregular meals. Well, she was a little beggar after all.

"Eight years, three hours, then why are you still at basic skills? Logically, three to five years should be enough. Are you trying to build a good foundation?" Xiaoyao looked at the girl with some confusion.

"No, I'm not trying to build a good foundation. It's just because I don't have money to buy Lion's Power manuals. I learned the basic skills by secretly watching others. Also, I heard that breaking through basic skills requires a lot of physical energy and needs large amounts of food to supplement it. I can't afford to eat that much..." the girl said somewhat bitterly. Life's pressures kept her stuck at basic skills.

"From now on, you don't need to worry. Just eat as much as you want. Taking a bit from this little glutton will be enough for you," Xiaoyao patted Chi Chi on his shoulder.

"Chi Chi." Chi Chi seemed to protest strongly. Taking food from its mouth. it firmly opposed this and began to be very dissatisfied with the girl.

"..." The girl thought to herself: This little monster beast seems very intelligent and can understand human speech. How strange. But it's really so cute.

"By the way, what's your name?" Xiaoyao asked. He still didn't know this girl's name.

"My name is Shi A Li. You can just call me A Li." the girl replied.

Regarding the girl's surname, Xiaoyao had already known, because the only surname in Lion Country was Shi. There wouldn't be any other surnames, unless they were outsiders.

As for this name, he believed a little beggar like her wouldn't have too elegant a name. This was probably just her childhood name, but now it was also her name.

For someone from the bottom like her, what her name was wasn't very important, and she never felt there was anything wrong with it, because very few people called her by name, they usually just called her "little beggar."

"Good, A Li. Now take me to the place you mentioned, and we'll start our research," Xiaoyao said.

"Mm. Do you have any more food?" A Li nodded, then asked.

Xiaoyao followed A Li out of the city to a mountainous area quite far from the city outskirts. Xiaoyao didn't mind this, because he had already spent several days in Lion City and had been to all the places he should go.

Xiaoyao had toured the entire Lion Country first before starting to look for people with Lion's Power to research. This plan was relatively secondary, so even if he didn't find any useful information, he wouldn't care too much.

"Hey, A Li, aren't we there yet?" After entering the mountain area, Xiaoyao had walked for a long time without reaching the destination. However, the scenery here was quite nice, which was why he only spoke up now.

"We're almost there. Um, do you have any more food?"

"No..." Xiaoyao said. "I originally thought that since you're so small, you couldn't eat much. I didn't expect you to also be a glutton like Chi Chi..."

At this time, Xiaoyao had no food left on him. This A Li had been eating almost continuously along the way, enough food for over ten people for a day had all gone down her gullet.

Although Xiaoyao had brought more food than that, there was also another little glutton who couldn't stand watching others eat. Soon all the food was consumed.

Watching others eat, how could Chi Chi not eat too? Especially since this was originally its food that was now being shared with someone else, of course it would want to eat even more.

"Then when we get inside, what will we have to eat?" A Li asked. She needed to know clearly about food.

"When the time comes, I'll get food for you two gluttons. If it's just about eating, there are materials everywhere, enough for you to eat," Xiaoyao said irritably. ᴛhis chapter is ᴜpdated by novｅlfire.net

"Oh..." A Li seemed to accept this answer and continued leading Xiaoyao forward. But after a while, she couldn't help asking again, "Are there materials you mentioned here?"

"..." Xiaoyao was silent for a moment, then squatted down beside the path and dug a few times in the ground, digging up several plant roots. "These can be eaten... Hey hey, you don't need to be so urgent, they're not washed yet. Damn, Chi Chi, what are you joining in for..."

When Xiaoyao was demonstrating those plant roots, A Li grabbed one and started gnawing on it, while Chi Chi not to be outdone, directly swallowed one whole.

Xiaoyao could understand that Chi Chi wasn't afraid of dirt, but why did this A Li also seem not to care much, eating it directly with the soil and all?

"Delicious. What is this? If I had known about this, I would have dug up the ground here long ago..." A Li ate while praising it enthusiastically.

"This is called Ground Dropped Fruit, something that's everywhere but not easily discovered. Aren't you having problems eating it with all that dirt?" Xiaoyao looked at A Li, whose mouth was now covered with soil again, which he couldn't understand.

Was there any need to be so urgent? Even if she couldn't wash it, she could at least wipe it with something before eating.

"What's wrong with eating a little dirt? What if this food gets stolen by someone? I'd regret it to death. When there's food, you have to eat it immediately," A Li shook her head, explaining her attitude toward food.

"No one here is competing with you for it," Xiaoyao suddenly felt a kind of pity in his heart. Just imagine what this girl before him had gone through...

"Isn't it competing?" A Li didn't care about Xiaoyao's feelings and pointed at Chi Chi.

"..." Xiaoyao fell silent. This was indeed a glutton that would compete for food.

Along the way, Xiaoyao let Chi Chi find its own food while he also hunted some game. Some short-sighted wild beasts appeared before him, and he could only graciously accept them.

After walking for an hour, just as Xiaoyao was about to ask again, he suddenly found the view opening up before him. Finally, they had emerged from this forest into a clearing of considerable size.

This clearing was formed because there was a riverbank and a long waterfall. Although the waterfall's drop wasn't great, it was very long, over a hundred meters. Below the waterfall was a pool over a hundred meters wide that seemed bottomlessly deep, though the water at the edges wasn't very deep. This pool seemed to have appeared suddenly.

This formation was somewhat strange, but Xiaoyao didn't pay attention to this point. After all, nature could form all kinds of miraculous terrain. waterfall, only here did it widen. Further upstream it was just a small river, only about ten meters wide, completely different from here.

Therefore, there was no need to think much about this matter. Existence was reasonable.

"This place is good. We'll choose here. There's even a small wooden cabin, though it's a bit run-down..." Xiaoyao looked around and discovered downstream from the pool there was a small wooden cabin standing on the riverbank. It's just that this cabin was a bit crooked and askew, obviously built by someone who didn't understand construction.

"..., I built that to block wind and rain..." A Li said somewhat embarrassedly.

"Well, this is actually not bad. We'll organize things here a bit first and eat something. As for this cabin, I'll handle it later. You just focus on cultivating your Lion's Power," Xiaoyao said.

"Is this okay?" A Li was somewhat confused. She was supposedly recruited by Xiaoyao, but now Xiaoyao would handle those miscellaneous tasks while she just cultivated. This made her feel uncomfortable.

"Your task is just to cultivate. My purpose for you is cultivation. However, I need to check your progress. When you're cultivating, I might input true qi to examine your condition," Xiaoyao said.

"Mm, I understand. You can examine as you wish." A Li didn't mind. Although this was a major taboo for martial artists, they wouldn't let anyone's qi enter their body for examination, Xiaoyao's purpose was exactly this. This was originally an agreed-upon matter, so A Li naturally wouldn't object.

At the same time, A Li felt that with her cultivation so low, whether others examined her or not didn't have any special meaning.

Soon Xiaoyao built a sturdy stove on the riverbank covered with pebbles. It was sturdy because they wouldn't be here for just a day or two, this stove would be used continuously.

Next came what surprised A Li. She saw Xiaoyao somehow produce a large pot from nowhere, somehow produce a set of cooking utensils from nowhere, and then some seasonings. Where were all these things stored?

A Li was very suspicious. Although Xiaoyao took everything from his backpack, could this backpack really hold so many things?

For this reason, A Li secretly looked at Xiaoyao's backpack when he had put it on the ground and gone to wash things.

Inside this backpack, A Li discovered there were still lots of things, as if the previous items hadn't actually been taken from inside.