Chapter 68: Level Up

“Undead dog, you’re so f*cking unreliable!” Lin Qi said loudly as he rode on the Dark King’s back.

“Don’t push it, they’re almost catching up!” Dark King ran without looking back.

Lin Qi and Dark King were followed by a group of rats, densely packed together.

They were mining rats that specialise in finding and feeding on metallic minerals. Their two front teeth could easily bite through hard rocks.

Mining rats had individual strength of only three stars, but they were numerous. Moreover, their reproduction rate was high.

On the fifth day after mating, the mother rat would release the immature mouse eggs into the metal minerals through the outer navel on her stomach.

That not only saved the time to conceive, but it could also increase the number of mouse pups. Generally, a single birth could give 20 pups.

With such numbers, even a five-star devil beast would have to temporarily avoid them.

When Lin Qi first heard about the existence of such a species, he was a little puzzled. According to the rate of reproduction, the entire forest should have been occupied by them a long time ago.

After the Dark King’s explanation, he understood that because the mining rats’ teeth were extremely sharp, it was difficult for ordinary stones or wood to wear their incisors.

That resulted in the mining rats dying if they did not use metal to grind their teeth because their mouths would be penetrated by their incisors.

Moreover, the mining rats had their natural enemies一rock rats, which fed on the mining rats’ young.

Lin Qi could not help but click his tongue in surprise.

Then, Lin Qi set his eyes on the gold ore stored in the mining rats’ storage. After a period of gourmet cooking, Lin Qi’s experience was enough to upgrade the system to level four, but he did not have enough gold coins.

Then he would use the gold ores to pay for it!

At that point, it had been half a month since the rock wolf incident. Lin Qi and the Dark King had stolen from a lot of demonic beasts’ collections, and they had formed a tacit understanding.

Although they had encountered many dangers along the way, Dark King would always use his trump card at the critical moment to turn the situation around.

Until that time…

The stupid dog’s gluttonous habit was acting up again. Lin Qi had just finished stealing the gold ores when he was blocked by the mining rats. It was not easy for the Explosive Beef Meatballs to open a path before he could rush out.

“Throw some Explosive Beef Meatballs to the right side of the rats. There’s a river there. These rats can’t swim!”

Lin Qi hurriedly took out three Explosive Beef Meatballs and threw them to the right. The explosion created an empty space there. The Dark King hurriedly rushed to the right side.

Soon, a wide river appeared in front of them. Dark King accelerated and jumped up. Using the momentum from the run, it landed on the other side of the river.

The angry rats rushed to the river bank and stopped.

The Dark King turned around and looked at the rats on the other side of the river. “Chase your own tails, you bunch of trash!”

Lin Qi had regretted some things at that point because he had often scolded the Dark King with colorful language, causing its level of swearing to skyrocket.

It had basically received 70 to 80 percent of Lin Qi’s true swearing skills.

Now the Dark King had taken to calling itself Lin Qi’s father and talking to him rudely.

Lin Qi suspected that in another half month, he might not even be able to scold the Dark King without getting sassed.

The Dark King felt unhappy and scolded the rats some more.

Lin Qi jumped off the Dark King’s body. “That’s enough. It’s not as if they can understand you.

“Learn from daddy.”

After saying that, Lin Qi took out the gold ore that he had stolen from the mining rat’s house and waved it at the mining rat across the river as if he was showing off.

The mining rats on the other side of the river were even angrier! They were hopping about in rage.

Then, Lin Qi turned back to look at Dark King with a smug look on his face, as if he was saying, “Leave it up to your father to do the real provoking.”

The Dark King curled his lips in disdain, but it thought to itself, ‘I learned another trick from this b*stard.’

..

The man and the dog returned to their cave. That cave was now their base of operations.

According to their tradition, every time they successfully raided a cave, they would celebrate with a big meal.

Of course, that tradition was set by the Dark King.

Lin Qi made a pot of Anti-hunger Fresh Mushroom Soup and two steaks.

When the Dark King saw that the food was ready, it did not immediately rush up to eat it like before. Instead, it quietly watched Lin Qi taste each dish.

Seeing that Lin Qi did not give any reaction, it rushed up and gobbled up all the food.

Ever since it farted that time, Dark King had always suspected that Lin Qi had tampered with its food, even though Lin Qi had never admitted it.

Dark King did not have much evidence, it was just pure intuition. According to its understanding of Lin Qi, laxatives were really something he was capable of making.

Lin Qi was also very helpless about that. What could he do? It was indeed him who drugged it.

“We’ve had a great harvest this past half month, which house are we going to raid tomorrow?” Lin Qi was already addicted to looting.

“Tomorrow? Tomorrow, Daddy will bring you to a big one.” The Dark King smacked its lips, savoring the flavor of the steak.

“Do you remember what I told you about my enemies?” Dark King looked at Lin Qi, “Tomorrow is a very important day for them. According to tradition, only a small portion of their clan will be left to guard their home, so tomorrow is our best chance!”

Lin Qi was stunned at first. “Wait a moment? Enemies? Clan? Your enemies are… A group?”

Dark King licked its claws and did not even look at Lin Qi. “Yes, a group. Why?”

“What else? Why didn’t you say anything at the beginning?”

“Did you ask?”

“… I didn’t ask. I thought there was only one creature.”

“Look, it’s not your father’s problem, alright!” Dark King stopped talking and ignored Lin Qi. It walked to the side of the cave to sleep.

During that period of time, as long as the Dark King did not want to talk to him, it would mock him and lie down on the side.

According to Lin Qi, an undead dog was not afraid of boiling water.

Lin Qi did not bother with that stupid dog and walked to the other side of the cave.

He took out a gold ore from the system and played with it carefully.

“I wonder if the gold ore can be used to upgrade the system.” Lin Qi tried to communicate with the system.

[ Ding! The experience of the gourmet system is full. Host can choose to level up! ]

[ Ding! Detected that host has a gold ore. Testing for impurities, please wait a moment… ]

After a while, Lin Qi found that the gold ore in his hand had been absorbed by the system.

[ Ding! The purity of this gold ore is not sufficient. The current leveling progress is 2/10 ]

Useful! Although it was only 20 percent completed, it was normal for the gold ore to have impurities.

Lin Qi quickly took out another gold ore.

It did not matter how many were used. He had quite the quantity!

[ Ding! There are no gold elements in this ore. ]

Lin Qi was stunned. That was not right. Those two pieces looked the same, why was there no gold?

He took out another piece and compared the two pieces carefully. No. The previous piece was too light. Lin Qi thought for a moment and suddenly understood something.

There were mining rat pups in that gold mine!

Mining rats were good at finding ores, so Lin Qi decided to keep them.

He took out all the gold ores and identified them one by one. Three of them were very light, and there should be mining rat pups in them.

Lin Qi gave the gold ores without pups to the system one by one. Soon, the system rang with a notification.

[ Ding! Upgrade condition met. Upgrade initiated. ]

[ Ding! This upgrade will take 30 hours. ]

[ Ding! During the upgrade period, the system will block all functions. ]