Lord of the Myriad Worlds

Chapter 210: The Universal Gold Card

A Universal Gold Card!

George breathed in sharply — and made his choice without a moment's hesitation. He would use it to enhance the Tracker Title.

Perception enhancement was critical. Without it, he would never have identified the Four-Star Rat King's true vital point. If he'd just kept shooting and detonated its skull, the creature would have kept going. Magic Zombies weren't a joke.

If he hadn't misjudged that from the start, he wouldn't have prioritized saving the wheat field over landing a finishing blow mid-battle.

Though honestly, even a finishing blow at nearly four hundred meters would have required hitting the heart specifically — otherwise destroying the skull wouldn't have mattered either.

The Universal Gold Card disappeared. A brief, strange magical current ran through George from head to toe, lasting exactly one second before fading.

The notifications followed:

【Your Tracker Title has been enhanced by half a level, for a cumulative total of one level. Current effects while worn: Perception +2. Stamina consumption increases by 100% over base — approximately 5 Stamina per second, and 1 Spiritual Power per second. Use with caution.】

【While worn, your maximum Perception range expands to fifty meters. Vision and hearing significantly enhanced. You will more acutely sense different energy radiations, especially life-energy radiation. In this state, most targets with lower Perception than yours will expose their weaknesses to you. You may even perceive the hostile or benevolent intent within their minds.】

【You have greater ability to communicate with birds and beasts. Through your hunting pet, you will receive clearer imagery and enable more precise, efficient coordination. Maximum range for hunting pet control expands to five kilometers in a straight line, provided your Stamina and Spiritual Power can sustain the connection.】【Note: Although you have not yet awakened the Spiritual Power attribute, this does not mean it is absent.】

【Note: Your Profession Card Destiny Grid cannot reach the Perception attribute, which is why consumption is doubled. Once you awaken the Perception attribute, consumption will be halved.】

Two half-level enhancements equaling one full level — extremely efficient returns.

The consumption was still the main problem, though.

By George's estimate, wearing the Tracker Title now in full stillness would last at most fifty seconds. In motion, or in active combat, ten seconds was probably the absolute ceiling.

But in practice, that was already formidable. He often only needed a split-second activation — one second of Tracker, then swap it back out. One second was enough to read a situation completely differently.

He'd need to find another Universal Gold Card down the line and keep upgrading. That was the right path.

As for how rare they were — did every drop require eating two teammates first?

He didn't pursue the thought further. He quickly checked the rest of the battle's rewards.

Solid results. His Family Contribution was maxed out, but hunting experience alone had added 7,000 points — bringing his total to 13,850. And in the aftermath of the battle, his Hunter Destiny Grid had jumped two full points, now sitting at 49. One step away from the threshold that would unlock the Perception attribute as a permanent stat.

But this wasn't the time to rest, because there were two hundred-plus mutant rat carcasses scattered across the battlefield — and if he left blood and meat out in the open, there was no telling what the smell might attract.

He jogged out and started hauling carcasses back to the Scavenger Camp building.

Two hundred and thirty mutant rats. Each one yielded roughly 2.5 kilograms of meat. That was over 575 kilograms of food.

The food crisis was over in an afternoon.

Interesting observation: after the Four-Star Rat King was killed, its body had decayed and dissolved completely, golden bristles and all, leaving nothing behind. The mutant rat carcasses, however, were entirely fresh. Did that mean ordinary mutant rats didn't qualify as Magic Zombies? And by extension — were humans with lighter magical radiation exposure still recoverable somehow?

These thoughts passed briefly, and George drew his Three-Star Dagger and began breaking down the carcasses. No ceremony — the dagger was good steel; this was just what needed doing.

He had to move fast. Left too long in heat, the meat would turn.

Breaking down and skinning two hundred-plus carcasses was not something George was especially skilled at. He'd practiced in the Rookie Mission, but he was nowhere near a professional Butcher or Chef.

This time, though, he had plenty of material and plenty of repetitions. Quality wasn't the goal — speed was.

By midday, even starting from a fully restored condition, he was dizzy with exhaustion, back aching, hands barely functional. But he had processed all of them.

The breakdown experience totaled 2,300 points. Adding his previous 400, he now had 2,700 total. Since every 500 breakdown experience points yielded a Butcher Card, he ended up with five Butcher Cards, with 200 experience remaining. Combined with his three existing Artisan Cards, his card inventory was building up nicely. Experience became easier to accumulate in later stages, as expected.

If he bound and activated the Butcher Cards now, his Destiny Grid there would be around five. Not ideal for his long-term build, though — his fourth profession slot was already earmarked for Scout, and even beyond that, Butcher was too far down the priority list.

"Caw! Caw!"

A large number of crows had arrived outside. Fashionably late.

George packed up the intestines, heads, and offal into a bag, went downstairs, and chucked everything onto an open section of ground at a distance. Within seconds, a few bold, large crows had landed within fifteen meters, staring at him with the aggressive confidence of birds who owned the place.

Full of themselves. He couldn't easily catch them, though. Activating the Tracker Title to attempt communication was tempting but probably not worth the digression right now.

He kept hauling out the waste in batches. Everyone got a share of today's good fortune — welcome to the feast, just take your fill and have the grace to leave when you're done. Don't get ideas about his rat jerky.

Once the cleanup was done, he washed his hands, built a fire, and started slow-smoking the meat. All the techniques from his Rookie Mission days came back easily. This wasn't much different.

When the work was finally done, he lowered himself flat onto the floor and didn't want to move ever again.

Outside, chaos was apparently ongoing. Crows, vultures, magpies, and various other opportunistic scavengers and mutant creatures had all arrived and were fighting over the remains. Pitch battles in the sky.

George wasn't interested enough to watch.

A secure camp really was a wonderful thing.

He fell asleep on the ground. When he opened his eyes, it was evening. The noise outside was still going strong — wait, had the crows taken over the rooftop?

George checked the second-floor entrance, the third-floor access door, then went up and opened the rooftop hatch.

Yes. Extremely loud. Bird droppings everywhere in clusters.

Still eating, still here, fine apparently.

He looked down at the three small wheat plots. Untouched, fortunately.

The aerial battle was still ongoing. Flocks of crows circling and shrieking constantly, feathers raining down, a genuinely chaotic spectacle — now that the Rat King was gone, apparently everyone wanted the vacancy.

George watched with mild amusement.

Seven or eight large vultures had appeared in the sky. The crows were supremely unbothered by their size advantage — smaller, faster, more agile, they harassed the vultures from every angle. And mixed into the crow formation were dozens of magpies, who had apparently chosen to form a coalition alliance with the crows.

Corvids. Of course they'd stick together.

The battle lasted until the last light of the sun disappeared. The vultures flew off. The crows and magpies scattered. Left behind: a mat of feathers, some fallen crow and magpie bodies — and wait, a survivor.

George spotted it: a crow huddled in a ruin crack, one wing clearly damaged, unable to fly.

A wild-caught hunting pet doesn't just drop into your lap every day. He retrieved it immediately. Building up taming experience was always worthwhile.

Through the night, he gathered more firewood, lit a much larger fire in the fourth-floor kitchen, and smoke-cured jerky continuously through the dark hours. He kept the injured crow in a first-floor room.

Third, fourth, and fifth floors were uninhabitable — the smoke was spreading to every corner, fumigating whatever insects had been living there.

At least it was night. Smoke like this in broad daylight would have been visible to anyone watching from a distance, which would have been a problem.

Next morning: four bottles of water from the well. The fourth-floor fire had long since burned out, the smoke completely cleared, though the smell of smoke and char still sat thick and close.

Didn't matter.

George cooked breakfast with practiced ease. Wild-vegetable soup and smoked dried rat. Good combination.

After eating, he remembered the injured crow from last night. Where had it gotten to?

He looked around the first floor. Gone. Must have found a corner to hide in. Entirely normal — you find a stray crow, it doesn't spontaneously become a loyal companion. He wasn't the protagonist of a story.

Fine. He had plenty to do.

He went downstairs and started cleaning up the first-floor battlefield. The Four-Star Rat King had caused serious structural damage on its way through — if he left it as-is, working with this space later would be difficult.

As he was clearing the wreckage, he noticed something unusual. What should have been a stairwell leading to a basement had been sealed shut — walled over with concrete, deliberately and completely.

He'd been aware of the basement in a general sense, but the first month had kept him occupied, and the first floor had enough rooms and clutter that it hadn't felt urgent.

Now, thanks to the Rat King's demolition work, the sealed entrance had been exposed.

'This looks like it's been sealed for at least ten years. The concrete work is careful too — whoever did it wasn't rushed.'

'But a five-story building like this would have a substantial basement. Why seal the entrance?'

George immediately thought about the Four-Star Rat King. Ten years ago — had it been here from the beginning? Newly mutated, possibly killed someone, triggered a panic response? And over the following decade, while the town rotted into ruins overhead, had that Rat King been building something underground?