As the flames gradually died down, Huihui forcefully pried open the massive, irregular sphere that exuded a piney aroma. Large chunks of the dried, pottery-like grease cracked and slid off, revealing the tender, whitish meat fibers underneath. In order to be able to roll at high speed, the Radobaan's meat was both extremely tender and very chewy. The muscle fibers were tough and long-lasting, with the proportion of fat to meat fibers just right. Combined with this special roasting method, the aroma of the spices in the abdominal cavity and the piney fragrance from burning the outer grease blended together, evolving into an extremely rich and exotic aroma.
Just a gentle tug after biting, and a large slice of crispy-on-the-outside, tender-on-the-inside meat fell into her mouth. If you added some dipping sauce, it tasted both smooth like fish and firm like chicken. Careful chewing also revealed the chewiness of beef and a lingering rich aroma. Most importantly, in order to roll into a ball shape, the Radobaan's tendons were very stretchy and there weren't many large bones in its body. Muscles and tendons accounted for most of the body's weight.
Therefore, a Radobaan weighing more than 20 tons was enough for Huihui to have a full meal, not to mention there was also a General Ceanataur with at least 2 tons of pure meat waiting in the steamer. The only slight concern was that Radobaan were not small creatures that reproduced quickly. So, Huihui faced the awkward problem of easily eating this herbivorous creature to extinction. She had to find a second substitute besides the Radobaan.
It had to have enough meat, be easy to catch, taste good, and not reproduce too poorly. Well, if you didn't consider combat power, Deviljho was probably the most suitable for Huihui's needs: tasty, lots of meat, and a very strong reproductive ability. As long as their young weren't specifically hunted, a large number of Deviljho would soon appear, eating the ecology of an area clean.
After leaving a pile of crab shells and dragon bones on the Coral Highlands, Huihui took off and flew towards the central area of the New World. As a super-fast flying Elder Dragon and different from other Valstrax, she had aerodynamic lift surfaces, making her flight more effortless. Moreover, she had the habit of hoarding, which other dragons didn't possess. This led to her hunting and activity range being quite...whimsical.
The Elder's Recess. Hot leyline magma spewed from the ground, forming magma rivers in shallow caverns. The high temperatures supported some thermophilic plants and also attracted some herbivorous dragon species from hot regions. This provided enough food for the Lavasioth. The Lavasioth was a creature that lived in lava regions, and it could briefly travel through the magma. This ability wasn't because it had some mysterious ability to resist high temperatures, but rather...
The principle is similar to the barefoot fire walking seen in traditional acrobatics. The Lavasioth's habits are similar to the Jyuratodus. It rolls around in mud and slurry, coating its body surface with a thick rocky shell. This material, which isn't good at conducting heat, is the secret to its ability to briefly travel through lava and ambush other creatures without being harmed. As long as the rocky shell doesn't melt due to the high temperature of the lava, it can withstand the heat. Although even the temperature after being weakened by the rocky shell is not something ordinary dragons can withstand.
However, precisely because of this habit, unlike the Jyuratodus, it's not the type of creature that Valstrax likes to eat. Otherwise, it would be rare for creatures living so close to Valstrax and Kushala Daora to still be hopping around. So, facing the azure meteor streaking overhead, the Lavasioth lazily rolled over and lay by the edge of the magma pool. Not far away were a few passing Anteka, a herbivore species that was much more docile than things like the Raging Brachydios.
"Whoosh~" Huihui dove down, landing in a low-lying area at the intersection of the Elder's Recess and the Rotten Vale. An underground river flowing out from underground formed a large pool in the depression, and the surrounding magma made it scalding hot, creating a natural hot spring with a strong smell of sulfur and minerals. Huihui slowly stepped into the water, and the scalding hot water gradually submerged her head. Valstrax are dragons that can hold their breath underwater for a short time; after all, they often need to rush into the water to catch Piscine Wyverns and fish for food.
Scorched by the hot water, the Kinsects flew up from her back, forming a rotating, luminous Kinsect ring above the hot spring pond, circling the huge shadow beneath the water like toothpick birds circling a crocodile. The mud and dust accumulated during long flights were slowly washed away by the water. These sediments would clog her wing-panel nozzles, making flight more difficult and leaving residue that couldn't be ablated into wing panels. Therefore, most Valstrax would occasionally take sand baths to solve this problem—however, Huihui changed her bathing location after discovering this slightly acidic hot spring.
"Splash!" The cyan-blue dragon burst from the water, leaping onto the surface. Swarms of glowing Kinsects, like fighters returning to their mothership, landed on her back, burrowing into the needle-like fur like a Tobi-Kadachi. A hunter standing by the water with a pickaxe was dumbstruck – I just came to mine near the high-temperature acid pools below the Rotten Vale, why did I encounter this terrifying thing?! – The name of the Azure Valstrax (localized name) is at the top of the list of the New World's top ten extremely dangerous Elder Dragons in the research base.
Purely in terms of threat and destructive power, she even ranks ahead of Nergigante. After all, Nergigante doesn't go looking for trouble with humans, while Huihui actively seeks out hunters to harass. Moreover, the number of hunter deaths caused by Nergigante is currently 0, while Huihui has caused double-digit casualties, including deaths and injuries, accounting for slightly more than 1/4 of the elite hunters in the entire New World.
"Boom!" The dragon tail, covered in crystalline tail spines, struck the stone wall. A huge shadow covered the hunter's terrified face. "Aaaaaaah!!!" The hunter drew his dual blades and lunged at the monster. However, waiting for him were several glowing, winged-serpent-like Kinsects. They clung to the hunter tightly, their crystallized, blood-sucking mouthparts instantly piercing his armor. After the Kinsects extracted enough blood, they emitted a terrifying golden-red light. Refining the biological blood into energy, the Kinsects created a large amount of crystalline dust surrounding the hunter.
And the hunter, who had worked with Insect Glaive users, was instantly filled with extreme terror. He knew exactly what this was: highly lethal Kinsect dust. Regardless of the effects of this insect scale powder, the key was to get out of its effective range immediately. However, Huihui didn't think so. To encounter a hunter while taking a bath made her wonder if this creature was a bit too rampant. On the spot, she slammed a palm down on him. "Bang, bang, bang!" The instant it made contact with the dragon's claws, the insect dust produced a continuous series of explosions. These explosions did not cause any damage to Huihui's claws, but it was a different story for the hunter pinned under the claws.
Instantly, the blast wave and Huihui's weight caused him to spew a mouthful of pink blood, proof of lung trauma. No amount of cushioning equipment could prevent the ribs from being shattered and piercing his lungs. He coughed incessantly, pink, frothy blood constantly gushing from his nostrils and ears. "Awoo!" Huihui let out a piercing screech, letting go of the guy who looked like he was on his last legs. She didn't eat people, so there was no need to flatten this guy into a pancake, and considering she had just finished eating, her mood was probably pretty good.
"Awoo!" "Whack!" An oblivious Odogaron was sent flying with a swipe of her tail, screaming as it fled the cavern. Huihui found a spot with thick moss, curled up into a ball, and drifted off to sleep. After eating her fill and taking a bath, she naturally felt quite sleepy. For an Elder Dragon, sleeping anywhere wasn't a problem, well, as long as there weren't any hunters fearless enough to challenge an Elder Dragon's dominance.
Huihui's sleeping posture, like most Valstrax, was more akin to a cat's. She lay curled up in a ball on the ground, her tail wrapping around from one side to the front, guarding her throat, and her two massive wings fell to the sides, protecting her flanks. Almost all parts were protected by thick, crystallized armor and scales, while her soft belly scales were tightly covered. For hunters, it wasn't impossible to ambush Huihui at this time, but all attacks would be blocked by the wing panels and crystalline armor, and then Huihui would immediately awaken and tear them apart.
Back at the camp, a Palico dragged in a makeshift stretcher, upon which lay a hunter constantly spitting pink bubbles. "Broken ribs," an old hunter resting at the camp said as he pinned him down to prevent him from struggling and causing the broken bones to pierce even deeper. He then undid his upper body armor, revealing a completely blackened chest and a bloody back. The back, where he was wounded by the explosion, was the easiest to deal with. He took out a packet of "Life Powder," sprinkled it on, and quickly stopped the bleeding and scabbed it over. The key was that the pure internal injuries to the chest were the most terrifying.
The young hunter, carrying a folded hunting bow, took out his hunting knife, held it over the fire for a while, and then waited for it to cool down somewhat before slowly slicing open the wounded hunter's chest muscles, after applying a concoction with detoxifying, antibacterial, and styptic properties, revealing the writhing lungs and a chest full of clots. "Ploosh!" Forcibly pulling out the ribs stuck in the lungs was a terrible thing; the hunter's face was instantly splattered with blood.
Fortunately, the effects of certain medicines here reached an unscientific level, and the hunter's constitution was pretty much the same. For ordinary people, this kind of injury would have been fatal before they could even be taken to the operating room, but this guy, although he looked weak to the extreme, still had a breath in him even after such a brutal surgery without anesthesia, making his vitality as tenacious as a cockroach.
"No, he's gone." Before the female hunter could take out the Secret Potion, the old hunter shook his head and reached out to close his wide-open eyes. "His injuries were too severe." The old hunter took out a notebook from his backpack and began to quickly draw the shape of the wounds and related information on the corpse. For hunters, dying on a hunt was a normal thing—even he himself had encountered monsters like Tigrex on simple missions to collect Wyvern eggs. Fortunately, he was lucky and escaped with his life.
His companion had also encountered a Kushala Daora attack in Yukumo Village, and was lucky enough to be the sole survivor among a zeppelin's passengers. So, hunters hunting monsters and monsters slaughtering hunters could even be said to be "part of life" for them. Not to mention, how many frontline hunters live to old age? Every time, the quest receptionist in the village greets the "young rookies" with a smile, but no one ever wonders why they're "rookies" and where the "veterans" who came before them went.
The old hunter dug a pit in a corner of the camp and placed the unfortunate hunter inside. Before doing so, he collected the scrolls, sample containers, and scoutflies cage from his body – necessary items. Part of these will be used to confirm the hunter's identity; his name will be engraved in the Hall of Heroes, and his equipment and relics will be sent to his family. If there are no heirs, the equipment and relics will be given to novice hunters by the Hunter's Guild as support equipment.
And those greenhorn kids often express disdain for this tattered equipment, with its visible signs of repair. Once they get through the destitute beginner phase, they'll use the materials they've gathered to forge new equipment, and these things will be left to gather dust in their item box, or even be thrown away or sold to the shop for a pittance. Only when they're down on their luck, covered in wounds, and their armor is broken will they understand where those free starter gear originally came from.
There are no death benefits for hunters. Once a hunter dies, the Hunter's Guild will give a portion of the rewards previously deducted from mission pay as compensation to the family. However, if the hunter doesn't agree to the Guild deducting the necessary rewards as support for the descendants or family in case of an accident, then the only thing their descendants and family will receive is some of their relics. As for how much these are worth in Z (the MH series currency unit: Z, what exactly does it mean...) well…
"Notify the Guild, raise the danger level here and increase the HR threshold for exploration hunters." Every successful hunt is calculated as HRP (Hunter Rank Points) based on the difficulty of the prey and the complexity of the mission and recorded in the Guild's files. Accumulating a certain amount of HRP will increase one's HR, serving as the Guild's basis for judging whether a hunter is experienced.
And as HR increases, the Guild will only give some symbolic HRP for those low-risk missions – in other words, hunters can increase their HR either by relying purely on those gathering quests, slowly accumulating seniority – these hunters may not be good at fighting, but they have extremely rich experience in terrain, gathering, identification, and hiding – or by constantly challenging more powerful monsters, exchanging their lives for valuable experience and HRP.