Versatile Mage: Thunderstorm

Chapter 17: The Story of Kui Niu
In front of the computer, Li Yu was reading the pages of a website attentively. The name of the website was Encyclopedia of Demons and Monsters. It was officially launched and recorded the basic information of all demons and monsters from ancient times to the present, including existing and extinct ones. It can be called an authority in the world of demon knowledge. The annual membership fee of the website alone is as high as 20,000.

Although the price is high, the number of registered users has reached a staggering 200 million, which is almost equivalent to one account for every registered wizard. This shows the reliability of this website.

Li Yu is now looking up information about a certain demon, and the source of everything is a special little ornament at hand.

The ornament is not big, less than five centimeters high, and can be easily held in one hand, and can even be used as a hanging ornament.

The whole body is green in color, and it feels like bone when touched. It is obviously made of some special bone. The material of the ornament is not important. What is important is the image of the ornament.

Looking at the head alone, it looks like a cow, but it has no horns. What's even more strange is that this "cow"-shaped creature is actually one-legged. After carefully inspecting the ornament to make sure there is no damage, Li Yu finally confirmed the fact that the other party only has one "cow hoof".

In addition, there are many complex and profound patterns painted on the ornaments. Li Yu does not know the meaning of these patterns, but he can vaguely sense the rich power of wind and thunder contained in them. He can even vaguely hear the sound of thunder even in his sleep.

Back then, inside the cave of the Purple Ferocious Wolf, Li Yu was completely attracted by the earth magic stone mine. Just as he was about to leave, the lightning nebula and wind stardust in his mind suddenly trembled violently. According to the reaction of the nebula and stardust, he found this amazing ornament in a hidden corner next to the earth magic stone mine in the dark.

The discovery of this ornament also preliminarily answered Li Yu's questions about the mutation of the Bone Spike Wolf. Although the purple Wolf did not master any thunder-related magic, its strong physique concealed the power of thunder.

If the mutation was simply caused by swallowing a large amount of magic stone ore, it should have evolved in the direction related to the earth element.

It seems that this mysterious little ornament is what really guides the Bone Spike Wolf to mutate, and the role of the earth-type magic stone mine is to provide abundant magic energy for this mutation.

After coming to this conclusion, Li Yu knew without hesitation that the value of this bizarre-shaped ornament was immeasurable.

According to his guess, this kind of ornament that resembles a certain creature should have a demon prototype, so he began to look up information, not seeking a perfect replica, as long as there is a similarity.

However, ever since he posted the picture of the ornament on the website and searched for it, the answers that popped up seemed varied, but in fact they were all cattle monsters, sea monsters, land monsters, and even undead. After looking through nearly four hundred related records, Li Yu gave up.

There was no demon that matched the information he felt, let alone those that possessed both wind and thunder attributes. There were no more than ten cattle-like demons that possessed one of the attributes of wind and thunder, and there were only four cattle hooves in total, not even one with two hooves.

Just when Li Yu was almost in despair, a few lines of text at the bottom of the webpage caught his attention.

"Kui Niu: There is a mountain in the East China Sea, its name is Liubo. On the mountain there is a beast that looks like an ox, with a green body and no horns, and one foot. When it enters or leaves the water, there will be wind and rain. Its light is like the sun and the moon, and its sound is like thunder. Its name is Kui."

The introduction was quite simple, even consisting of only text, without even a picture. This reply, which clearly carried the color of ancient Chinese mythology and legends, received neither negative nor positive reviews, and seemed to have been ignored by all visitors.

One of the common impressions that China has left on the world is that it has a long history and numerous myths and legends, the authenticity of which are as numerous as the stars in the night sky and difficult to verify.

With its vast territory and long history, this land has given birth to all kinds of unheard-of monster legends, but there are very few that are truly recorded in historical facts.

Li Yu did not have much hope for the answer, but he could only try his luck and began to search the islands in the East China Sea. However, he did not find any records about Liubo Mountain. In the end, he had to put aside this news that was difficult to verify.

……

While Li Yu was busy looking up information about Kuiniu, Deng Kai, a senior executive of the Hunter Alliance's Bocheng branch, also received news from below.

"Oh? Someone actually completed the bounty we posted a few years ago?"

The person in front of Deng Kai was Bai Zhou, the appraiser who helped Li Yu with the appraisal. At this moment, the other party was also respectful and gave Deng Kai a thumbs up.

"Old Deng! You are worthy of being me! Who knows you can be the boss of this branch!"

"I just did it casually, but I didn't expect that this casual move would actually work."

Deng Kai was modest, but his smiling face showed how happy he was. That's right, the bounty number 52 that had been posted in the Hunter Alliance Hall for several years was issued by a group of Hunter Alliance high-level officials including Deng Kai, with the purpose of screening certain people.

The reward is low, the difficulty is high, the danger level is high, and there is no limit on the hunter level. Those who dare to take this kind of task are basically low-level hunters or have nothing to do, and are ruthless people who are fully confident in their own abilities.

According to the information registered by the Yuchen Hunter, this was his first hunter bounty. It was obvious that he was a mysterious and powerful person who appeared out of nowhere.

"And, Old Deng, there is something you need to know."

"what's up?"

Deng Kai looked at Bai Zhou's sudden serious expression and felt something in his heart.
"A few days ago, the Xuefeng Mountain Post suddenly received a large number of materials from the One-eyed Demon Wolf."

"You mean..."

Deng Kai's eyes suddenly widened. How could he not know the hidden meaning of Baizhou's words? Just as the Xuefeng Mountain Post Station received the materials, the mysterious Yuchen Hunter came to submit the task. Wouldn't it be fooling people to say that there was no connection between the two?

"Are you sure he didn't buy the materials?"

Deng Kai's subconscious words drew Bai Zhou's contemptuous look.

"Are you still not at ease if I go in person?"

"With the small amount of reward we gave him, he was so greedy that he would buy materials at a high price to pay the bounty?"

No matter how strong the hunters are, most of them are in it for the money. Perhaps some hunters will choose to make a loss due to some persistence in their hearts, but basically they do it for lofty reasons such as justice and responsibility.

Their reward is just a Bone-Spiked Wolf. One more or one less won’t make much difference to the Demon Wolf Tribe. No fool would do such a loss-making business.

"In that case, can we put this person on the shortlist?"

"I suggest that we observe for a while. Anyway, there is still about a year before the plan is implemented, so there is no need to rush."

"Maybe he can't stay that long." Bai Zhou finally poured a basin of cold water on Deng Kai.

"But are you sure that plan is necessary?"

"I am not sure as well."

Deng Kai shook his head, feeling a headache.
"Maybe I just had a false alarm, but the demons near Bo City have indeed become more active recently, especially the one-eyed demon wolf, which has sneaked into the Anjie many times. I think it is necessary to investigate the reason behind this."

"But didn't the military wizard investigate? Intelligence shows that temperature changes in recent years have extended the breeding period of the one-eyed demon wolves. Their mood swings have caused them to frequently attack the Anjie."

"It never hurts to confirm it in detail."

Deng Kai replied that he had been a hunter for more than 20 years. Due to his limited talent, he failed to be admitted to a famous magic school, so he became a hunter in Bo City. He has been working in the wild for more than ten years and has had long dealings with the one-eyed wolf.

Now that he has become a high-ranking member of the Bo City Hunter Alliance, he has neglected his training, and the abilities he had cultivated through life and death have gradually become ineffective.

But this time he suddenly felt that the unusual behavior of the one-eyed wolf seemed to have a reasonable explanation, and there might be some hidden dangers behind it.

(End of this chapter)