Chapter 316 - 182: An Unexpected Harvest! A Foraging Herd of Wild Deer? They Must Be Caught

Chapter 316: Chapter 182: An Unexpected Harvest! A Foraging Herd of Wild Deer? They Must Be Caught

"Brother Chong, I’ve got all the wild goats tied up."

Behind Xu Jun, eleven wild goats, including four kids, were all roped together with hemp cords they had prepared beforehand.

Although the Blood Eye Blade had been sheathed and its oppressive aura withdrawn, their bodies were still visibly trembling, as if they hadn’t fully recovered from their earlier terror.

Chen Chong couldn’t know if this incident would leave them traumatized, causing their health to decline and preventing them from adapting to captivity, ultimately leading to a failure in domestication.

After all, using the Blood Eye Blade had been a last resort in a rushed situation.

’I have to avoid this kind of thing as much as possible when catching wild goats in the future,’ he resolved.

’We need to use traps and more people to encircle them for a gentler capture. Otherwise, wild goats caught under such extreme duress would have a hard time adapting to a new environment in good condition...’

"Alright, let’s head back for now. It’s getting late. We can come back here to catch more wild goats next time."

Chen Chong glanced at the sky. Although the sun was still high and bright, he figured it was already around two or three in the afternoon.

In less than three hours, the sky would begin to darken.

They still had to settle the wild goats once they got back, so returning home earlier would give them more time.

Xu Jun smiled. "Sounds good. Catching eleven wild goats is already a huge score. I didn’t expect things to go this smoothly when we set out."

Zhang Meng chuckled. "Yeah, Brother Chong is just that good! Of all the students who’ve come to explore this side of the Great River, only one team managed to get a single little wild goat by sheer luck. But when Brother Chong leads us, we hit the jackpot!"

Huang Mao added, "I heard from other team members that wild goats are really dense here. Some have even seen herds of twenty or thirty. We can come back here more often in the future. We might be able to expand our livestock area just by catching goats!"

Chen Chong just smiled without saying anything.

It was perfectly normal for the other students from the school to fail at catching wild goats. After all, the animals were extremely alert; at the slightest disturbance, they were gone like the wind.

Without ample preparation and a good dose of luck, an ordinary person would be counting their lucky stars just to catch one.

His group, on the other hand, was led by four or five Transcendent. If they couldn’t even handle a herd of wild goats, they might as well jump into the Great River and drown themselves.

As for catching more wild goats...

’Resources are endless; the important thing is to make them sustainable.’

Figuring out a better, gentler way to capture them was a problem for later.

The pressing task was to get this herd home, settle them in, and do everything possible to help them adapt, thrive, and reproduce in their new environment.

At the same time, he needed to figure out how to expand their dedicated livestock areas at home and in the gymnasium.

Otherwise, no matter how many more they brought back, it would all be for nothing if they couldn’t be domesticated or if there wasn’t enough space.

They would be good for nothing but meat.

What Chen Chong valued now wasn’t just a meal or two, but farmable animals and plants that could provide a sustainable, continuous yield.

Leading the still-skittish wild goats, the group set off on the road home.

Interestingly, on their way from the Rock Beach toward the Great River, Chen Chong spotted two more groups of wild goats.

One group was over a thousand meters away, looking like a string of black dots, similar to the goats they had already captured.

Thanks to his Transcendent eyesight, he could still make out that it was a small herd of four or five.

The group was too small, and they were in a hurry to get back, so Chen Chong didn’t give them a second thought.

The other herd was much larger, with fifteen or sixteen goats, and less than five hundred meters away.

The moment Xu Jun saw them, he wanted to rush out and catch them, but the lead goat spotted him first. Before he could even get close, they scattered and fled in the opposite direction.

In just the blink of an eye, the string of black dots vanished completely.

Xu Jun was incredibly frustrated by this, cursing his own carelessness. He grumbled that he should have spotted them earlier so they could have hidden and surrounded them like before. They had just missed out on a huge haul of over a dozen goats...

Chen Chong, however, felt no regret, a faint smile remaining on his face.

It was just like he’d thought before: resources were endless.

Although the jungle on this side of the Great River was sparser and had fewer resources than the other side, the number of wild goats was unexpectedly high.

As long as this was their regular foraging ground, they could always come back to capture more. There was no need to rush.

The haul of eleven wild goats was already his biggest score in the half-month since crossing over, aside from Extraordinary Creatures.

It was dozens of times more rewarding than hunting wild boars or Moose!

Chen Chong was already satisfied with today’s gains...

"Brother Chong!"

Suddenly, Xu Jun cried out, pointing ahead excitedly.

"See more wild goats?" Chen Chong asked, a look of resignation on his face.

"No, no, no, it’s not goats! It’s... deer!"

"Deer?"

Chen Chong followed Xu Jun’s finger and looked. In the woods about three or four hundred meters away, three or four Sika Deer were nibbling on green leaves.

At their feet, two small fawns tagged along.

The fawns were clearly newborns. The spots on their coats were still faint, and they looked as if they had only just learned to walk, following their parents out to forage.

The moment he saw the deer, Chen Chong froze.

He had only one thought in his mind...

’I have to catch them!’

The wild goats could be put on the back burner. They had already caught quite a few, and the priority was to get this batch settled and see if they could adapt to their new home before thinking about the next.

But wild deer were different.

He already had a pregnant female Sika Deer at home who had adapted perfectly to the new environment. She was, for all intents and purposes, successfully domesticated.