Shanghuang Tribe (Please Follow)

"Witchcraft."

With the thought planted in his mind, Shen Can became increasingly unable to restrain himself. He wished he could immediately dig out the Iron Wood Boat fragment and inspect it.

The Iron Wood Boat was a third-tier vessel, likely something from the Ling Yu Tribe.

If it truly came from the Ling Yu Tribe, then there was a considerable chance witchcraft had been attached to it.

Seen that way, it seemed perfectly normal for the Shanghuang Tribe to come knocking.

Perhaps the Shanghuang Tribe had already obtained more pieces of the Iron Wood Boat and gained—or seen—great benefits from them.

That was why, before the floodwaters had even receded, they had dispatched Celestial Meridian Realm warriors from their tribe to cross the mountains and wilderness in search of it, resorting to both threats and inducements.

Shen Can returned to the ancestral temple, considering how to quietly dig a small hole behind the altar and crawl inside.

Huo Tang, who had returned to the tribal grounds, also fell into deep thought.

Huangshi coming again only proved the Iron Wood Boat's importance.

As for taking it out for an exchange, they had been neighbors for hundreds of years. Who did not know the other's character?

If Shanghuang truly offered something useful in trade, that would be one thing. But anything capable of strengthening a tribe, Shanghuang would not give away even the tiniest bit.

"I wonder how Huo Shan's investigation is going."

Huo Shan had been gone for a month now without a single message, and Huo Tang was deeply worried.

Though he had gone in hopes of picking up the spoils left behind by other tribes, the mountain wilderness was fraught with danger. The risk was far too great.

When Huangshi came again, it did not stir much of a ripple. The tribe's people now had their minds on the plague.

As usual, Shen Can was isolating infected tribespeople.

The witch medicine formula worked, and the tribe had not suffered a large-scale assault by plague insects. From the very beginning, the plague symptoms throughout the tribe had remained under his control.

That night, after finishing his work,

Shen Can glanced at the sleeping Huo Xian and quietly made his way behind the offering table before the ancestral spirit tablets.

He took down the Luan Knife used to worship the ancestors and used it as a digging tool again.

This was not his first day digging.

Though the piled earth and stones behind the altar looked much the same as the collapsed area outside, there was actually a difference between within and without.

The collapse outside was for others to see. After digging inward for some distance, gaps appeared between the stones.

After clearing away the outer concealment, a small hole he had dug long ago appeared before Shen Can.

Shen Can slipped inside in a flash.

Inside the hole was a natural cave within the mountain, bearing no signs of excavation. The air was somewhat stuffy.

By the light of his small torch, he immediately found the Iron Wood Boat fragment.

The beast patterns on the broken wood, which he had not examined closely before, were now inspected inch by inch at close range.

The beast pattern formed across the surface of the broken wood looked more like fish scales.

Shen Can wedged the torch in place and began copying it.

After finishing, he compared it again and discovered that where the scale patterns connected, their twisting curves truly carried a strange, sinister quality, like bizarre rune characters.

Once he had examined it carefully, Shen Can crawled back out and sealed the hole along its original route.

"Ancestors, forgive me."

After bowing to the spirit tablets and unilaterally forgiving himself, he returned the Luan Knife to its original place.

He was always taking from his ancestors without ever thanking them. In the future, he would do his best to keep his ancestors whole and unharmed.

Touching the beast hide tucked against his chest, he returned to his own West Ear Cave in satisfaction.

His cave now contained quite a few Beast Hide Scrolls and witch medicines, all brought over from Huo Xian's master.

After changing into another robe, Shen Can spread the beast pattern he had just copied across the stone table by the oil lamp and studied it carefully.

The beast pattern on the Iron Wood fragment was incomplete. Overall, it showed a wild beast, though Shen Can could not tell whether it was a fish or some other creature.

Yet the winding lines did resemble fish scales.

That did not prove much. In the Great Wilderness, birds, beasts, scaled creatures, insects, and ants had no clear distinctions. Beasts could grow fish scales, and fish could grow fur.

The entire fragment should have been part of the Iron Wood Boat's outer hull.

The portion submerged beneath the water had been soaked for too long, leaving its beast pattern dark and unclear.

The upper portion was somewhat pale, while the colors of its beast pattern were mottled and faded.

And so, Shen Can sat behind the stone table, staring at the copied beast pattern, wanting to imprint every part of it into his mind.

You invested ten years of lifespan to comprehend an unknown beast pattern. After ten years of observation, you gained nothing.

On the stone bed, Shen Can opened his eyes. They were clear and innocent, like a college student from his previous life.

Ten years of lifespan, and he had not even heard a peep in return.

This time, the Sacrificial Cauldron did not spout nonsense.

"The path is right."

His eyes darted, and he immediately realized it.

"Again."

You stared at the beast pattern for another ten years. Your gaze burned, yet you still gained nothing.

You stared at the beast pattern for another twenty years, copying it over and over in an attempt to see its mysteries, yet everything remained hazy and elusive.

You began to doubt whether you were overthinking things. Could witchcraft truly be derived from any random beast pattern?

In the twenty-second year, you began to doubt your own genius.

You simply began copying this beast pattern once, twice... a hundred times, ah, a hundred times...

The beast hides used for copying piled up and filled the entire cave. Still, no spiritual light flashed forth. In the thirty-seventh year, you stopped copying. The deduction ended.

"Continue the deduction."

You stubborn fool, you came again.

Stubborn fool, today marked the hundredth year of your copying the beast pattern.

After a hundred years of copying, spiritual light suddenly flashed.

You tried to seize it, yet could never capture it.

You did not lose heart and began copying the beast pattern again. At last, you caught that wisp of opportunity.

The dense scale runes within the beast pattern wound and curved like scenes of flowing water—at times rushing, at times tranquil, at times splashing waves. All held the momentum of water.

Taking this as an opportunity, you began attempting to comprehend deeper mysteries.

You spent another ten years gradually realizing that the essence of this winding pattern seemed to contain the mysteries of riding water and controlling water.

Another fifty years passed. During your copying, that mysterious essence finally became a crooked, twisting character beneath your hand.

At the same time, you discovered that this character was far too singular. You chose to continue comprehending it, but your head felt somewhat weary. The deduction ended.

Inside the cave, Shen Can looked at the rune character he had just written on the beast hide while rubbing his dizzy head.

Witchcraft: Water Control (severely incomplete, not yet initiated)

It had not been easy. At last, he had something.

All things were difficult at the beginning. With an opening now, things should hopefully become easier from here on.

Shen Can erased the rune before him, then destroyed the beast pattern diagrams he had copied earlier as well.

It was not that he was guarding against his tribespeople, but against outsiders.

The Shanghuang Tribe acted overbearingly. They strutted around the Chiyan Tribe even more arrogantly than in their own home. What if they barged in and started rifling through things?

Though the odds were small, precautions still had to be taken.

When he went out to sweep the ancestral temple, he ran into Huo Xian.

"A-Can, seeing how exhausted you are, let this old man handle today's patrol."

"Master, there is no need. I can handle such a small matter."

After eating, Shen Can began his usual inspection of the tribe, checking on the plague among its people.

He worked during the day and continued deducing witchcraft at night.

Three thousand li away.

Under the blazing sunlight, a layer of resplendent radiance spread above the towering forest.

This was an enormous mountain, more than half of which had been cleared and leveled. One half was lined with mountain caves, while the other held rolling stone halls and stone houses.

The entire tribe stood high above its surroundings. Even mountain floods had not reached it.

At the center of the stone halls and mountain caves stood an enormous cavern. Upon entering, the first thing one saw was a fire pit, fragrant smoke from burning Aihuo Grass permeating the air.

Firelight flickered within the fire pit, illuminating the surroundings. Fragments of Iron Wood, large and small, leaned against the walls.

Every fragment of Iron Wood bore beast patterns.

A thin old man had practically pressed his head against one of the beast patterns. His brow was deeply furrowed, and his nostrils huffed loudly.

"The things of the Ling Yu Upper Tribe are profound and vast as an abyss. They truly are difficult to fathom."

"I cannot see through them, cannot see through them!"

Within the cavern, after numerous broken wood fragments had been pieced together, they had roughly restored a strange fish-shaped beast pattern with four limbs.

At the fish's head was a blurred human face.

From this beast pattern alone, they could confirm the origin of these broken Iron Wood Boat fragments.

The Ling Yu Upper Tribe—a powerful tribe whose name was known but whose traces were never seen by all the tribes across the nearby giant mountains and wilderness marshes.

It was a great tribe with Divine Treasury Realm experts standing guard.

What he himself could not comprehend was likely commonplace in the Ling Yu Tribe.

Huang Zhou withdrew his gaze from the beast pattern on the fragment and sat down beside the fire pit, deep in thought.

It had been nearly two months since they obtained the first fragment. Since then, they had found more than a dozen others one after another. Every day, he studied the beast patterns on those fragments, yet gained nothing.

As both the tribe's temple keeper and witch doctor, he had also had the tribe's young people look at them. They likewise could not make out any mysteries.

Come to think of it, he was the most authoritative witch in the entire tribe. If even he could not see through it, it was only natural that the tribespeople could not either.

As for the other nearby tribes, they only knew how to carve Iron Wood fragments into wooden spears.

Witchcraft? At most, those people knew how to roll medicine into pills.

The protagonist would leave the mountains, but for now he was still in the early stage of cultivating his inner strength. After all, he was only at the Stone Splitter Realm, and had not yet fully mastered witchcraft. The new plot after the flood would unfold over these next few chapters.