Sacrificial Cauldron

"From now on, this old man would finally have time to organize the witch doctor experience I had accumulated over the years. If you did not learn it, I would pick a few more people from the tribe and pass it down to them."

"Can was willing to learn."

Shen Can agreed without a second thought.

It was always good to learn another trade.

From his memories, the witches of the Great Wilderness World did not possess many miraculous arts. At least in the Blazing Flame Tribe and the nearby tribes, they mainly focused on treating illnesses and injuries.

Even then, their treatment was hit-or-miss. Under Huo Xian, witch doctors amounted to medicinal pellets and medicinal broth.

Besides healing illnesses, witch doctors also bore the responsibility of neutralizing the berserk aura within beast blood.

As for the other aspects of witch doctors, Shen Can did not know much. Perhaps his horizons had simply been too narrow for him to learn more.

After all, the strongest Lord of the Tribe in the Blazing Flame Tribe was only at the third Martial Arts Realm, the Celestial Meridian Realm.

The methods of Martial Dao cultivation were also far too crude.

In the Blazing Flame Tribe, if one wanted to become a First Tier Stone Splitter Realm warrior, one soaked in First-Order Desolate Beast blood, ate desolate beast meat, and practiced a tempering method, allowing the desolate beast's essence to meld into one's body.

If one wanted to become a Second Tier Mountain Opening Realm warrior, one soaked in Second-Order Beast Blood, ate desolate beast meat, and practiced the tempering method.

Third Tier warriors soaked in Third-Order Beast Blood.

Why did they all have to soak in beast blood?

Because merely eating beast meat daily and practicing the Kui Ox Fist could not help tribesmen break through the limits of their bottlenecks.

When tribesmen neared advancement to the Stone Splitter Realm or Mountain Opening Realm, only by soaking in beast blood and borrowing the powerful blood force of desolate beasts did they have a chance to forcefully break through.

The Blazing Flame Tribe's tempering method was the Kui Ox Fist, a technique created by imitating the Mountain-Cleaving Kui.

Yet after becoming a Third Tier Heaven Vein Warrior, the tempering method became useless. One needed a true Martial Arts cultivation method to imitate the circulation of blood and qi within desolate beasts.

The habits and movements of desolate beasts were easy enough to imitate, but the circulation of blood and qi within their bodies could not be discerned with a single glance.

The Blazing Flame Tribe's Lord of the Tribe had advanced to the Third Tier Celestial Meridian Realm by soaking in Third-Order Beast Blood and forcing a breakthrough. Without a follow-up cultivation method, he had become stuck there.

Because even the Lord of the Tribe had no idea where the blood and qi inside his body should rush. He only knew that the Celestial Meridian Realm required one to open celestial meridians.

However, the Blazing Flame Tribe had been passed down for three hundred years and had gone through more than ten Lords of the Tribe. Each successive Lord had used himself as a test subject, and they had managed to identify the location of one celestial meridian.

None of this was a secret. Shen Can remembered it being taught when the tribe passed down the Kui Ox Fist.

Besides being a body-tempering technique, the Kui Ox Fist was also used to temper the body before soaking in beast blood.

Children of the tribe began learning the Kui Ox Fist at eight or nine years old. Then, according to the circumstances, young people whose tempering had reached the required standard were selected each year to soak in First-Order Desolate Beast blood.

Why was everyone built as sturdy as big bears? Eating desolate beast meat every day and practicing the Kui Ox Fist naturally made their physiques soar by leaps and bounds.

The size of one's physique was the simplest sign of one's strength.

Even so, the Blazing Flame Tribe's success rate for advancing into First Tier Stone Splitter Realm warriors was only three or four in ten. Sometimes, it was even just one or two in ten.

At the end of the day, beast blood was simply too fierce. Aside from whether one's body could take the beating, breaking through also depended on luck.

It was precisely this life-for-life Martial Dao that had carved out a place for humanity to survive.

Beyond the dangers during breakthroughs, warriors refining desolate beast essence suffered impacts, while the hidden injuries left behind from fighting desolate beasts also caused many warriors to collapse and die halfway through their paths.

Otherwise, the Blazing Flame Tribe would not have gone through more than ten Lords of the Tribe in three hundred years. Not a single one of them had met a peaceful end.

Shen Can could only say that surviving here was not easy, because no one knew when disaster would descend. Earthquakes and floods were even more frequent.

A'Yu had been born during a flood.

Shen Can had been born in this life during an earthquake. The tribe had suffered grievous losses at the time, and his parents had also been sacrificed to Heaven.

Compared to that, this heavy rain that had lasted a little over sixty days was nothing at all.

The Blazing Flame Tribe's clan records spanning over three hundred years had recorded the longest downpour: it had rained for a full year and a half, accompanied by earthquakes.

The Blazing Flame Tribe was not considered a major tribe. The clan records of those tribes with inheritances spanning a thousand, several thousand, or even tens of thousands of years must be even more shocking.

This was the Great Wilderness—just a tiny, tiny bit dangerous.

Being a temple keeper was better. There was no need to leave the tribe.

As long as the tribesmen offered tribute to the ancestral temple on time, he could continuously plunder the lifespan of the prey.

The hunted Mountain-Cleaving Kui was quickly butchered. Its hide, beast bone, internal organs, and the like were taken away separately by the women of the tribe.

The hide would be made into leather armor, the hard parts of the beast bone would be polished into arrowheads, and the internal organs would be cleaned and eaten as well.

After being shoved into the role today, Shen Can had successfully moved into the ancestral temple and become the tribe's next-generation reserve temple keeper.

Now it only depended on when old man Huo Xian would hand over the post.

"Clean out the west ear cave and settle in there."

After becoming a temple keeper, one had to eat and sleep in the ancestral temple. That was also why the other young people in the tribe were unwilling to take the job.

How could performing sacrifices compare to the thrill of going out to hunt?

In his memories, A-Can before Shen Can's transmigration had been extremely unwilling to become a ritualist. Otherwise, he would not have gritted his teeth and followed the hunting party out.

Now, Shen Can's thoughts had naturally changed.

This temple keeper position—he was taking it.

Not only would he take it, he planned to keep it to the end.

What was so bad about being a temple keeper? He loved cleaning up after the ancestors.

Peaceful.

During the hunting sacrifices after returning from hunts, the annual sacrifices, ten-year sacrifices, and even the century grand sacrifices, the Lord of the Tribe would personally act and lead the hunting party to kill a Third-Order Desolate Beast.

Who knew how much lifespan a Third-Order Desolate Beast had?

As Shen Can pondered this, he cleaned out the west ear cave.

A simple stone room with a stone bed.

"Brother Can, I brought your bedding over."

A'Yu entered the ear cave carrying the bedding on his shoulder and tossed it onto the stone bed.

Then A'Yu stood there hesitantly for a long while. After quickly saying something, he hurried out of the stone room.

"Brother Can, once I become a warrior, you'll get a share of every desolate beast I hunt."

Shen Can, who was spreading out his beast-hide mattress, froze. When he looked back, all he saw was A'Yu's departing back.

"This guy."

"Unfortunately, your old Brother Can dissolved in the water."

After spreading the mattress, Shen Can had originally wanted to take a good look at his golden finger. But after some thought, he got up and headed for the East Ear Cave.

"Master, does the ancestral temple still need sweeping tonight?"

Seeing the head poking in through the cave entrance, Huo Xian, who was sitting at the stone table flipping through beast-hide records, silently accepted Shen Can's form of address. A smile appeared on his aged face.

"At night, just make sure the oil lamp does not go out. Tomorrow morning, I'll take you through it once."

"Oh, and if you're hungry, you can take some of the meat from the offering table and eat it."

"Ah..."

Shen Can was stunned upon hearing Huo Xian's words.

"What temple keeper doesn't sneak offerings? The ancestors are all divine tablets—shouldn't you help them taste the flavor?"

Hearing that, Shen Can felt even more at ease.

His golden finger had seized the desolate beast's lifespan. That counted as stealing the ancestors' offerings too, did it not?

After returning from Master Huo Xian's place, Shen Can lay on the stone bed and finally had time to examine his golden finger.

"Sacrificial Cauldron."

In his perception, the thing within his body was incomparably illusory. It had three legs and a round mouth, looking much like the blood vessel used to hold beast blood.

As his thoughts stirred, information surfaced in his mind once more.

Sacrificial Host: Shen Can

Martial Arts Realm: Unranked.

Sacrificial Artifact: Sacrificial Cauldron

Tempering Method: Kui Ox Fist (Inferior) (Can be deduced)

Cultivation Method: None

Martial Divine Power: None

Lifespan: 33

"How exactly is it deduced?"

The thought arose in Shen Can's mind, and he immediately sensed the illusory three-legged Sacrificial Cauldron within his body flicker.

He discovered that he had somehow gained the power of 'inner sight.' He saw a hazy space within the Sacrificial Cauldron, where a vague figure emerged.

"Artifact spirit?"

Seeing this change, Shen Can did not rush to begin. He carefully called out.

But he received no response.

"System?"

"Ancestors?"

He received no response to those either.

Although he had not received an answer, he felt that the three-legged Sacrificial Cauldron was likely the vessel through which the data in his mind appeared.

"How about I use one year of lifespan to test the waters first?"

In an instant, as Shen Can's thoughts shifted, the phantom inside the Sacrificial Cauldron raised its hand and assumed the opening stance of the Kui Ox Fist.

The first move of the Kui Ox Fist was called Mountain Opening, its punch bursting forth like a charging Kui ox.

As the phantom in the Sacrificial Cauldron moved, Shen Can suddenly felt more information unfold in his mind.

After practicing the fist for one year, your fist forms were stiff, your tendons and bones did not move, you knew not how to adapt, stupid as a boulder.

"Damn, why is this thing insulting people!"

"Two more years."

After practicing the fist for three years, your fist forms were still stiff. You still did not know where adaptability lay, stupid as a straw-stuffed fool.

After practicing the fist for ten years, you still had not comprehended the principle of tendons and bones moving with the fist. A straw-stuffed fool with seven apertures, six of them open.