Shen Can's excitement was immediately doused by Huo Tang.
Wanting to go out depended on the circumstances.
Within a thousand li, there was only one tribe, and Desolate Beasts were scarce.
Without Desolate Beasts, who would they use the neutralizing witch medicine on? Were they supposed to take so many tribesmen out to gnaw on rocks?
Moreover, Huo Tang felt that the marshland he had discovered contained, at most, one Second-tier Desolate Beast. The water surface in that valley was simply larger, making it difficult to drain.
He had been away for too long, so he had returned first to take a look. He planned to bring tools and drain the marsh, then capture the Desolate Beast.
When dealing with aquatic Desolate Beasts, draining the marsh was the dumbest method, but also the most practical.
Once an aquatic Desolate Beast left the water, seven or eight parts of its strength vanished. As long as the method was right, hunting it was easier than hunting Desolate Beasts in the mountains.
"Chieftain, how large is the marsh in that valley?"
"The valley is long and narrow inside, roughly twenty to thirty li across."
Huo Tang carefully described what he had observed.
"There are fruit trees on the cliffs on both sides of the valley, mostly wild peach trees. I also saw some five-fingered palm prints on the rock walls. Before the flood, monkey-type Desolate Beasts should have lived there."
"But they are gone now. I investigated the area around the valley and did not see a single monkey-type Desolate Beast. There were no rotting corpses floating on the marsh in the valley either.
The water was very clear. It should not have bred plague insects.
Monkey-type Desolate Beasts have habits like humans. They can climb cliffs and live there, and they can hide from floods.
Therefore, I deduce that when the flood broke out, an aquatic Desolate Beast entered the valley and fed on the monkey-type Desolate Beasts living there.
If the water surface had not been so vast, and if I had known whether there were hidden pits in the valley, I would have captured it long ago."
After hearing Huo Tang's description, Shen Can was somewhat disappointed.
One Second-tier Desolate Beast truly was not worth mobilizing so many people.
After returning for a look, Huo Tang took Huo Shan and the others, prepared their tools, and headed for the valley containing the marsh the next day.
Meanwhile, Shen Can continued serving as chief instructor for several hundred martial artists, intending to cut their number below three hundred.
The grain stockpiled by the surrounding tribes had all been brought out as cultivation resources. According to Elder Huo Yu's calculations, if they ate without limit, it would last only a little over a year.
By then, the tribe's two thousand members alone would be utterly unable to support three hundred full-time martial artists.
Therefore, cultivating internal force and expanding hunting grounds farther afield became the tribe's next direction for development.
Half a month later.
Noon.
While Shen Can stood high above the training ground supervising everyone's cultivation, he saw Huo Shan and several others returning from the east of the tribe.
"There is a third-tier black-patterned, legged strange fish in that marsh."
"The chieftain sent me back to summon people for a hunt."
Desolate Beasts were powerful, so why could weak tribes pass down through the generations? Because they could cooperate and use tools.
When hunting Desolate Beasts, they also worked together. Even against third-tier Desolate Beasts, success was possible as long as they prepared properly.
This was also why tribes formed from scattered commoners could produce Celestial Meridian Realm martial artists.
But taking another step forward within the Celestial Meridian Realm became an insurmountable threshold for small tribes.
Inside the tribal treasury, after moving aside the items piled outside, something wrapped in animal hide was revealed beneath them.
Huo Shan had returned this time to retrieve that item.
Shen Can sensed it with his spiritual perception and discovered that the animal hide contained crudely made iron wood spears.
He immediately understood. He remembered Huo Tang sneakily moving aside the storage pit behind the ancestral temple. So he had shaved the fragments of the Iron Wood Boat they had found into wooden spears.
There were not many—only nine.
Just as Huo Shan was about to leave, he found Shen Can blocking the entrance to the tribal treasury.
One day later.
Huo Shan watched a three-hundred-man party leave the tribe with an expression that said he wanted to stop them, yet knew it was useless.
He, meanwhile, had been left behind to guard the tribe.
Shen Can was in the middle of the group.
Well, he was riding on Huo Yu's back.
It was not that he did not want to walk. Everyone simply assumed his body was frail and that he could never keep pace with the group on foot.
If he was willing, everyone would be willing to take turns carrying him.
Huo Shan naturally had not stayed in the tribe willingly, but this time Shen Can was not merely restless and eager to run outside.
According to the precise news Huo Shan had brought back, the marsh concealed hidden depths. There had originally been a deep pool in the center of the valley.
They had discovered this only after draining the water from the valley.
During the draining process, they found the legged strange fish.
And it was not just one. There was one third-tier creature, along with a school of juvenile fish.
Though they were called juvenile fish, each was about the size of an adult.
According to their estimates, this third-tier strange fish had most likely traveled upstream from the Eastern Great Marsh during the flood specifically to lay its young.
The secluded pool in the valley also proved that the strange fish had not chosen the location at random.
It had deliberately selected a place with water, ensuring a place to live for decades, perhaps even a century, while waiting for the next flash flood.
The strange fish had chosen its location well, but that made it difficult for the tribesmen to hunt it. They did not know how deep the pool was. Going down to catch it...
Forget it. Huo Tang had not had an easy life either.
Besides bringing people, Shen Can had also brought Witch Boil Numbing Powder concocted from eight witch medicines, including aconite, arisaema, toad venom, and more.
As for why he knew how to make anesthetic... well... he had some lifespan left unused before, saved for emergencies.
This witch medicine formula was made based on the herbs currently available to the tribe. It was not the most reasonable witch medicine combination.
Thus, the tribesmen on this journey carried many animal-hide sacks on their backs, all filled with medicinal ingredients.
If the medicine was not potent enough, then they would simply increase the dosage.
Because of this witch medicine formula, Huo Shan, the tribe's most authoritative and only witch, could only remain behind in the tribe with a wronged look on his face.
After Shen Can's intensive training, countless members of the group were on the verge of becoming Stone Splitter Martial Artists.
As for how much extra meat they had wasted on this group, that was another matter.
Martial Dao cultivation, the foundation of the tribe's survival, could not be measured in costs.
This time, he had come specifically for the school of strange fish.
They traveled all the way to the marsh valley.
Not only had Huo Tang's group dug a water channel at the valley entrance, they had also opened several Great Caves on both sides of the valley. They drained the water even more fiercely than flood discharge.
The marsh in the valley had long vanished, leaving behind only a deep pool.
When Shen Can arrived, Huo Tang was leading people in throwing stones down into the pool from above.
"I had people lower vines into it. We found no bottom even after a hundred zhang, and the strange fish attacked them."
"Chieftain, there is too much water."
Seeing the water continuously overflowing from the pool, Shen Can felt that he had brought far too little numbing powder.
Throwing it in now would at most add a little flavor.
He looked again at the busy tribesmen. No wonder humanity could survive.
No matter how often disasters struck the Great Wilderness, no matter how harsh the environment, people always found ways to act instead of begging heaven and earth for pity.
The strange fish trapped in the pool had never imagined it would be dealt with like this.
With the three hundred tribesmen Shen Can had brought, nearly four hundred tribesmen had gathered here, and the stone-throwing force expanded several times over in an instant.
Splash!
Splash!
From the mountaintops on either side of the valley, tribesmen poured down stones.
There was actually a hidden danger in doing this. If there were underground channels deep beneath the water, the strange fish might escape, and they would end up with nothing.
But digging downward was different from building upward. The flood had passed not long ago, and groundwater was abundant. Water would gush forth after digging only a few zhang deep.
Though he had identified the problem, Shen Can had no intention of jumping into the pool to show off his witchcraft.
He still understood the basic principle that a first-tier witch could not defeat a third-tier beast.
His witchcraft could currently launch sneak attacks, but it could not yet serve as the main force.
Splash!
Amid a rain of shattered stones, several rocks suddenly shot back out of the water and blasted into the rock walls on both sides.
"It can't hold back any longer."
"Keep going!"
Huo Tang ordered the tribesmen to increase the barrage. A specially made greatbow appeared in his hand, and he moved closer to the edge of the pool.
Chunks of shattered stone fell one after another, while broken stones continuously flew out of the water. Many collided in midair.
But several hundred people had the high ground and fought without any sense of martial honor. No matter how fiercely the strange fish whipped its tail, more stones still fell into the water.
The water in the pool kept overflowing, flowing away through the channel.
"Gloop!"
Amid a tremendous splash, a birdlike cry rang out, and a dark shadow leaped from the water.
Whoosh!
In that instant, Huo Tang, waiting outside the pool, struck.
His arrow was specially made, with an extremely thin yet incredibly tough beast tendon attached to its tail.
After leaving the bowstring, it pierced the dark shadow's skull like lightning.
Then Huo Tang yanked the beast-tendon cord fiercely in the opposite direction, forcibly dragging the dark shadow out of the pool.
Seeing the strange fish Huo Tang had caught, Shen Can called out to everyone, "Catch the beast blood. Don't waste it."
In the past, beast blood from Desolate Beasts below tier was not used for soaking.
But Shen Can believed that after practicing the Superior Kui Ox Fist for so long, their absorption efficiency had improved. It might well offset the impact of the beast blood's lower quality.
He had brought everyone here precisely to give it a try.
Before you continue