Worthy of a Witch, the Best at Drugging People

This outing was different from the tribe's usual hunts. They had no way to send everyone back alive to the ancestral temple.

Even before, the hunting team would only bring back one live beast to honor the ancestors.

Only when luck was good would they catch more live prey. Most prey was killed and brought back.

Like the many desolate beasts that had been tied up in the ancestral temple before, that was mainly because of the improved medicine formula.

Huo Tang, the chieftain, had been spurred on by that and had started frequently going out to capture live desolate beasts.

Everyone surely understood that feeling. It was like having a wife for the first time—day and night, all one could think about was wrestling.

At the beginning, the craving was fierce.

"A-Can, this strange fish hasn't entered a rank yet."

The tribesman collecting the strange fish's blood was Uncle Huo Kui. He did not understand what it was needed for.

"A'Mu, come here."

Shen Can called over a tribesman and led him, carrying the beast blood, into a newly dug temporary cave.

No amount of talking was more convincing than success.

As the Blazing Flame Tribe's chief instructor, he had a grasp of every selected tribesman's martial cultivation.

A'Mu was a gifted warrior he had selected from among so many tribesmen. He was young and tall.

As for how great his talent was, it counted as above average within the tribe.

Inside the cave.

The witch medicines they had brought had long been sorted and placed away. Shen Can found the medicine packet marked as neutralizing witch medicine and poured it into the blood trough.

A'Mu stirred the fish blood himself. Bubbles of blood rose with a gurgle, and a thick fishy stench filled the cave.

"The quality of this fish blood has not entered a rank, but you have cultivated without rest for over a month. You already reached the threshold of becoming an advanced warrior. What you lack is this final catalyst."

Shen Can only added half the neutralizing powder from the witch medicine packet. After pondering beast-blood soaking for so many days, he had developed new thoughts.

Martial cultivation was equivalent to martial evolution. Before most tribesmen reached one Desolate Power, they had effectively reached the first limit of the flesh.

To continue increasing their strength, they needed to borrow external power to break through that limit and gain a higher ceiling.

The method of soaking in beast blood was actually meant to shatter the shackles of one's limits, not serve as nourishment for increasing one's force.

As long as a new level of potential was opened, any kind of nourishment would do afterward.

Thus, soaking in beast blood was really about borrowing that violent aura. Therefore, witch medicine that neutralized it too effectively would not work either.

Without the violent aura, what would they borrow?

Conversely, if a martial cultivator had good talent, their first bottleneck would be small. Perhaps it would be nothing more than a layer of window paper that could be broken with a light push.

If that was the case, they could distinguish grades based on the intensity of the released violent aura.

According to each tribesman's different circumstances, using different grades of beast blood for soaking would maximize the tribe's use of the beast blood it acquired.

Perhaps one day, tribesmen like Shen Can himself would appear—people who could break their shackles through their own strength without needing beast-blood soaking.

He recorded all of this. He planned to choose a few somewhat talented children from the tribe, train them, and then hand this matter over to them for further research.

After drying off for most of the day, A'Mu submerged his entire body in the stone trough.

Shen Can did not leave. He watched A'Mu repeatedly practice the Kui Ox Fist inside the cave, occasionally speaking up to correct his improper stances.

When A'Mu leaped out of the blood trough for the second time, his fist wind whistled and echoed throughout the cave.

"Catch."

Shen Can grabbed a one Desolate Bow and threw it over.

After catching it, A'Mu pulled the bow into a full moon in one smooth motion, then drew it over a dozen times in succession.

"I've become a Stone Splitter Martial Artist."

A'Mu, holding the one Desolate Bow, beamed with delight.

"Don't waste the remaining beast blood. Absorb it quickly."

Shen Can did not disturb the young man's joy at his achievement. With his hands behind his back, he walked out of the cave.

Within the valley.

The second strange fish fry had already been dragged up. Shen Can called for the second tribesman to prepare for beast-blood soaking.

Rumble!

The hurled stones fell like hail, making the strange fish in the water roar continuously. It smashed the rocks away and churned up surging waves.

"Smash it!"

Huo Tang was the only one near the pool. The other tribesmen stood on the mountainsides on both sides, looking down from above.

No matter how the strange fish roared or churned up waves, it could not reach them.

Instead, the surging water flowed through the gullies and out of the valley.

Seeing this, everyone smashed down stones with even greater enthusiasm.

Whoosh!

When another strange fish fry leaped out, Huo Tang nocked an arrow and fired.

Amid the spray, a slender tail gleaming with eerie light shot through the air. It blocked the arrow with a metallic clash and knocked it flying.

After retrieving his arrow, Huo Tang retreated more than ten zhang and had the tribesmen continue throwing stones.

And so, a great stone-throwing battle lasted two days and one night.

Though the strange fish kept twisting its body to block the stones, it could not stop the pool from being steadily filled up and its water overflowing.

Looking down from above, Shen Can finally saw the strange fish's full appearance.

"Gudu!" "Gudu!"

The strange fish sheltered the small fish beneath it. Its enormous shadow prowled through the water, continuously making sounds.

It had a fish head and snake body, mysterious patterned scales covering its body, four legs growing from its belly, and a slender tail like a deer's.

The fish fry, on the other hand, had mysterious patterns as well but otherwise looked unlike the strange fish. They even had fangs, and one tore apart and swallowed an injured member of its own kind.

"A-Can."

Huo Tang gripped his ironwood spear. If Shen Can did not act, he was going to call the tribesmen to act together.

Shen Can looked around at the mountainsides and saw many tribesmen pulling out Beast Sinew Ropes, hook spears, and other tools.

Fish fins had already surfaced above the water. The tribesmen stopped throwing stones, and the strange fish stopped moving its body.

The main thing was that the strange fish had been tormented badly over the past two days. It had swum upstream from Juze Marsh, never expecting to encounter such a battle.

It could not hit them, could only passively endure the barrage, and the pool it lived in was being filled in bit by bit.

There was no bullying fish like this.

"Gudu!" "Gudu!!"

"Keep throwing stones for another half day. The less water, the better. I'll go prepare the medicine."

Half a day later.

Shen Can emerged from the cave with a group of tribesmen, each carrying two or three jars in their arms.

Facing a third-rank desolate beast, Shen Can was not fully confident either. He had prepared ninety jars of Witch Anesthetic Powder, mixing them with water in advance into a slurry.

"Smash thirty jars first, then add them one jar at a time."

From above, the tribesmen hurled the jars at the strange fish whose fins were exposed. The jars landed on its back, and the slurry dissolved into the water around it.

For a time, all the tribesmen watched the strange fish from above.

"Look, they're floating! They're floating!"

At that moment, a sharp-eyed tribesman pointed into the water and shouted.

One after another, dark fish fry floated up from beneath the surface. Their bodies swayed about on the water, unable even to swim in a straight line.

They trembled in the water as if seized by chills, their bodies wobbling and bubbling.

The strange fish began struggling as well. Its massive body lashed about, directly flinging the floating fry away. Two even crashed onto the shore.

"Gudu!"

"Gudu!"

The strange fish cried out. Its body constantly churned the water around it, its gills pulsing as its body began to tilt.

"Throw more!"

Seeing the strange fish's thrashing disperse the concentration of the medicine, Shen Can called for the tribesmen to continue.

"Hit the fish head!"

"I'll do it!"

Huo Tang strode quickly before the tribesmen, grabbed a jar, and fiercely smashed it at the strange fish's gills. The thick anesthetic slurry poured into its gills.

He did not stop moving. Every strike blasted the anesthetic onto the fish's head.

The strange fish sensed the danger as well. Its huge tail repeatedly rose and crashed down, muddying the surrounding waters as it tried to dive downward.

But the water below had been leveled with broken stones. Though the strange fish used all its strength to break apart the stones underwater, the lower half of its enormous body still remained exposed above the surface.

Seeing the strange fish like this, Huo Tang grabbed the Beast Sinew Rope the tribesmen had prepared, weighed it in his hand, and flung it out.

The rope wrapped several times around the fish's tail.

"Pull!"

Mountain Opening Realm tribesmen stood at the front behind Huo Tang, with Stone Splitter Realm tribesmen behind them. All of them gripped the thick Beast Sinew Rope.

As for Shen Can, A'Yu carried him more than ten zhang away.

"Come on up!"

Dozens of burly men shouted in rhythm and exerted their strength together.

Splash!

Before the strange fish could struggle—or rather, with most of its body already numb and incapable of struggling—it was dragged from the pool by its massive body.

The tribesmen dragged it from the pool in one breath and pulled it onto the ground outside the valley entrance.

Looking at the strange fish lying on the ground, struggling but with only small movements, everyone was repeatedly exhilarated.

"This is the first time I've seen such a docile third-rank strange fish."

"Heh, A-Can's witch medicine is incredible. It can't even struggle. A third-rank desolate beast is at our mercy!"

"Worthy of a witch—he really knows how to drug people!"

"Lord Temple Guardian, there seems to be another small marsh in the Northern Mountains. Why don't you go drug that one too?"

For a tribe, they might only encounter a third-rank desolate beast once every several decades.

Every hunt for a third-rank desolate beast brought heavy losses to the tribe.

Yet they had no choice but to hunt third-rank desolate beasts. They were the medicinal catalyst for advancing into the Celestial Meridian Realm and the guarantee of the tribe's inheritance. Even at the cost of casualties, they had to act.

Especially against large desolate beasts in the mountains—once they struggled desperately at death's door, for people who were only in the Mountain Opening and Stone Splitter Realms, even a slight sweep meant death or grave injury.

Now, a third-rank strange fish had been dragged ashore without much struggle at all. It felt just like a dream.

Since when had hunting third-rank desolate beasts become so easy?

Loop a rope around it, pull, and it was done.

Seeing Huo Tang step forward with his ironwood spear, ready to strike the numb strange fish hard before the medicine wore off, Shen Can hurriedly stopped him. "Chieftain, wait. Such a rare fish should be used to the fullest."

After considering several generation names, they were a little awkward to say. They were arranged according to the Five Elements: earth, metal, water, wood, fire.

There were several theories on where the Five Elements cycle began. Here, it began with earth.

Yue, Jun, Shen, Huan, Yan, Shan, Zhen, Yuan, Lin, Xuan. Given the Blazing Flame Tribe's current circumstances, the protagonist used the Shen generation name, the tribal elders used the Yue generation name, Huo Tang used the Jun generation name, and Huo Shan belonged to the next generation. This happened to incorporate the protagonist's name from his previous life.

The character Shen carried the meaning of abundant waters and marshes. It also shared a sound with "deep," carrying the sense of steadiness and concealing one's depth.

If anyone has any thoughts, please offer some advice.