Lifespan Surges, Tribesmen in Danger (Seeking Follow-up Reads)

A recent novelty in the tribe was that tribesmen discovered the volcano had put on the face scarf from the plague times again.

No one understood what was going on. Some tribesmen came to ask, and one even got kicked.

The chieftain then led people away from the tribe to hunt.

A-Can, the Temple Guardian and witch, didn't know what was up either. He spent all day carrying a beast hide scroll, showing it to anyone he met in the tribe.

He seemed a bit deranged.

The tribesmen were all guessing wildly, but Shen Can was naturally not deranged.

He carried the beast hide scroll, written with witch runes, and wandered around the tribe.

He figured that since the children had no talent, perhaps there was an old genius out there. It wasn't too late to start cultivating at eighty.

He wasn't worried about being old; the priority was solving the problem of going from nothing to something.

The ironwood boat from before, and the witch knife now, once again proved that the Lingyu Tribe had applied witchcraft to weapon crafting.

Such a large tribe, if it could apply witchcraft to weapons, then in daily life, such as planting and cultivating witch medicine, it was likely already widespread.

Powerful tribes were indeed powerful in all aspects.

A few days later.

Clang! Clang! Clang!

In a stone shed in the southwest corner of the tribal territory, waves of heat rolled out, and the sound of rhythmic hammering could be heard.

Shen Can stood outside the stone shed, watching Huo Shi lead people in forging rivets.

Ever since he and Huo Tang discussed going out to scout the terrain and search for resources last time, although they hadn't found any mineral veins, the tribesmen had brought back quite a bit of scattered ore.

What they were forging now were the rivets arranged on the leather armor.

"Temple Guardian, am I forging this wrong?"

Seeing Shen Can staring intently inside, Huo Shi, the weapons supervisor, stopped hammering.

"It's fine, you're forging very well."

Shen Can then looked at another middle-aged blacksmith. "Do you recognize this character?"

"No, I don't."

The middle-aged blacksmith carried a large hammer, its head bigger than his own.

"It just looks like a flame dancing."

Upon hearing this, Shen Can was overjoyed.

It was truly difficult. He had wandered through the entire tribe for so many days, and everyone he showed the witch runes to had eyes as clear as A'Yu's.

Water and fire were different, but the flow of water and the dance of fire had commonalities.

"Old Stone Uncle, I'm taking this person with me. You should recruit two more blacksmiths."

"Temple Guardian, what do you need me to do? I can forge iron."

Huo Zhong walked out of the stone shed, carrying his hammer, looking puzzled.

Shen Can glanced at him, then decided against it. The ancestors hadn't stipulated that one couldn't carry a hammer while practicing witchcraft.

Witchcraft needed to be applied to the tribe, and perhaps in the future, a witch blacksmith could be cultivated.

"Let's go, up the mountain."

The stone steps outside the Ancestral Temple were covered with dried mushrooms and some firewood that hadn't completely dried. Shen Can took a detour to return to the Ancestral Temple.

The tribesmen didn't know that the ancestors didn't actually eat firewood.

"Temple Guardian, what do you want me to forge?"

Shen Can led Huo Zhong into the ear cave and handed him the beast hide scroll with the witch runes written on it.

"Look at this. Write it down when you've looked enough."

After handing the beast hide scroll and a brush to Huo Zhong, Shen Can had Huo Zhong write the nine witch runes that comprised the Water Control Art.

Watching Shen Can leave, Huo Zhong touched his large hammer, then carefully picked up the brush to examine it, his eyes filled with bewilderment.

The brush in his hand felt like it had thorns. His hands, which didn't tremble when holding a large hammer, were shaking as they rested on the beast hide scroll.

Shen Can didn't know that Huo Zhong was trembling. He followed a passage into another mountain cave lit by beast oil lamps.

Inside this cave, there was a miniature sand table.

The sand table was densely packed with small hills, and marshes and dangerous areas were marked.

After the disaster, the new tribe had not yet 'refreshed'.

Huo Tang was now leading people to the waterside land in the east. Since there was the idea of migrating the tribal territory, the tribe's focus would shift eastward towards the great marsh for a long time to come.

Of course, while the focus shifted east, the northwest and south were not being neglected in their exploration.

The vast mountains and forests and the land had too many dangerous places. Only a framework had been identified so far, and it would take time to fill in the details.

Shen Can looked at the sand table. A flood had caused the Da Ye Marsh, which was originally five thousand li away from the tribe, to expand westward by over two thousand li. Such a cataclysmic change was still shocking.

What was even more shocking was that the damn Lingyu Tribe could travel thousands of miles through floods, acting with impunity.

They treated Da Ye Marsh like their own personal fish pond.

With such a vast body of water, how many fish and beasts could they catch in one haul? The Lingyu Tribe's Temple Guardians must have their blades nicked and chipped from it.

Truly enviable.

"A-Can, Huo Ning's hunting party is back. They brought back a live Mystic-Marked Ox-bodied Wolf."

Huo Xian called out from the cave entrance.

The impact of the flood was receding, and the desolate beasts were breeding again, emerging from the Giant Peak Mountain Range.

The tribe had achieved significant results in capturing desolate beasts by relying on the Mafeisan he had prepared.

Currently, a smaller sub-city had been built to the northwest of the tribal city, demarcated by three independent hills, serving as a training ground. The captured Mountain-Cleaving Kui cubs were all thrown in there.

As for training, effective techniques had not yet been established. Currently, it was based on a carrot-and-stick approach, with details still being explored.

In the fishpond in the northeast corner of the city, some captured fish were being kept.

Although they were worlds apart from the Lingyu, the Blazing Flame Tribe was improving day by day.

Now, whenever a hunting party returned, they would try their best to bring back the last desolate beast they caught alive.

In the past, they feared the desolate beasts struggling. Now, the hunting party members all carried Mafeisan.

Once dosed, the desolate beasts would obediently follow them back to the tribe, some even sleeping soundly when entering the Ancestral Temple.

Inside the Ancestral Temple.

The strangely shaped ox-bodied wolf lay sleeping soundly on a wooden frame.

Shen Can patted it.

"Still sleeping? Your offering has arrived."

This was an Unranked desolate beast. It wasn't that the tribesmen didn't catch ranked ones.

It was just that there was a rule for hunting: the last beast caught was for ancestral worship. If they could catch it alive, they would bring it back alive; if not, it was acceptable.

Ancestral worship was important, and the safety of the tribesmen was also important. They couldn't just worship ancestors for the sake of worship.

[Sacrifice Master: Shen Can]
[Plundered Lifespan from Unranked Mystic-Marked Ox-bodied Wolf: 57 years.]
[Lifespan: 1998]

He methodically drew blood and smeared it on the stone drums and pillars, then cut the meat into portions and placed them on the offering table.

The ancestors were also doing better now.

Now they had fish when they wanted fish, and meat when they wanted meat.

After the ritual, Shen Can saw Huo Zhong watching from the side of the cave entrance.

Upon seeing him, Huo Zhong quickly retreated and continued to lie on the stone table.

He walked over and saw that after all this time, the beast skin scroll in front of Huo Zhong was filled with crooked witch runes.

Witch runes were magical. It wasn't enough to just be able to copy them to practice; not knowing the meaning despite perfectly replicating the form was the reason for the high barrier to entry.

Shen Can didn't have a plan for how to teach witchcraft yet, so he first let Huo Zhong familiarize himself with copying them.

Night fell.

Shen Can returned to the cave entrance.

Currently, his deductions in witchcraft had formed a main focus with multiple sub-focuses.

The main focus was the witch runes that formed the Lingyu Water Control Art.

Over this long period, he had deduced thirty-four of them.

The witch knives brought back by Huo Tang had four new ones, bringing the total to thirty-eight. Furthermore, the new witch rune references also aided his deductions.

The sub-focuses were the witch medicine Mafeisan, the wheat and millet pest control formula, and the formula to neutralize Mafeisan.

However, the subsequent formula deductions had created a generational gap with the tribe's current situation.

To enhance the medicinal effect, one would either use herbs with longer medicinal ages or change the types of herbs. The tribe could not achieve either of these at the moment.

The wheat and millet pest control formula was fine; wheat and millet were common crops, and they were sufficient.

But Mafeisan was different. He wanted to optimize it under the current conditions, which was equivalent to making things difficult for himself, this fat tiger.

However, both Huo Tang and he had the idea of migrating the tribe, and a place near water would indeed be indispensable for this.

Moreover, with the increase in water surface, simply throwing Mafeisan into it was somewhat inappropriate. It would be better to have anesthetic harpoons and anesthetic arrows.

Night fell.

Shen Can lay on the stone bed to rest.

Huo Tang, far away in the waterside lands to the east, was still busy.

Inside a newly opened cave, he was sketching a map by the campfire. On it, a small mountain was marked with a design resembling an ox's nose.

"Have Huo Chi and his group returned from Ox-Nose Mountain?"

After a moment, Huo Tang asked.

To establish a tribe in the waterside lands, it was natural to thoroughly understand the area. Only then could they assess if it was suitable to become a new tribal land conducive to the tribe's great development.

Therefore, he had led Huo Yan's hunting party to scout the vicinity again.

The hundred people were divided into over a dozen teams of varying sizes. Each day, they explored different corners, striving to investigate every place nearby.

"Not yet."

Ox-Nose Mountain.

"Whoosh!"

Huo Chi shot an arrow towards the darkness behind him, but a scream then erupted from in front of him.

"Splash!"

Water sounds followed. Huo Zhi struggled, his body seemingly encircled by a flow of water.

"Brother Chi, hurry and go, quick... gurgle..."

Before Huo Zhi could finish speaking, he felt water rushing into his mouth and nose, violently filling his lungs. He was dragged into the water.

"A'Zhi!"

Huo Chi shouted, nocking another arrow towards the darkness.

He could hear movement, but all around him were only the sounds of water, which was useless. The tribesmen who had come with him were disappearing one by one in the darkness.