Don't misunderstand, he wasn't trying to steal blood.
He only felt that the shape of this blood vessel was far too similar to the illusory Sacrificial Cauldron inside his body, and he could not help making the connection.
Unfortunately, there was no reaction after he grabbed the blood vessel.
After trying several times, Shen Can gave up.
He looked at the beast blood in the vessel, but after thinking it over, he temporarily suppressed the urge to steal it.
Since the Kui Ox Fist could improve in quality and draw upon more sinew, bone, flesh, and blood, then for the greatest possible efficiency, he could wait until he had raised the Kui Ox Fist to middle grade—or even high grade—before improving himself.
During that time, eating beast meat alone would be enough.
"A-Can, eat. Afterward, learn the sacrificial witch incantations and witch talismans from me."
When Shen Can arrived at the East Ear Cave, he saw that Huo Xian had already divided up the cooked Zuò meat. His jar was filled with lean meat, along with two split bones, marrow welling within them.
Huo Xian's own jar, meanwhile, contained only a few scraps of meat.
"I'm old, and my teeth aren't good anymore. You're still young. There's still hope for you in martial cultivation. Give it a try. Don't lose heart."
Carrying his own jar, Huo Xian returned to sit behind his stone desk, his attention once more falling upon the Beast Hide Scroll on the desk.
The most important thing in martial cultivation was eating, but people differed greatly. Some absorbed food well and naturally had stronger physiques. When breaking through to become martial artists, they could withstand the impact of beast blood and become martial artists in one mighty push.
Shen Can, being so short and slight, was clearly far inferior in this regard.
Huo Xian did not discourage Shen Can. He had been the same way in his youth.
Carrying his jar back to the West Ear Cave, Shen Can buried his head and ate heartily, even draining the soup clean in the end.
Then, while the warmth still sat in his stomach, he began practicing the Kui Ox Fist.
The side ear cave the tribesmen had excavated was huge, more than ten zhang across, enough for him to perform the fist art.
In the East Ear Cave, Huo Xian heard the movement from the west but did not speak up to stop him. He knew Shen Can had not given up on Martial Dao cultivation.
A quarter of an hour later.
Shen Can stopped moving.
He only felt a warm current coursing through his entire body. He could sense that his strength had increased, though unfortunately there was no tool to measure the exact amount.
This showed that the improved Kui Ox Fist had indeed become more efficient.
"If I can raise the Kui Ox Fist to high grade, perhaps I won't need to soak in beast blood at all. I might become a martial artist simply by eating beast meat every day and practicing the Kui Ox Fist."
Shen Can indulged in the thought for a moment, then rose and headed for the East Ear Cave. He gathered Huo Xian's eating utensils together, went outside, and rinsed them in the rain.
"This was passed down by generations of witch doctors in the tribe. Take a look."
Inside the East Ear Cave, Huo Xian handed Shen Can a mottled Beast Hide Scroll. "Ask me if there are any symbols you do not understand."
The contents of the Beast Hide Scroll were not difficult to understand, since it was illustrated. All kinds of medicinal herbs, earth, and stones were depicted within it.
The ear cave fell quiet. Huo Xian frowned tightly as he flipped through a Beast Hide Scroll, occasionally checking the shelves behind him.
From time to time, he also looked over at Shen Can, who was reading the Beast Hide Scroll.
"Is there anything you don't understand?"
At this moment, Shen Can appeared to be reading the Beast Hide Scroll, but he was actually wondering whether the Art of Witch Medicine could be derived.
He, too, had been one of the victims of the Blazing Flame Tribe's Art of Witch Medicine.
Of course, this was not Huo Xian's fault. The tribe's inheritance was limited, and it did not possess the ability to blaze new trails and innovate.
Nor did they dare innovate rashly, lest some accident occur and bring grievous harm upon the tribe.
They could only study the witch doctor manuals passed down by their ancestors.
Master Huo Xian's greatest specialty was rolling medicine into pellets. No matter the illness, he would give them a pill.
As for the pill formulas, they were a bewildering hodgepodge. Roots and stems of plants were considered normal ingredients, but there was also soot from under the eaves, desolate beast fur, and all sorts of other things.
As Shen Can's thoughts stirred, information surfaced in his mind.
Sacrificial Host: Shen Can Martial Arts Realm: Unranked. Sacrificial Artifact: Sacrificial Cauldron Tempering Method: Kui Ox Fist (low grade) Witch Dao: Blazing Flame Tribe Witch Doctor Method (inferior), witchcraft (none) Cultivation Method: None Martial Divine Power: None Lifespan: None
Seeing the changes in the information, Shen Can understood that witch doctors could also be derived.
In fact, witch medicine was only one branch of Witch Dao cultivation.
Over the next half month, Shen Can took over all the cleaning of the ancestral temple, while Huo Xian devoted his thoughts to organizing the witch doctor arts he had accumulated over many years of practice.
Every day, Shen Can cleaned the ancestral temple, studied witchcraft, and practiced his fists.
The heavy rain fell without end. The hunting team had brought back no fresh sacrifices, but he would not simply sit around waiting. The tempering efficiency of the low-grade Kui Ox Fist had already improved noticeably, and he had all the beast meat he could eat every day.
He could clearly feel his strength increasing day by day.
Inside the West Ear Cave, there was now a Black Yuan Stone one and a half meters tall. He wanted to test when he would be able to smash it apart.
"A-Can, eat."
Huo Xian handed Shen Can a jar piled high with beast meat, twice the amount of a few days earlier.
"If that's not enough, there's more. Eat as much as you can."
Shen Can swept through the beast meat like a whirlwind through fallen clouds, then began practicing the Kui Ox Fist inside the ear cave. Heat coursed through his body, surging through his sinews, bones, flesh, and blood.
"Hoo!"
When the fist routine ended, he let out a long breath and walked toward the cave entrance.
He had heard arguing while practicing the Kui Ox Fist. It seemed something had happened outside.
Dense vapor rushed into the cave entrance. Shen Can's mood soured. "Damned rain."
At the foot of the mountain, roaring floodwaters raced eastward, waves smashing against the mountain rocks with endless rumbling.
There was no prey. It was truly delaying his sacrifices to the ancestors.
Through the hazy mist, he saw more than ten figures standing beyond the floodwaters. The leader was Huo Tang, the Lord of the Tribe, while the rest were all Second Tier Mountain Opening Realm martial artists of the tribe.
They seemed to be salvaging something.
After the torrential rain had fallen for so long, the Blazing Flame Tribe had suffered heavy losses. Not only had the tribal buildings at the foot of the mountain and the small cultivated fields been washed away, but more than a hundred tribesmen had also been lost.
Most of those lost tribesmen had fallen into the floodwaters and vanished while salvaging supplies.
Shen Can being fished out by his fellow tribesmen had truly been a stroke of luck.
Risking mountain floods to salvage supplies was also something they had no choice but to do. No one knew how long the flood would last, and for the sake of survival, they could only stockpile as many supplies as possible.
But by now, everything in the mountains that could be washed away had already been swept off, even the rotting bones of desolate beasts. The supplies that appeared were becoming fewer and fewer.
What had happened?
"Look, another one has surfaced!"
A sharp-eyed tribesman pointed below and shouted.
By the floodwater's edge.
Huo Tang stood on high ground, his gaze constantly sweeping over the surroundings, extremely vigilant.
The scattered tribesmen around him each held a large hooked spear tied to a rope, watching the floodwaters churn with foaming waves.
One of them hooked a giant tree with his hooked spear and violently dragged it ashore.
There was a hollow in the middle of the giant tree, its ends wrapped in vines. Embedded within the hollow was a person who had long since become unrecognizable, swollen by the water.
"Chief, this is the third one."
After carefully examining it, Huo Shan spoke. "There is still no identifying proof. We cannot tell which tribe he came from."
Amid the roaring floodwaters, they had hollowed logs into boats, and it was not just one person. There was only one possibility: something had happened to these people's tribe.
They had fled for their lives in panic. Only a disaster befalling the entire tribe could lead to that.
After looking it over, Huo Tang ordered, "Continue salvaging. See if there are any more being swept down."
Every tribe had long established measures for dealing with floods: choose sturdy, lofty mountains as places to live. The heavy rain had already lasted more than eighty days.
For them to be washed out by the flood only now meant that the afflicted tribe had not been scattered by the flood from the very beginning, but for some other reason.
Most likely, it was a desolate beast.
A desolate beast that did not fear the raging floodwaters and could wipe out another tribe could also destroy his Blazing Flame Tribe.
Over the next few days, the tribe gradually fished out another four mangled corpses. All had hollowed logs into boats, trying to gamble against the heaven-reaching floodwaters.
Another tribe's disaster also caused the atmosphere within the Blazing Flame Tribe to become somewhat heavy.
Everyone understood that if the crisis capable of destroying another tribe came to Blazing Flame, then those wading through the water to flee might be them.
"Woof..."
Half a day later, huge waves churned, and a roar like a dog's bark rang out in the distance, startling everyone.
Even Shen Can, who had been practicing fists before his ancestors in the ancestral temple, stopped.
Fortunately, it was a false alarm.
It was a Second Tier Great Wilderness Variant fish monster, not some high-tier desolate beast.
Before you continue