The Shanghuang Tribe is Also Developing (Seeking Follow-up Reads)

More than ten miles outside the Shanghuang Tribe.

In a lush jungle, Huo Tang poked his small head out.

He gazed into the distance at a massive mountain range, half of which had been flattened.

Compared to the Blazing Flame Tribe's Tribe Mountain, which was only four to five li, the entire Shanghuang Tribe lived on the mountain and was not greatly affected by the flood.

Thanks to the tribe's previous expeditions to scout the terrain, the southern direction towards the Huang Tribe was personally scouted by Huo Tang and his men. He found it relatively easy to reach the vicinity of the Shanghuang Tribe.

Unfortunately, he couldn't get any closer.

These independent small mountains outside the Shanghuang Tribe's Tribe Mountain all had established guard posts.

Huo Tang covered himself with branches, both on his head and body, and hid in the dense vegetation to observe. He planned to move closer after nightfall.

As the tribal chief, Huo Tang felt no discomfort running out to do this kind of sneaking around. He wouldn't trust anyone else to do it.

A year after the flood, the Blazing Flame Tribe had developed rapidly. But as he looked at the Shanghuang Tribe perched high above, his pride was suppressed.

The Ling Yu was too far away; the Shanghuang Tribe was the first hurdle before him.

Under the bright, clear sun, thick black smoke billowed into the sky above the Shanghuang Tribe's Tribe Mountain, as if something was burning.

He waited until nightfall, then quietly crept closer to the Shanghuang Tribe to observe.

Under the cover of night, torches like a long dragon patrolled around the Tribe Mountain.

Campfires were lit on the peaks of the nearby independent small mountains, where the guard posts were located.

The place that had emitted thick smoke during the day was now ablaze, the flames soaring and forming a continuous sheet.

Even at night, the tribe was busy.

Huo Tang observed carefully for a long time and determined that the Shanghuang Tribe was engaged in smelting and forging.

After observing for half an hour, Huo Tang quietly retreated.

He was afraid of being caught. The Shanghuang Tribe openly had three Heaven Vein Warriors, and he didn't know how many they had in secret.

Heaven Vein Warriors were also vulnerable to arrows. A volley of arrows would leave him riddled with holes if he couldn't dodge in time.

Legend had it that the Shanghuang Tribe's incomplete martial arts cultivation technique could be cultivated to the ninth level of the Celestial Meridian Realm.

However, when compared to the cultivation of the Celestial Meridian Realm described by Wu Zhiqi, it was clear that the Shanghuang Tribe's martial arts technique was greatly exaggerated.

If it could truly be cultivated to the ninth level of the Celestial Meridian Realm, the Shanghuang Tribe wouldn't have such limited strength.

Of course, despite the exaggeration, Huo Tang believed that the Shanghuang Tribe definitely had some Heaven Vein Warriors hidden away.

Afterward, he quietly hid nearby and watched for a few days. He discovered that the Shanghuang Tribe's forging had not stopped during this time.

The Shanghuang Tribe had mines, but they wouldn't be forging day and night without reason.

Something was happening.

After some thought, Huo Tang headed towards the Shanghuang Tribe's mining area.

He couldn't infiltrate the Shanghuang Tribe's settlement, but perhaps he could pose as a mine slave in the mining area.

Black Mountain Mine.

The Shanghuang Tribe had been mining here for over two hundred years.

The entire area was a network of mine shafts and open-pit mines, with piles of broken rock everywhere.

Two emaciated figures in tattered clothes carried a lifeless person to a large pit and threw him in.

Then, they returned with numb expressions.

On a stone platform not far away, a Shanghuang Tribe warrior, carrying a wooden bow on his back and a ring-hilted saber in his hand, watched the scene coldly.

In the open-pit mine, there was still some murky black water at the bottom. Figures continuously climbed out of the pit, either dragging large vine baskets or wooden buckets.

The black water was dumped outside, and the ore in the baskets was uniformly piled in one place.

Some people sorted through the broken rocks, extracting the ore.

The ore content in the extracted broken rocks was not high; only those that were blackish and reddish had value for forging.

Huo Tang observed for two days and found that five mine slaves had died from exhaustion, and many others had suffered whipping. It seemed unlikely they would survive for long.

In the nearby mine pits, there were scattered charred bones everywhere.

There were no less than two thousand mine slaves in the entire mining area, and about two hundred Shanghuang Tribe members were guarding it.

Under the cover of night, Huo Tang, covered in black, crept to the outside of the largest stone building in the mining area.

He remained still, wanting to hear the sounds from inside. Even a single sentence about the Shanghuang Tribe would be worth it.

For several consecutive days, he operated in this manner, hiding during the day and moving at night. His body was smeared like a carbon ball, and he squatted among the rocks like a large black stone.

"It's still too slow. The tribe is urging me again. At this rate, I won't be able to gather enough ore to smelt ten thousand jun of pig iron."

Inside the building, Huang Mao sat at the top, with ten people below him.

"Old Clan Uncle."

At this moment, Huang Chen, who was sitting to the left and below, was reprimanded as soon as he opened his mouth.

"Address me as Mine Overseer at the mine!"

"Yes, Mine Overseer."

Huang Chen flinched. "You know as well as I do, with the abundant underground water now, for every basket of ore we dig out, we have to bring up several buckets of water. Our mine has low iron content, so we can only select ore that is blackish or reddish. How much can these mine slaves dig even if they don't eat or sleep every day?"

"Exactly, Old Mine Overseer. Unless the tribe captures a new batch of mine slaves, these current ones are already close to being ruined."

"If this continues, the number of mine slaves will drastically decrease, and production will drop even further."

"Everyone, be quiet."

Huo Tang reprimanded everyone present. "After the flood, I captured nearly three thousand mine slaves for you, and now we're barely at two thousand. With the plague, where are there any more mine slaves to capture nearby?"

"Mine Overseer, the water in the mine shafts can't be drained completely. These people are soaked in water all day, so it's no wonder their bodies aren't well. It's not like we're being deliberately cruel."

"Why is the tribe in such a hurry to gather ten thousand jun of pig iron before the annual festival? They could relax the timeline and wait until next year…"

"Shut up! The Chieftain's arrangements have their reasons!"

Huo Tang snapped. "The tribe needs to gather ten thousand jun of pig iron. This is a major matter concerning the tribe's bartering, and the mine must guarantee the supply of ore."

Silence fell within the room.

"Are you all deaf? Speak up. If you can't think of a solution, you can stay here and rack your brains until you do."

"What solution can we possibly have? The iron ore content is so low. Even if all of us went to dig, he wouldn't be able to dig it out before the annual festival."

"Old Clan Uncle, we definitely can't complete this with our current resources. Why don't we ask the tribe to capture more mine slaves?"

Huo Tang rubbed his forehead. "After the plague, we've cleared out all the small tribes in the surrounding areas. All the captured women have been incorporated into the tribe and are now busy chopping firewood. You should know how much firewood is consumed in smelting pig iron. All the strong young men are at the mine, so where else would we find people to capture as mine slaves?"

Huang Chen spoke up. "Of course, we should go further south to capture them. Are we supposed to go to the dead lands in the north?"

The plague had emerged from the northern Giant Peak Mountain Range. Previously, not many tribes had ventured north, and they hadn't captured many mine slaves. Instead, they encountered several groups of Plague Worms, and even some of the tribe's warriors became infected. Under such circumstances, it was unlikely that many people from the tribe would venture north.

"You go capture them then," Huo Tang glared. "The tribe is short-handed. Most warriors are needed to escort trade routes; otherwise, the journey is too dangerous."

"Old Clan Uncle, you're not giving us people, nor are you giving us a solution. We can't dig out any ore."

"Get out, all of you! Tomorrow, you'll all dig with me. If that's not enough, I'll even dig myself."

Under Huo Tang's angry reprimand, the people in the room scattered like the wind, disappearing in the blink of an eye.

After sitting stunned for a while, Huo Tang quickly left the mining area and headed back towards the direction of the tribe.

Once the people had gone, Huo Tang quietly approached another room. This room was the residence of the supervisors.

"Old Clan Uncle is just anxious. It's impossible for us to increase the ore extraction rate by more than ten times in such a short period. We truly have no solution; the tribe's arrangements are too rushed."

"There's nothing we can do about it. Our tribe only has crude iron to show for itself."

"Ten thousand jun of pig iron… what is the tribe planning to exchange for at the Copper Shell Market? Do you know?"

"Huang Yun, you tell us. I remember you went to the Ancestral Temple after the flood. The tribe collected so many fragments of Iron Wood Boats; did you discover any secrets?"

"That's right. At first, we were searching everywhere for Iron Wood Boat wreckage, but later we stopped looking for them and increased our mining efforts."

Huang Yun was a young man with a slightly gaunt frame.

"How would I know? The Temple Guardian only let me look at the patterns on those Iron Wood Boats. I don't understand any of it."

"However, Ah Fu's young son is fortunate. He was taken in as a disciple by the Temple Guardian. Perhaps he truly figured something out from those patterns."

"The tribe's urgency in smelting ten thousand jun of pig iron might actually be related to the Iron Wood Boats."

In the pile of rubble outside the room, Huo Tang wished he could rush in and grab everyone, then force them to spill everything they knew. But as he thought it, he remained still like a stone in the pile, muttering to himself.

"Keep talking, say more. I love to hear it."