Breakthrough to the Lumbering Realm

By the fire, everyone in Great Xia Camp was there, lying down or leaning against something.

A small number of children, too young and exhausted from the previous journey, had already fallen asleep.

Most, however, had their eyes open, staring toward the left side of the fire at a tall man wearing only a beast-hide skirt, his upper body bare.

Looking more closely, they were not staring at the man.

They were staring at the chunk of meat in his hand.

The meat was clearly fresh off the fire, still sizzling and giving off a rich aroma.

Almost without exception, every person still awake kept swallowing.

The man was naturally Xia Hong.

Having just entered a new environment, the others might need time to adapt, but he could not afford to. He had to raise his strength as quickly as possible and break through to the Lumbering Realm.

"Five jin at a time should be no problem!"

Frost Beast flesh and blood contained immense energy. Eating too much at once could literally make a person burst from overeating.

This was not Xia Hong's first time eating it, so he naturally understood. Based on his previous experience, five jin at a time should not be a problem for him.

As the meat entered his stomach, the first thing that came was a sense of fullness.

As that fullness continued to build, his blood gradually began to boil, and an intense burning sensation suddenly rose from his abdomen.

Then his forehead, shoulders, back, lower limbs, even the extremities of his body—the soles of his feet and the palms of his hands—began to pour with sweat.

The muscles in his arms gradually bulged, while veins rose across his forehead, the backs of his hands, his legs, and every part of his body.

Xia Hong's breathing grew heavy, carrying a scorching heat. To the people in the camp, the streams of air he exhaled were unusually clear.

Abruptly, Xia Hong moved.

He drew both fists back, then suddenly thrust forward from the waist, his straight punches like two cannonballs. Though there was nothing where they struck, the air trembled without end. If a person took those blows, the outcome was easy to imagine.

"Watch closely. This is Long Fist: rise like a gale, strike like lightning; the lead hand guides, the rear hand chases; the two hands switch, crushing in one breath. Once we have enough Frost Beast flesh and blood, everyone in camp, men and women alike, will train with me."

As Xia Hong punched, he explained the Ancestral Long Fist to the people of the camp.

Crystal Fruit could only keep them from starving. To cultivate, they needed Frost Beast flesh and blood.

It was easy to understand. Filling one's stomach at most kept the body functioning at its most basic level.

But to temper the body and improve its capabilities, one had to eat meat.

Cultivation in this world was simple and brutal: consume great quantities of Frost Beast flesh and blood, then vent the energy out and absorb it continuously. One's physical strength would keep increasing.

In truth, everyone in the camp wanted to cultivate.

But when survival itself was a problem, cultivation became an even more distant dream.

Even now, though Xia Ding was teaching them the Long Fist forms, they could only lie quietly on the ground and listen.

It was not that they did not want to get up. They were trying to move as little as possible and reduce their expenditure.

"Chuan, did Uncle Ding pass this Long Fist down to Hong?"

Watching Xia Hong still cut an imposing figure in the middle of the camp, Yuan Hong's eyes revealed a trace of envy as he turned to ask Xia Chuan beside him.

Xia Chuan's face was full of pride. In a low voice, he said, "My brother created it himself a month ago. Let me tell you, practicing this Long Fist makes you absorb Frost Beast flesh and blood energy faster."

At those words, Yuan Hong's pupils suddenly contracted.

He had eaten Frost Beast flesh and blood too, so he knew exactly what those words meant.

Absorbing the energy of Frost Beast flesh and blood increased one's strength, and that process was cultivation. Increasing the speed of energy absorption meant increasing the speed of cultivation.

"Really?"

"Of course it's real. My brother taught me, and I tested it myself."

"Good. Then once we have Frost Beast flesh and blood, I'll practice too."

"Don't worry. Didn't you hear him? My brother just said that once we no longer lack flesh and blood, he'll teach us."

Over the following days, Xia Hong steadfastly ate five jin a day, following the limits of his body, and his strength indeed grew steadily.

Before the camp was attacked, his base strength had already been four thousand jin. Over the five days since then, he had gained almost one hundred jin of strength every day.

Great Xia Camp measured strength with a set of brown, round wooden stakes.

There were twelve wooden stakes in total: five weighing one hundred jin, two weighing five hundred jin, and five weighing one thousand jin.

Whenever Xia Hong measured his strength, everyone in the camp watched.

From 4,100 jin on the first day to 4,900 jin on the seventh.

Everyone's spirits grew more and more lifted. As they looked at the cave entrance that had remained sealed, hope slowly began to rise in their eyes.

Back when Xia Ding and the Lumber Team members were still around, they could open the cave entrance at night to get some fresh air. Now that they had been sealed inside the cave day after day, year after year, they naturally felt even more stifled.

More importantly, there was not much Crystal Fruit left.

Even distributed at the minimum ration, there had only been a little over seven hundred jin to begin with.

One hundred and fifty-four people had consumed more than five hundred jin in seven days.

What remained would not even last three days.

Everyone could only place their hopes on Xia Hong.

So before nightfall on the eighth day, when Xia Hong walked up to the brown wooden stakes,

everyone's gaze gathered on him.

Xia Hong, who knew the camp's circumstances like the back of his hand, naturally understood how they felt.

He said nothing, merely stacking the five thousand-jin wooden stakes together.

He slowly squatted down and wrapped both arms around the lowest wooden stake.

He took a deep breath, then began to exert force.

Five thousand jin—an ordinary person would find it hard to imagine such weight.

But to the people of this world, five thousand jin was merely the foundation.

Being able to lift something weighing five thousand jin did not mean one could only exert five thousand jin of force.

Take Xia Ding. His base strength was over seven thousand jin.

But Xia Hong had observed that when Xia Ding swung his axe, his force was definitely above ten thousand jin.

The force one could exert varied with personal technique, physical condition, and even the situation, but base strength did not lie.

Why did one need a base strength of more than five thousand jin before going outside to fell trees? Xia Hong had asked Xia Ding that question long ago.

Xia Ding had not answered. He had only tossed Xia Hong a Stone Axe and told him to chop a tree.

A tree the Lumber Team had brought back from the outskirts of Redwood Ridge.

At the time, Xia Hong's base strength had been over two thousand jin. Yet when he brought the axe down, the web of his hand split open, and his elbow joint fractured outright.

Those trees had been felled outside by Xia Ding leading the Lumber Team, then brought back into the cave. They had also been left there for many days, and the crystalline layer on their bark had already melted away.

With a base strength of two thousand jin, he could not even break through the bark.

Xia Hong immediately realized that anything capable of surviving in such freezing conditions—whether human or tree—could not be judged by ordinary logic.

What was more, one only needed to glance at the towering forest around Redwood Ridge to know that compared to humans, these trees were actually living better.

"Five thousand jin is only the first step!"

Xia Hong shouted low, his eyes wide with fury. Both hands suddenly exerted upward force, the muscles throughout his body swelling as though his blood had begun to boil as well.

Before the hopeful eyes of everyone in the camp, the five thousand-jin wooden stakes slowly rose from the ground until Xia Hong held them above his head.

"Brother, you broke through."

"Chief, amazing!"

"Five thousand jin! Hahahaha, the chief is incredible."

"Hong, you've reached the Lumbering Realm."

Bang...

Xia Hong dropped the wooden stakes onto the ground with a thunderous crash. Turning to face everyone, a long-absent look of relief finally appeared on his face.

"Once night falls, I'll go out and look for Crystal Fruit!"