Ritual (Thanks to Buqi Shixian for the Alliance Leader reward!)

The boy's voice was not quiet, and it came especially suddenly. The other passersby on the street all looked up in surprise toward Ian, then turned to look at the White Folk man standing frozen in place.

"Y-you..."

Curious, appraising, and thoughtful gazes converged on him. In mere seconds, Brin's pale face flushed with blood and rapidly turned red.

Caught off guard, he raised a trembling hand and pointed at the smiling Ian. Yet even at the very end, he could not force out anything after that "you"—the herbalist, thoroughly exposed, could only jog away. The pedestrians on the street began murmuring among themselves, clearly having seen through something as well.

"Who knows whether that's boldness or cowardice."

Watching the man disappear around the street corner, Ian shook his head, closed the window, and sighed. "The security in Harrison Port really is terrible. Should I set up some more traps at home? It's worth considering..."

He decided that once Hilliard returned that evening, he would tell his teacher what had happened.

When he had the time, he would also speak to Elder Pude and report Brin's actions.

Being after money was one thing, but there was a child at home. If the man still refused to give up and entered the house while both Ian and Hilliard were away, it would be bad if Elan were hurt by accident.

"But you can't guard against thieves for a thousand days."

Shaking his head, Ian turned around and continued cooking the porridge.

He extended the ladle and stirred the bottom of the pot, mixing the wheat grains that had settled there evenly back into the porridge.

At the same time, at the Redwood native tribe.

Great Shaman Animu Deep Mire extended a bone rod and stirred the bottom of a cauldron, mixing the medicinal dregs that had settled there evenly back into the brew.

At this moment.

He, too, was cooking porridge.

Redwood Forest Inner Marsh lay at the foot of Elephant Bone Mountain. It had originally been a coastal lake, but a great earthquake over four hundred years ago had drastically altered the geological structure. The converging great river changed its course, becoming the present Iwok River that encircled Harrison Port. The lake lost its source of water and dried up, yet under the year-round wind and rain of the tropical coast, it gradually became the shallow mud marsh it was today.

The ancestral land of the Redwood Tribe was at Elephant Bone Mountain. According to their records, they had once possessed the art of raising elephants, communicating with them, and laboring and fighting alongside them. But as the environment changed, the redwood elephant herds gradually died out. Over the course of centuries, that art was continuously lost and altered, eventually evolving into the Redwood Tribe's craft of training ordinary wild beasts into companion beasts and hunting partners.

Great Shaman Animu Deep Mire stood at the entrance to the shaman's great tent halfway up the mountain, unhurriedly stirring the pale violet medicinal sludge in the huge cauldron before him. On either side of the tent entrance, around sixteen totem poles, thirty-two small-framed but fierce-looking native hunters knelt respectfully on one knee, heads bowed, bows and short spears laid at their sides as they awaited the Great Shaman's summons.

Animu raised his head. A hazy white glow of mist spread across the far horizon of the Southern Sea, obscuring the distant scenery. Ordinary people would struggle to notice it, but it was the sign of a vast storm about to descend.

The air brewed with a savage, damp scent. In the swamp forest at the foot of Elephant Bone Mountain, gnarled woody roots, multicolored moss, vines, and shrubs, together with densely interlaced branches, seemed to join into a single whole. The many water snakes, toads, centipedes, mudfish, and living fungi dwelling within filled that whole with vitality.

The entire jungle was like a living creature. It breathed and whispered without cease, issuing warnings that only the Great Shaman could hear.

The totem poles trembled faintly.

—The spirits of mountain and tide were warning them. The spirit of the jungle was warning them too.

Animu Deep Mire closed his eyes and said evenly, "Blood."

The two hunters nearest the Great Shaman slowly rose. Their movements were light, as if they feared disturbing the revered spirits everywhere around them. They took earthenware jars engraved with ancient blue-green inscriptions from their robes, then carefully approached either side of the cauldron and presented the jars before the Great Shaman.

They did not raise their heads, nor did they dare to. These two hunters, respected and feared within the tribe, were covered from head to toe in blue-black tattoos and scars—the proof of glory and valor—yet before the Great Shaman, they were as meek as children.

Animu lifted the jars. He was already old; his nose had long since lost the ability to smell all worldly scents. Yet he could still smell that one jar was filled with fresh blood, pungent and rich, containing fragments of an adult man's enraged soul.

The blood in the other jar, however, smelled pure and innocent, as clean as mountain spring water, carrying a sweet fragrance like that of a young child still ignorant of the world.

—Not good enough, but it would do.

Animu took a deep breath, poured the two jars of blood into the cauldron, and began to stir.

The boiling, churning medicinal sludge absorbed the two different kinds of fresh blood. Hints of red surfaced within the faint violet, while invisible glimmers flickered and gathered, shaking the air and producing sounds like a man's despairing roar and a child's terrified sobbing.

That faint hum stirred a silent breeze, which circled the shaman's gaunt frame.

"Bone."

The first two hunters had already withdrawn. As Animu spoke again, two hunters from the second row also rose to their feet.

They held one large and one small wooden box, which they respectfully presented to the Great Shaman.

Inside the boxes were two skulls, one belonging to an adult human and the other to an infant under two years old.

"This is a little better."

After sweeping his gaze over the two completely clean skulls, stripped of every trace of flesh, Animu nodded slightly in approval. The two hunters immediately showed delight and slowly withdrew.

Animu said nothing more. The white-haired, brown-black-skinned old man reached out and grasped one skull.

His withered hand appeared powerless, and his breath was like a candle flame in the wind. Yet with a gentle squeeze of that hand, the entire skull turned into bone powder as fine and smooth as dust, drifting into the cauldron on a silent breeze.

The wind around the Great Shaman grew stronger still.

"Flesh."

At the summons, another two hunters rose and presented the offerings they had painstakingly gathered.

Blood, bone, flesh, sinew.

—The power of life.

Brain, eyes, tongue, skin.

—The senses of life.

Lungs, liver, kidneys, spleen.

—The endurance of life.

Intestines, stomach, gallbladder, heart.

—The vitality of life.

Beginning with blood and ending with the heart, sixteen of the most tender and sixteen of the strongest—the thirty-two portions richest in spiritual essence and power from thirty-two different lives—were the thirty-two offerings required for the Pure Sacrifice.

"What happened to Achetu?"

At last, when the two hunters presented the "child's heart" and the "warrior's heart," the Great Shaman suddenly asked, "Is he dead?"

"Y-yes, Great Shaman."

The two hunters being questioned froze for a moment, then said in great fear, "Shaman Achetu failed to infiltrate Harrison Port and was killed by the Empire's people... Viscount Grant has ignored the matter entirely."

"So we took his place and offered these most important..."

"Mm. I understand."

But Animu did not let them finish. He waved a hand, signaling for the two hunters to withdraw, then shook his head slightly. "So they noticed the signs as well. Achetu was too reckless."

Stirring the medicinal sludge in the cauldron, Great Shaman Animu Deep Mire stirred the essence of blood, flesh, and organs. He stirred the essence of life, his expression indifferent as he said, "But those Empire people must pay a price as well."

"The price of life."

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