What a Hellish Start!

The moment this thought flashed through his mind, a passage resembling a background story appeared in Zhou Xu's mind.

Their tribe was attacked by another tribe a week ago. After a brief engagement, they were defeated and fled here.

However, the former tribal chief unfortunately died in the previous raid. The surviving tribal members fled here and happened to discover an ancient, handed-down Altar. They then used the Altar to perform a Summoning ritual, Summoning him, the 'Chosen One,' to become the new chief and lead them forward.

The existence of the system gave him a sense of unreality, and this unreality, in turn, made Zhou Xu relax considerably.

As a modern university student who had just graduated, Zhou Xu had played plenty of games and read plenty of novels.

He wasn't unfamiliar with concepts like transmigration or systems.

At first, his mind was too chaotic, but now that he had calmed down, things had become clearer.

It was just that he truly never expected something like this to actually happen to him.

Although he had already died in his previous world, being able to transmigrate and still be alive was a good thing. However, facing this completely unfamiliar world, a sense of bewilderment inevitably arose in his heart.

Taking a deep breath and accepting reality, Zhou Xu knew he had to quickly pull himself together.

[In short, my first task right now should be to find a suitable place to set up camp and settle down.]

As Zhou Xu thought this, he scanned the primitive people kneeling below. A rough estimate suggested there were about twenty to thirty of them.

When he was playing games in his dorm, his favorite genres were war strategy and city-building/development games. He had played almost every one on the market.

The current situation bore a striking resemblance to some of those games.

As a modern university student who had just graduated, he had no survival experience in a primitive world, but by appropriately applying his game knowledge, he could at least grasp some ideas for action.

[If this were a game, the first step would be to secure the most basic survival resources in the vicinity, namely fresh water and food. With that as a premise, having wood and stone would facilitate later construction...]

However, he had already noticed that the surroundings were nothing but Desolate Land!

[Are they expecting me to eat dirt?]

Zhou Xu, who clearly needed more information, focused his gaze on the man in front of him.

"Do you have a name? What is it?"

To this, the man, full of fear, hastily replied...

"Dashan, Chief, you can call me Dashan."

[Judging by his speech, he's not quite like the primitive people I imagined, but this world doesn't seem like an ordinary primitive world either.]

"Dashan, did you guys just arrive here? Have you scouted the surrounding area?"

What he initially thought wouldn't be a difficult task had now become incredibly stressful for Zhou Xu due to the terrible surrounding environment.

Facing this question, Dashan immediately shook his head.

"Not yet. We were attacked by another tribe, and by the time we fled here and discovered this Altar, everyone was too exhausted to run any further."

As Dashan spoke, Zhou Xu could basically guess the rest.

At the same time, Dashan's words reminded him of the enemy tribe that had attacked them.

If the people from that enemy tribe were still pursuing them, wouldn't their lives be in constant peril?

[What a hellish start!]

At this moment, Zhou Xu couldn't help but inwardly curse before quickly asking the question that concerned him most.

"Are the people from that tribe still chasing you?"

Dashan heard this and shook his head again.

"Probably not. We've already escaped a considerable distance. It would be too risky for them to pursue further, and they wouldn't have enough food."

"Which direction did you come from?"

"This way."

After a quick assessment, Dashan pointed in a direction.

"Are you sure?"

"Certain!"

"Good. Gather everyone and follow me."

As he spoke, Zhou Xu led his tribal members in the opposite direction.

In this area, all he could see was Desolate Land; it clearly wasn't a good place to set up camp.

Given this, since they had to move anyway, why not put even more distance between themselves and the enemy tribe?

Zhou Xu could see the exhaustion of his tribal members, but upon receiving the order, they gritted their teeth and got up, following Zhou Xu without showing much dissatisfaction or complaint.

This situation reassured Zhou Xu even more.

Although these people had respected him as their chief and bowed to him before, whether he could actually command them was another matter entirely.

Especially when they were clearly too tired to walk any further.

Zhou Xu was undoubtedly satisfied with the outcome.

"I still need a few people to scout ahead. Who has the energy?"

Faced with this question, the tribe members looked at each other.

It wasn't that they didn't want to go, but they were already exhausted just following along. Where would they find the energy to run ahead and scout?

Seeing this, Dashan immediately stepped forward and suggested, "Chief, why don't I go?"

Just as Dashan said this, a hand emerged from the crowd.

"I'll go scout."

As he spoke, a dusty, lean man walked out from among the people.

"I still have strength, I'll go scout."

"What's your name?"

"Fei Que."

Meanwhile, Zhou Xu's gaze swept over the tribe members again. Seeing that no one else stepped forward, he finally focused his attention on Fei Que.

"Alright, Fei Que, I'll entrust this task to you. Don't go too far, prioritize your own safety. If you discover any situation, return immediately to report to me."

"Yes!"

With a single response, Fei Que didn't dawdle. He quickly trotted off, leaving the main group behind to scout ahead.

Dashan originally intended to follow but was called back by Zhou Xu.

"Dashan, stay here. I need to ask you some things."

"Yes."

After briefly sending one person ahead to scout, the main group began to move again.

Zhou Xu also made full use of the time during this movement to question Dashan.

"Do we still have food in the tribe?"

"Everyone should have a little left, but not much."

Facing Zhou Xu, the Chosen One, Dashan had no intention of hiding anything. He directly pulled out a few dirty-looking items from his person.

Zhou Xu glanced at them and could roughly tell they were some kind of plant roots, mixed with a few pieces of bark.

No wonder they all look like skin and bones, the food pressure is greater than I anticipated. But this is probably also related to the terrible surrounding environment.

Just as Zhou Xu was thinking this, Fei Que, who had been sent to scout ahead, trotted back.

"Woods, there are woods ahead!"

"Lead the way!"

Hearing this, Zhou Xu quickly perked up and urged Fei Que to lead.

It wasn't too far. After walking for about ten more minutes, a patch of woods came into Zhou Xu's view in the distance.

Normally, finding woods would be a good thing, but looking at this particular patch, Zhou Xu frowned directly.

The "woods" in the distance were completely different from the forests he remembered. The trees were bare, with hardly any leaves visible.

At the same time, the main bodies of the trees were a scorched black color, and they all looked strangely shaped. The entire patch of woods exuded an eerie atmosphere.

Under normal circumstances, Zhou Xu would never want to approach such woods, but looking around at the surrounding Desolate Land, his current situation didn't seem to leave him much choice...

Forget it, let's go take a look first.

"Everyone, stay alert and be careful."

With this mindset, after reminding everyone to be cautious, the group moved efficiently to the outskirts of this strange woods.