Worth the Journey

"Zhou Chongshan..."

Murmuring his new name to himself, Dashan's face broke into a brilliant smile.

"Thank you, Chief! From now on, my name is Zhou Chongshan!"

In this primitive era, people were basically named after mountains, rivers, birds, and beasts. Against that backdrop, anyone could sense how extraordinary this name was.

For a moment, the tribe members who had come along all looked at Dashan with undisguisable envy.

"All right, let's go inside and take a look."

"Yes!"

Having just received his new name, Zhou Chongshan was in high spirits and immediately became Zhou Xu's vanguard, clearing the way ahead.

Their tribe was settled on a plain.

After walking a few steps, Zhou Xu's keen eyesight quickly brought the other tribe's camp into view.

Its scale was about the same as theirs. Both tribes were merely small tribes of limited size.

In fact, in this era, food shortages kept most tribes from growing very large.

To expand further, they had to obtain more food, and food that was more stable and reliable.

To accomplish that, they had to usher in the Agricultural Era!

Of course, they still had many problems to overcome. Zhou Xu had indeed added farming to his plans, but before he could formally put it into practice, there were still plenty of obstacles to overcome.

For example, what should they plant?

They had to remember that they did not currently possess seeds for any food crops.

In other words, they could not plant a thing.

Advancing straight in, Zhou Xu and his group soon formally arrived at the tribe's camp.

At the same time, the system's notification rang out in Zhou Xu's mind...

System Notification: Congratulations, "Zhou Xu," on occupying Black Moon Camp.

System Notification:

The system notification's appearance did not surprise Zhou Xu. Most of his attention was focused on observing this tribe.

As a primitive tribe that had once possessed a transmigrator, having mastered the technique of making fire by hand was only basic.

At the same time, Zhou Xu could see that, as expected, they also possessed some basic stone tools.

It made sense. Their massive door-like shields should have been made on the foundation of stone-tool technology.

However, Zhou Xu had little interest in these things. What concerned him most now was...

"Da Shi, where's the nearest water source? How do you solve the food problem?"

In this era, tribe camps had to be built near a water source. Without a stable supply of fresh water, they could not survive at all. The same applied to food.

At that moment, faced with Zhou Xu's question, Da Shi did not waste words and simply led him outside the camp.

"There's a lake not far from our camp. Its water is drinkable. As for food, we mainly rely on fishing to get by. Besides that, we also hunt."

Hearing the words "fishing" from Da Shi, Zhou Xu was not surprised in the slightest.

After all, the former chief's identity as a transmigrator was right there. Compared to the grassland animals, whose whereabouts were unpredictable and which were not so easy to catch, the fish in the lake were obviously far more convenient for them to make use of.

As they spoke, a lake in the distance had already appeared before his eyes.

At a glance, the lake was about the same size as the saltwater lake near their camp.

Two extremely crude-looking wooden rafts were moored by the lakeshore. Several wooden racks had been erected on the bank, and a large net was drying on one of them.

Walking up to the large net, Zhou Xu rubbed the netting cord between his fingers, feeling its texture.

Seeing this, Da Shi was just about to explain when Zhou Xu cut him off.

"You ride those rafts out onto the lake, paddle across it, and then use this fishing net to catch the fish. The net is woven from grass rope. I know all that, so you don't need to explain it to me."

Ignoring Da Shi, who was already staring in stunned silence, Zhou Xu continued speaking on his own.

"This fishing net of yours is made far too poorly. Both the weaving and knotting methods are flawed, and every opening is loose and floppy. You're probably lucky that the fish in this lake are big enough. Otherwise, with this net, you'd only be catching air."

At that, Zhou Xu turned to look at Da Shi, whose face had taken on an awkward expression.

"I'll make you a better one later."

"..."

At that moment, Da Shi fully realized that these astonishing objects to them were utterly ordinary in the eyes of their new chief—in fact, they were even somewhat shoddy...

All in all, Zhou Xu was in quite a good mood.

With a freshwater lake, they had solved their freshwater problem completely. Thanks to the lake's fish resources, part of their food problem had been solved as well. Just for the sake of this lake alone, his journey had not been in vain.

"Come on. Take me to that altar."

He left five people stationed at Black Moon Camp. Then he called Zhou Chongshan over, had Da Shi lead the way, and hurried toward the altar with the sun not yet set.

The altar was still some distance from Black Moon Camp. After arriving and looking at the heap of ruins, Zhou Xu said nothing and directly activated Eye of Insight.

After carefully examining it, Zhou Xu found nothing. Clearly unwilling to accept that, he went over, brushed aside some of the rubble, and peered inside a few more times.

However, the result was no different from before.

Judging by the situation, he had most likely made the trip for nothing. Zhou Xu could not help sighing inwardly.

"By the way, Da Shi, you said he found the True Words on the grassland. Exactly where was it? Is it close to here?"

Although Da Shi had not known what their new chief had been doing since earlier, he still answered the question promptly and enthusiastically.

"Not far. It's right around here."

"Lead the way."

Following Da Shi's directions, it truly was not far. Zhou Xu estimated that they had walked less than a kilometer before they quickly reached the grassland Da Shi had mentioned.

"It was here! Right, it was definitely here! I remember this rock!"

Da Shi ran over to a fairly large rock. After looking around from every angle, he became completely certain.

"At the time, a skeleton was leaning against this rock. The former chief discovered the True Words from that skeleton."

From Da Shi's simple description, Zhou Xu gained a rough understanding of what had happened.

That skeleton should have been the original owner of the True Words.

"Where's the skeleton?"

"At the time, the former chief used the power of the True Words to make that skeleton move. There are many skeletons on this grassland, and he found most of the skeletons he used here. That one was among them too, but I don't know which one it was."

Listening to Da Shi, Zhou Xu was half-crouched before the rock, examining it as he gave a slight nod.

He patted the dust from the rock. Though it had suffered the erosion of time and wind and rain, he could still tell that it was definitely not a natural stone. It looked more like a section of a ruined wall!

Update delivered! Thanks to the reader "Hua-ge's Little World" for the reward!