17. The Meat-toothed Beasts' Trump Card

17. The Meat-toothed Beasts' Trump Card

After hearing Yuan Chen's story, Mordas froze. Though his face was that of a lion-like beast, Yuan Chen could clearly sense his indescribable conflicted feelings.

It was as if... as if he'd suddenly realized that the words he'd nearly blurted out would have been pretty insulting.

Compared to Mordas, who had clearly read a few books, the other hunters of the Carnivore Beast Tribe were much more straightforward. The first Meat-toothed Beast Yuan Chen had provoked couldn't help saying, "Is he an idiot or something? Everyone's already like this, and he's still going on about harmony? Is this what human civilization is like? Seems like we're better off than they are..."

"Watch your words!" Mordas scolded the young hunter. "Yuan Chen is our guest!"

Despite saying that, the expression on Mordas's face made it obvious that he'd had the same thought himself. He'd just been trying not to accidentally insult Yuan Chen...

Even so, after hearing Yuan Chen's story, the Meat-toothed Beasts' reservations toward him had faded considerably. Similar experiences always helped people understand each other more quickly.

Yuan Chen took the past in stride. He waved a hand and said, "Nakrol wasn't wrong. I also think those old bastards in the Eternal Hall are a bunch of idiots."

"Ha! See?"

The Meat-toothed Beast hunter named Nakrol looked smugly at Mordas, displaying the unique beauty of a lack of education. Mordas felt deeply embarrassed.

Shaking his head, Mordas suddenly looked at Yuan Chen strangely, as if he'd just remembered something.

"What?" Yuan Chen glanced at Mordas, who looked astonished.

Mordas said, "Well... Nakrol was the first to attack you, and you knocked him out with a Water Cannon."

"I know. So?"

"He only woke up not long ago. How did you know his name?" As far as Mordas could remember, Nakrol hadn't spoken much with Yuan Chen. He hadn't even joined in the earlier free-for-all...

"I told you, I'm a prophet." Yuan Chen shrugged. "I only see fragments of the future and the past, but when I look at you, it's easy to learn your names, abilities, preferences, strengths, and things like that."

The League of Legends universe had been slacking off for more than a decade since the game came out, yet its lore was still stuck at the beginning. That meant Yuan Chen couldn't truly put his foresight to use. But the system's Scout Skill was already enough to let him pass himself off as a second-rate prophet.

And that was without even mentioning how he could directly see other people's names and abilities. Back in his old world, Yuan Chen could've made a fortune setting up a stall in the park—

If people could be fooled into paying money just by having their surnames guessed, then with his ability to see people's strengths and traits, he'd have made a successful motivational speaker, a modern-day Confucius, a twenty-first-century sage.

But according to the conventions of urban novels, someone was bound to call his bluff. Like now—

"Then what about me? What's my name?"

The burly Meat-toothed Beast who'd first wrestled with Yuan Chen laughed heartily. "If you can tell me, I, Naduo, will be the first to acknowledge you!"

"..."

At that, both Yuan Chen and Mordas fell silent.

Yuan Chen was all right, but Mordas covered his face, feeling so proud and yet so mortified that his toes were practically curling into the ground. He felt as if his earlier claim to Yuan Chen that the Meat-toothed Beasts had their own civilization had been total nonsense...

They weren't civilized at all.

And in urban novels from 2023, a passerby like this usually wouldn't be around to let you show him up... No, it was more like he was using his face to slap your hand.

After a long pause, Yuan Chen patted Mordas on the shoulder. "Maybe we should start the reforms with education... I know some good scholars in Ionia."

"Thank you..."

Mordas's lion-like face wore a distinctly human expression of worry.

Naduo had announced his own name, but that hardly mattered. Yuan Chen cast a Scout Skill on him. Naduo felt a jolt of surprise and a chill run down his spine, as if Yuan Chen had seen right through his underwear.

Then Yuan Chen calmly said, "You're good at hunting in the desert, and you like to lie in wait. You're skilled at fighting with a hunting axe. Hey, your level's pretty good. You must've practiced in secret a lot, huh?"

Hearing Yuan Chen, Mordas shook his head with a smile. "Then you're mistaken. Naduo's best with a hunting dagger. His father taught him himself..."

Mordas's voice trailed off as he noticed the look of astonishment on Naduo's face. After a moment's silence, Mordas raised an eyebrow. "You..."

Naduo nodded. He wasn't much of a schemer, and answered frankly, "I do like the hunting axe better... but my dad says the hunting dagger is the weapon best suited to Meat-toothed Beasts, so he's always made me learn how to use one.

"You know how old folks are. They don't care what you want to learn. They just force you to learn whatever they think you should."

"Then why do you... when you hunt?"

"I always use the hunting axe when I hunt alone." Naduo scratched his head. "How do I put it... It just feels more natural. The axe is easier to handle than the dagger, and it packs more punch!"

As he spoke, Naduo swung the dagger in his hand a couple of times and said helplessly, "But there's nothing I can do... the family tradition is hunting daggers. My dad doesn't even know I use a hunting axe."

After hearing Naduo's story, Mordas looked at Yuan Chen with even greater astonishment.

Yuan Chen simply raised his eyebrows, relaxed.

That was because Naduo's traits listed "Hand Axe Mastery."

This trait wasn't as abnormal as Nedeli's monstrous Wilderness Blessing, nor did it represent an extremely unusual ability like Milio's Warm Flame. But it still proved that Naduo had above-average talent in a particular area.

After hearing Naduo's secret, the other Meat-toothed Beasts grew interested too. They began asking about their own talents and other details. Yuan Chen took his time, telling them their abilities and some of the fighting styles they were good at.

But there weren't many Meat-toothed Beasts with traits like Naduo's. Of the team's thirty-odd members, only three had traits.

One was Naduo's Hand Axe Mastery, and another was throwing mastery, belonging to someone named Sarusa. Both were low-level traits, no better than common in a game. Mordas, on the other hand, had a pretty good trait, rated Excellent: "Aura Concealment."

It made him harder to detect while sneaking, and increased the damage of his first attack after breaking stealth.

So far, it was the first Excellent-grade trait Yuan Chen had encountered.

Before this, aside from a handful of common traits, the only ones he'd seen were the three Epic-grade traits: his own Demon's Blessing, Nedeli's Wilderness Blessing, and Milio's Warm Flame.

Well, there were a few other Epic-grade, even Legendary-grade, traits in Ionia. But before, Yuan Chen had been focused on his own training and getting stronger, and hadn't paid much attention to anyone else...

He hadn't thought much of it before, but now that he did, he figured he should help awaken as many traits as possible. After all, some traits would gradually disappear if they were never awakened—a real-life case of Shang Zhongyong.

After eating and drinking for a while, the other Meat-toothed Beasts gradually returned to their tents in pairs and threes to rest. Yuan Chen and Mordas, however, stayed behind.

On the contrary, they both knew the real conversation had only just begun.

Mordas wiped his mouth with a leather handkerchief, then looked at Yuan Chen. "You want to hunt a dragon too? Why? Do you have some particular reason?"

"Yeah. Being a Dragon Slayer will make things easier for me in the future." Yuan Chen didn't deny it. He nodded and spoke frankly. "I've seen a future filled with danger... Back when I was in Ionia, I thought that as long as I survived, that was enough. The rest of the world didn't matter to me. But some things happened, and my thinking changed..."

"What do you mean?"

"The times are changing," Yuan Chen said calmly.

"Runeterra has been peaceful for too long... The Shuriman Empire is about to rise again, and Noxian wars will change countless lives. Piltover's technology is constantly advancing, and Zaun's alchemical factories have new owners."

"By comparison, Ionia hasn't changed at all for a thousand years. Do you know the story about boiling a frog alive?"

"What does that mean?" Mordas asked in confusion. There was no similar fable in this world.

Yuan Chen explained, "If you put a frog straight into boiling water, it'll jump right out. But if you put it in warm water at a comfortable temperature, it'll lie there obediently. By the time it realizes the water's too hot, it'll be too late."

"Ionia is like that...

"It's too peaceful, too comfortable. The people who live there have grown so used to it that they've forgotten what war means. They've forgotten that when the giants descended from the sky, the land's ancestors fought back alongside your ancestors, the Vastaya Shuray."

"Ionia is facing the same problem as your tribe: antiquated traditions. But Ionia's problem is far worse than yours... because no one realizes anything is wrong."

Yuan Chen furrowed his brow. "I came to Ixialia by accident after a shipwreck... At first, I felt lost, helpless, and afraid. I wanted to return to the land I knew and go on living as I had before. But then I realized this was the right place for me."

He looked at Mordas and spoke earnestly. "I couldn't change anything in Ionia. The people there reject all outside civilization. Their love of peace has mutated into cowardly, backward-minded stubbornness.

"No matter what, many people in Ionia will die. They'll keep dying until even the very nature of that land changes. I won't stop it, because that peace makes me uneasy."

"..." Mordas was silent at first. He didn't know much about Ionia, so he could only venture, "But at least the children can grow up in peace, can't they?"

"More people will die. The cost is just hidden. Ionia is paying a price for its traditions and peace that no one can see. Putting off hardship won't make it disappear. It'll only grow more powerful as it accumulates.

"Maybe it can be held back for now, but what happens when it can't? When that calamity breaks free of the earth, on a land where the spiritual and material realms are already indistinct and intertwined, no monster that emerges would be surprising."

"...So you want to unite more forces to fight the future you've seen?"

"Ionia's problems are only part of the problems facing Runeterra as a whole." Yuan Chen shook his head at Mordas's question. He relaxed again, or perhaps just went numb, and said indifferently, "The really good times are still ahead."

Take Ixialia's neighbor Icathia, for example. It's already given birth to a new Void. The True Ice sealing the Watchers in Freljord's Howling Abyss is melting.

The Aspects' shackles on the Dragon King are loosening. The Dark Descendants are howling with boundless hatred inside their weapons. The Black Mist of the Shadow Isles attacked Bilgewater not long ago...

Yuan Chen considered elaborating, but decided against it. He merely said, "Many crises can't be resisted by a single region or country... In the face of calamities that threaten all of Runeterra, divisions between countries and regions are pointless.

"Being a Dragon Slayer is just a small part of the plan that I came up with on the spur of the moment. You wouldn't understand the details even if I explained them... Let's just talk about how we can work together."

"...All right."

Mordas nodded.

He didn't think too much of Yuan Chen's rambling.

He'd met people like that before. There was a prophet named Malzahar in a remote Shuriman town who was just as cryptic. Not long ago, he'd said something about welcoming the arrival of a greater salvation, then ran headfirst into the desert and disappeared. It had left everyone completely baffled.

"What gives you the confidence to hunt a dragon?"

Yuan Chen asked, "As hunters, you should know what an Elemental Drake is capable of. Especially in a place as rich in elemental energy as Ixialia. The destructive power of an Elemental Drake is nothing like that of an ordinary beast."

Mordas looked at Yuan Chen. After a moment's silence, he quietly returned to his room and brought out a locked box.

Inside was a glass jar wrapped in animal hide.

The moment Mordas unwrapped the hide, a pale blue glow, like a flame, bathed the entire night sky. A crushing pressure came with it, impossible to describe.

Yuan Chen stared at it for a moment, then cast a Scout Skill. When he saw the item's details appear in his mind, even he couldn't help widening his eyes.

"Where did you get this thing?!"

"Mount Targon."

Could I ask for your support? Qidian has changed its rules, and new books now have to meet a follow-through readership requirement. If you have time, please check out the latest chapter instead of saving them up. Otherwise, the new-book period will be really tough for authors... eemm