Years of Change

His consciousness continued to expand, "seeing" that the village was currently inhabited by over a hundred people, mostly elderly and women, along with a few toddlers who had just learned to walk.

These elders and women were either processing prey at home, coating the butchered meat with an unknown sap, appearing to be curing the meat.

Some were gathered in the largest wooden house at the center of the village, sorting through what looked like red, rice-like grain crops.

Under a shaded grass shed outside the house, several middle-aged men with missing limbs were working together to polish and assemble weapons like spears and axes.

On the wooden workbench lay many animal fangs and sharp claws that looked incredibly keen; these men were using them to assemble their weapons.

His consciousness continued to spread outward, past the protective wooden fence built around the village, into a forest near the mountain range.

Several middle-aged men were carrying weapons, leading a group of youths to teach them how to hunt.

In another direction from the village, there was a massive lake.

By the lakeside, over a dozen strong, sturdy youths were also leading a group of youths in setting up hunting traps along the shore.

Not far from the bank was a water pool filled with large fish that had been caught, with a few smaller children guarding the side of the pool.

Qi Tian's consciousness continued to expand, and he discovered that after his sleep, the strength of his consciousness had greatly increased, allowing him to probe a range far exceeding what it was before.

Five miles, ten miles, twenty miles, fifty miles...

By the time Qi Tian felt he had reached his limit, he estimated the distance and realized his consciousness could cover a radius of just over a hundred kilometers, an increase of several dozen times compared to before.

Under the probe of his consciousness, he discovered that the lake also had a diameter of a hundred kilometers, falling exactly within the range his consciousness could cover.

The lake was teeming with countless fish, shrimp, and other creatures; deep beneath the surface, he even "saw" fish and snakes nearly twenty meters in length.

"Such huge fish, and those snakes covered in metallic-looking scales—what kind of world is this?"

Qi Tian looked at the two giants in the lake, along with the many shrimp, octopuses, and other creatures reaching several meters in size, realizing that the animals in this world had evolved quite impressively.

"Huh, it's that person who was being chased by the wild boar earlier."

Suddenly, within the range of his consciousness, he discovered the man he had saved earlier deep within a mountain range, accompanied by two other men as sturdy as bulls.

The three of them were currently working together to fight over a hundred silver wolves with snow-white fur. The battle was intense; trees within a two-kilometer radius were destroyed, soil was churned up, and a large area was stained with blood.

Two of them were dealing with the common silver wolves, which were about the same size as the wild boar from before.

These beasts, roughly the size of water buffalo, dared not face the two men head-on, relying instead on their speed and coordination to inflict injuries from time to time.

The two incredibly sturdy men were formidable; one held brass knuckles made from a bull's skull, and with the aid of his immense strength, every time the hard skull hit a silver wolf, the sound of bones shattering would ring out instantly. Whenever he found an opening, he would take down a beast with almost every punch.

The other man held a section of animal tibia in one hand, with several sharp claws neatly fixed to the top using treated tendons. As he swung it, the silver wolves grazed by the tibia claws would be left with massive, bleeding gashes.

The strongest was the man Qi Tian had saved earlier. He carried no weapons, or perhaps his had been destroyed, for he was facing a Silver Wolf King with a shoulder height of nearly three meters.

The battlefield between the man and the wolf was over a thousand meters away from the pack. Both were as fast as lightning, fighting fiercely as they moved; along the way, not just trees, but even hard boulders were shattered by the shockwaves of their battle.

"How long have I been asleep? This guy has actually become this strong—he can shatter two-meter-thick stone with a single punch."

Qi Tian's conscious perspective followed the battle between the man and the wolf. After about half an hour, the man, at the cost of dozens of claw wounds on his body, seized an opportunity to pin the Silver Wolf King to the ground and beat it to death with his fists.

He then dragged the corpse of the Silver Wolf King with one hand to the battlefield where the pack and his two clansmen were fighting. Those common silver wolves had already had dozens of their number killed by the two equally powerful hunting warriors.

Now that the corpse of the Silver Wolf King appeared, the remaining common silver wolves lost their leader and, terrified by the terrifying strength of the three men, eventually scattered and fled.

In this great battle, the three strongest hunting warriors of the tribal village had directly killed over fifty common silver wolves and one Silver Wolf King—truly ferocious.

"Incredible. What kind of high-martial world is this? Primitive people from a tribe can actually beat two-to-three-meter-tall giant wolves to death with their bare hands."

Just as Qi Tian was wondering if there were even more powerful civilizations existing outside the area he could currently probe, a frail-looking child in the nearby village crossed the small wooden bridge over the river and walked toward him.

The child looked to be about five or six years old, wearing a piece of animal skin around his waist. Compared to the other children Qi Tian had seen, he was significantly thinner, and he even walked with a slight stagger.

He held a peach about the size of his own head. Walking up to the giant stone that Qi Tian had manifested as, he carefully placed the peach in front of him, then knelt on both knees and bowed.

"Giant Stone God, please bless Little Stone so I can be as healthy as the other children, and when I grow up, I can become a hunting warrior like my father."

Qi Tian examined the child's body with his consciousness and found that his heartbeat was not as vigorous as the others; it felt even weaker than that of the elderly in the village.

"It's probably some kind of congenital heart disease. I don't know medicine, so I can't help this little guy."

While Qi Tian was examining the child's condition, a woman in the village saw the child there, hurried over, knelt on the ground, and picked him up.

The woman looked to be around thirty years old. As she held the child, her eyes filled with pity, and they turned red involuntarily.

Seeing his mother's eyes redden, the child quickly wrapped his arms around her neck and patted her back gently.

"Don't cry, Mother. Little Stone is fine. I prayed to the Giant Stone God, and the Giant Stone God will bless Little Stone to grow up healthy."

Hearing the child's comfort, the woman could no longer hold back her tears. "You're a good boy, Little Stone. The Giant Stone God will surely bless you."

The woman then turned and bowed to Qi Tian, saying, "Giant Stone God, please bless my Little Stone to grow up healthy, and bless my husband, Jin Shi, to be safe while out hunting."

Qi Tian watched as the woman finished her prayer, stood up, and carried the child back to the village on the other side of the river.

"'Giant Stone God,' is it? It seems that because I saved that man being chased by the wild boar earlier, the people of this village have taken me as their guardian deity."