His consciousness continued to spread. He "saw" that over a hundred people currently lived in the village, most of them elderly people and women, along with a few toddlers who had just learned to walk.
The elderly people and women were either preparing their prey at home, rubbing some unknown liquid onto the sliced meat, apparently making jerky.
Others had gathered inside the largest wooden house in the center of the village, sorting what looked like red, rice-shaped crops.
Under a thatched sunshade outside, several middle-aged men with missing limbs were working together to sharpen and assemble weapons such as spears and axes.
There were also plenty of animal fangs and claws on the wooden table and chopping board. They looked incredibly sharp, and the men were using them to make weapons.
His consciousness continued to spread outward. Beyond the wooden palisade surrounding the village, in a forest near the mountains...
Several middle-aged men were carrying weapons and teaching a group of teenagers how to hunt.
In another direction from the village lay a vast lake.
By the lakeshore, more than a dozen strong young men were also teaching a group of teenagers to set up hunting traps.
Not far away on the bank was a pool, where many large fish they had caught were being kept. A few younger children were watching over it.
Qi Tian's consciousness continued to spread. He realized that after sleeping, the strength of his consciousness had increased dramatically, allowing him to explore a much greater area than before.
Five li, ten li, twenty li, fifty li...
When Qi Tian felt that he had reached his limit, he estimated the distance and realized that his consciousness could cover a radius of a little over a hundred kilometers—dozens of times farther than before.
As he surveyed the area, he discovered that the lake was a hundred kilometers across, just within the range his consciousness could cover.
The lake teemed with fish, shrimp, and other creatures. He even "saw" fish and snakes more than twenty meters long in its depths.
"Fish that big, and those snakes covered in metal-like scales... What kind of world is this?"
Qi Tian looked at the two enormous creatures in the lake, along with the countless shrimp and octopuses that were several meters long, and realized that the animals in this world had evolved to an incredible degree.
"Huh, that's the man who was chased by the wild boar before."
Suddenly, within the range of his consciousness, he spotted the man he had rescued earlier, deep in the mountains. Two other men, as burly as bulls, were with him.
The three of them were fighting more than a hundred silver wolves with snow-white fur. The battle was fierce; trees within a two-kilometer radius had been destroyed, the earth was flying, and blood stained the ground.
Two of them were dealing with the ordinary silver wolves, which were about the same size as the wild boar from before.
The beasts, each as big as a water buffalo, didn't dare confront the two men head-on. They could only rely on their speed and teamwork to wound them from time to time.
The two unbelievably burly men were formidable. One wore a pair of knuckle-dusters made from a bull's skull. Whenever his immense strength sent the hard skull crashing into a silver wolf, the sound of bones breaking rang out. If he caught one of them off guard, a single punch was enough to kill it.
The other man held a section of animal shinbone in one hand. Several sharp claws had been neatly secured to its upper end with treated sinew. When he swung it, the claws ripped several huge gashes into any silver wolf they struck, leaving it bleeding profusely.
The strongest was the man Qi Tian had rescued. He carried no weapon this time—or perhaps his weapon had been destroyed—because he was facing a Silver Wolf King nearly three meters tall at the shoulder.
Their battlefield lay more than a thousand meters from the pack. The man and wolf were both as fast as lightning, clashing as they raced along. Not only trees but even solid boulders were reduced to rubble by the force of their battle.
"How long was I asleep? That guy has gotten so strong he can shatter a two-meter-thick stone with one punch."
Qi Tian kept his attention fixed on the battle between the man and the wolf. After about half an hour, the man endured dozens of claw wounds, seized an opening, and pinned the Silver Wolf King beneath him, pummeling it to death.
Then he dragged the Silver Wolf King's corpse to the battlefield where the pack and the other two members of his tribe were fighting. The two equally powerful hunting warriors had already killed dozens of ordinary silver wolves.
With the Silver Wolf King's corpse now in view, the remaining wolves had lost their leader. They had also been terrified by the three men's fearsome strength, and finally scattered in all directions.
In this great battle, the strongest hunting warriors from the three tribal villages had killed more than fifty ordinary silver wolves and one Silver Wolf King. They had fought with astonishing bravery.
"Awesome. What kind of high-martial world is this? These primitive tribesmen can kill giant wolves two or three meters tall with their bare hands."
As Qi Tian wondered whether even stronger civilizations existed beyond the area he could currently explore...
In the nearby village, a frail little boy was crossing a small wooden bridge over the river and heading toward him.
The boy looked about five or six years old. A hide was wrapped around his waist. Compared with the other children Qi Tian had seen, he was decidedly frail, and even seemed to stumble as he walked.
He held a peach about as big as his head. When he reached the enormous stone that had become Qi Tian's human form, he carefully placed the peach in front of it, then knelt and bowed.
"Giant Stone God, please bless Little Stone so he can be as healthy as the other children. When he grows up, let him become a hunting warrior like his dad."
Qi Tian examined the boy's body and found that his heartbeat was not as strong as other people's. It seemed weaker even than that of the elderly people in the village.
"Probably a congenital heart condition or something. I don't know medicine, so I can't help the little guy."
While Qi Tian was examining the boy, a woman in the village spotted him and hurried over. She knelt down and picked up the little boy.
The woman looked to be around thirty. As she lifted the boy, her eyes filled with tenderness, and they reddened despite herself.
Seeing his mother's red-rimmed eyes, the boy quickly wrapped his arms around her neck and gently patted her back.
"Mom, don't cry. Little Stone is fine. He prayed to the Giant Stone God, and the Giant Stone God will make sure he grows up healthy."
The woman listened to the child's comforting words, but could no longer hold back her tears. "Good boy, Little Stone. The Giant Stone God will surely bless you."
Then the woman turned and bowed to Qi Tian. "Giant Stone God, please bless my Little Stone and let him grow up healthy. Please keep my man, Jin Shi, safe while he's out hunting."
After the woman finished praying to him, Qi Tian watched her stand up and carry the boy back to the village on the other side of the river.
"'Giant Stone God'? It seems that after I rescued the man from the wild boar, everyone in his village started seeing me as their guardian god."
Before you continue