Tribal Exchange Gathering

"Village Chief, then I'll take four and give the rest to the tribe..."

Lin Yi had barely gotten halfway through before the Village Chief raised a hand and cut him off.

"You found these yourself, so naturally, they all belong to you."

The old man's tone was calm, yet it carried an unquestionable certainty.

He turned around to look at Lin Yi, his eyes holding an earnestness that was hard to put into words.

"I know you haven't been with the tribe for long, but your feelings for it have already grown deep. You want to make the tribe better. I understand that."

Lin Yi's lips moved as though he wanted to say something, but the Village Chief pressed on.

"But we should not hold back your steps."

The Village Chief slowly walked to the doorway, standing with his hands behind his back as he gazed at the vast blue sky of the Great Wilderness overhead.

The breeze stirred the white hair at his temples, while the faint clamor of tribesmen dividing meat drifted in from outside the stone house.

"Child, your future belongs to the whole world. It should not be trapped in our tiny tribe."

Lin Yi fell silent for a moment.

"Village Chief, but..."

"Enough." The Village Chief interrupted him again, gentle but firm.

"There is no need to say more. We appreciate your goodwill. Keep those fruits well; they will be of great use for your breakthrough."

He turned and walked back, reaching out to pat Lin Yi's shoulder. His palm was rough, and the force behind it was light, yet the gesture carried exceptional weight.

This time, Lin Yi did not refuse. He lowered his eyes to look at the nine Blood Essence Fruits, his thoughts circling several times before he finally nodded obediently. "All right, I understand."

He put the nine fruits away again, then remembered the Blood Essence Fruit Tree and turned to ask, "What about this Blood Essence Fruit Tree? Can it still be planted and kept alive?"

The Village Chief walked over and crouched down, pinching the soil around the roots before examining the broken ends of the root system. He slowly shook his head. "Once it has been pulled out, it cannot survive being replanted.

"Too many roots have been severed. Even if we planted it again, it would not last more than a few days before slowly withering away."

Lin Yi clicked his tongue regretfully.

"However," the Village Chief said, changing direction, "the leaves of this tree can stop bleeding. Crush them and apply them to a wound; they work better than ordinary herbs. Later, pick the leaves and dry them for storage. When the Tribal Exchange Gathering comes around, they can be traded for a few things too."

The Tribal Exchange Gathering.

Lin Yi's ears perked up. This was the second time he had heard the term. The first had been when Biao casually mentioned it during a hunt, and Lin Yi had not paid much attention then. Now that the Village Chief had brought it up himself, he was immediately interested.

"Oh, right." The Village Chief stood and brushed the dirt from his hands. "I nearly forgot. The annual Tribal Exchange Gathering is about to begin."

"What do they mainly trade at the Tribal Exchange Gathering? Are there cultivation methods and martial techniques?"

Lin Yi sat down on the stone bed and assumed the posture of someone listening attentively.

"What are you thinking? Though I suppose it is not impossible."

"But usually, it is just several nearby tribes gathering in one place to exchange what each lacks. They bring things they do not need and trade them for things that others have and need." As he spoke, the Village Chief gestured with his hands. "The spears in our tribe, and that broadsword in your Brother Mang's hands, were all traded for at the gathering.

"From Ferocious Beast materials, bone tools, and stone tools, down to herbs and beast hides, anything can be laid out for trade. Some people also bring strange and unusual trinkets to try their luck. If they happen to pick up a treasure, they profit; if not, they do not lose much."

The Village Chief paused, lowering his voice slightly. "But I have indeed heard that some tribes traded for cultivation methods and martial techniques at the gathering."

Lin Yi's eyes brightened.

"But that is all hearsay. No one knows whether it is true or false," the Village Chief added flatly.

Lin Yi rolled his eyes inwardly.

...Here it came. The classic trope from webnovels in his previous life. The protagonist attended a gathering, picked up an overlooked treasure, showed off, traded for a wave of resources, and rose to the pinnacle of life.

He had been in the Great Wilderness for so long that he had thought he had avoided that route. Yet after going in circles, he had still ended up right here.

But then again—

Lin Yi rubbed his chin, a thought surfacing in his heart. Since I transmigrated here, I should be the protagonist too, right? Then... should I make some preparations?

His face remained calm, but inwardly, he had already begun calculating what he had that could be traded away.

Having made up his mind, he asked the Village Chief, "How long until the Tribal Exchange Gathering?"

"Seven days."

"Then there's still time."

"But we must set out five days early," the Village Chief added.

Lin Yi froze. "Five days early? Is the gathering place far away?"

The Village Chief nodded and walked to the doorway, gesturing into the distance.

"The gathering is held in a valley on the far side of the Great Wilderness's edge.

"If we traveled in a straight line, it would not actually be that far. But that route would take us through a stretch of the Great Wilderness's interior. The tribes at the edge do not have the strength to take that risk, so we can only detour along the edge of the Great Wilderness."

He looked back at Lin Yi. "Safety comes first. Walking two extra days is worth it."

After thinking it over, Lin Yi showed that he understood.

He had seen the Ferocious Beasts in the depths of the Great Wilderness: that Inkshadow Leopard at the Dragonlike Realm, the swarm of Shadowmarked Spiders in the Dark Forest, and those thirty-odd Lava Giant Apes. And that was not even the true depths of the Great Wilderness.

If they ran into any one of those groups, the people of the Bluestone Tribe would not even be enough to fill their teeth.

Traveling along the edge was a longer detour, but it was safer.

"Fine. Then I'll make some preparations." Lin Yi nodded.

The Village Chief seemed to remember something else, and his expression turned solemn as he warned, "Right, the cultivation methods and martial techniques you created yourself—if you can avoid taking them out at the gathering, then do so."

"I know."

"Murdering people for their treasures is nothing unusual at a gathering. If you show your wealth, someone will set their sights on you."

The Village Chief did not speak heavily, but Lin Yi understood the weight behind his words. He nodded seriously. "Don't worry. I know what I'm doing."

After a pause, he remembered something else. "Right, Village Chief, does the tribe have any illustrated records of Ferocious Beasts and heavenly treasures? The sort that records... what Ferocious Beasts look like, where certain fruits grow, and what they are used for."

"That was my oversight." The Village Chief slapped his forehead. "I should have shown you long ago."

He turned and entered the inner room. After searching for a while, he carried out five or six rolls of beast hide, stacked into a thick pile.

The edges of those hides were somewhat worn, and their colors had faded with age, but they had been preserved with great care. Every roll was tightly bound with thin vine cord.

"These are the Ferocious Beast Compendiums recorded by generations of people since the tribe was founded—things they have seen and hunted—as well as records of some herbs. Take them and study them."

Lin Yi accepted them with both hands and thanked him.

After leaving the Village Chief's stone house, he carried the stack of beast hides straight back to his own dwelling. He had only spread them open on the stone bed and flipped through a few pages when Mang arrived carrying a huge chunk of meat.

There was a brown bear's hind leg, several tender white pieces carved from the spider's body, and more than half of the prepared carcass of that wild boar Ferocious Beast. Every portion was substantial, wrapped in washed broad leaves and arranged over a stone slab until it was piled high.

"Brother Mang, you all—"

"Say no more." A simple smile appeared on Mang's honest, dark face. "Everyone got plenty. These were saved separately for you. You hunted alone outside the tribe, so when you came back, you had to eat something good and replenish yourself."

Lin Yi looked at the heap of meat piled high on the stone slab. He knew that the others had received far less than this. Most likely, they had saved all the best portions for him.

A warm, dull ache surged through his chest. His mouth opened and closed, but in the end, he could only force out one sentence. "Thanks."

Mang waved a hand, said no more polite words, and turned to leave.

Lin Yi stood alone in the stone house, lowering his head to look at the beast-hide rolls on the stone bed, then at the pile of meat in the corner.

He suddenly felt that the greatest fortune of his transmigration was probably not the Super Brain.

It was meeting people like them.

Lin Yi took a deep breath and pressed those surging emotions back into his gut. They would leave five days early, which meant he still had two days he could use.

He sat cross-legged on the stone bed again and opened the Ferocious Beast Compendium to its first page. Over the next two days, he had to find a way to push himself one step further. The Mountain-Sinking Realm was not the end; the Dragonlike Realm was the nearest hurdle before him.

As Lin Yi read and thought, strengthened by the Blood Essence Fruits, he could absolutely take another step forward in his realm over these two days.