Forced into Submission, Flamewaste Tribe

"Each person picks a horse first. Tame it, and it'll be your mount."

The moment Lin Yi said this, everyone's eyes lit up, and they crowded toward the Bluemane Horses sprawled all over the ground.

The men of the hunting party rubbed their hands as they picked and chose. One said that horse had a big frame, another said this one had a bright coat. It was as lively as a market fair.

Lin Yi did not compete with them.

He walked straight toward the lead stallion—the largest, longest-maned, most robust Bluemane Horse in the herd, with the most powerful aura.

He had knocked the beast unconscious with one punch earlier. It was still lying belly-up on the ground, its limbs twitching now and then, clearly not fully awake yet.

Lin Yi crouched down and raised a hand to pat its head.

"Hey, get up. Sleeping isn't allowed here."

Slap, slap, slap. Several neither-heavy-nor-light slaps landed on the horse's face.

The Bluemane Horse's eyelids trembled a few times before it finally opened its eyes groggily.

The instant its amber horse eyes focused, it saw the smiling human face before it.

"Neigh—!"

The horse jerked upright in fright, its four hooves frantically scraping the ground as it prepared to bolt.

But the moment it got to its feet, Lin Yi had already flipped onto its back. His legs clamped tightly around its belly, and his hand gripped the blue mane along its neck.

Pinned down like this, the Bluemane Horse immediately began struggling like mad.

Its front hooves reared high, its hind legs kicked viciously, and its whole body bounced and twisted in place, trying to throw the fiend on its back off.

That force was easily fifty or sixty thousand jin, at the level of the Tidal Surge Realm. Any ordinary hunter from the tribe would probably have been thrown off in a single exchange.

Unfortunately, the one sitting on its back was Lin Yi.

"Heh, you've got quite the fire in you, huh?" Lin Yi's legs did not budge, as though nailed to the horse's back. "Wouldn't it be better to obediently serve as a mount? Why run?"

The Bluemane Horse naturally could not understand human speech, and it only struggled harder.

Lin Yi grew impatient. Freeing his right hand, he landed two thump, thump punches against the side of the horse's head. He controlled his strength so it would not pass out, but they hurt badly enough.

The Bluemane Horse struggled even more fiercely from the pain.

"Oh, I refuse to believe this." Lin Yi muttered as he gave it another two thump, thump punches. "Do you submit? Do you submit?"

By now, all the spectators had stopped what they were doing and stared at the scene in utter amazement.

Wasn't horse taming supposed to involve the rider circling around with the horse through sheer endurance, waiting until the horse had exhausted all its strength and could no longer throw off the person on its back before lowering its head in surrender?

It was a contest of patience, resilience, and a tug-of-war between their wills. Even experienced hands from large tribes who specialized in taming Bluemane Horses needed the better part of a day to make one truly submit.

But what was Lin Yi doing?

This was clearly beating it into submission.

Thump, thump. Another few punches.

The Bluemane Horse's struggles gradually weakened. From its initial frantic bucking, to slight twisting, until at last it finally drooped its head and stood obediently in place on all four hooves.

It snorted rough breaths through its nostrils, and its horse eyes held the aggrieved resignation of someone saying, Please stop hitting me.

Lin Yi patted its sleek neck. "That's more like it. Follow me from now on, and there'll be meat for you to eat."

"...You really are something else, kid."

The village chief's faint voice drifted over from the side. The old man had been watching the entire time, his expression changing from surprise to speechlessness to helpless laughter, until only a resigned sigh remained.

He had lived for over seventy years. He had seen beast taming, and he had seen forced taming, but this was the first time he had seen someone beat a Tidal Surge Realm Bluemane Horse into submission with a few thump, thump punches.

Lin Yi turned with a grin. "Am I? Hehehe."

"Something else, my ass." The village chief waved a hand irritably, then turned to the others. "Don't learn from him. If a Bluemane Horse gets injured, its price will drop."

Only then did the hunting party snap out of it and go back to picking their horses.

The others each had their own methods. Some soothed the horses slowly, while others used brute force to pin them down and wear out their stamina. Though it was not fast, everything went fairly smoothly.

Lin Yi watched for a while and found it unbearably slow.

He flipped off Xiao Qing's back.

Yes, he had just named the lead stallion Xiao Qing, and it had not objected.

He walked over to the Bluemane Horses still struggling and gave each of them two thump, thump punches.

Thump. Thump.

"Do you submit?"

Thump. Thump.

"Do you submit?"

Before long, the remaining dozen or so Bluemane Horses all lowered their heads in dejection and behaved themselves.

The hunting party stared dumbfounded as those fierce, untamable horses turned meek and obedient. The whole process had taken less than the time it took to drink a cup of tea.

"...Amazing." Mang held it in for a long time before managing only those two words.

"Efficiency comes first." Lin Yi clapped his hands, flipped back onto Xiao Qing, and casually stroked its mane. "We lost a little time, but now that we have horses, we should be able to make it back up."

The village chief calculated the time, clearly in a good mood. "We still have enough time for today's journey. With Bluemane Horses as transportation, we should have no problem reaching the next rest stop before nightfall."

"Set off!"

At the command, more than twenty Bluemane Horses raised their hooves and charged forward.

Although most of the hunting party men were riding horses for the first time, their physiques were there for all to see. Before long, they were riding with decent form.

Hooves thundered against the mountain road, while the wind howled past their ears. They were countless times faster than traveling on two legs.

People began teasing one another. One said another rode like he had a lame leg. Laughter mingled with hoofbeats and drifted far down the mountain path.

Sure enough, in less than two hours, the group reached the second rest stop, which they had originally expected to reach only the next day.

When Lin Yi saw that cave from afar, he could not help sighing inwardly, Having a horse really is great.

The rest stop was empty. They were the first group to arrive. Everyone dismounted and skillfully built fires, fed the horses, and prepared to rest.

As Mang added firewood to the bonfire, he said happily, "This is way too fast! It usually takes us an entire day to get here, but now we made it in two hours!"

The village chief sat beside the fire and took out the dried rations he had brought, passing them around before speaking slowly. "At this speed, if we set out early tomorrow, we'll reach the Trade Gathering site by afternoon. That's two days ahead of schedule."

Lin Yi tied Xiao Qing to a tree trunk at the cave entrance, then walked back and sat beside the fire. The village chief glanced at him and suddenly changed his tone.

"Kid Lin, while we have time, let me tell you about the Tribal Exchange Gathering. This is your first time participating, so there are some things you need to know in advance."

Lin Yi grew serious. "Please, tell me."

"The Tribal Exchange Gathering is hosted by the Flamewaste Tribe."

"The Flamewaste Tribe is the foremost great tribe in this region. Its strength is far beyond what a small fringe tribe like ours can compare to. Every year, they hold a Trade Gathering at a fixed location. On the surface, they claim it is for the tribes to exchange supplies and make up for what each lacks, but in truth..."

The old man paused, his gaze falling upon the flickering firelight.

"What they truly want is to recruit talent. Every gathering, whenever young people show outstanding performance and potential, the Flamewaste Tribe extends an olive branch and invites them to join. By relying on this, they have grown stronger and stronger."

After saying this, the village chief raised his head and looked deeply at Lin Yi. Firelight reflected in his cloudy old eyes, somehow lending them a grave earnestness.

"Kid Lin, if you want to go further, if you want to gain access to deeper knowledge of cultivation, cultivation arts, and martial skills... joining the Flamewaste Tribe is a shortcut."

Lin Yi fell silent.

He understood the village chief's meaning perfectly.

The Bluestone Tribe was too small—so small that it did not even possess cultivation knowledge beyond the Blood-Qi Realm. The village chief sincerely hoped that he could go farther.

"Is that so..." Lin Yi murmured, lowering his head to stare at the palm resting on his knee.

He actually knew that more profound cultivation arts and martial skills were not insurmountable obstacles for him.

Although the Savage Bull Art was only a Blood-Qi Realm cultivation art, after his repeated modifications and the integration of the Inkshadow Leopard Divine Markings, it had already broken free from the framework of the original art.

Moreover, two great diagrams remained in his mind: the incomplete Divine Markings of the Lava Giant Ape and the Gilded Divine Markings. As long as his comprehension continued to rise, deriving a cultivation path beyond the Blood-Qi Realm was no wild fantasy.

What truly restricted him was systematic cultivation knowledge: foundational theories, the division of realms, experience and tricks for breaking through bottlenecks. The Flamewaste Tribe happened to be able to provide all of that.

Join, or not join?

Lin Yi raised his head and smiled at the village chief. "Village Chief, allow me to think about it."

The village chief merely nodded slowly. "There's no rush. Make your own decision. No matter what you choose, we'll support you."