Setting Out to Hunt

Lin Yi withdrew his gaze and looked down at Little Flame crouching by his feet. The red fox tilted its head up, its amber eyes reflecting his image, the tip of its tail lazily sweeping back and forth over the ground.

That unhurried air made Lin Yi bend down and scoop it up, both hands rubbing its fluffy little head.

Little Flame's ears were kneaded crooked to either side, and its entire fox face was rubbed out of shape.

It rolled its eyes so hard they nearly turned over, its expression declaring, "Humans truly are boring creatures," yet its tail honestly gave a little lift.

Lin Yi grinned, set Little Flame down, then turned and headed back toward the Bluestone Grounds.

His gaze swept across the grounds before settling on a millstone-sized rock that glimmered with a dark azure light.

It was more than twice as heavy as the previous one, probably over a hundred jin.

Lin Yi tested its weight. It was manageable—he would use this for training.

He took a deep breath, circulated the blood-qi within him, lifted the dark azure rock, slowly adjusted his breathing, and began another round of training according to his optimized method.

He had barely slammed it down a few times when a deafening voice boomed in from the entrance to the Bluestone Grounds.

"Hahaha! Little Brother Lin really is a monster!"

Biao had not yet arrived, but his laughter had already crashed into the grounds. The tribespeople looked up one after another, and when they saw that iron-tower-like figure striding over, they all smiled and greeted him.

Biao nodded all the way in response, then marched straight up to Lin Yi. His palm, as broad as a cattail fan, landed on Lin Yi's shoulder, making Lin Yi bare his teeth from the force.

"Breaking through to Initial Blood Resonance in just three days! Impressive! Impressive!" Biao's eyes shone like two lamps, and his voice was so loud that several nearby tribespeople rubbed their ears.

"When I broke through First Cry Realm back then, it took me a full three months! Three months! You brat are more than ten times better than I was! Hahahaha!"

Lin Yi set down the azure stone, nearly unable to withstand this blazing enthusiasm, and hurriedly waved his hands.

"No, no, Brother Biao, you're praising me too highly. I was just lucky."

"Luck is a skill too!" Biao waved a huge hand, leaving him no room to be modest.

"The village chief just told me. We leave at sunrise tomorrow morning, right on time. Get yourself ready."

At those words, the smile on Lin Yi's face faded somewhat. He nodded, then thought for a moment and asked, "Brother Biao, why are we leaving so early?"

"Heh, that's a good question." Biao folded his arms, his thick limbs crossed over his chest.

"The Great Wilderness is completely different by day and by night. If we leave early, we'll have more time to hunt outside, find better prey, process it properly, and avoid danger. If we're still out there when evening comes—"

Biao lowered his voice, and the smile on his face dimmed as well.

"At night, the Great Wilderness becomes more than ten times as dangerous. There are some Ferocious Beasts that hide by day and emerge at night—even I have to take a detour if I encounter them.

"So our rule is that we must return to the tribe before the sun sets. Not a single moment can be delayed."

Lin Yi committed that to memory and nodded.

Biao sized him up, his gaze traveling over Lin Yi's body as though sensing the state of the blood-qi within him.

A moment later, he gave a satisfied snort. "Your foundation is solid, and your blood-qi is condensed without dispersing. Not bad.

"Stay close to me during tomorrow's hunt. You have no real combat experience, so you can't stray too far from me on your first outing."

"Thank you, Brother Biao." Lin Yi cupped his fists.

"Don't just thank me." Biao grinned, revealing a mouthful of white teeth. "The village chief specifically instructed me to make sure you stay safe.

"The old man really has taken you to heart. I've followed him for so many years, but I've never seen him put this much thought into an outsider."

Something stirred faintly in Lin Yi's heart. He said nothing, only silently added another mark to the ledger of this favor.

"All right." Biao dusted off his hands and twisted his neck toward his own home.

"Keep training this morning, but you'd better rest properly this afternoon and conserve your strength. You'll be doing plenty of running tomorrow. I'm heading back to rest too."

With that, he turned and left. Each of his steps covered the distance of two ordinary people's, decisive and swift enough that he even skipped saying goodbye.

Lin Yi watched his broad back vanish at the end of the dirt road. Then he turned, sat on a stone, closed his eyes, and regulated his blood-qi for a while before lifting the dark azure rock again and continuing to temper his strength.

That afternoon, he followed Biao's advice and no longer overexerted himself.

He sat cross-legged on his stone bed, closed his eyes, and sorted through every detail concerning the Bluestone Blood-Transporting Method in his mind. At the same time, he silently waited for the daily change that arrived without fail. A cool, lucid sensation slowly spread through his mind, and his comprehension quietly rose another notch.

Taking advantage of the moment, he reworked several minor sticking points he had encountered during daytime training and suddenly saw the light.

He slept soundly through the night.

The next day, Lin Yi woke just as a strip of fish-belly white appeared at the horizon. He put on his rough hemp clothes, tightened the cord of his beast-hide shorts, and pushed open the door of his stone house.

The morning wind carried the scent of valley grass and trees, cool and damp against his face. More than half the tribe was already awake, and wisps of smoke rose from the chimneys of several households.

Lin Yi hurried to the tribe entrance and spotted Biao standing between the two massive totem pillars from afar.

More than a dozen sturdy figures stood behind him, each carrying or wearing weapons: sharply honed stone axes, bone-tipped spears gleaming white, taut beast-tendon bows, while some had coils of thick hemp rope and bone grappling hooks hanging from their waists.

Morning light faintly spilled out from behind the eastern ridge, gilding the weapons and the men's outlines with a pale golden edge.

Biao was sitting on a low stone, holding a broad-backed saber while using a whetstone to sharpen its blade.

Hearing footsteps, he raised his head and broke into a grin when he saw Lin Yi.

"You're here, Little Brother Lin."

Lin Yi hurried over, somewhat embarrassed. "Sorry, Brother Biao. I'm late."

"Not late, not late. We only just arrived too." Biao rose to his feet, casually grabbed a spear from beside him, and tossed it toward Lin Yi. "Catch!"

Lin Yi reached out and caught it steadily. It felt slightly heavy in his hands.

The shaft was made from some kind of dark hardwood, polished smooth and comfortable to hold. The spearhead was a section of beast bone honed to an extreme sharpness, blue-white in color, its tip glimmering with a faint cold light.

"You'll mainly use this today," Biao said. "Spears are suited for beginners. Keep your distance and stab—don't charge in blindly and fight head-on. Remember, safety comes first."

Lin Yi gripped the spear shaft tightly and nodded hard.

He looked around at the hunting party and cupped his fists as he spoke loudly.

"I'll be troubling Brother Biao and all of you brothers today. It's my first time hunting, so if there's anything I do poorly, please bear with me and guide me."

"Why be so polite?" "Everyone's like that their first time!" "Just follow Brother Biao!" The hunters answered all at once, smiles on every face.

Yet Lin Yi noticed that whenever their eyes swept toward the forest outside the tribe, their smiles quietly faded, replaced by a restrained vigilance.

Biao sheathed the sharpened saber across his back and shouted, "All right, everyone's here! Move out!"

He was the first to stride forward, stepping across the damp earth outside the tribe gate toward the dense green sea of forest beyond the valley.

The remaining hunters naturally formed a loose formation and followed. Lin Yi walked not far behind Biao with his spear in hand, feeling the blood-qi in his chest slowly surge as a current of nervous excitement darted through every limb and bone.

After leaving the tribe's boundaries for about the time it took to burn an incense stick, the surrounding trees became noticeably taller and denser.

The light in the forest dimmed. The canopy overhead seemed to layer one heavy green curtain atop another, blocking out the sky until only scattered fragments of light remained.

Biao slowed his pace. As they walked, he turned his head and explained the rules of hunting to Lin Yi in a low voice.

Which traces were left by Ferocious Beasts, which scents meant there was a nest nearby, how to surround isolated prey, and how to retreat when encountering a beast pack.

Lin Yi carefully carved every rule into his mind. Super Brain filed and categorized the information, arranging it all in neat order.

"But you don't need to be too nervous," Biao said in a more relaxed tone after explaining everything. "Within a few kilometers around the tribe, there's usually nothing too dangerous."

"Why is that?" Lin Yi seized the chance to ask. "Is it because the tribe has been active nearby for years and drove all the Ferocious Beasts away?"

Biao shook his head and pointed toward a distant direction in the sky.

Lin Yi followed where he pointed. From this angle, with layers of canopy and mountain ridges in between, the wooden pillar at the center of the tribe was no longer visible, but he could locate it through memory and his sense of direction.

"It mainly depends on that sacrificial artifact in our village." A rare solemnity entered Biao's voice.

"The thing hanging from the central pillar of the tribe, the one that looks like an eye."

Lin Yi's heart stirred. As expected, that reflection he had seen before had come from it.

Biao continued, "The elders of the tribe say it is the eye of an exotic beast called Zheng. It was refined by our ancestors into a sacrificial artifact and placed at the center of the tribe.

"Back in ancient times, Zheng was something that even high-level Ferocious Beasts feared at the mere mention of its name.

"Although only one eye remains now, and its power is far inferior to what it was back then, its aura still lingers. Within several miles, weaker Ferocious Beasts do not dare approach.

"That is also one reason why our Bluestone Tribe has been able to put down steady roots in this valley for so many years."

Understanding dawned on Lin Yi.

No wonder he had always felt as though something had been watching him ever since he first arrived at the tribe, making the back of his head turn cold in waves. So it really had been an "eye."

He could not help feeling fortunate that he had transmigrated near Bluestone Tribe.

If he had been off by a few dozen miles and landed in the depths of the Great Wilderness instead—

Lin Yi shivered and silently tightened his grip on the spear.

By now, he would probably have been nourishing the flowers and grass of some patch of land.

Biao strode at the front and suddenly said without looking back, "All right, we need to pick up the pace. The hunting grounds are still far away, and we need to get there early enough to have sufficient time."

The instant his words fell, he kicked off the ground. His massive body accelerated abruptly like a giant beast brimming with stored strength, stirring up a rush of wind.

The hunters behind him followed one after another, their footsteps steady and swift, producing dense rustling sounds as they trod over fallen leaves and broken stones. Lin Yi hurriedly circulated blood-qi into his legs and kept close behind.

They ran for roughly two hours.

With the physique of the Blood-Qi Realm, that distance would have been marathon-level exertion on Earth, yet here it was merely an ordinary warm-up.

As he ran, Lin Yi silently estimated that their average speed was around sixty kilometers per hour. That was with Biao deliberately restraining his pace to accommodate him.

If they burst out at full speed, a full-force sprint in the Blood Tide Realm could cover eighty kilometers in an hour without issue.

Two hours later, Biao abruptly raised his right arm.

The entire group stopped instantly, their movements perfectly synchronized. Lin Yi, following behind, nearly crashed into the back of the hunter ahead of him and hurriedly checked his steps.

Biao stood at the front of the group, his sharp gaze scanning the terrain ahead.

The trees here were sparser than before, but the weeds and shrubs were exceptionally dense. The ground was covered in a thick layer of fallen leaves and moss, while the rank, fishy scent in the air was clearly stronger than it had been along the way.

"About ten kilometers ahead, we'll officially enter the hunting grounds." Biao's voice was extremely low, yet it carried an unquestionable killing intent.

"From now on, everyone stays alert and focused. Safety above all else."

He turned around, his eyes sweeping across every hunter one by one before finally settling heavily on Lin Yi.

"Pairs. Spread out and search. Report immediately if you find traces of prey. No acting on your own."

Biao's voice sank. "Lin Yi, you—"

He pointed to the spot at his feet. "Stay close to me. Do not leave my side for even a step."

Lin Yi gripped the spear shaft and nodded heavily.

Wind blew from deep within the hunting grounds, carrying a damp scent mixed with earth and the musk of some wild beast.

From the dense thicket in the distance came a sudden short, muffled sound, as though something heavy had rolled over on the ground.

Every hunter's gaze snapped toward that direction.

Biao raised one hand and slowly pressed it down.