Hunt Departure

Lin Yi withdrew his gaze and looked down at Little Flame crouching by his feet. The Red Fox tilted its head up, his reflection mirrored in its amber eyes, while the tip of its tail slowly swept back and forth across the ground.

That unhurried air made Lin Yi bend down despite himself. He scooped it up and rubbed both hands over its fluffy little head.

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

It rolled its eyes so hard that its expression plainly said, "Humans really are such boring creatures," yet its tail honestly curled upward.

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

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

It weighed more than twice as much as the previous one, probably well over a hundred jin.

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

He took a deep breath, circulated the blood qi within his body, hoisted the dark azure stone, steadily adjusted his breathing, and began another round of training according to his optimized method.

He had barely smashed it a few times when a thunderous voice boomed from the entrance to the Bluestone Grounds.

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

Biao had not even arrived, yet his laughter had already crashed into the grounds ahead of him. The tribespeople raised their heads one after another. When they saw that iron-tower-like figure striding over, they all greeted him with smiles.

Biao nodded in response all the way over, then marched straight up to Lin Yi. His fan-sized palm slapped Lin Yi on the shoulder, the force making Lin Yi bare his teeth.

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

"Back when I broke through Initial Blood Resonance, it took me a full three months! Three months! You're more than ten times better than I was, kid! Hahahaha!"

Lin Yi set down the bluestone, nearly unable to withstand that blazing enthusiasm, and hurriedly waved his hands.

"Not at all, not at all. Brother Biao praises me too highly. I was just lucky."

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

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

At those words, the smile on Lin Yi's face faded somewhat. He nodded in acknowledgment, 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 forearms crossing over his chest.

"The Great Wilderness is a completely different world by day and by night. Leaving early gives us more time to hunt outside, find better prey, deal with it properly, and avoid danger. If we still haven't withdrawn by dusk—"

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

"The Great Wilderness at night is more than ten times as dangerous. Some nocturnal vicious beasts are things even I have to walk around when I encounter them.

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

Lin Yi committed it 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. Your blood qi is condensed without dispersing. Not bad.

"Stay close to me during tomorrow's hunt. You don't have much real combat experience, so on your first trip out, you can't stray too far from me."

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

"Don't just thank me." Biao grinned, revealing a mouthful of white teeth. "The village chief specifically instructed me to keep you 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, merely added this favor to the ledger in his mind.

"All right." Biao patted the dust from his hands and twisted his neck toward his home.

"Keep training this morning, but get some proper rest this afternoon and conserve your strength. You'll have plenty of running to do tomorrow. I'm heading back to rest too."

With that, he turned and left. Each of his strides equaled two of an ordinary person's, and he moved with such swift decisiveness that he even skipped a farewell.

Lin Yi watched his broad back vanish at the end of the dirt path. Then he turned, sat down on a stone, closed his eyes to regulate his blood qi for a while, and picked up the dark azure stone again to continue tempering his strength.

That afternoon, he followed Biao's advice and did not exhaust his physical strength any further.

He sat cross-legged on the stone bed, closed his eyes, and sorted through every detail of the Bluestone Blood-Transporting Method in his mind. At the same time, he silently awaited the daily change that arrived right on schedule. A cool, clear sensation slowly spread through his mind, and his comprehension quietly increased by another sliver.

Taking advantage of it, he reworked several minor bottlenecks he had encountered during the day's training, and everything suddenly became clear.

He slept soundly through the night.

The next day, just as a pale strip of dawn appeared on the horizon, Lin Yi woke up. He put on his coarse linen clothes, tightened the cord of his beastskin shorts, and pushed open the stone house door.

The morning breeze carried the scent of grass and trees from the valley straight into his face, chilly and damp. More than half the tribe had already awakened, and thin curls of smoke rose from several households' chimneys.

Lin Yi hurried to the tribe entrance. From afar, he saw Biao already standing between the two thick totem pillars.

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

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

Biao sat on a low stone, holding a broad-backed saber in his arms and gripping a whetstone as he ground the blade back and forth.

Hearing footsteps, he raised his head. When he saw Lin Yi, he grinned.

"You're here, Little Brother Lin."

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

"Not late, not late. We just got here too." Biao stood, casually grabbed a long spear from beside his feet, and tossed it at Lin Yi. "Catch!"

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

The shaft was polished from some kind of dark hardwood, smooth and comfortable to grip. The spearhead was a section of beast bone sharpened to an extreme edge, bluish white in color, its tip glimmering with a faint cold light.

"You'll mainly use this today," Biao said. "A spear suits beginners. Keep your distance and stab—don't charge in recklessly and fight head-on. Remember, safety comes first."

Lin Yi clenched the spear shaft and nodded firmly.

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

"I'll be troubling Brother Biao and all of you brothers today. This is my first hunt, and if there is anything I do poorly, please bear with me and offer your guidance."

"Why be so polite?" "Everyone's like this their first time!" "Just follow Brother Biao!" The team members answered all at once, smiling.

But Lin Yi noticed that whenever their eyes swept toward the forest beyond the tribe, their smiles quietly vanished, replaced by restrained vigilance.

Biao sheathed the polished saber across his back and shouted, "All right, everyone's here! Depart!"

He took the lead, striding across the damp soil outside the tribe gate and toward the dense green sea of forest beyond the valley.

The others naturally formed a loose line behind him. Lin Yi gripped his spear and walked not far behind Biao, feeling the blood qi in his chest slowly surge as a current of nervous excitement darted through his limbs and bones.

After leaving the tribe's boundaries for roughly the time it took to burn an incense stick, the trees around them became visibly taller and denser.

The light in the forest dimmed. The canopy overhead seemed to form layer upon layer of heavy green curtains, blocking out the sky until only scattered flecks of light remained.

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

Which tracks were left by vicious beasts, what scents meant a nest was nearby, how to surround a lone prey animal, and how to retreat when encountering a beast pack.

Lin Yi carefully carved every rule into his mind. The Super Brain cataloged and classified all that information, arranging it in perfect order.

"But you don't need to be too nervous," Biao said after explaining everything, his tone relaxing somewhat. "There isn't much major danger within a few kilometers of the tribe."

"Why is that?" Lin Yi seized the chance to ask. "Is it because the tribe has been active around here for years and driven all the vicious beasts away?"

Biao shook his head and pointed toward a spot on the horizon.

Lin Yi looked in the direction he indicated—from this angle, with layers of tree canopies and mountain ridges in the way, the wooden pillar at the center of the tribe was no longer visible. Still, he could locate that position from memory and his sense of direction.

"It's mainly because of the ritual object in our village." A rare solemnity entered Biao's voice.

"The thing hanging from the pillar in the center of the tribe. The thing that looks like an eye."

Lin Yi's heart stirred. Sure enough, the flash of reflected light he had seen back then had come from it.

Biao continued, "According to the elders, it is the eye of a strange beast called Zheng. Our ancestors refined it into a ritual object and placed it in the very center of the tribe.

"In ancient times, Zheng was something that even high-level vicious beasts fled from at the mere sound of its name.

"Though only one eye remains now, and its power is far from what it was in those days, its aura still lingers. Within several li, weaker vicious beasts do not dare approach.

"That is one of the reasons our Bluestone Tribe has been able to put down stable roots in this valley for so many years."

Lin Yi understood.

No wonder he had always felt something watching him when he first arrived at the tribe, making the back of his head go cold in waves. It truly had been an "eye."

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

If he had been off by a few dozen li and landed deep within the Great Wilderness instead—

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

He would probably have already been nourishing the flowers and grass of some patch of land.

Biao strode ahead and suddenly said without turning back, "All right, we need to pick up the pace. The hunting grounds are still far away, and we need to arrive early enough to have sufficient time."

The moment he finished speaking, he kicked off the ground. His massive body accelerated abruptly like a giant beast brimming with stored strength, stirring up a gust of wind.

The team members behind him followed at once, their steps steady and swift, producing dense rustling sounds as they trod over fallen leaves and loose stones. Lin Yi hurriedly circulated blood qi into his legs and followed close behind.

They ran for about two hours.

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

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

If Biao burst forth at full speed, a full sprint in the Blood Tide Realm could cover eighty kilometers in an hour without issue.

After two hours, 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 team member in front of him and hurriedly halted.

Biao stood at the very front of the group, his sharp gaze sweeping over the terrain ahead.

The trees here were somewhat sparser than before, but the weeds and shrubs were unusually dense. The ground was covered in a thick layer of fallen leaves and moss, while the rank, bloody smell in the air was noticeably stronger than along the route they had taken.

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

"From now on, everyone stays alert and keeps focused. Safety comes before everything."

He turned around, his gaze passing over every member of the party one by one before settling heavily on Lin Yi.

"Pairs of two. Spread out and search. Report immediately if you find prey tracks. No one acts on their own."

Biao's voice deepened. "Lin Yi, you—"

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

Lin Yi gripped the spear shaft tightly and nodded hard.

Wind blew from the depths of the hunting grounds, carrying damp scents of soil mixed with the body odor of some wild beast.

From within the dense shrubs in the distance came a sudden short, muffled sound, as if something heavy had turned over on the ground.

The team members' gazes snapped toward that direction.

Biao raised one hand and slowly pressed it down.