As it turned out, the island's natives had drawn their weapons on Leslie and his men after they landed entirely because they had chosen the wrong approach.
This time, Xu Yi presented himself as a merchant and demonstrated his sincerity with white flour and other daily necessities the islanders desperately needed. He quickly won their acceptance and easily established genuine communication with them.
The first stage of the whole undertaking went smoothly. Through contact with the inhabitants of this coastal village and several villages farther inland, Xu Yi gained a preliminary understanding of the island.
Just as Leslie had expected, most of the island's inhabitants had drifted over from the Sains Continent long ago.
According to records passed down on the island, the earliest arrivals had crossed the ocean to this enormous island when the Elf Race still ruled the entire Sains Continent. Together with the people who continued to drift over afterward, they gradually settled and multiplied, forming the island's main population.
They were called the main population because, apart from the humans who had drifted over from the Sains Continent, the island also had some true natives.
These natives were said to have lived on the island from the very beginning. They knew nothing of the Sains Continent and had never left the island.
Although Xu Yi had his doubts about this claim, everyone on the island had lived there for so many years that there was little real difference between them.
Of course, these questions were not particularly important to Xu Yi.
What mattered to him was the value of the island itself and the precious resources it contained.
Whoever happened to live on the island made little difference.
After telling Leslie that his future task was to gain as much control over the island as possible