Under a lightning-fast offensive, the Flame Alliance was crushed.
The Wood Tribe's population had now surged to a hundred thousand.
Among the many tribes, it held a position of absolute dominance.
Chu Mu no longer had any worries holding him back. He could devote himself to archaeology and searching for clues.
He hadn't come to Sand Sea Planet to play house!
Although, no matter how he looked at it, this could no longer be called playing house. It was genuine rule and conquest.
But Chu Mu understood that everything on Sand Sea Planet was merely part of an Aeon's design. He could never spend his entire life here as a tribal chieftain.
He wasn't as naive as Tingyun, thinking life here wasn't so bad.
Chu Mu had to leave this place!
Two months passed in a flash. This was already their eighth month here.
The tribespeople had all grown used to life here, and no one was clamoring to go back anymore.
Perhaps they, too, understood that they could never return and had simply given up hope.
That day, a group of strangely dressed people arrived outside the Wood Tribe.
They all wore hoods and black robes, with no shoes on their feet.
They held wooden staffs and seemed to have walked all the way from some distant land.
They were a group of ascetics.
Chu Mu happened to be in the tribe at the time, so he received them.
"We come from the Land of Ashes," the ascetics introduced themselves. "We are the Blind Ascetics."
"The Blind Ascetics?" Chu Mu frowned. "I've never heard of you. Could you tell me more?"
This was his first encounter with this world's native inhabitants.
In fact, due to the limitations of his means of transportation, Chu Mu had only explored a