Translated by Sunyancai
Since the warriors spent most of their time digging up Fire Crystals and dealing with the giant bats, they did not do much hunting during this trip. Aside from hunting for the food they needed, basically no one had been hunting for storage in the five hunting groups.
With the approaching of the convening day, there were only a few days left that they could go hunting. However, the five group leaders almost spent every moment together, guarding that small bag of Fire Crystals.
As for the game that they should be bringing back. All five group leaders would tell you aloud, that they did not have time to care about those minor things!
Finally, the convening day came.
Ta had led the advance group deep into the green land, and they had a nice harvest. Aside from all the prey and meat, they had found a rare flat-tailed plant as well. Gui He’s hunting team also brought back a lot of things from the first hunting mission this year, and Ta hated to lose to them. Luckily, they had fortune on their side.
However, Ta was indeed a little concerned, about what might have happened with Mai’s hunting group. After all, he brought a wolf along with his group.
This time, they were going back sooner than expected. He was prepared to wait for another two or three days before every hunting group in his team gathered together. However, unexpectedly, the five hunting groups arrived together.
That was a scenario that had never happened in the past. Hunting groups would only ask for help from other hunting groups when they encountered a major crisis. But judging from the vigorous steps of the groups, they shouldn’t have been into any fatal dangers, although there were indeed a lot of wounded people.
Looking at the wolf, Ta assumed that it was getting along well with the other warriors.
After seeing that they were generally in good health, Ta again felt it hard to breathe when he found that they had so little game with them.
What is wrong?
Ta asked in a bad mood.
The five group leaders stood there together, showing their big white teeth to Ta together, smiling…like idiots…
……
Inside the tribe.
Old Ke hadn’t been sleeping very well lately, especially around the time that the hunting team was about to return. Every day, he would take a few walks around the Path of Glory.
He wondered whether Ah-Xuan was doing okay, and whether Caesar was behaving well. After all, it was Caesar’s first time travelling outside. Would he be okay with so many ferocious beasts nearby?
As he let his mind drift, Old Ke heard an eagle cry from the air. Looking at Chacha in the sky, Old Ke stopped walking.
Had the hunting team returned?!
Without any hesitation, Old Ke quickly walked towards the Path of Glory. By the time he arrived, there were already some people waiting along the road.
I heard that many people got badly injured this time.
From which hunting group?
I do not know.
……
Old Ke did not have a good feeling about it. Perhaps, were they talking about Mai’s hunting group? Someone had predicted that Mai and his hunting group would meet some serious trouble when they took the wolf along at the beginning.
Some other guys mentioned Caesar’s name while discussing, but they were not talking about Caesar’s merits. Old Ke almost got into a fight because of that.
Soon, the badly injured people got sent back, and there were indeed quite a lot of them.
After about another half a day, the hunting team showed up.
Aside from the advance group, the other hunting groups seem to have little game…
Someone said.
It was hard for people to believe that they brought back so little game!
What the hell happened?
As people were whispering, warriors from the other hunting team were also thinking about something secretly. Indeed, they were the stronger team! Compared with their harvest, Ta’s hunting team was merely a sad joke.
No one had ever anticipated that there would be such a big difference in the game that they brought back. In the past, Ta’s hunting team would always bring back packs of dead animals and meat. Even at their worst times, they would bring back more.
Well, forget it. It is good enough that they came back alive.
It was their first hunting trip this year, and many families had pretty high expectations towards their return. Now, they couldn’t help but feel somewhat disappointed. The winter had ended, but it seemed that they were still going to suffer from hunger for quite some time. They did not have enough food.
Although disappointed, people still decided to properly comfort the returning warriors. However, after they finally managed to control their emotions and prepared their nice words, they found that every warrior on the Path of Glory was smiling like champions, without any sign of being upset. They waved their fists to their families standing on the sides of the path, not bringing back much game, and wearing giant dumb smiles.
People had to swallow all the comforting words that they had already prepared.
What is wrong with them?
Was the blow of such a pitiful result of hunting too much for them?
People had no clue why they were acting like that.
Old Ke finally became relieved seeing that both Shao Xuan and Caesar were alright. It really didn’t matter whether they had a good harvest. The most important thing was that they came back, safe and sound.
However, Old Ke noticed that the team leader, Ta, who was walking at the very front of the line, had a very delicate expression…It was faint. If you said that he was happy, he wasn’t too happy. Yet he was also not upset.
What on earth happened?
When they finished the sword cleansing ritual at the mountaintop, they all rushed down the mountain like crazy. Some warriors even forgot to take their game back.
Soon, people learnt the reason why the hunting team was acting so weirdly.
The Fire Crystals?!!
Old Ke was very excited, and he only believed that Shao Xuan was telling the truth after hearing it several times.
Not only Old Ke, similar things were happening to many different families in the tribe. Some older guys in the tribe even passed out due to this exciting news.
The bad outcome of a hunting mission?
No problem at all! Because the Fire Crystals would be their biggest harvest!
No stored food back at their homes?
No problem, cause there was still plenty of fish in the river down there. Nobody was going to die of eating fish for twenty days or so.
What? You say that fish contained too little energy?
Well, you have the Fire Crystals!
The Shaman had said that anyone who was a part of this had his own merits. All their close families and relatives could all benefit from the Fire Crystals.
This time, the whole tribe got excited. When they had a family member or a relative in Ta’s hunting team, they went to hang out with him. When there was no relative, they tried to find one!
This was such a rare and precious opportunity!
It was said that this time they had found many Fire Crystals!
Although Shao Xuan had a major contribution in this whole thing, aside from Old Ke, Shao Xuan indeed had no family or relatives in the tribe. The Shaman deliberately gave him some extra spots, so that he could bring some friends that he was not related to.
Old Ke, Ge, and some other guys that once had helped Shao Xuan out, had been brought up to the mountaintop, as well as Tu and Jie Ba from the orphan cave, that had just awakened this year.
It was a pity that the energy could only be absorbed by those who had awakened. So there were some that Shao Xuan wanted to help out, yet couldn’t.
On that day, every extra was thrilled to have been taken along to the mountaintop, while the others who didn’t have the chance were mostly from the other hunting team. They were super jealous, and their eyes turned red to some extent.
A few Fire Crystals were placed near the Flame, and when the Shaman finished reading the spell, the flame grew bigger and bigger, gradually swallowing the nearby Fire Crystals.
Unlike the first time that Shao Xuan absorbed the energy by his own. This time, everyone could see the red energy lines rising above while the Fire Crystals kept burning by the Flame.
Many red energy lines rose up from the Flame and got absorbed by the people standing around the fire pit.
Although it was accomplished by just the five joint hunting groups, it was impossible for the advance group to be left out of this. After all, they were the ones that looked for herbs and medicines for everyone. All the herb packs used by the wounded people were brought back by the advance group. As a result, there were people from the advance group that stood beside the fire pit. However, they were a little embarrassed and awkward, enjoying the privilege. Ta, of all people, was the one with the most complex feelings.
It was that lad again!
That was Ta’s first thought when he learnt about it.
Although the Fire Crystals they brought back didn’t look like a lot, not all of them were used. The ones that got burnt were already enough for the people standing by the fire pit to absorb. More Fire Crystals would just go to waste.
So the remaining Fire Crystals were stored and kept by the Shaman,to reward by merit. Do you want to absorb a Fire Crystal? Sure, do something meritorious, and the Shaman will reward you with it.
The Shaman himself praised and acknowledged Caesar, and he promised that the patterned plate he gave Caesar would belong to the wolf forever. Which meant that the wolf would be allowed to live in the tribe his whole life, without anyone intending to harm him, and the only reason for a sudden death would be being killed during a hunting mission.
That was the gesture and attitude that the Shaman showed.
With Caesar’s example, the others were even thinking about keeping their own cub in the future.
Two days after they absorbed the energy from the Fire Crystals, quite a few junior totem warriors advanced and became intermediate warriors. Lang Ga and Ang were both part of them. They had made essential improvements, and the totem patterns on their arms had extended past the elbows.
That made Lang Ga so thrilled that he partied alone in his house for days. He even threw out his grandpa’s favorite precious stone hammer out of excitement.
In the past, Tuo and Keke were the only two well-known outstanding young warriors when Lang Ga awakened together with them. Last year, Tuo and Keke became intermediate warriors.
But now, to Lang Ga’s surprise, he was also able to make such fast progress in such a short time!
The topic of Fire Crystals would last for a long time in the tribe due to the limited size of the community. In the open wild, their tribe was the only tribe, and people had few stories to hang on to. So, in short terms, people wouldn’t be talking about anything else, at least not in the foreseeable future.
Every time when you went out the door, you would hear people discussing something related to the Fire Crystals. For instance, which warrior advanced after absorbing the Fire Crystals, who had the least improvement, and who did not manage to go up to the mountaintop, etc… aside from all that, Shao Xuan and the wolf were also the center of people’s discussion.
I heard that it was the wolf that found the place with the Fire Crystals?
How I envy that! Will our hunting team be able to find Fire Crystals if we also had a wolf? Even if not Fire Crystals, it would also be good enough to have found something else.
How about we go and catch a few cubs during our hunting trip this time? Ah-Xuan seemed to have said that it was better to train a cub from young age, right? Anyway, wolf packs often fight each other in the wild, and it’s a shame that all those cubs have to die. They won’t cost too much food if we bring them back and keep them at home.
That make sense.
Shao Xuan did not anticipate that only one hunting trip would make people think about keeping their own wolf.
After the Fire Crystal incident, Shao Xuan was asked to go to the Shaman for a talk.
The Shaman asked some details about this matter. For example, why did Shao Xuan manage to sense the locations of the Fire Crystals.
Even if he had more power of inheritance than the others, it would not guarantee that he could locate those Fire Crystals so precisely. He might be able to fool the others, but the Shaman already knew better.
At the beginning, Shao Xuan and the Shaman were just taking baby steps in their relationship. However, during this process, both parties began to have more trust in each other, and they revealed more information to each other gradually.
The Shaman let Shao Xuan know of things that even the leaders might not know, while Shao Xuan did not keep his secret to the Shaman about being different from the others.
Here, there was only one tribe, and the Shaman represented absolute power and authority. If he was someone selfish and stupid, he might have thought that Shao Xuan was a threat to his position, and he might have tried to get him out of the way. However, the truth was that the Shaman was happy and delighted every time he saw anything great with Shao Xuan. He would put on his rarely-seen gentle smile when he learnt that Shao Xuan had some other ability.
Shao Xuan had no intention of keeping it from the Shaman this time. He pointed at his eyebrows and said,
The totem told me so.
Is it true that you lost the little Fire Crystal that you were holding on to?
Asked the Shaman. He was not trying to blame him, and it was just a question out of pure curiosity. He did not think that Shao Xuan would lose something so important easily. Besides, since he could sense the existence of the Fire Crystals, why would he not notice it when he lost it?
I did not say that I lost it. All I said was that the Fire Crystal…is gone.
Shao Xuan lifted his hand and said to the Shaman,
I absorbed it.
