Chapter 28 – I want to learn stone crafting
Translated by Sunyancai
Lang Ga choked.
At first Lang Ga had guessed a few possible answers that Shao Xuan might come up with, and he planned to judge and guide him in detail no matter which answer he had. Just the same as every time in the past when there was someone newly joined the hunting team. However, Lang Ga did not expect Shao Xuan to have such an implausible answer and to go way off script.
What did one’s left hand have anything to do with it?
But Lang Ga did not overthink it, instead, he just corrected it with a serious face, “It’s stone!”
“You should know that a long time ago, when we first started a life here, we were just living in the cave. Stone was something that we saw and touched every day. It could keep us sheltered, and help us to cut and chop wood.”
As he spoke, Lang Ga’s face turned even more serious, and he seemed quite emotional with his fists clenched, “In the meantime, we also used those stones. We could pierce those ferocious beasts through with stones, and smash their heads with stones! Even when we were in danger, stones would also be the thing that accompanied us by our side, until our last breath.”.
Providing shelter; accompanying by one’s side; never to betray nor to abandon. People in the tribe had been dealing with stones from their births. They played with stones, and used stones in their daily life, almost all tools and appliances were made from stones. As for warriors who often went out for hunting missions, they could not be more familiar with stones, and they could never be separated from stoneware. So no wonder Lang Ga said all that.
Certainly, Shao Xuan prefered to call the stones as tools, after all stones had no life.
“Now, you know what is supposed to be our most intimate partner, right?” Lang Ga stared at Shao Xuan and asked again. His expression indicated that this time he would not accept any wrong answer.
Shao Xuan nodded pretty seriously and earnestly, “It’s stone!”
“Ha, you got it right this time!” Lang Ga showed a satisfied smile immediately, and then continued on the topic of hunting.
“Oh, Ah-Xuan, now since you just got awakened this year, you are not allowed to participate in the first hunting mission of this year. Perhaps you would also miss the second one as well. As for the third hunting mission, you are the only one who could decide whether you could join us or not. It’s all up to your ability.” Said Lang Ga.
Hmm? Was there such a thing? Shao Xuan was not aware of that.
Seeing Shao Xuan’s curiosity, Lang Ga explained, “You just awakened, so you and the other newly awakened totemic warriors may be rough in using your powers and strength. You have to go through some training first.”
Lang Ga even put it mildly, but Shao Xuan could speculate the reason hidden in his words.
One reason for keeping those newly awakened kids from hunting missions was for safety concern. When spring finally came with blossoms and warmth after a whole winter, a lot of ferocious beasts became active again in the mountains and almost all of them were starved. There would be more poisonous snakes wandering around and the forest would be filled with different kinds of crisis. With no protection along the way, newly awakened kids would easily get killed in the mountain forests. No one in the tribe would like to see that happen.
However, the second reason was because the newly awakened warriors like Shao Xuan had not achieved some certain level of ability. Hunting teams valued team-working a lot. Therefore, someone with no guaranteed personal abilities would be a heavy liability to the team, who could bring no help but instead appeared to be a burden.
“Understood!” Shao Xuan did not feel disappointed when he had thought things through. Also, he felt that he should have his foundation properly built first. It’s not a bad thing that he could have the time to practice more.
Lang Ga was relieved with Shao Xuan’s reaction, originally he thought that Shao Xuan might be disappointed or reluctant as the other kids, and he did not expect him to have cleared the dots so soon. When he asked Shao Xuan to come to the party and meet his future teammates, he also planned to tell Shao Xuan about the first two hunting missions. In the past, many newly awakened warriors would make a scene when they were told that they were not allowed to join the first two hunting missions after they had become fully excited about the hunting. When those circumstances happened, in most cases, the kids’ parents would discipline them with a few slaps on the face. After that, they would behave much better. However, Shao Xuan came from orphan cave and both his parents had died long before. What’s more, he appeared to be much more emaciated than the other kids, so Lang Ga was worried that perhaps he would hurt him if he had to give Shao Xuan a few slaps.
“Good! I’m glad that you can think it through. By the way, I have a few fine stone cores here. I’ll give them to you, you may craft them yourself, or just go and find a stoneware crafter.”
Lang Ga took out a few stones in different sizes from his animal skin bag, those were the stone cores that Lang Ga mentioned earlier.
The materials to make stoneware could be obtained after hitting and forging the stones, and people in the tribe would call those stone cores.
After giving the stone cores to Shao Xuan, Lang Ga shared some training experiences with him as well. The others at the party did not hold back their experiences either, they did not have that kind of thought in their minds.
Shao Xuan kept their advices in mind silently, and then sincerely thanked them for the sharing.
“Your father used to help me when he was alive.” Lang Ga said. People in hunting teams were just like that, each of them was willing to lend a hand to others when possible. Even though they could not help Shao Xuan a lot on his training, their advices could make it easier anyway.
After having some grilled meat, Shao Xuan excused himself from the party, he had other things that needed to be done. While Lang Ga and the others kept on discussing about the coming hunting mission in five days.
Shao Xuan was called to stop, not long after he had come out from Lang Ga’s house.
“Are you Xuan?”
Shao Xuan looked at the voice’s direction and saw a kid older than himself. He looked the same age as Sai, but much stronger. The animal skin clothes on him seemed to be of good quality, Shao Xuan assumed that he wasn’t someone from the mountain foot district. Instead, he seemed more like someone living in the mountain side or mountaintop district. Shao Xuan had some memory of him, they were awakened at the same ritual ceremony, but Shao Xuan did not know his name yet.
At the same time, the kid raised his head high, and seemed pretty proud, and he was measuring Shao Xuan with his eyes.
Standing on a high ground and keeping his chin up, didn’t his eyes feel tired? Shao Xuan glimpsed at him and asked, “Who are you?”
At first, Shao Xuan thought that he would stand on his dignity and answer with something like “It doesn’t matter who I am” to keep the appearances. However, the kid answered directly, “My name is Fei. After five days, I will be joining the hunting team to attend the first mission of this year. I bet you still have to wait for a long time before you can tag along, right?”
After his declaration, he sneered at Shao Xuan and then jumped up high above Shao Xuan’s head. When he landed with his tip toes, he soon jumped up again. After a few leaps, he had already placed himself in front of Lang Ga’s door. Apparently he had something to discuss with Lang Ga.
The kid also snorted at Shao Xuan as he looked back when he was about to enter the room, displaying his pride of his moves. His moves earlier were quite impressive among his peers, his father often complimented him for being able to run faster, jump higher and leap further than the other kids.
Shao Xuan scratched his jaw, was it really okay for him to tag along with the hunting team, since he made such a big noise when landing?
However, since Fei could come with the hunting team for the first hunting mission of the year, obviously he was under someone’s protection. What’s more, his protector must be someone with a high reputation and status, because, some normal warriors like Lang Ga could never have a saying in this kind of things.
Surely he was spoiled, with all the protection he got.
However, Shao Xuan was not affected by that, and his emotion were also not affected by Fei’s attitude. After all, he was not really a little kid, and he understood the importance of gradual progress. Therefore, he was not that eager to succeed. The earlier incident might be influence others, but Shao Xuan did not care that much.
Shao Xuan took Caesar for fishing. After an entire winter’s rest, the fish in the river were still as stupid and dumb as earlier. They did not release once they took the bait, and so they got captured easily. They might look ferocious, but they were not intelligent at all.
From Lang Ga and the other warriors’ earlier discussion over hunting skills, Shao Xuan learnt that many beasts in the forests were just like the piranhas in the river. They might look ferocious, with sharp teeth and big mouth. But once you found the trick, they could be captured easily. However, some other animals might seem to be gentle and weak, they dieted on plants and had no sharp teeth. But instead, they could easily kill you in silence, and they were no less aggressive than many predators.
Since it’s not the world that Shao Xuan was familiar with, he thought that he should get as much preparations as he could get.
With the fish and some pieces of old animal skins, Shao Xuan asked someone to help him make an animal skin bag. He paid the manual fee with one fish, and then went to the stoneware crafter, Ke’s place with the other three fish. Now Shao Xuan had more strength than before, so he could easily lift four big fish without Caesar’s help.
When Shao Xuan arrived, some men were just leaving Ke’s house with finished stoneware in their hands, for example, stone knives, spearheads and stone adzes.
Those people were here to trade stoneware, since the hunting season had begun, and they had to store more tools for hunting missions. Ke was considered as a famous stoneware crafter among the mountain foot district, naturally more people tended to come to his place. If Ke had a better temper, he would for sure have gained more customers than now. Every year, Ke would drive away some people who wanted to do the trading with him, just because of his bad temper.
Some people said that Ke was behaving too straight-forwarded. Instead of keeping it gentle, he tended to blast things outright in others’ faces as he talked. However, Shao Xuan did not agree with that. Was Ke really that ignorant of things? Or did he have a straight-forwarded character? He didn’t think so.
Shao Xuan lifted the curtain and walked inside after he got Ke’s permission.
Ke was working on a stoneware. Most of the stoneware he made during winter had been traded out, and there were still some stone cores and food piled up in his room. They were the “processing fee” that he did not had the time to put away.
Placing the fish by the pile of food, Shao Xuan approached Ke.
“Uncle Ke, I want to learn how to craft stoneware.”
Last time when Shao Xuan was here to learn, Ke refused him because he said it was not the right time yet, and he had to wait until his totemic power awakened.
Now since Shao Xuan was awakened, he decided to have another shot at this. Also, according to Lang Ga and the others’ advice in training, he needed a lot of stone tools. Shao Xuan did not have enough food to trade for so much stoneware, so he planned to craft them by himself.
Ke stopped his work at hand, and measured Shao Xuan closely from head to toes. And then he gazed straight at Shao Xuan’s eyes.
Shao Xuan did not avoid his eyesight.
After a few seconds, Ke passed Shao Xuan a stone hammer and pointed to somewhere not far, where a stone core was placed. On that stone core there were a few lines, curved and meandering.
“Hit along the lines.” Ke said.
As a rookie Shao Xuan held the stone hammer, he looked at Ke and then glimpsed at the stone core placed there, before he swung the hammer and hit down.
The first strike was too cautious. He did hit the lines, but because of limited strength, it only left a slight dent on the stone core.
Again!
For the second strike, he hit it too hard, so he pierced down a stone chip instead of a flake of stone. Also it went beyond the line.
Shao Xuan could tell from Ke’s exposed veins by his forehead, that Ke was extremely unsatisfied with his earlier two strikes. But since Ke kept his silence, Shao Xuan continued hitting on the stone core along the lines. Also, he struck boldly, and he did not become timid because of the first two failures.
Peeling down certain amount of stone flakes from a stone core was not as easy as it seemed to be. Stoneware crafters needed to estimate the length of time when the hammer should hit the stone based on different materials when he made the stoneware. Also, the angle and speed were also very important. Should the hit be straight or curved? What’s the hammer’s quality and the stone’s? How much strength should be used? There were many aspects that needed to be given serious consideration before one strikes the stone core.
Ke had mentioned these all to Shao Xuan, and Shao Xuan had seen a lot when Ke was peeling stone flakes from the stone cores. However, when he got to do it himself, he knew that it was extremely difficult!
A small discrepancy could lead to a major error.
Again!!
As Shao Xuan hit the stone core one strike after another, Ke sat aside and watched him in silence.
Caesar was squatting beside Shao Xuan. He looked up at Shao Xuan and then looked at Ke and his poker face. Finally, Caesar decided to move his legs, one bit after another, until he had drawn back to the corner and then he lied down to stay with the fish.