Chapter 517
Busy
After the battle that ended with shocking speed, the tribespeople of the Flaming Horn tribe still kept busy.
People were seen walking in and out of the forests near the Wanshi tribe every day. Sounds of swinging axes and grunts were heard too.
The Flaming Horn tribe planned to connect the tribes in the forest and the Wanshi tribe’s village. This was to make travel much easier.
There were many challenges in travelling before this so a road would make it much more convenient.
They got rid of the dangerous plants and beasts in the forest and cut down the trees according to their plans. They used the wood to build houses in the new village. They flattened out a path for the benefits of the wheels of their carts.
Anyone that walked past this path could see the mighty Flaming Horn warriors whacking the ground with a large hammer. Each hit that struck the ground had enough force to vibrate the whole area.
“This, pluck this out, I can’t hammer well with it!” said a sweaty warrior wielding a large hammer to his friend. He was pointed at the roots of a tree that got cut down.
“Wait, there’s a large rock here, I’ll dig this out first.”
The first warrior placed his hammer down and sat on the grass. He looked at the results of their labour for the past few days. He couldn’t help but feel proud of what they achieved. The previous lurking dangers of the forests were no longer felt. He suddenly thought of something and said to his friends, “The chief wants to exchange with the Mang tribe for some cart-pulling beasts. Do you think horses or cattle are better?”
“Horses! Horses are much faster!”
“Cattle! What’s so good about those horses? Cattle can be fast too and I heard they can plough the fields too! They also have cool horns.”
“Horses and cattle are cool but the birds from Lu tribe are not bad,”
“Pfft, those birds are only a little bigger than others, they don’t have anything special. I’m telling you, back at the other side of the ocean the tribe reared ducks. It was brought over by the Grand Elder. There were duck eggs, those eggs could cure poison! Sadly, none of those ducks made it over here with us.”
“Right, about the Grand Elder, he and I came from the same cave.” Ku thought about the past, when they haven’t found their tribe, when they didn’t realise their totemic powers. Their life at the cave at the bottom of the hill.
That got the attention of the others. They looked to their left and right to check whether anyone was near them. When the coast was clear, they asked in a low voice, “Eh, brother, how was the Grand Elder during those days. Was he very cool then?”
“In those days…”
Ku remembered the skinny boy he knew. Nobody would believe back then that this person would grow to where he was now.
At that moment, the Grand Elder they were talking about was frowning while biting the end of his pen.
“How? How can I write this?” Shao Xuan looked at the empty animal skin scroll. His pen had obvious bite marks on them now.
Shao Xuan didn’t have this habit before this but the task the shamen gave him forced this habit out of him.
Destroying Wanshi tribe’s fire seed in half a day was a huge accomplishment that made the shaman extremely happy. It was something that needed to be recorded for the generations to come. This was a shining point in the history of the Flaming Horn tribe.
The extinguishing of the fire seed was an important part of the story but the shaman wouldn’t be able to write that part so Shao Xuan had to do it himself.
That’s where the problem is, Shao Xuan had no idea how to do it.
The way he accomplished it was a natural body reaction to him, it was like a dream. He only came to his senses when it was extinguished. His memories of the event were murky.
At that time, no matter how hard Shao Xuan tried to think, he couldn’t remember any of the important moments.
That was the first point.
Secondly, he was writing this for the future generations of the Flaming Horn tribe, he needed to have a tone befitting for a Grand Elder. Their ancestors wrote the most important events in animal skin with clear descriptions. The main points were highlighted with special words they used. This was deemed the most serious way of writing which Shao Xuan had to follow.
Only, there was a significant difference with the vocabulary Shao Xuan used and the vocabulary the others used.
With a long sigh, Shao Xuan turned to Gui Ze that was seated across the table. As the next shamaness in line, Gui Ze had many tasks too. She was already done with three animal scrolls.
As she noticed his gaze on her, Gui Ze lifted her head and looked at Shao Xuan in confusion.
“Um, Gui Ze can you pass me your scroll to co- … for reference,” said Shao Xuan.
Gui Ze didn’t expect Shao Xuan to ask this question. Normally, shamans don’t share their scrolls with people because they have many tribe secrets written in them that many don’t know.
However, Shao Xuan was the Grand Elder, he had the right to look at them but he already knew everything written in the scroll. Gui Ze hesitated as she passed the scrolls to him. She couldn’t understand why he wanted it.
Shao Xuan wanted to use her writing as reference for the language he needed to use. In his draft, he used “following his instinct” and “signals from the flame” in every moment he wasn’t sure about what happened. Well, it wasn’t wrong and he could add in the details later on.
Shao Xuan looked at the bright sky as he walked out from the shaman’s hut. It was sunny nearly every day which was in favour of the tribespeople. It seemed that the road heading into the forest would be done in two more days.
Caesar was lying outside Shao Xuan’s house biting a bone when Shao Xuan reached home. In the battle, it has lost an eye but it has strong recovering powers. As a marked beast, it has totemic powers but it can’t blend into the flame. With totemic powers, it could recover much faster than others without.
During the battle, out of all the beasts from Flaming Horn, Ceaser bit the most beasts from Wanshi to death. Although it got more damage than other beasts, it’s recovering powers were stronger than the other beasts from the tribe.
By the time Caesar could go into the forest to hunt, the two from Sunshine house were still recovering. The phorusrhacos still had its two feet up in the air because of its injured leg. Ah Guang was the one that had to carry it back from Wanshi.
According to the secret engraving techniques, the offsprings of the beasts in the tribe would be normal beasts. The engravings will only last for the current generation. The tribespeople could select the best beasts from the new generation to engrave again.
Shao Xuan made an eye patch for Caesar’s injury to prevent any dust from entering its eye and infection from its time in the forest.
At first, Caesar was not used to it and tried to tear it off but it was doing much better now. Sometimes, Caesar would still tear it off while hunting but Old Ke would put on a backup eyepatch for it.
The wound was nearly completely head but it’s right eye was no more so it could only see with one eye. This took a toll on its hunting skills, it was much slower than before.
“Old buddy, it’s ok if you can’t catch them, I’ll take care of you.”
After checking all of Caesar’s wounds for infections and making sure there were none, Shao Xuan entered his house.
“Ah Xuan, people form the Lu tribe are looking for you,” said Old Ke who was polishing some equipment.
“Lu tribe? Yan Jiu?”
“Yes, him.”
After finding out about Wanshi, the Lu tribe cheered out loud. That threat was no longer there!
Now the people of the Lu tribe were more attentive towards Flaming Horn. The Wanshi tribe was rebuilt from the ground. The houses, animal pens, even the farmlands. The tribespeople from the Lu tribe also willingly gave free instructions to them on how to efficiently build their houses and grow their crops.
Shao Xuan guessed that Yan Jiu wanted to discuss rearing cubs in their tribe.
With a lot more land in their tribe and all the new beasts enclosures, their needs naturally increased. Some people from the Lu tribe mentioned that Yan Jiu would be more than happy to trade with the Flaming Horn tribe.
With the news of Wanshi’s defeat spreading out, some larger tribes in the central region had thoughts of taking precautions but they were afraid of ruining their relationship with Flaming Horn. They were unsure of what to do so many sent their people over to the tribe to take a look.
Shao Xuan searched around but couldn’t spot Yan Jiu or his men. He heard from someone that he may have gone to the forest to instruct the construction going on there and would only come back later on. Shao Xuan was in no rush so he headed to the travellers’ district.
The travellers stayed around the edge of the forest for nearly two years. As they weren’t Flaming Horn tribespeople, they didn’t have that signature strength so they still feared the forest. Even with guards surrounding the area, they still preferred to be as far from the forest as possible so when they knew the Flaming Horn tribe was expanding, they rushed to move there.
At the travellers’ district, the people were busy and some went to build their houses. They had to follow the strict guidelines for their houses, nothing out of plan was accepted.
The rest that stayed in the area were mostly injured, the elderly or the children. The children ran around but only in the Flaming Horn tribe’s traveller’s area. This was a privilege they had here, in other tribes, the children barely dared to step out of their houses in the traveller’s area.
As the travellers were busier these few days, the chief sent over some men to keep an eye on things in this area.
When Shao Xuan reached there, he saw a group of Flaming Horn warriors gathered together, chatting happily.