After they found out how brutal and fierce this pterosaur was, everyone made sure to keep a close watch over this beast.
For the next few days, Shao Xuan would let it roam around freely in the area and hunt for food. The pterosaur ate all sorts of animals, including flying beetles, stone flying squirrels, and even bugs underground. Whenever it couldn’t finish its food, it would hide it. That explained why they found so many dead insects and small beasts within the ice. The pterosaur probably hid them all after it hunted them. Some accident probably happened back then and froze all of them up.
Of course, the pterosaur’s training process didn’t exactly go too smoothly. Sometimes the pterosaur would revert back to its wild nature, and it would be quite challenging to tame. It even tried to fly away when Shao Xuan wasn’t paying attention. This creature could only be tamed by punishment and not by reward. It wouldn’t remember if Shao Xuan treated it nicely, so every time it rebelled, Shao Xuan just forcefully suppressed its power.
After a few times, it behaved a lot better.
However, one of the reasons it didn’t dare fly around recklessly was because it knew that the world was different now. This was not the same world it used to live in, and it was very dangerous.
The pterosaurs no longer ruled the sky.
Compared to flying around alone and exploring a new environment, wasn’t it much better to stay with its own? At least whenever it encountered any dangers or birds that attacked it, it could fly back, and the Flaming Horns on patrol would protect it from them. The pterosaur wasn’t afraid of one or two birds, but if there was an entire flock, it had no choice but to depend on the Flaming Horns.
Shao Xuan was only curious why the pterosaur would fight Gui He’s snow falcon whenever they met. It couldn’t fly as fast as the falcon, but it snapped quickly, so it would bite the falcon whenever it caught up. The pterosaur even bit off some of the falcon’s feathers, but this wasn’t a one-sided match. The pterosaur also suffered some blows from the falcon, and since it didn’t have as many feathers like other birds, it was apparent whenever it got hurt, but it recovered very fast too.
After noticing how they frequently fought with each other, Gui He had to let the snow falcon live on the mountain in the residential area. As for this pterosaur, Shao Xuan didn’t bring it up to the residential area because it was still untamed. Who could be sure what would happen if it went up? What if it hurt some of the children in the tribe?
However, the pterosaur got along quite well with Cha Cha and never tried to provoke him. Shao Xuan wasn’t sure if it was because the pterosaur knew it was no match for Cha Cha, but it just never did anything to offend him. Often it would even fly over and land beside Cha Cha, especially when it encountered dangers, but every time, Cha Cha would kick the pterosaur to the side. If Shao Xuan had not warned Cha Cha not to attack it, he would have stepped on and killed the pterosaur. By this time, Cha Cha was already quite annoyed by the pterosaur.
Shao Xuan thought Cha Cha and the pterosaur wouldn’t get along well but they suddenly agreed to live together peacefully. Afterwards, Shao Xuan discovered the reason behind their truce. The pterosaur had been helping Cha Cha get rid of the parasites on his body.
Parasites didn’t just grow on furry beasts in the forest. It also grew on many birds, although most birds would solve this problem on their own. Some would use ants to clear off the parasites on their bodies.
Others would rub themselves against some anti-parasitic plants.
Sometimes Cha Cha would rub himself against trees or bushes, and Shao Xuan couldn’t help him with this problem. Shao Xuan didn’t know how to concoct anti-parasitic medicinals for Cha Cha. He couldn’t get rid of these parasites, and the feathers on Cha Cha’s body had already become infected. Shao Xuan knew that birds had their ways to deal with these matters, so he didn’t intervene.
But now, the pterosaur had helped Cha Cha solve this problem, and it seemed to be quite skilled at this.
Could it be that their species had been doing this since a long time ago?
Shao Xuan couldn’t figure out the answer to this question, but he was happy to see that the two creatures could now live in peace together.
Later, Cha Cha even shared the prey he hunted with the pterosaur. It was as if they established a brotherly connection. Both of them were willingly helping each other out.
Shao Xuan went to help out in the canal project whenever he had time. In their plan, this canal had to curve around all the places the King Stoneworm had passed, so it was quite a huge project.
Even though everyone was still paying attention to what was happening in the desert, they just couldn’t care too much about it at the moment. They figured the reason the people from Rock Hill City hadn’t come was probably that there was a restricted control radius in which they could control the monsters. The puppet-like monsters couldn’t leave the desert unless the people who controlled them left the desert.
This meant that as long as the people from Rock Hill City set their target on the other side of the sea, the Flaming Horns wouldn’t need to worry about the monsters attacking people in other places.
Shao Xuan was just discussing with Zheng Luo about the underground tunnel dug by the King Stoneworm today. During their discussion, someone came and told them that people from the Feather tribe were visiting, and they had matters to discuss. The messenger said that the chief also asked for Shao Xuan to be present at this discussion.
“How rare is it for them to come at this time of the year,” Shao Xuan said as he rolled up the design blueprint in his hands.
All this time, they sealed off the tunnel made by the King stone worm and didn’t let anyone who was curious approach this petrified forest. That was why not many people knew about this tunnel’s existence. There was a tunnel that allowed them to go from this side to the other side of the Flaming River.
“You can just go, I’ll keep watch here,” Zheng Luo said as he took the beast hide scroll from Shao Xuan’s hands. He wasn’t familiar with the Feather tribe and had no interest in their matters, so he didn’t need to go.
“Sure, just look for me if you have any problems.” Shao Xuan followed the warrior who came from the headquarters. He also asked the warrior how many people came from the Feather tribe as well as the purpose of their visit.
Shao Xuan initially thought that the leader of this team would be Gu Zhi, whom he knew, but the warrior who escorted him told him that the chief of the Feather tribe came personally this time, or else the chief wouldn’t have asked Shao Xuan to be there.
“Did something serious happen?” Shao Xuan asked.
“It doesn’t seem like it. Those people didn’t look too anxious, but...” the warrior hesitated and then continued, “I heard them say that they wanted to come to hunt for birds in the forest, to replenish their bird supply.”
“Replenish their bird supply?”
“Yes, and I think the chief intends to do as they say. Grand Elder, you know it too. We don’t have a lot of birds in our tribe.” Especially after Wu He’s incident, the Flaming Horns had been thinking about reinforcing their aerial defences. They needed at least a few more birds to alert them if anything happened.
Someone had mentioned this before. They even wanted to ask for a giant mountain eagle’s egg from the Hui tribe and hatch it themselves, but many people disagreed. Not everyone here was capable of riding or taming a giant mountain eagle. The Hui tribe had generations of experience and could live in harmony with all the giant mountain eagles. Other people probably wouldn’t be able to manage this. Just look at Cha Cha. Besides Shao Xuan, the bird didn’t listen to any other people, not even Old Ke.
These birds were too hard to tame and control, so they gave up and decided to look for easier targets.
This time, since the people from the Feather tribe came, the Flaming Horns suddenly had an idea. The Feather tribe were experts in taming birds, and they knew which birds were suitable for which purposes.
The major tribes in the central region were all busy these days. The Mang tribe and Eight Limbs tribe had been having meetings and seemed to be planning something. The Feather tribe couldn’t do anything about this, and the Hui tribe and Tianshan tribe had been busy in the grassy plains. They were too far away from these other tribes. The Thousand Masks tribe had been gathering new followers since they merged their fire seed. They had been protecting the smaller to middle-sized tribes that had also merged their fire seeds. Some of them had failed, but the Thousand Masks tribe made these smaller to middle-sized tribes feel more secure.
After the Feather tribe merged their fire seed, they had been planning to do something they always had in mind but never accomplished.
How much time had passed since they last replenished their bird stock?
Shao Xuan was still on his way to the headquarters. Meanwhile, at the bottom of the mountain at the headquarters, a few young men from the Feather tribe were discussing which birds they wanted to hunt after they entered the forest.
During their discussion, one of them widened his eyes and elbowed the person beside him, gesturing him to look in the same direction. “Look, what bird is that?”
The others all looked in the same direction. On a tree not too far away from them, an odd-looking bird was watching them as it rested on the branches.