Translator: Exodus Tales
Editor: Exodus Tales
One month later.
While the sun was still struggling at the horizon, the entirety of the Mud Mountain Tribe had gathered at the clearing.
Today was the annual provisional Warrior trial.
The mood was very somber.
The tribe members were gathered into a circle, and it was so quiet that they could hear each other breathing.
The chief and shaman solemnly stood in the center of the crowd, and in front of them were the participants in this day’s trial.
The chief slowly swept his gaze across the ten participants.
The first nine were all built like iron towers, their muscular bodies bursting with strength.
But when the chief reached the end of the line, his brow lightly twitched.
A fair-skinned and thin youth quietly stood there, forming a stark contrast with the rest of the trial participants.
This youth, Ye Xi, noticed the shift in the chief’s expression and slowly blinked.
The chief had always been very opposed to his becoming a Warrior. Even on the day right before the trial, the chief had still been strenuously attempting to persuade him otherwise.
This was because a Warrior had to join the hunting team, which meant a chance of injury or death while hunting.
No matter what point of view he considered it from, the chief had no desire to see anything happen to Ye Xi.
But Ye Xi’s mind was made up. He allowed the chief to blabber on, but he remained determined to take part in the trial.
After looking them over, the chief turned solemn and began to firmly advise the trial participants, “All of you know that Warriors are the foundation of the Tribe. A tribe without a Warrior cannot survive in the jungle!”
His voice was deep and forceful. “In order to become a true Warrior, you must first pass the trial. Only by passing the trial can you prove yourselves to have the qualities of a Warrior! Only then can the tribe give you a precious Fiendbeast Core and allow you to evolve into a true Warrior!
“The ten of you have all passed the tests of strength and speed, and are only one step away from becoming provisional Warriors!
“Only one step!”
The chief grew agitated, pointing at the distant jungle and yelling, “And that is to head into the jungle, the dangerous jungle, and hunt a beast that you will bring back!
“Is the jungle dangerous? Yes! But true Warriors do not fear danger! True Warriors have no fear!
“Promise me this! All of you must do your utmost to hunt down a savage beast in that jungle and bring it back to the tribe, and then tell us, tell Mud Mountain, that in the future, you will become a true Warrior!!!”
Yeeeah!
The entirety of the tribe was made restless by this impassioned speech.
The other nine trial participants were particularly affected, their faces turning red as they clenched their fists and roared, the veins bulging from their necks.
Ye Xi’s heart was madly thumping, and while he didn’t yell in excitement, he was still rather agitated.
Once the crowd had quieted down, the chief waved to the back of the crowd.
A Warrior cautiously came forward with a jar.
The chief took the jar with both hands and said to the trial participants, “Now, come forward and take a bone plate. What is drawn on the bone plate is the target that you will hunt for this trial.”
The ten came forward and each took a bone plate from the jar.
Once the ten had taken their bone plates, the shaman came forward and lightly thumped his bone cane against the ground.
But this soft thump made the entire tribe instantly fall silent, even their breathing becoming so soft that one could hear a pin drop.
The shaman gave a satisfied nod, and his eyes slowly closed. After a brief pause, he began to chant, mysterious words coming from his mouth with a strange rhythm.
As Ye Xi gazed at the shaman’s gaunt cheeks, he felt something indescribable.
As the shaman chanted, the strange syllables began to bizarrely resonate with the air– no, with space itself. Ye Xi sensed his body getting lighter and more energetic, as if he had reached his peak performance.
When the chant was over, the shaman’s eyes flew open, and they briefly flashed with a white light.
“Children, bless you,” the shaman said in his old and slow voice.
A blessing? This was the power of a blessing shaman? As Ye Xi felt the brimming energy in his body, his eyes flashed.
The other nine trial participants leaned their bodies forward to bow to the shaman.
Ye Xi noticed this and immediately imitated their actions, joining them in deeply bowing to the shaman.
The shaman calmly received their bow and waved his hand. “Go, children of Mud Mountain. May the ancestors protect you.”
…
Ye Xi rapidly moved through the jungle, a large bow on his back.
He was quite excited, as even though he couldn’t go beyond five kilometers of the tribe’s territory, this was the first time in his time here that he was going into the jungle alone!
He knew that the Mud Mountain Warriors had already cleared this region of all dangerous creatures, so he boldly ran, as happy as a bird released from its cage.
An insect that was half the height of a human suddenly appeared in front of him, emerging from a rotting tree and viciously raising its head to attack. Ye Xi smirked and charged forward, executing a beautiful flip that carried him right over the insect’s head.
After running a few more steps, he spotted a large fallen tree blocking his path. Without stopping, Ye Xi extended a hand and nimbly vaulted over the tree.
The wind rushed past his ears as Ye Xi continued to overcome obstacle after obstacle, freely making his way through the jungle.
A sense of freedom welled up in his heart, and with no other way to express his emotions, he let out a joyous laugh that resounded through the jungle.
A large yellow mushroom appeared in his path, half the height of a man. Ye Xi had no plans to run around it, and he stomped onto the mushroom, planning to jump off it.
But to his surprise, his sudden stomp made the mushroom expel foul gas into the air.
Bzzzz! The foul air immediately caused all the insects hiding within one hundred feet to flee. Ye Xi was also forced to cover his nose as he fled in disarray.
The mushroom had been a stinky mushroom! It looked far too similar to ordinary mushrooms. Ye Xi became rather dejected.
Smelling the foul odor on his body, he couldn’t help but find himself comical and laugh at himself.
He removed the bone plate from his waist and flipped it with his thumb. The bone plate turned in the air and accurately landed on the back of his hand, like he was flipping a coin.
Ye Xi smirked as he placed his hands behind his back and used his fingers to feel out the grooves on the bone plate.
Eh? Hold on; what animal is carved here? Why does it feel so strange?
Bringing his hand back in front of him, Ye Xi looked down and immediately grimaced.
This was an animal with two horns, a triangular face, a plump and abstract body, and four short legs. What creature was this?
Heh, if not for the three lines carved on the thing’s back, he really wouldn’t have recognized it. This abstract animal… was a Rockpiercer Springbok.
Ye Xi placed a hand on his forehead, despairing over the drawing abilities of cavemen. Was the success rate of the provisional Warrior trials so low because people hunted the wrong animal?
I’ll have to criticize them a little once I get back, Ye Xi said to himself.
But first, he needed to finish his trial.
A Rockpiercer Springbok would be rather difficult.
As one could tell from its name, a Springbok was an extremely powerful jumper. Ordinary springboks from the modern era were able to jump around three meters high, the height of a one-storey building. As for Rockpiercer Springboks… they had three times the jumping ability of ordinary springboks, about nine meters.
This ability could allow one to traverse the jungle like it was flatland.
Just imagine: if they ran into a dinosaur, whoosh! They could just jump right over its head. When a small mountain blocked their path, whoosh! They could simply hop across. And when they faced a small river, whoosh! They could jump over.
And why did the Rockpiercer Springbok have ‘Rockpiercer’ in front of its name? Because someone had once seen an angry Springbok lower its head and run into the rocky face of a mountain. To his surprise, the Springbok’s horns, rather than breaking, managed to knock a large chunk off the mountain face.
Thus, just like with Sabertooth Tigers and Goldspotted Leopards, those who went to hunt Rockpiercer Springboks often came back empty-handed.
It was already a difficult quarry, but Rockpiercer Springboks were actually herd animals, doubling the difficulty.
Another trial participant would have been in such despair that they would have found a corner to sulk in. But as Ye Xi felt the bow and arrows on his back, his eyes confidently flashed.
Let me show you what ‘With an arrow in hand, the world is mine’ means.
But…
Suddenly, Ye Xi recalled the chief bitterly imploring him to change his mind, and he began to wonder… was there a reason besides simple chance that he had pulled such a difficult target?
But he quickly rejected the thought.
How could any tricks be played in such a small jar? Cavemen couldn’t be that smart.