Chapter 117 – The Union of Five Hunting Groups
Translated by Sunyancai
“The Fire Crystal?!” Cheng couldn’t help it but his voice somehow trembled. He was unable to be calm at the moment.
Mai slowly put Shao Xuan down as he stared at the red crystal in his hand. Mai tried to reach out his hand to take the crystal, but thinking of something, he was a little hesitant.
Shao Xuan put out his hand, and flipped it to drop the crystal down.
Mai hurriedly grabbed it, as if he was afraid it would drop down on the ground. He held it in his hand as if he were holding something beyond precious. Nervous, excited, unbelieving, he was drowned in the mixture of different emotions, and even he himself couldn’t tell what he was feeling right now.
With the crystal in his hand, Mai felt that a stream of warmth was distributing into the air. However, the warm stream could only extend to the close surrounding of the crystal, and not extend to a larger area, as if it was being imprisoned.
The whole crystal was in the size of a quail egg, with an irregular shape. It was not clean on the surface, for some stone chips were still attached to its surface. However, traces of light shone on the red crystal from the gaps of the leaves. The light was not so bright, but it covered a veil of thick red shadow around this quail-egg-sized red crystal.
Above, the leaves were dancing in the wind, which caused traces of light to move constantly. It looked like the red shadow was also dancing around the red crystal, like fascinating flames.
“Is it really the Fire Crystal?!”
Cheng trembled as he approached Mai. He wanted to take it for a closer look, but Mai clenched his hand to hold onto the crystal tightly.
Seeing Mai like that, Cheng opened his eyes wide. His beard on the cheek even began to tremble and he said, “Are you not giving it to me?!” He said slowly, stressing each syllable.
Cheng looked at Mai, and it seemed like he would start a fight right now if Mai prevented him from seeing the crystal. The muscles on Mai’s face were also twitching, and he was not sure what kind of expression to make.
These two people confronted each other for a while, before Mai slowly opened his fingers. It was much slower than when Shao Xuan opened his fingers, as if it was slow-motion. As he opened all his fingers, he emphasized again, “It was found by a warrior in our group!”
Cheng just ignored Mai’s “It was found by a warrior in our group”, and took the red crystal from Mai’s hand right away.
It didn’t feel like a regular stone. Instead of feeling cold and hard, he felt a stream of warmth.
“The Fire Crystal…it is indeed the Fire Crystal!” Cheng was reluctant to give it back once he held it in his hand.
The Fire Crystal was an extremely valuable stone for people in the tribe. It contained the energy that totem warriors needed, and could help enhance the strength of totem warriors.
There was a special method for the absorption of the Fire Crystal. It needed to be put in the flames in the fire pit. Some of the energy would be absorbed by the fire pit, while the other part of the energy would be absorbed by people standing around the fire pit.
Over twenty years ago, someone in Gui He’s hunting team found a small Fire Crystal that was a little bigger than a pinkie finger nail. At that time, a dozen junior warriors turned into intermediate warriors overnight. And a few intermediate warriors’ totem patterns grew by a lot, even though they did not become senior totem warriors. Their totem patterns were slightly over the elbows, but then they reached their wrists.
A long time ago, some shaman once said that whoever found the Fire Crystal, he would have the priority access to use it. No matter if that person was from the mountaintop or the mountain foot area. No one else could ever interfere with the usage of it. However, there’s a rule that people must use it as a whole hunting group. Whichever hunting group’s person found the Fire Crystal, they could bring their families to benefit as well.
This is very tempting to any warrior in the tribe, not only Mai and Cheng.
“Have you seen enough of it? Give it back to us! It was found by someone in our group!”
Mai wanted to have it back, but Cheng was reluctant to give it back.
Shao Xuan saw these two hunting group leaders arguing over that piece of stone, like no one else was watching. Weren’t they afraid of attracting those big bats or ferocious beasts if they made too much noise?
As these two were snatching over the crystal, Cheng said, “Our group joined the mission. Your guys weren’t the only ones at the scene! Don’t think of hogging it all!”
Seeing those two group leaders acting like that, the other warriors in the two groups joined the discussion. Some of them had no idea what a Fire Crystal was. But when they were briefed in by their mates, they began to stare at Cheng’s clenched hand with desire and fiery eyes.
Warriors in the tribe had a persistent pursuit of power, and they were willing to face any kinds of risks or crises to obtain power and strength.
The two sides were in a deadlock for a while, but suddenly, someone asked Shao Xuan, “Where did you find the Fire Crystal, Ah-Xuan?”
At that question, the two group leaders stopped to look at Shao Xuan.
“In the giant pit before.” Said Shao Xuan.
Mai gave up on fighting over it with Cheng, for he knew that it was impossible for Cheng to take it for himself. The Shaman wouldn’t allow that.
“Before you left, it was the Fire Crystal that you dug out?” Asked Mai.
“Yes, I was feeling that something was beneath my feet, and it felt good. Later when we retreated, I felt reluctant to miss it, so I started digging.” Said Shao Xuan, “I’m sorry, but I will be more smart next time.”
“No, no, no. I would be more impulsive if I were you!” Cheng said. If he was sensing a Fire Crystal beneath his feet, perhaps he would start digging right away?
However, not everybody could sense the Fire Crystal. After all, Ah-Xuan was learning from the Shaman. People all believed that the Shaman was the reason why Shao Xuan could find the Fire Crystal. People tended to believe whatever that was related to the Shaman, without raising any questions.
Now, Cha couldn’t help but think why Ah-Xuan wasn’t on his group?
But soon enough, people realized another thing.
Cheng was breathing somewhat heavily, but he tried to ease his tone and asked Shao Xuan, “Have you felt the existence of other Fire Crystal when we were back in the giant pit?”
“Yes!” Shao Xuan was positive.
When they were running for their lives, Shao Xuan felt some of them, but he did not have the time to dig them up.
At the end of Shao Xuan’s sentence, it grew extremely quiet in the surroundings. Then, heavy breathing could be heard.
There were Fire Crystals…
More than one piece of Fire Crystal…
And they were so large in size…
“Boss!”
“Let’s go back for more Fire Crystals!”
“Yes, let’s go!”
Warriors in Cheng’s group all became heated, and they wanted to run back immediately.
“Wait a second. Wait! Let’s think about it first!”
Cheng began to pace around, to think about what was the right thing to do. Even when he was pacing, he did not loosen up his fist.
Shao Xuan noticed that people in the tribe seemed to be fond of pacing around when they became excited.
Every time when he saw them pacing, Shao Xuan would think of the dog that he had in his last life. Every time before it pooped, it paced around.
“If I had known that there were Fire Crystals in the pit, I would rather die to bring more Crystals back, even if I had to fight against those things.” Said Cheng, “But now that we are back, we need to think about it properly.”
“Indeed. We should make proper preparations. No way to rush it.” Mai said it in good words, but his tone was hurried. They were all thinking about the Fire Crystals.
“Let’s go back first!” Said Cheng.
“Okay! Let’s go!” A group of warriors were about to run with holding stone swords and long spears.
“Where are you guys going?! I meant that we should go back to the cave at our holdout first!” Cheng shouted as his beard trembled.
People’s excitement dropped.
When they got back to the cave in their first holdout, Mai finally got the Fire Crystal back from Cheng. He told Shao Xuan that he would keep it for him. Shao Xuan did not mind that at all, for Mai had no intention of keeping it for himself. Plus, the benefit of the Fire Crystal would always be for the whole group. No one would be left out.
Mai, Cheng, and some other experienced warriors were having a meeting to discuss about the Fire Crystal. Since Shao Xuan was the one who found it, they brought Shao Xuan into the discussion.
After a night’s meeting, these two group leaders finally made the call. They decided to call the other three hunting groups.
When Shao Xuan said that there were other Fire Crystals in the giant pit, he thought about what he should do if Cheng and Mai wanted to go back and fight just by themselves. He would stop them from going back and refuse to help. They had too few people, which meant that they were not strong enough to get back those treasures.
After calming down, people realized that two hunting groups were far from able to defeat that many giant bats. Let alone that there were wounded warriors among them. People were not in the right mood.
Mai and Cheng took out an animal skin roll, and wrote down a few sentences that they wanted to convey to the other three hunting groups as the hunting group leaders. It would be up to them whether they wanted to come. However, they would rush over in one breath as long as they were not idiots.
“Now the other groups should still be near the first holdout. They can’t have traveled too far. We can reach them if we hurry.”
Mai and Cheng sent a few warriors each to deliver the letters to the other three hunting groups.
In the cave, the wounded warriors focused on recuperation, while the not injured ones would go hunt the bats down, day and night, whenever they had time. When they found a bat, they killed it!
In the past, they would try to avoid the encounters, but now, since they knew it was about the Fire Crystal, they had a totally different attitude. Every day, it was like they were on steroids, and would go out with stone swords and long spears whenever they had the chance.
The other three group leaders all acted quickly after they received the animal skin rolls. The quickest group arrived the second day, and the slowest arrived on the third day’s morning, with all the warriors in their hunting groups.
They wouldn’t be able to finish their hunting routes this time, but none of them had any disagreements towards that. Even the ancestors would crawl out from their graves to vote yes, if they knew about it. Every warrior came here voluntarily, and they were all anxious to come quickly, for fear that being late meant being unable to cut a piece from this cake.
There were five hunting groups in total, and five group leaders jointly decided that this time, they would mainly target the giant pit. But before that, they needed to find good countermeasures.
While the five group leaders came up with the right countermeasures, members of the five hunting groups were ready to battle every day.
Before, when they heard about the abnormal scenery, they were anxious, apprehensive, and afraid. However, now none of those feelings ever existed. All the warriors had sharpened their stone tools, and they were thinking about slaughtering more bats every day.
Someone that got bitten by a bat was resting in the cave. During his sleep, he got up, stumbled along the walls, and murmured, “Let me go…I can… I can chop off their heads!”
His hunting mate smiled at the others in the cave regretfully, and dragged him back, “Okay, okay, you can chop off their heads.” Then, with one hard punch, he knocked him out and dragged him to a corner for him to sleep at.
[Aw, so gentle and caring. And I’m not sure if that is sarcasm or not.]
After he settled down his mate, he turned over to find that everybody was staring at him. He said with pure innocence, “Our boss said that we don’t have enough herbs. This one got bitten and he needs to get a night’s sleep to recover after he took the herbs. Sleeping helps him recover.”
Warriors from the five hunting groups all got together in the cave of the first holdout. It was a little crowded, but no one minded that. Now, people were filled with hope in their hearts. They all hoped to make faster progress, while Mai and the other group leaders all dreamt about getting nearer to becoming a senior warrior. Normally, the resources that they had were relatively limited, especially for the majority, who lived in the mountain foot area. They had bigger ambitions for themselves and for their families.
As for the advance group…
Well, the advance group had already gone too far to be found…