Chapter 123 – The secret engraving technique
Translated by Sunyancai
The Shaman had sudden twitches on his face, as if not believing Shao Xuan’s words. However, judging from Shao Xuan’s expressions, he didn’t seem to be lying lying.
“Wait a second.”
The Shaman turned around and took out a piece of Fire Crystal and passed it to Shao Xuan, “Show me.”
Shao Xuan did not say anything more, and began to absorb it right away after he took the Fire Crystal.
Although the others were unable to see Shao Xuan absorbing energy from the Fire Crystal, the Shaman could somewhat see it. It was not clear, but the energy lines were a hundred percent real!!
How was that even possible?!
The Shaman was totally befuddled.
The reason that Shao Xuan shared this experience with the Shaman was that he wanted to seek for the answers to his confusion. He did not know everything about the mysterious power in his body. However, it seemed that the Shaman did not know as well.
Seeing that the Shaman fell into deep thoughts again, Shao Xuan placed the Fire Crystal on the stone desk in front of the Shaman.
Shao Xuan’s move called the Shaman back to reality. He looked at this quail-egg-sized Fire Crystal, and then turned to Shao Xuan again. He was looking for some traces of reluctancy, unwillingness, upset or greed. After all, most of the credit belonged to Shao Xuan in this matter. If he awarded people according to their contributions, Shao Xuan should be the one that should have gained the most awards. However, Shao Xuan had actually not gained that much.
But the Shaman noticed that Shao Xuan’s eyes were quite tranquil, and there was absolutely no reluctancy or greed in his mind. Nor did he have any dissatisfaction towards the distribution of the Fire Crystals.
Such a kind and noble heart!
Even the Shaman was touched. Ah-Xuan was making sacrifices for the sake of the tribe!
“You may take this Fire Crystal.” Said the Shaman.
“No need.” Seeing some guilt on the Shaman’s face, Shao Xuan said, “Or we can change to a smaller one. This one is too big, and it would be a real loss if I do lose it.”
A rice-sized Fire Crystal would be able to last for days, and it was indeed unnecessary to have such a big piece. Moreover, he would not be using it while he is in the tribe. Only during hunting missions would it be used, so there was no need for such a big piece.
The Shaman felt that this young lad was really a noble soul, who had no personal ambition, and whose every efforts were for the sake of the tribe. Thinking about that, the Shaman said in an even nicer way, “You should take it.”
“Alright, then.” Shao Xuan took back that quail-egg-sized Fire Crystal and said, “In fact, the Fire Crystal does not have so much impact on me, I cannot improve my strength even if I absorb the energy.”
The Shaman: “…”
Shao Xuan did not lie, for the changes brought by the Fire Crystals were not as significant as what the others had. All the other warriors would have obvious improvements after they absorbed the energy from the Fire Crystals. However, the Fire Crystals did not have such a significant effect on Shao Xuan, besides for the rapid recovery and raising the spirit.
Shao Xuan had absorbed more than half of the energy of the small piece of Fire Crystal that he tested on. This time, he again, absorbed quite a lot of energy when he was standing beside the fire pit with the other warriors. In fact, he had absorbed even more energy than the others. However, the totem patterns on his arms did not extend.
When the Shaman left, Shao Xuan had a few more animal skin rolls in his hands. They were empty Shaman Volume skin rolls.
After hearing about the issue of the Fire Crystals, the Shaman shared some ancient volumes with Shao Xuan, which were painted by former Shamans. Among them, there was this one about hounds.
The Shaman was just like that. He would reveal more information and help you as long as you showed him that you are worth it. He would do anything that would be good to the tribe.
If before, the Shaman would probably not have shown Shao Xuan the ancient volumes, for they were a few secrets of the tribe hidden in them. Moreover, the Shaman would rather not reveal the secrets before the time was right. However now, the Shaman changed his mind.
All the ancient volumes drawn by the ancestors were kept by the Shaman. It had been over a thousand years, and there was some damage. One could only read those volumes at the Shaman’s place, and none of them could be taken out.
First, Shao Xuan roughly went through all those ancient volumes. Then, he picked out those ones about the hounds and began to carefully read them, picture by picture.
When he returned home in the mountain foot area, he locked himself up in his room, and started to copy the things he saw on the ancient volumes with his pen.
Back then, when he was still living in the orphan cave, he had seen wall pictures in that stone room, showing that warriors hunted with hounds. However, he did not have any clear image at that time. After all, it was a brand new world to him, and anything that seemed normal could have a lot of unpredictable secrets buried within.
Well, after reading those ancient volumes, Shao Xuan learnt that the ancestors had different demands and requirements for different kinds of hounds.
According to the pictures in the ancient volumes, the ancestors would pick out a batch of strong, energetic cubs when the hounds were still very young. They would train them strictly, and during the process some cubs might not survive. The ones that lived through that training process would enter the second round of selection.
There were two kinds of hounds that the ancestors kept, which were normal hounds and accompanying hounds. The normal hounds were the ones that had been trained. They would attend the hunting missions or join in the guard missions. However, none of them had been truly recognized by the tribe, for they had not inherited the real power.
However, the accompanying hounds were not the same. Every hound was carefully selected, with strong ability and considerable loyalty. They had been recognized by the whole tribe, and would be engraved with the tribe’s totem by the Shaman. After that, they would become a part of the tribe who could stand by the fire pit during ritual ceremonies, and obtain totem power from the flame, like everybody else. Hence, they would be much stronger than normal hounds.
However, such engraving was not hereditary, the offspring of accompanying hounds must be trained and selected like the other normal hounds. They could only be acknowledged after training and selection based on the same standards. But generally speaking, the offspring of accompanying hounds was mostly excellent in many ways.
As for the secret technique of engraving…only the Shaman of the tribe was able to do that, for it required the power of inheritance.
The Shaman had told Shao Xuan when he was reading the ancient volumes that if Shao Xuan wanted to try, he would find all the related ancient volumes. After all, based on the current situation, Caesar had met all the requirements to be engraved.
“The secret technique of engraving is very complicated, and can not be mastered in a short period of time.”
Was what the Shaman had said when Shao Xuan left.
In fact, Shao Xuan completely understood the Shaman’s meaning. He didn’t want Shao Xuan to rush into this. If he tried to do the engraving without fully understanding and mastering the technique, not only would the engraving fail, Caesar might even die from it. It had been said on the Shaman volume that there was a success rate in doing the engraving. Only half of the hounds would survive.
The risk could not be ignored.
Even the Shaman had never tried the secret technique of engraving. After all, there was no animal in the tribe on which the Shaman could test on.
Shao Xuan needed to think carefully about what to do. He would be the one to make the choice and the decision. Which meant that the Shaman wouldn’t interfere with it.
Since there was such a high risk, of course Shao Xuan won’t rush into anything. He would first completely understand and master every step of the way.
Looking at Caesar, who was yawning beside his feet, Shao Xuan sighed deeply inside. Caesar was just a wild beast and was still far from being a ferocious beast. In the forest, he could not compete with an alpha wolf, which was determined by nature, not Caesar himself. It would take a long time for him to transform from a normal animal into a ferocious beast. Just like those bats in the cave, every ferocious beast turned into one when it stepped on thousands of the other animals’ corpses.
Under such an environment, normal animals wouldn’t be able to survive long in the forests. Even people in the tribe must try hard to improve themselves.
No matter human or animal, they were all trying hard to improve and climb up on nature’s pyramid. For each and every step on the way, they left behind thousands of bodies.
“Well, I’ll just make baby steps first.” Shao Xuan whispered to himself as he stared at this lazy yawning wolf.
Everyday, Shao Xuan would read the ancient volumes at the Shaman’s place, and then copy them on his new animal skin rolls. He worked on them with full concentration, and circulated his power of inheritance accordingly as practice.
The Shaman also kept his promise, and found out all the related volumes about engraving and hounds.
Aside from when he was out in a hunting mission, Shao Xuan would continue his copy work while he was in the tribe.
In Shao Xuan’s room, there were already over ten animal skin rolls that he had finished. That was his hard work of all those days.
While Shao Xuan was copying those ancient volumes, many people in the tribe came to him.
Since people in the tribe started to think about keeping their own wolves, some people from the hunting teams would come to consult Shao Xuan after a hunting mission.
For example, Mo-er was here to talk to Shao Xuan.
He wanted to ask about ways to train and keep an animal. Since everyone else had absolutely no experience in keeping an animal at home. It seemed easy, but in fact, it was not. Many people were not able to keep the animals alive, and they would just eat the meat if their pets died.
Shao Xuan looked at the whelp that Mo-er held in his hand, and lifted his eyebrows.
“A cave lion?”
That was something very difficult to find. The cave lion was very fierce and savage. Most cave lion would grow into ferocious beasts. Even wolf packs dared not to mess with them. However, he had no idea what the whelp would be like.
According to Mo-er, they found a group of cave bears fighting against cave lions, and the cave lions lost. Almost every whelp of the cave lions were bitten to death, except for this little one. Mo-er brought it back, he wanted to keep it for himself.
Shao Xuan literally had no experience in keeping a cave lion at home. Since the very beginning, he kept Caesar like a dog. However, Caesar still had his wild side. The lucky thing was that, in the end, Caesar managed to keep his wild nature under control. As for Mo-er’s cave lion… All Shao Xuan could do was to share some basic do’s and don’t’s with him. Later on, it would be completely up to Mo-er.
One must pay full attention to it if you wanted to keep some fierce animal, and not let them go out of control. If any abnormal circumstances came up, people in the tribe would put it down first.
Even though it was not easy keeping an animal, many people wanted to try.
Not only Mo-er, many other warriors brought back wolf cubs during the later hunting missions. Altogether, they brought back some other animals as well.
Some warriors were so excited keeping an animal at first, but later on, their pets finally became meat and ended up in their bellies. However, some of the warriors held on to their original goal, among which, most of them were young warriors like Mo-er.
During wintertime, Shao Xuan demonstrated the flying ability of flying birds like Chacha. In the beginning of this new year, he made Caesar step into the front, and hence was recognized by everyone in the tribe. By doing that, he made the young warriors in the tribe find new ways to do things.
Now, Shao Xuan was the first and only one that kept an animal and had gained the Shaman’s recognition. So every time when people brought back something, they would delightfully come to Shao Xuan and chat about it.
Especially Mao. When the others were focusing on wolves, tigers, leopards, and lions, that lad brought back a baby boar! It was totally understandable that warriors in the tribe worshiped ferocious carnivores, but a wild boar…
To be honest, that was not really a wild boar… it was more like a suckling pig!