Chapter 132: Chapter 132: Bountiful Harvest
Asher had to return home to bathe and rest, so Kaelen didn’t bother Asher anymore.
Kaelen and Sane walked side by side to Nyx’s place to ask him to look after the two little ones, then headed back to the center of the tribe together to examine the goods the merchant caravan had brought back. Aaron was already there, directing people to unload the items one by one and sort them clearly.
Sane asked: "Aren’t you going back to rest?"
Aaron scratched his head: "It wasn’t that exhausting; I got plenty of rest along the way. I’m a level-two warrior, after all, not that fragile."
With that, he instructed the others to sort the animal skins separately and store them in the warehouse, while he showed Kaelen some of the items he had found.
"Asher’s group probably brought their goods back already. Things were a bit tougher on my end, so I just brought whatever I could find along with the team." Aaron pointed at some long, brown tubers and said: "I found these on a mountain a half-month’s journey from our tribe. A section of the slope had just collapsed in a landslide, exposing these tubers."
Kaelen picked up a tuber to inspect it, then used his claws to scrape off the skin and took a sniff. He nodded in satisfaction: "This is cassava, very rich in starch. Once cooked, it can be eaten."
Aaron breathed a sigh of relief. He then pointed to a green-skinned fruit that looked like it had gone bad and said regretfully:
"I found this in the desert near the Sand tribe. It’s green on the outside, but deep red inside with a lot of seeds. The Sand tribe was afraid this red-fleshed fruit was poisonous, so they didn’t eat it. I found it interesting, so I picked them all to bring back. Unfortunately, not long after they were picked, they started rotting one after another. I had the men extract the seeds to bring back. This is the freshest fruit left."
Sane’s eyes lit up. He ran over, scooped up the fruit, and spun it around to inspect it. He exclaimed joyfully: "Kaelen, it’s a watermelon!"
Cold watermelon was incredibly refreshing. In Kaelen’s illusion, Sane had also eaten this fruit before. Kaelen stood up and placed his hand on Aaron’s shoulder.
"Making you and Asher the captains of the merchant caravan was my smartest decision."
Even though the melons had spoiled, instead of throwing them away, Aaron had the presence of mind to keep the seeds. It had to be said, Aaron had done the exact right thing.
Receiving the praise, Aaron smiled until his eyes crinkled: "There’s much more. Come over here and take a look." He flipped open an animal skin covering some grass sprouts and said: "I got these at the Starfall tribe. A few Sub-Beasts from their tribe brought them back for the beast cubs to eat. I remembered the grass sprouts you sprouted for seeds, so I brought them back. Along the whole journey, I had the Wood-element warriors keep them fresh."
The moment Kaelen held that bundle of grass sprouts in his hands, his heart began to pound. This familiar shape! This familiar color!
Unable to hold back, Kaelen hurriedly untied the bundle, carefully extracted one plant, and used his ability to force it to mature. The grass sprout, initially a bit taller than two handspans, shot up to thigh height and began to form ears, then blossomed. By the time the plant reached waist height, its seeds turned golden and drooped downward. The golden panicle swayed gently in the wind.
Kaelen was so overjoyed that he burst into tears, crying endlessly.
Sane stood beside him, asking in disbelief: "Is this... wet rice???"
Kaelen was too choked up to speak, only nodding continuously to confirm. Sane grabbed Aaron’s shoulders and shook him vigorously.
"Excellent job, brat! From today on, you’re promoted to Deputy Chief!"
Aaron was shaken until he felt dizzy, and then the sudden promotion hit him, leaving his mind in a daze. Were these grass sprouts really that valuable? To the point they could make the Great Priest burst into tears and fill the Chief with such ecstasy?
Aaron hastily refused: "No need, no need! I don’t want that. I just want to wander around!" He jumped up and down, firmly rejecting the offer. Sane knew Aaron’s personality all too well; if Sane pushed the issue, the brat might actually run away from home. Thus, Sane dropped the subject.
Kaelen sniffled, then immediately shouted: "Barton, order people to pull up an entire millet field right now! Rework the soil and plant these immediately. This field will be used for producing seeds, so don’t let a single millet plant remain in the field to steal their nutrients!"
He turned back to Aaron: "Aaron, you don’t realize the importance of this plant. Millet, sorghum, corn, and canna lilies—those are only considered supplementary crops. This right here is a staple food. As long as our tribe cultivates this on a large scale, we will never go hungry again!"
Aaron drew in a sharp breath. The food the tribe currently ate was already incredibly good, yet the Great Priest was saying it was only supplementary? Aaron’s eyes gleamed as he said,
"There’s still a whole patch of it left over there. I was afraid they wouldn’t survive the trip, so I didn’t bring them all. I’ll head back there right now!"
Sane grabbed Aaron, who was about to bolt, and said: "Don’t be so hasty. You’ve left markers; I’ll dispatch someone else to retrieve them."
Kaelen nodded: "Exactly. Besides, with so many goods left to sort, who knows, there might be other treasures in here."
The three then resumed taking inventory of the spoils. The gently fragrant red flowers were roses, and based on the description, they were climbing roses. The multi-eyed yellow fruit that caused an itchy mouth was a pineapple; to eat it, one simply needed to remove the eyes and the hard core.
The yellow-skinned fruit, which was soft, fragrant, and refreshingly sweet inside, was a banana.
Out of all the items Aaron had brought back, not a single one was useless.
Aside from the wet rice, perhaps the thing that shocked Kaelen the most was the rock Aaron mentioned—the one hard enough to rip off a beastman’s claws. Observing its color, taking a sniff, and noting its properties, Kaelen could confidently declare that this was iron ore.
He was thrilled beyond measure. But excitement aside, he didn’t know the first damn thing about metallurgy...
Seeing that the inventory was complete, Sane said to Aaron: "Go get some rest first. Eat and drink your fill tonight; whatever business we have can wait until tomorrow."
He then wrapped an arm around Kaelen’s shoulders and led Kaelen back to the administrative area.
Looking at his mate’s sullen expression, Sane couldn’t help but chuckle. He reached out to ruffle Kaelen’s soft hair.
"What’s the matter? What exactly is this thing that has your mood swinging between joy and despair?"
Kaelen groaned, clutching his forehead: "You don’t understand! This is called iron. If we can extract the iron from the rock, we can forge countless things: from knives, hoes, and plows for farming, to razor-sharp swords that can slice through metal like mud—swords a hundred times sturdier than our bone or stone weapons! The tragic part is... I have no idea how to build a blast furnace!"
In his previous life, he was a Plant Cultivator. He only knew how to farm and make simple handicrafts; he knew absolutely nothing about advanced subjects like metallurgy! He had a vague theoretical grasp that the ore needed to be heated to an extremely high temperature with coal, but as for the practical execution—how to build a blast furnace or how to control the airflow—he was utterly clueless.
Sane pulled Kaelen onto his lap and stared at the rock: "Speaking of metal, I recall your high school textbooks having a brief introduction on it, didn’t they?"
Kaelen blinked, freezing in a daze for a few seconds. Then, he smacked Sane’s thigh with a loud slap, his eyes lighting up brilliantly.
"That’s right! The twelfth-grade Chemistry textbook! The Chapter on Iron and its alloys!"
Kaelen immediately sprang off Sane’s lap and frantically rummaged through the pile of textbooks he had painstakingly transcribed and carefully stored away. Flipping to the Inorganic Chemistry section, Kaelen gleefully pointed at a cross-sectional diagram of a towering blast furnace.
"Right here! The steel and cast iron smelting process! The required raw materials are iron ore, coal, limestone, and a continuous blast of hot air from the bottom up. We already have iron ore and coal, and there’s no shortage of limestone in the surrounding mountains!"
Sane leaned over, staring at the complex diagram filled with countless arrows indicating airflow and temperatures. For an ordinary person, constructing a towering furnace system that could withstand intense heat and maintain a constant airflow was a colossal engineering nightmare.
Sane took the textbook and read it over several times, his brain working at maximum capacity. He spread out a sheet of paper and redrew the structure of the blast furnace along with the chemical formulas. A long while later, his long, slender finger tapped lightly against the page as he calmly analyzed,
"Leave the construction of this furnace to the Earth-element Divine Energy warriors. They can compress soil and stone, packing them into a solid mass that will withstand heat far better than any normal brick. As for the continuous blast of air blowing upward from the bottom of the furnace..."
Sane looked up at Kaelen, the corner of his lips curling upward: "Did you forget that our tribe has Wind-element warriors? And regarding the heating temperature for the ore, we can just have the Fire-element warriors use their Divine Energy to push the coal’s heat output to its absolute peak."
Kaelen frowned, expressing his disagreement: "If we rely on Divine Energy warriors for everything, what are the ordinary people supposed to do?"
Sane chuckled: "Don’t be so rigid. What everyone is lacking right now is knowledge, and knowledge has to be developed through practical experience. Once the furnace is operational and people understand the principles behind it, building a blast furnace that operates without Divine Energy will no longer be a concern."
"Sane, you are an absolute genius!" Kaelen happily threw his arms around his mate’s neck, stood on tiptoe, and planted a loud kiss on Sane’s cheek. To think that such complex chemical concepts only took Sane reading the book and interpreting it a few times to come up with the optimal solution.
Amused, Sane wrapped his arms around Kaelen’s waist, taking the opportunity to drop a light kiss on Kaelen’s reddening ear. Sane murmured,
"Since you’ve figured it out, stop putting so much pressure on yourself. Leave these metallurgy documents to me; I’ll take them and study them with Uncle Mossi and Theron’s group. Today is Finnick and Oliver’s one-month celebration, so don’t you dare forget about the little ones."
Hearing the names of his two darlings, Kaelen instantly snapped back to reality. He tossed all thoughts of metallurgy to the back of his mind and hurried off to pick up his sons.
Just as Kaelen was passing by the preschool, little Ryder, who had just been picked up by Weston at the gate, sensed Kaelen’s presence and shouted loudly: "Brother Kaelen! Brother Kaelen!"
Kaelen quickly skidded to a halt and turned to look. He smiled: "Oh, Weston, you came to pick Ryder up?"
Weston hurriedly bowed in greeting: "Greetings, Great Priest. Are you in a rush to get somewhere?"
Kaelen waved his hand: "I’m not in a hurry, I was just heading over to pick up my two boys."
Hearing that, Ryder stood up straight and said: "Let me tag along! I want to go play with the two younger brothers too~"
Weston looked down at the little mouse cub: "You can’t do that. You spilled milk on yourself today, and your whole body smells sour. Aren’t you afraid of making the younger brothers uncomfortable?"
Feeling guilty, Ryder flared his little nostrils and took a whiff of himself. There really was a sour smell. The little boy instantly became crestfallen. Kaelen smiled and said,
"Go back with your older brother first. After the feast tonight, you can come over to my house and sleep with the younger brothers, okay?"
Ryder instantly perked up with joy. It had been a month since he last slept over at Kaelen’s place, and the little boy absolutely adored that pleasantly scented nest.
Kaelen patted the little mouse cub’s head, gave a few more instructions, then waved goodbye to the two of them and quickened his pace toward Nyx’s house.
That evening, the grand square, the center of the old valley, and the center of Obsidian were all ablaze with firelight. Over seven thousand people—including the original clansmen, the reforming slaves, and the newcomers—gathered around the long rows of tables.
As the dishes were served, the bustling atmosphere suddenly fell silent, replaced entirely by the sound of loud, eager gulps. Sane and Kaelen stood on the elevated platform in front of the Temple, raising their cups of sweet nectar to receive everyone’s blessings.
The entire tribe was overflowing with a jubilant atmosphere. For those who had just endured a long, grueling journey fraught with deprivation, this meal was nothing short of a divine feast.
The main stars of the feast were carried by their two fathers all around the grand square and over to the old valley. Obsidian was too far away, so they opted not to visit.
The panther cub Finnick kept yawning, his tiny spotted tail dangling over Sane’s arm. As for the youngest, Oliver, he was incredibly smart. In front of the large crowd, the boy obediently maintained his chubby lotus-root-like legs, occasionally flashing a wide, toothless grin that revealed his pink gums, causing everyone to coo and shower him with praise.
As the feast concluded, the jubilant crowd dispersed to their rest areas. Weston also led a freshly bathed little orange mouse cub, smelling delightfully of herbal soap, over to Kaelen’s table.
"Brother Kaelen, I’m here!" Ryder called out happily.
Kaelen smiled and scooped the little boy up. Weston bowed in greeting before returning to the dormitory area. Kaelen carried Ryder all the way home and set the boy down in the large crib, where Kaelen’s own two children were sleeping soundly.
Ryder flared his nostrils, inhaling the sweet, milky scent lingering on the two younger brothers, his round ears trembling in sheer bliss. The little boy gently rubbed his claws against Finnick’s cheek, then patted Oliver’s chubby leg.
"The younger brothers are so warm," Ryder whispered.
"Alright, it’s getting late. Time for sleep."
Kaelen patted Ryder’s head. Ryder sweetly bid him good night, then, following the familiar scent, crawled into the softly cushioned bamboo nest situated at the edge of the bed.
Seeing the little boy crawl into Edward’s nest to sleep just like last time, Kaelen didn’t say a word.
Since his eldest son wasn’t here anyway, if Ryder liked it, he would just let the boy sleep there. Surely Edward wouldn’t be so petty as to fight over a bamboo nest with a friend, right?
