I Steal the Ancestors' Sacrifices to Nourish Myself-Chapter 11: Tribe Ranks, the Ancestors Have Cracked Again
If Upper Huang is regarded as the local bully around the Blazing Flame Tribe, making them a bit wary.
Then the Lingyu Tribe is merely a name heard of, with no one knowing what it actually looks like. People can’t be bothered to come to this region.
This map was left from the time the tribe was founded.
It’s said that the Lingyu Tribe is thousands of miles away, but that’s just a guess.
Nobody knows exactly how far it is, only that there is such an incredibly powerful tribe, referred to with an Upper Division designation.
After a long time, Shen Can suddenly realized that the most powerful people in the tribe now rely purely on guesswork.
However, there is one thing that is not fabricated: the tribe does indeed have a hierarchy.
Blazing Flame and Upper Huang are uniformly referred to as Lower-class Barbarian Divisions.
No witchcraft, no cultivation techniques, no valuable heirloom artifacts—it’s a mediocre Wild Division.
Above the lower division seems to be the upper division, and further up there is a distinction of marquises and viscounts, which seems to correspond to a higher level of Martial Dao.
But the tribe has no detailed records of inheritance.
Struggling to survive in the Great Wilderness every day is the priority; dreaming of upward mobility is just a fantasy.
Just look at how exhausted Huo Chang is.
With natural disasters rampant in the Great Wilderness, survival for the Human Race is tough. Shen Can somewhat understands why there is a division among tribes.
Tribes like Blazing Flame are weak, but there are indeed powerful ones.
He eats bran and swallows vegetables in the Blazing Flame Tribe, but that doesn’t stop others from enjoying dragon liver and phoenix marrow within the tribe.
With powerful tribes, a hierarchy naturally develops to ensure the dignity of the strong tribes.
Even if the ancestors of powerful tribes don’t care, future generations may still honor themselves with titles to elevate their own ranks.
Though the Great Wilderness is primitive, sacrifices and titular instruments are already well established.
Several gathered at the Ancestral Temple without reaching a conclusion, and it was nearly dawn.
"First, let’s hide this in the Ancestral Temple."
Tier Three Ironwood is a good thing. If it can be crafted into an Iron Wood Weapon, it would significantly improve the strength of the clan’s martial artists.
However, the means of the tribe make crafting not so easy.
At this moment, Shen Can realized that at the end of the cave, behind the collapsed state of earth and stone behind the Divine Platform, there was another pit going down.
Huo Shan didn’t gather other clansmen. He just dug through the earth and stone with a clatter, digging more than five zhang deep before revealing a small pit.
"Acan, you must not speak of this, for the clansmen are talkative, and if anyone hears, it will spread throughout the tribe."
After the entrance of the cave was sealed, Shen Can received a warning from Huo Xian.
He almost mentioned how many big mouths are in the tribe.
"Master, I understand."
Shen Can wasn’t particularly curious about the contents of the cave. The Ancestral Temple was his domain, and he would be able to see it sooner or later.
As dawn approached, everyone dispersed.
Shen Can began cleaning the Ancestral Temple, sweeping back the debris left from moving the stones.
After finishing, he went to the cave entrance to take a breath.
If this rain continues, he wasn’t sure if the tribe’s reserves would hold up.
Even the Tier Three Ironwood Ship is broken, and he doubted Huo Chang, the clan chief, could withstand it.
"Thinking too much won’t help."
Taking a breath, Shen Can returned. If a crisis that could destroy the Tier Three Ironwood Ship occurred, the Blazing Flame Tribe wouldn’t hold up, either.
If such a catastrophe occurred, there would be no point in thinking about it.
It was better to focus on the inference of the Witch Medicine Formula for the plague. If it could be improved and allow Blazing Flame to survive, while other nearby tribes suffered, Blazing Flame could swallow them up and grow.
After a disaster, development follows.
This sounds a bit awkward, and Shen Can felt awkward too.
But there’s a probability for this scenario to happen.
He still had a lifespan of fifteen years left for inference; no monster fish appeared during the flood, so he went before the Divine Platform.
"Ancestors, show your spirit. Don’t you want to eat fish?"
"If you do, then quickly show your spirit and stop these wrecked boats and severed limbs. See, you’ve scared the clan chief."
...
Five days later.
Shen Can had already gained the Power of the Three Desolations, and the beast blood in the Blood Vase was nearly drained. He added some water and crushed bone powder, stirring it again.
It didn’t look much different from before.
After all, it was for smearing on the stone drum, and if the ancestors didn’t like it, it would have to do.
Sweeping, eating, practicing boxing, and learning witch doctor inheritance—this was Shen Can’s daily life.
In recent days, he noticed the clan chief often went out. Compared to Mountain-Opening Realm martial artists, Celestial Vein Realm martial artists had opened their celestial veins, turning Qi strength into blood Qi that could envelop their bodies.
They could drift across the water and reach another mountain peak.
Two days later, a banded python was dragged into the Ancestral Temple.
This was a Tier One wild beast. At first sight, Shen Can was stunned again.
Where the hell are the snake’s ears!
Asking for tips online.
The banded python was six zhang long, as thick as a water barrel, and was brought back by Huo Chang, beaten near death.
[Sacrificial Master seizes the lifespan of a Tier One banded python wild beast—eighty-seven years]
...
In the evening, Shen Can enjoyed snake soup, the meat with the broth warming his body thoroughly.
Apart from the meat used for sacrifice, the rest was divided and sent to various caves, where the clansmen inside began to handle it.
Most were used as reserves.
...
[Sacrificial Master seizes the lifespan of a Tier One Zhe Yunyao—fifty-seven years]
Inside the Ancestral Temple, Shen Can retracted the Simurgh Blade from the neck of the wilting desolate kite.
The clan chief was truly adept, bringing back live creatures every few days.
The nearby mountains had been thoroughly cleaned in the first month of the flood, and any stray wild beasts flushed up by the flood were immediately caught.
To get prey, one had to venture further from the tribe.
In the entire tribe, only Huo Chang had the ability to travel long distances.
Probably scared by the fragmented Ironwood Ship, otherwise, Huo Chang wouldn’t risk venturing out repeatedly.
Wild beasts were caught while searching outside.
[Lifespan: 159]
Looking at the accumulated wild beast lifespan, Shen Can felt he had enough to preliminarily infer the tribe’s epidemic-related formula.
After nearly two months of cultivation, he was no longer ignorant of the witch doctor’s knowledge and had memorized all the teachings passed down in the tribe.
The Blazing Flame Tribe had three methods to prevent epidemics: burning witch medicine, having the elderly, women, and children wear medicine balls, and most importantly, consuming witch medicine soup.
As for exterminating plague insects, the main force was still the tribal martial artists.
...
[Inference of the Witch Medicine Formula for the Plague Worm of the Blazing Flame Tribe]
[You invest a hundred years of lifespan to infer the witch medicine formula, aiming to replicate the scene of the previous inference of Kui Ox Fist]
...
"Master, the ancestor’s cracked again."
Two days later, on a morning when Huo Xian was deeply asleep, Shen Can woke him up.
Huo Chang also came, visibly weary.
This time it wasn’t the previously repaired Wordless Shrine that cracked but the Divine Tablet of an ancestor named ’Huan’ from the tribe’s founding.
Huo Xian, with both hands, took out an ancient beast hide scroll from the cracked Divine Tablet of the ancestor Huan.
It’s certainly ancient-looking.
The beast hide was a part of the blank beast hide scrolls Shen Can had specially retrieved from Huo Xian’s collection earlier.
"Washing Grass, Magnolia Bark, Anemarrhena, Golden Scutellaria Root... This is a witch medicine formula for treating plagues, though the quantity and proportion of herbs are different."
Huo Xian was very excited.
Huo Chang was inspecting Huan’s Divine Tablet, the ongoing heavy rains and damp conditions.
The Divine Tablet was made of wood, and it’s only well-maintained that prevents it from getting moldy.
Wooden Divine Tablets crack when dry, so how could they crack in such a damp environment?
Huo Chang glanced at Shen Can.
Shen Can was observing the other Divine Tablets, looking as if he wanted to take all of them down for study.
Seeing this, Huo Chang withdrew his gaze.
He placed the Divine Tablet on the Divine Platform.
It seems the ancestors truly have shown their spirit.
