I Steal the Ancestors' Sacrifices to Nourish Myself-Chapter 34 - 5: As Expected of a Witch, Master of Potions
This time going out is different from the previous tribal hunts. We don’t have the conditions to send everything alive back to the Ancestral Temple.
Even before, the hunting team would only bring back one living creature to honor the ancestors.
Unless luck is good, more live creatures might be caught, but most of the prey is brought back dead.
Like before, when we pierced many heads of Wild Beasts at the Ancestral Temple, it was mainly due to improved medicinal formulas.
This stimulated Clan Leader Huo Chang, leading to frequent trips to capture live Wild Beasts.
This feeling is well understood by everyone; it’s like just having a new wife, thinking about wrestling day and night.
At first, the addiction is strong.
"Acan, this monster fish hasn’t reached a tier yet."
The clansman taking the monster fish’s blood is Huo Kui’s clan uncle, who doesn’t understand what it’s for.
"Ayu, come here."
Shen Can called a clansman and led him with beast blood towards the temporary cave they dug.
Explaining too much doesn’t convince more than success does.
As the Blazing Flame Chief Instructor, he knows the detailed martial cultivation situation of the selected clansmen.
Ayu is the talented Martial Artist he selected from many clansmen, young and tall.
In terms of talent, it counts as excellent within the tribe.
Inside the cave.
The Witch Medicine brought is already sorted and placed, Shen Can found the package labeled Neutralizing Witch Medicine and poured it into the blood trough.
Ayu mixed the fish blood himself, bubbles continuously arising, and the heavy stench filled the cave.
"This fish blood’s quality hasn’t reached a tier, but you’ve been endlessly cultivating for over a month, reaching the breakthrough Martial Artist limit, what’s missing is this catalyst."
Shen Can only added half of the neutralizing powder from the Witch Medicine package, pondering after days of contemplation on beast blood soaking.
Martial cultivation is akin to Martial Dao evolution; most clansmen, before reaching the Power of One Wilderness, essentially hit the first limit of the body.
To further enhance one’s strength, outside assistance is needed to break this limit, achieving a higher upper bound.
The method of soaking in beast blood is actually to break the limit shackles, rather than a nutrient for enhancing Qi Strength.
Opening up a new First Layer unlocks the possibility to use any nutrients thereafter.
Therefore, soaking in beast blood actually borrows that violent Qi, hence the neutralizing Witch Medicine shouldn’t be too effective.
Without the violent Qi, how could it be borrowed?
Conversely, if a martial cultivator has good talent, the first layer bottleneck is small, possibly breaking it with a gentle push, like a paper-thin window.
If so, categorizing by the intensity of violent Qi released.
Using different grades of beast blood for soaking, based on the clansmen’s varying conditions, maximizes the utilization of beast blood obtained by the tribe.
Perhaps someday, clansmen like Shen Can himself, who can break through shackles using their own power without relying on beast blood soaking, will appear.
He recorded all this down, preparing to select some talented young children from the tribe, cultivate them and entrust them with further research on these matters.
After most of the day had passed, Ayu submerged himself completely in the stone trough.
Shen Can didn’t leave, he watched as Ayu practiced Kui Ox Fist incessantly in the cave, occasionally pointing out improper postures.
When Ayu jumped out of the blood trough for the second time, the force of the fist whistled, echoing through the cave.
"Catch this."
Shen Can grabbed the One Desolate Bow and tossed it over.
Ayu caught it, instantly pulling the bow into a full moon shape, repeatedly drawing it tensely.
"I’ve become a Stone-Breaking Martial Artist."
Ayu, holding the One Desolate Bow, showed ecstatic surprise.
"Don’t waste the remaining beast blood, absorb it quickly."
Shen Can didn’t interrupt the young man’s moment of joy, he walked out of the cave with his hands behind his back.
In the valley.
The second monster fish hatchling had been dragged up, Shen Can called for the second clansman to prepare for beast blood soaking.
...
Boom boom boom!
The thrown stones fell like hail, prompting the monster fish in the water to roared repeatedly, striking the stones away, agitating turbulent waves.
"Throw!"
Huo Chang stood close to the water pool while the other clansmen positioned themselves on both sides of the mountain, commanding from above.
No matter how the monster fish roared, stirred waves couldn’t reach them.
Instead, the massive water flow pushed through the ravine, rushing out of the valley.
Seeing this, everyone threw stones with even more vigor.
Whizz!
When another monster fish hatchling jumped out, Huo Chang drew the bow and shot.
Amidst waves, a slender tail glimmering with eerie light soared up, blocking the arrow, making a metallic collision sound and deflecting the arrow away.
Retrieving the arrow, Huo Chang retreated over ten feet, instructing the clansmen to keep tossing stones.
And so, a rock-tossing battle persisted for two days and one night.
Even though the monster fish twisted its body ceaselessly to deflect stones, it couldn’t stop the pool from filling and the water from overflowing the pond.
From above, Shen Can looked down attentively, finally viewing the monster fish in its entirety.
"Gudu!" "Gudu!"
The monster fish sheltered its young underneath, a huge shadow wandering in the water, constantly making noises.
Snake-headed fish body, covered with profound-patterned secret scales, four legs grow from its belly, tail slender like a deer’s.
On the contrary, though the young fish also has profound patterns, in other aspects, it looks different from the monster fish, and has fangs in its mouth, which it used to tear apart and devour an injured kin.
"Acan."
Huo Chang gripped the Ironwood Spear, indicating that if Shen Can did not act, he would call upon the clan members to do so together.
Shen Can glanced at the surrounding mountains, many clan members had taken out Beast Tendon Ropes, Hook Spears, and other tools.
The fish fins had already surfaced, the clan members ceased throwing stones, and the monster fish stopped moving its body.
Mainly, these past two days had exhausted the monster fish. It had swum upstream from the Giant Marsh, never expecting to encounter such a battle.
It couldn’t fight back, only enduring the blows passively, while its habitat, the pond, was filled up bit by bit.
It’s no way to bully a fish.
"Glug!" "Glug!!"
"Keep throwing rocks for half a day, the less water the better, I’ll go prepare the medicine."
...
Half a day later.
Shen Can led a group of clan members out of the cave, each carrying two or three jars in their arms.
Facing the Tier Three Wild Beast, Shen Can was unsure, so he prepared ninety jars of Witch’s Anesthetic Powder, and pre-mixed them with water into a slurry.
"First smash thirty jars, then add one jar at a time."
The clan members stood high above, smashing them toward the monster fish revealing its fins, the slurry dissolved into the water surrounding the monster fish.
For a while, many clan members looked down at the monster fish.
"Look, it’s floating, floating!"
At this moment, a sharp-eyed clan member pointed at the water and shouted.
They saw rows of dark-colored young fish float up from beneath the surface, their bodies wobbling on the water, unable to swim straight.
In the water, they heaved like shivering, wobbling their bodies glug-glug.
The monster fish began to struggle too, its huge body flinging about, directly knocking the floating young fish away, two even got flung onto the shore.
"Glug!"
"Glug!"
The monster fish made a sound, its body constantly agitating the water surface, gills flaring, its body began to tilt.
"Throw more!"
Seeing the medicinal concentration dispersing due to the monster fish’s agitation, Shen Can urged the clan members to keep acting.
"Smash at the fishhead position!"
"Let me do it!"
Huo Chang swiftly moved to the clan members’ front, grabbed a jar and fiercely smashed it towards the monster fish’s gill area, the anesthetic slurry pouring into the fish gills.
His actions were relentless, each time pounding the anesthetic powder at the fish head position.
The monster fish sensed danger too, its massive tail continuously lifting and slamming down, churning the water around, its body attempting to rush downward.
But the underwater was all leveled with stones, even if the monster fish exerted all its strength to crush stones underwater, its huge lower body still poked out above the water surface.
Seeing the monster fish in this state, Huo Chang grabbed the clan members’ prepared Beast Tendon Rope, weighing it in his hand before tossing it out.
The rope looped around the fish tail several times.
"Pull!"
With Mountain-Opening Realm clan members in front, Stone-Breaking Realm clan members at the back, they all tugged the thick Beast Tendon Rope.
As for Shen Can, Ayu carried him far away, a dozen yards out.
"Come on up!"
A bunch of burly men shouted in unison, exerting force together.
"Splash!"
Before the monster fish could struggle, or rather its body being mostly paralyzed, unable to perform any struggling motions, its massive body was dragged out of the pond.
The clan members, in one breath, pulled it from the pond, onto the ground outside the valley entrance.
Watching it lying on the ground, though struggling, its movements were weak, everyone’s expression was filled with excitement.
"First time seeing such a docile Tier Three Monster Fish."
"Ha, Acan’s Witch Medicine really works, it doesn’t even struggle, the Tier Three Wild Beast is totally at our mercy!"
"As expected of a witch, really knows how to handle medicine!"
"Ancestral Temple Keeper, seems like there’s another small wetland to the north, why don’t you go medicate it again?"
Tier Three Wild Beast encounters are rare for the clan, happening only once every few decades.
Each hunt for a Tier Three Wild Beast would result in significant losses for the clan.
Yet, not hunting Tier Three Wild Beasts isn’t an option, as it’s the drug catalyst for advancing to Celestial Vein Realm, and ensures clan inheritance, forcing them to engage even at the cost of casualties.
Especially large wild beasts in the mountains, once they start a desperate struggle, for those in just Mountain-Opening, Stone-Breaking Realm, even being swept would lead to deadly or serious injury.
Now a Tier Three Monster Fish didn’t offer much resistance and was dragged by them, it was just like a dream.
Since when did hunting Tier Three Wild Beast become so easy?
Just tie a rope, pull, and it’s done.
Seeing Huo Chang holding the Ironwood Spear stepping forward, preparing to deal a heavy blow to the paralyzed monster fish lest the medicine’s effect faded.
Shen Can quickly spoke to stop him, "Clan Leader, wait, for such a rare fish, we must find a way to maximize its utility."
