Chapter 143: Free Loot and Mischief |
Great Xia Year One, February 22
Second floor of the wooden huts, outside the Camp Supplies Office.
“That saber weighs over six hundred jin—what a beast of a weapon!”
“Saber’s for close combat. That ten-stone iron-backed bow is even more lethal.”
“My brother-in-law said when you go hunting with the leader, we hardly get close combat chances. It’s mostly bows and arrows.”
…………
Lin Kai and Xu Ning glowed with excitement, gesturing repeatedly at the heavy saber and the iron-backed bow in their hands, whispering to each other now and then.
The Digging Realm members who’d come to the Camp Supplies Office to hand in resources watched the two of them and the weapons they held, unable to hide their envy.
Even Shi Ping, who had just issued the weapons to them, kept glancing over with admiration.
Camp Supplies Office, Artisan Workshop, Hunting Team, Lumberjack Team, Gathering Team.
On paper, Great Xia’s five departments each handled their duties without hierarchy, but people love comparing. Once contribution points were quantified, differences in treatment and status snapped into clarity.
Members of the Hunting Team truly belonged to Great Xia’s first tier; their status was even a bit higher than the heads of the other three departments like Cheng Feng, Bai Dongying, and Mu Dong.
The reason was simple: strength and contribution points.
Take clothing for example—only the Hunting Team members had been given full sets of clothing, and most of their families had also received outfits. The other four departments combined had only about a hundred people who’d received clothing, many of whom benefited from contribution points accidentally earned during the rat-clearing; proportionally they couldn’t compare to the hunting team.
Yes, population numbers matter, but everyone knew the real issue: the other four departments simply couldn’t earn contribution points as effectively as the Hunting Team.
Right now, the camp earned contribution primarily through gathering and hunting. The other departments relied on gathering—mainly wood and crystal fruit—and could only pull in at most a dozen or so contribution points per day, if that.
But hunting team members were different. From mining alone they could earn over fifty points a day; routine iron forging, killing low-tier Frost Beasts, venturing into the depths of Redwood Ridge to gather medicinal resources, and occasionally being assigned to protect lumberjack members on outings—all provided additional income.
Their number of avenues to earn contribution points was far greater.
Not to mention single-haul amounts were much larger.
And most importantly, they went out with the leader to hunt mid-tier Frost Beasts.
Everyone in camp already knew: one mid-level Snow Mane was worth 4,500 contribution points, and the leader didn’t take a cut. Over the last half month, the hunting team had brought back three mid-level Snow Manes each night.
That meant the fifteen-person hunting team could split 900 contribution points every night...
Nine hundred in one night!
What did 900 contribution points mean?
It meant six sets of clothing per night, or one five-stone iron-backed bow, one large saber, dozens of ordinary iron tools, not to mention wooden goods and furs...
Just that alone was enough to make everyone frantic.
Anyone with ambition in the camp was now gunning to break through to the Digging Realm and join the hunting team as soon as possible.
So it was hardly surprising that Lin Kai and Xu Ning, who got in early, drew so much envy.
“All right, quit grinning like idiots. Don’t show off here. Have you finished applying the concentrated fire oil?”
Other hunting team members gradually gathered as well.
Yue Feng saw the triumphant looks on the two faces and teased with a laugh.
“Hahaha, brother-in-law, it’s been applied long ago.”
“Heh heh—finally getting to go with the leader. As soon as night falls, Lin Kai and I will be ready here, just waiting for you and the leader!”
Yue Feng was Lin Kai’s brother-in-law, plus Xu Ning and Lin Kai were among Great Xia’s earliest Digging Realm members, so the three were close.
“This is your first time out. You two rented both the saber and the iron-backed bow? That’ll cost a hundred contribution points in rent this month alone. Whether you can earn it back is another story!”
“Add in concentrated fire oil and torches, and before you even make contribution points, you’ve spent over 150 points. Don’t overspend!”
Ro Yuan and Zhao Long couldn’t help but join the teasing.
“What to do then? I don’t have enough contribution points!”
Lin Kai pretended to worry, but his performance was so obvious everyone snickered.
“Don’t try to fool me. I already checked—going out with the leader nets at least nine hundred contribution points. Even if all these supplies cost fifteen hundred, I’d still go!”
“Hahahahahaha…”
Laughter erupted. Ro Yuan and Zhao Long, having been exposed, burst out laughing too.
Xia Chuan, coming out of the Camp Supplies Office, couldn’t help but laugh as well.
If they could regularly follow Xia Hong out, renting these supplies—even if it cost a thousand five hundred points or double that—they wouldn’t hesitate. Even then, there’d still be profit.
The weapon and bow rental fees were largely symbolic; Digging Realm members were rare in camp right now.
“All set?”
But as Xia Hong’s voice echoed from the stairwell, everyone’s laughter cut off. They turned to look toward the stairs.
Xia Hong descended slowly, shouldering a double-bladed great axe and holding an iron-backed bow, with his ceremonial saber at his waist. He still wore a black cloak and black fur boots as he walked down the stairwell.
Strangely, Xia Hong’s build wasn’t especially imposing compared to others in the hunting team—Yuan Cheng, Ro Yuan, Zhao Long and a few others were bulkier. Yet as he walked down, he seemed several times larger than everyone else; an invisible current seemed to surge around him, radiating a pressure that made people uneasy.
The closer he came, the heavier that sense of oppression became.
It felt like even breathing grew slightly shallow...
“Deaf?”
Xia Hong’s thunderous voice exploded in their ears. Everyone jumped and answered in unison, “Ready!”
Xia Hong nodded, then glanced slowly across the gathered group. He looked at Xu Ning and Lin Kai and a faint smile flickered across his face.
“Move out!”
“Yes, leader!”
Seventeen people nodded, fully armed, and followed Xia Hong out of camp, plunging into Redwood Ridge.
Once they entered Redwood Ridge, Xia Hong led everyone north.
Seventeen faces showed varying degrees of excitement.
They all knew this outing might not be for hunting—mainly it was to patrol the northern territory and check whether Mirror Immortal Camp had crossed any lines.
They remembered how aggressive He Meng’s group had been during the Gnawer Rats incident; the hunting team held little love for Mirror Immortal Camp and were more than eager to confront them now.
The territory previously allocated to Lushang Camp extended only about five hundred meters to the north. Xia Hong had the group fan out and inspect that perimeter, and they quickly finished searching.
People came back and reported what they’d found.
“There are many traces of people moving in this area.”
“The outer low-tier Frost Beasts are noticeably fewer; they must’ve been hunted.”
“A lot of trees were cut—definitely Mirror Immortal Camp’s doing.”
…………
Although these reports were within Xia Hong’s expectations, he still grew grim when he realized Mirror Immortal Camp hadn’t taken Yuwen Tao’s returned message seriously. His expression darkened considerably.
Just then Ro Yuan returned last and finished reporting.
“I found a large number of fresh footprints heading inward from the west—very recent, no more than an hour or two ago!”
Xia Hong immediately turned and looked toward the deeper west, speaking in a low voice.
“Go. We’ll go in and see just how capable they are!”
Hearing anger in Xia Hong’s low tone, the group’s expressions tightened. They followed him toward the west—into the heart of Redwood Ridge.
The outer tracks were clear and suggested the Mirror Immortal Camp hunting team numbered over twenty, similar to the last encounter.
But the farther they pressed into the Ridge, the fuzzier the tracks became, until eventually they disappeared entirely.
“The snowfall is too thick inside, temperatures too low, densities of Frost Beasts are high, and they seem to have deliberately concealed their traces. We can’t find them!”
After probing around 1,300 meters in, Xia Hong frowned as there were no tracks at all leading deeper.
Normally he controlled the hunting zone to within 1,500 meters—except once when they had chased Snow Manes out four or five kilometers. Even if they couldn’t see them, the size of mid-tier Frost Beasts usually gave away their activity; pressing your ear to the ground you could still pick up some motion.
But here there was nothing.
Only one possibility remained...
“Mirror Immortal Camp is stronger than us. If they’ve been hunting here for the last half month, it makes sense they pushed deeper. Big brother, search further inward!”
Xia Chuan’s tone turned hard, as if he wouldn’t give up until they found Mirror Immortal Camp’s team.
Others nodded in agreement.
“Then we’ll keep searching. Xia Chuan, you take point. The others pair up and spread out, stay hidden, stop and listen at each spot—that should help us find them faster.”
Centered on Xia Hong and the front scout Xia Chuan, the remaining sixteen men paired up and dispersed, probing deeper.
The area wasn’t huge; after they spread out, it took only half an hour before one pair heard movement.
“Northwest—can’t say how far, but I can hear vibrations!”
That was Yuan Cheng and Ro Yuan heading northwest.
Xia Hong blew a couple of signals on his bone whistle. Xia Chuan and the other six pairs gathered quickly.
“Where’s the missing pair? Who’s not back?”
Xia Hong frowned when only seven pairs returned.
They checked and quickly realized who was missing.
“It’s Xu Ning and Lin Kai!”
When those names were mentioned, everyone’s faces fell.
“Those two rookies—did they wander off too far?”
“It’s their first time hunting; lack of experience. They probably went too far.”
“Split up and search the sides...”
Xia Hong halfway abandoned the northwest search to find the two, when Lin Kai’s voice suddenly shouted from the east.
“Leader! Leader, hurry! Come with me—big discovery!”
Lin Kai’s face was radiant with delight; he didn’t even step closer before calling to Xia Hong.
Xia Hong was suspicious, but seeing nothing wrong with Lin Kai, he followed. Others hesitated briefly, then followed after them.
They walked over three hundred meters east before spotting Xu Ning on a large tree, waving at them from above.
At the sight of Xu Ning, everyone’s pupils shrank.
“There’s a Frost Beast on Xu Ning’s head!”
“That beast isn’t moving—maybe it’s asleep?”
“A Magic Goat. It’s a Magic Goat.”
“No—wait…”
As exclamations rang out, they swiftly nocked arrows. The Zhao brothers, fastest, already had arrows to the string.
“Hold on—that Magic Goat is already dead!”
Xia Hong, nearest to the tree, cut off their chatter. His face brightened as he made a quick guess and leaped up to Xu Ning’s location.
“Leader, this Magic Goat is already dead. It has many wounds—looks like someone else hunted it and temporarily stored it here!”
Up on the tree, Xia Hong touched a slash on the Magic Goat’s forehead. The blood hadn’t fully dried; his expression turned odd.
Others climbed the tree and saw the huge Magic Goat carcass staged as if sleeping. After a moment of thought, their faces turned mischievous.
“Is this Mirror Immortal Camp’s kill?”
“Definitely. Like us—they can’t haul back every beast at once. They stash kills here, then carry them off after hunting ends.”
“Hahahaha—that’s...”
“Was this practically handed to us?”
“Hahahaha—let’s see them dare to pilfer now. We’ve never even hunted a Magic Goat before!”
………………
The hunting team erupted in excitement.
Xia Hong’s odd expression vanished. After a moment’s thought he turned to Xia Chuan and instructed, “Bleed it out fully.”
“Leader, you don’t want the meat?”
Mid-tier Frost Beasts are prized primarily for blood; meat differences from low-tier beasts are minimal, but a mid-tier beast yields four to five thousand jin of meat—enough to make people reluctant to leave behind.
“We’ll leave the meat. Otherwise how will they know we bled it? Hahaha...”
Xia Chuan caught on quickly and laughed, pulling out a soft leather pouch. He slit the Magic Goat’s chest and began draining the blood.
At first everyone was stunned, then they grinned wickedly.
Right—if they took the whole beast, the other camp might claim another beast did it. Bleeding and leaving the meat looked deliberately done.
“They risked their lives to hunt this Magic Goat, and we drained all their blood! Hahaha!”
In short order the pouch filled, and Xia Chuan laughed as he secured it.
Xia Hong’s mood brightened. He looked at Lin Kai and Xu Ning with clear approval and declared flamboyantly, “Xu Ning and Lin Kai did well. Split this pouch of Magic Goat blood between you—worth 3,000 contribution points, so 1,500 each!”
Hearing they each stood to gain 1,500 contribution points, Lin Kai and Xu Ning froze, then immediately knelt and bowed to Xia Hong in gratitude.
“Thank you, leader!”
On their first outing they’d earned contribution before even hunting—1,500 points each. The two glowed with excitement, and others like Xia Chuan and Ro Yuan looked on with envy.
“All right, Ro Yuan lead the way—go check northwest and see if they’re there!”
Based on the earlier outer tracks, Mirror Immortal Camp had been here many times over the last half month; who knew how many mid-level Frost Beasts they’d hunted.
Those resources belonged to Great Xia!
One Magic Goat’s blood alone wouldn’t settle their debt.
A cold glint flashed in Xia Hong’s eyes as Ro Yuan led them toward the spot where he’d heard movement.
They walked northwest about a kilometer and immediately felt faint motion transmitted through the ground.
“West. Judging from the sound, they’re maybe four or five hundred meters away!”
Even at night, visibility in Redwood Ridge wasn’t terrible. It was the massive trunks—ten meters across or more—that obscured sight at distance. So they often relied on sound to judge direction and estimated distance.
Xia Hong got up and instructed, “As before, Xia Chuan and Ro Yuan with me. The rest use our positions as anchors and spread out behind us. Ready arrows when you see people. Watch my hand signals!”
Their long-practiced tacit understanding let everyone instantly grasp Xia Hong’s plan. Fifteen men scattered around.
“Let’s go—check it out!”
Xia Hong, Xia Chuan and Ro Yuan moved toward the reported activity.
Crack... bang... whoosh... whoosh...
“Keep shooting—don’t stop!”
“The beast got into the Kui Marsh and is losing strength—fire arrows!”
“Roar...!”
As they closed in the noises became clearer: cracking trees, volleys of arrows, commands and the roars of a Frost Beast...
At around a hundred meters, they saw the hunting scene clearly.
Under a gigantic Crystal Fruit tree, seven or eight people with great axes circled a Cloud Python, while arrows flew from more than ten trees toward the python’s vulnerable spots.
Behind those trees lay a heavily wounded Golden-Armored Thunder Kui, collapsed and motionless—nearly ten meters long, similar in size to the Golden-Armored Thunder Kui they saw before.
“A Cloud Python?”
“Yes. But eyeballing it, it’s sixty to seventy meters long—mid-tier!”
“No—there’s another over there!”
“That’s the Golden-Armored Thunder Kui we saw before. It’s already dead.”
“This group is so strong—first they killed a Kui, and then they went after a Cloud Python?”
“Not only that—their group just hunted three different mid-tier Frost Beasts back-to-back: a Kui, a Cloud Python, and that Magic Goat.”
…………
At first Xia Hong didn’t react much to the chatter. But when Xia Chuan finished, Xia Hong’s face grew serious.
A large, established camp’s depth can far outmatch Great Xia. Killing three different species of mid-tier Frost Beasts in succession wasn’t just strength—it implied deep knowledge of each beast’s behaviors, skills, and weaknesses. That kind of experience usually required elders risking their lives to discover, making it one of a camp’s most valuable assets—not something you gain by hiding inside and training.
“Watch carefully—let’s see the Cloud Python’s weakness!”
Xia Hong said, and Xia Chuan and Ro Yuan immediately recognized a rare study opportunity. Their eyes brightened as they focused.
“A mid-tier Cloud Python doesn’t produce poisonous fog like a low-tier one?”
“That’s impossible. The fog is one of the Cloud Python’s signature traits. It shouldn’t disappear by evolution!”
Hearing their puzzlement, Xia Hong frowned but studied the battle carefully and soon formed a hypothesis.
“They’re avoiding contact with the python’s body and deliberately herding it toward that marshland.”
Just then the Cloud Python’s body slid into the marsh. It bared fangs and tried to brace its tail to lift its upper body to strike at the hunters behind.
A strange phenomenon occurred.
When the Cloud Python planted its tail in the marsh and pushed, the tail began to sink faster into the marsh. The harder it pushed, the faster it sank.
Within a few moments over ten meters of its tail was buried.
And once it sank, it couldn’t pull free...
“The Kui’s habitat—used to hunt the Cloud Python!”
At that realization Xia Hong couldn’t hide his astonishment. Xia Chuan and Ro Yuan shared the same look.
But astonishment aside, Xia Chuan didn’t forget why they had come tonight—to find Mirror Immortal Camp and provoke them. He recognized He Meng leading that group and watching them coordinate.
Seeing the Cloud Python half-buried and its condition worsening, he whispered to Xia Hong, “Big brother, it’s about to die. If we don’t act now we’ll miss our chance!”
Xia Hong had already scouted nearby terrain. Seeing the python’s injuries worsening, he knew time was short. He turned to Xia Chuan and Ro Yuan and murmured a few words.
The two men’s eyes lit up. Each took several prepared torches and split left and right, running to circle behind He Meng’s group—approaching the south and north flanks of the hunters.
Xia Hong climbed a tall tree to a height of eighty meters to watch both sides.
Soon a torch flared up a kilometer to the south. Another flickered about two kilometers to the north.
Though distant and dim, Xia Hong watched clearly as both torches moved rapidly toward the center.
Torches were only part of the plan.
More importantly, as the flank torches lit, Xia Hong watched two massive shapes from the south and north rapidly approach those fires.
Boom... boom... boom...
The nearer those massive beasts came, the louder the noise grew.
He Meng’s group—who had not yet finished off the Cloud Python—turned pale and looked toward the south and north.
“Help!”
“Save me—save me...!”
As the two bolts of firelight advanced through the dense forest, screams of panic echoed from both flanks.
He Meng and the others still kept firing arrows, but their faces had gone ashen.
“How did someone show up at this time!”
“They’re being chased by beasts...”
“This is bad—those two bastards!”
“Get out! Get out of here! Don’t let the beasts come this way—run elsewhere!”
In desperation He Meng even shouted angrily to the approaching parties, trying to drive them away. But his shouts were futile.
Xia Chuan and Ro Yuan feigned panic but were inwardly delighted. They were about a hundred meters from He Meng’s group, and estimated the beasts behind them were very close—almost upon them.
They hurled their torches straight at He Meng and his crew...