Barbarian Yuan Zhan led the A’wu warriors back and brought with them the first batch of stones for the construction and preys.
No one was not hurt within these sixteen people. Frostbite wounds were a given and there’s other wounds that were clearly from getting clawed, bitten or falling and scratch wounds.
Yan Mo found that the first half of warriors who followed Yuan Zhan now looked at Yuan Zhan with different gazes. If before they only felt awe and gratitude, then now they also had trust, love and respect for him.
Under such a difficult condition, Yuan Zhan could take everyone back without even one person missing. This was not an easy thing to do. Moreover, he had to do more than any of them, he had to take out the rocks, help others resist the beasts and also hunt.
Yan Mo received the wounded. He used the same order again, treating them from the ones with most serious injury to the one with lighter injuries, he didn’t treat Yuan Zhan first just because he’s the chieftain, surprisingly, Yuan Zhan also didn’t ask him to. While everyone was resting and receiving treatment, he told people to move the rocks on the board to the space he wanted.
Yan Mo saw him when he walked past. Maybe only Yuan Zhan can dig out the earth, other people can only watch on.
“Ah Zhan.”
Yuan Zhan in the hole raised his head. The snow fell all over his head and body, but the snow quickly melted from his body heat and rolled down. Because of this, his pelt clothing had few icicles frozen on it.
Yan Mo squatted beside the hole. “Try if you can make this part of land looser, like the soil during spring.”
Yan Mo’s words surprised him, Yuan Zhan stood in the hole without saying anything, as if he was thinking about the possibility of doing this.
“You can gather earth and make it into walls and pillars, why don’t you try to reverse it? Treat the ground on your feet as hardened soil and make them looser?” Yan Mo also didn’t know how much Yuan Zhan could do with his powers, he could only use the information he had to help him open up new possibilities for his ability. No matter if it could be done or not, there’s no harm in trying it out.
“Since you can make the solid rock break and crumble under your hands and be in whatever form easier for you to collect, then this frozen soil should be even easier.”
Yuan Zhan seemed to have figured out something, he turned to the half dug hole in the ground and put his hand on the earth that had frozen solid.
Not long after, that standing earth suddenly caved in. The loosened soil slid down to the hole and covered up Yuan Zhan’s feet.
“It worked!” Yuan Zhan restrained his excited mood with a low shout.
But Yan Mo frowned at Yuan Zhan who was sweating during the cold winter. “It doesn’t need to be this loose. Try controlling your power, the soil only needs to be loose enough for normal people to dig out. Other than that, you need to control how far your ability can reach, for example can loosen the soil within one metre cubic at once. You can slowly attempt it, but you should think about the first one now.”
Yuan Zhan nodded and waved his hand at Yan Mo. It seemed that his Priest-daren had helped him open another door. Yuan Zhan, occupied with finding out how much he can do, didn’t feel tired and tested his powers again and again.
Yan Mo stood up and said to Huhu beside him, “You guys have work now.” He pointed to the loosened soil.
Huhu and other A’wu warriors had long been embarrassed that they could only blankly watch as Yuan Zhan worked by himself. They immediately understood what Priest-daren meant, some took up stone pickaxes, some took up the shovels, and started to get to work one by one.
At night Yuan Zhan, who was tired after working all day, shook off the snow on him before lifting the entrance of the tent and got inside.
Yan Mo glanced at him. He just knew he would come here. But they don’t have many tents now, everyone slept in a crowd and only he could occupy a whole tent to himself. Who can Yuan Zhan go to if not to him?
“This is not a good idea.” Yan Mo was currently smearing royal jelly on the roast meat.
“What’s not a good idea?” Yuan Zhan plopped down in front of the fire pit. He stared at the roasted meat emitting a wonderful smell while drooling.
“The protective wall can’t only be made of stones. If we have to lay them all up you might not even finish one layer before spring.”
“What’s your idea?”
Yan Mo mused, “I think you haven’t made use of your full power, since you’re going to use it anyway, why not test out different uses for it? You’re going to be using your powers all winter, maybe if the training method is right you could even go up a level while building.”
“I thought so too.” Otherwise he wouldn’t go mine stones from the mountain and dig the ground alone without complaints. “Do you have a good plan to train my ability?
“Yes. I think you need a purposeful and systematic training, and not just plainly digging soil and mining stones.”
“Like what you told me this afternoon, not just controlling the soil, but also controlling the range of the ability?”
“Smart. That’s called fine control. Other than testing out all aspects of what your ability can do, you have to train your release and control. What’s the biggest area you can cover? And how fine can you control it? You could train the fine control now, since we need it. The training is very simple. You can mark a range then try if the range you can control is within this range. Then slowly make it bigger or smaller, until you can control however much you want to control without much effort.”
Yuan Zhan looked at his hand with bright eyes.
Yan Mo cast a glance at him. “Aside from putting your hands and feet on it, you can try using mind control… I mean, directly using your thoughts, that is, your mental power to control it.”
“I tried that before, I don’t think I can. At least not right now.” Yuan Zhan said. “Right now I can only control rocks and soil that directly touches my body.”
“But you actually controlled more than just the small area that came into contact with your body, right?
This sentence lit a bulb in Yuan Zhan. “You mean, I actually already can… do that mind control thing you said?”
“The source of your powers, and where it all comes from, I am currently studying that.” It’s not clear what Yan Mo thought of, but he quickly changed the topic. “The construction is going too slow. You can try putting in the soil you dug out tomorrow. Pile it into a wall shape in the middle of the foundation trench and leave a gap on both sides to lay stones on it.”
Yuan Zhan immediately understood what he meant, “You mean, make the earth wall the internal organs and the stones as the skin?”
“Exactly that. If you’re worried the wall will sink down over time, after you dug out the earth and before you pile it, add in the colloidal mud lime into the soil and melted snow and stir them together. Before this mix could dry out, shape them into a wall. This way, it should be able to stay solid.”
Ding! Something seemed to click in Yuan Zhan’s brain. “If we can do that, then I can directly add in smashed rocks. Doesn’t that mean we don’t have to do the outer skin anymore?”
“You can try that.”
Yuan Zhan felt excited. He looked like he was itching to run out and try it now but when Yan Mo started cutting the royal jelly meat, it was like his butt was glued to the ground at that moment. He didn’t want to go out anymore.
Yan Mo kicked him, “Scoop out some clean snow and make a soup, only eating roast meat at night is not good.”
The two people ate and drank till full and laid down near the fire pit. After moving around, they slept while hugging.
Yan Mo swore when he laid down he was almost a metre away from that guy. But the bastard actually moved around while sleeping and finally rolled to his side.
Hugging to sleep like this is very warm, but… Yan Mo grabbed the big hand touching his butt and threw it off.
Yuan Zhan looked at the golden needle on his wrist and moved his other hand to take it out.
“If you can’t sleep quietly, roll out to another tent. Starting tonight, you don’t sleep here!” Yan Mo took out another golden needle and threatened.
“Can’t rub too?”
“No.”
Yuan Zhan looked at the little slave waving around his golden needle like he’s something big. He really wanted to hit him, but what he said was, “I worked so hard, you’re the priest, you should give me a reward. You rewarded the A’wu people!”
“Didn’t you just eat?”
Yuan Zhan fell silent. Three seconds later, his anger erupted, “That goat was what I hunted!”
“The royal jelly is not, the medicinal herb isn’t too. You think just anyone can eat a special meal I cooked with my own hands?”
Yuan Zhan angrily turned his body away. But a few moments later, he turned around again, probably thinking that it’s his loss if he didn’t. He used the hand that can still move to tightly hug Yan Mo.
Yan Mo struggled, “Hey!”
“I- am- slee- ping!” Yuan Zhan bit out the word one syllable at a time.
The guy seemed on the verge of losing it, so Yan Mo put up with it. He pulled the needle out, turned the other way and slept with his back facing Yuan Zhan.
Yuan Zhan stared at his neck. His only moving hand, the left hand, went inside his pelt clothes, slowly making its way to the item between his legs…
Behind Yan Mo was a rough panting the owner didn’t even try to hide. Even if you have your brain on your knees, it’s clear what he’s doing.
Sheesh… He worked all day but still had so much energy!
He felt that man sneakily rubbing that thing on his butt and waist. Yan Mo completely lost words to say to this dirty barbarian with sperm in his brain.
Forget it, as long as he doesn’t go over the limit, just think of this as his reward. Yan Mo once again repeated in his brain that he still needed this person for the Nth time.
Yan Mo looked at his right hand to get rid of the strange sensation.
He had reached 5000 scum points reduction, and like he expected, there’s a new reward.
But this time he had been dragging out choosing his reward till now. Yes, choose. There are two rewards this time, and he can only choose one.
One of the rewards is the volume of the medicine bag will be increased to 10 cubic metre, the other reward is the beginner training method.
The first reward is clear cut, anyone would understand the description with one read.
But this beginner training method, what is it training? The guide didn’t explain anything, just added a one sentence note: “This is a double-edged sword, use with caution.”
This one sentence note made Yan Mo hesitate till now.
Feeling the bastard behind him getting more and more unrestrained, Yan Mo made up his mind, he’s going to choose the beginner training method. But he won’t train with the method yet, first he’ll teach it to the little bastard currently hugging and vigorously rubbing against him!
It’s not too late for him to start studying it after confirming nothing bad happened to the bastard after training with it.
The next day, Yuan Zhan instructed Huhu and another warrior called Da Ze to take two teams out to look for food, cut grass and chop trees.
Huhu followed Yuan Zhan’s instructions and didn’t go to the largest lake but went to the place with several small lakes. They broke the ice and caught the fish there. While Da Ze took the other team to search for dried grasses under the snow, cut them to take home, and went to the sparse woods near the big lake to gather firewood.
At this moment, there were only a few warriors left at the tribe to keep guard.
Yan Mo gave the three little punks homework then left them on their own. He still needed to spend some time to think about the beginner training method. If he didn’t understand it, he wouldn’t be able to teach Yuan Zhan.
While Yuan Zhan followed Yan Mo’s suggestion and started messing around with the wall material.
The first day, Yuan Zhan used the colloidal mud ashes, melted snow and broken rocks with the soil, mixed them together in different scales and made them into twenty something spikes. He didn’t look for other people but used his own feet to kick the spikes each time one was finished, testing the hardness of each spike.
When he made the fifth spike, Yuan Zhan left to look for Yan Mo. He felt like he’s going to forget all the scales already. For this type of thing where you have to exert your brain, naturally he needed to get his Priest-daren.
Yan Mo also wanted to know the exact scale for the best mix, so he followed him over. Just that he didn’t have pen and paper, so he could only use the old method. He told Yuan Zhan to make a suitable stone slate for him and used a charcoal pencil to record the scales on the slate. When they get the best mixing scale, he would let Yuan Zhan carve the slate following his writing. This type of stone slate for recording important things, he had collected nearly ten of them.
The second day, Huhu saw that the chief need smashed rocks. He remembered during the trip outside, he saw there are countless big and small rocks in the streams outside so he told Yuan Zhan this and asked if he wanted them.
“Want, of course want. Bring back as much as you can get back.”
Huhu and the people he led felt happy. Before, they could only watch the chief and Priest-daren get busy, they felt horrible that they could only get some food and couldn’t help with anything. When they heard that the chief needed those rocks, Huhu quickly dragged the wooden board and took people out to pull the stones back. They are not like Yuan Zhan who can break rocks and split earth even in winter, but if it’s just picking up rocks by the stream, isn’t that a piece of cake?
When Huhu’s team brought back the first batch of pebbles, it caused the whole tribe to boil. Even Da Ze stopped going to cut grass and gather firewood, he insisted on going with Huhu’s group to pick up the rocks. Until Yan Mo praised them with: It’s very important to keep the fire burning. Only then did Da Ze and his team cheerfully go back to load firewood on their backs.
The third day, after going through many attempts, Yuan Zhan and Yan Mo finally found the best mixture scale by working together.
Yuan Zhan rested a bit, then impatiently jumped up to make a wall that’s about two-third metre wide, one metre tall and two metre long. He couldn’t even wait for the wall to dry naturally, and let ppl light fires on both sides of the wall, trying to speed up the drying by baking it.
Yan Mo watched this happening with a thoughtful look. “You can make frozen soil loosen and make it compact. Then, it shouldn’t be hard for you to push excess water out of the earth. Try doing it?”
On the matter of opening new doors to his ability, Yuan Zhan had absolute faith in Yan Mo’s every suggestion. Hearing his words, he immediately went to try it out.
But he didn’t understand what he’s doing, even after it was successfully done.
“When you do that, what do you think about?” Yan Mo asked.
Yuan Zhan thought about it, “I just thought to the wall I want it to dry quickly, push out the water and I want it to become the hardest wall.”
“Then do you know where the water disappears to?”
Yuan Zhan shook his head.
Yan Mo also couldn’t figure it out. If Yuan Zhan’s ability solely controls earth, then is the water contained in the earth within his control too?
And metal and many materials, in a broad sense, are within the earth.
If Yuan Zhan controls the earth, then can he also control other matters contained in the earth?
If he really have that ability, mining will be very easy later. Yan Mo’s line of thoughts started to wander off. He was fantasising about all sorts of ways to use Yuan Zhan’s ability, and each was more incredible than the last, to the point even he felt it that was impossible.
After the wall mixed with many pebbles was done, Yuan Zhan ordered several warriors to use stone tools to hit the wall.
Yan Mo directly pointed at the one-man hug wide tree trunk that Da Ze’s team carried back yesterday, and made everyone carry up the trunk and ram it into the stone wall.
When Yuan Zhan saw the tree trunk, he felt somewhat clueless.
One hit, the wall didn’t even flinch.
Two hits, the wall still didn’t move even a bit.
Three hits, some stones fell from the part of the wall that was hit directly by the trunk, but that’s the only thing that happened.
Yan Mo’s gaze fell to the foot of the wall, “Ah Zhan, look at the bottom of the wall, it’s soft there.”
Yuan Zhan also saw it.
“In order to have a hard wall, we need to make a foundation on the ground. It needs to follow that mixture proportion too. If you want to make the root deeper in the ground, you can first put in 3 of 10 parts of the mix in the ground, then build the wall on these three parts of the foundation. After that, spread the other seven parts on the wall, envelop the wall with the foundation. This way, the wall will be rooted to the foundation and will be more solid.”
“What about the part where they meet?”
Yan Mo leisurely said, “That’s for you to consider. Use your ability to make the part the wall and foundation meet merge into one, that shouldn’t be hard.” He’s only in charge of giving opinions and suggestions.
Yan Mo’s suggestion made Yuan Zhan’s workload multiply a lot in an instant. But he couldn’t deny that a mixed wall and foundation constructed like this will be very solid.
Yuan Zhan treated the process of building the tribe as his ability training. It didn’t feel like it was hard work, instead, he did whatever he could to make it even more solid and hard, no matter how complicated the process might be.
Yan Mo, this person who was used to living in comfort, saw that there’s prospect to start building houses, so he urged Yuan Zhan to make the house for people to live in first, not the protective wall. His reason was: “Since the wall made with this method is this hard, even if we don’t have the walls, we can directly hide inside the houses if the beasts attack. There’s no worry they can break the wall of the house.”
“Then what about the door? And the window you want? What if the beasts stay outside the house until we come out? You want to starve to death in it?”
Yan Mo shut his mouth, he fumingly returned to his tent. He needs to quickly study that beginner training method. He’s going to teach it to the little bastard who doesn’t give him face, tonight!
Author’s note (translated):
Sullen little theatre:
Yuan Zhan: Just how many needles are there on my Priest-daren? Where does he keep it?
—— Yuan Zhan who sneakily tossed the medicine bag to the other side moved to top Yan Mo, but froze when he saw the flash of needles in Yan Mo’s hand.
Yuan Zhan: Snatching away the needles doesn’t work. Soft method fails, can only do the hard method. I need to train my hand speed to pick the needles away!
—— Got it! He took the first needle away. His head dipped, his kiss hadn’t reached the target, and his hand shot out to catch the second needle aiming at him. Wait, there’s the third!
—— Yuan Zhan, who continuously snatched away 18 needles, got angry. This won’t work, it’s still faster to tie him up!
Yuan Zhan smiled sinisterly: Stingy guy, just wait, Laozi’s going to twist the rope right now!
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