In the past two days, Yi Yun had been dedicating himself to practicing. Because of his injuries, both his hands were bandaged.
Yi Yun frequently sneaked out in the middle of the night, and this did not escape Jiang Xiaorou.
"Yun-er, what have you been doing these past few days? Also, what's wrong with your hands?"
Ever since Yi Yun's mother passed away, Jiang Xiaorou had taken up the responsibility of being Yi Yun's mother, taking care of him in every possible way.
Even when Yi Yun made a mistake, Jiang Xiaorou would not blame him, but stare at him till Yi Yun confessed his wrongdoings.
It was the same today.
Yi Yun had wanted to make the excuse of hurting himself when picking herbs, but under Jiang Xiaorou's watchful gaze, he hesitated before speaking the truth, "Sis Xiaorou, I've been practicing martial arts at night. The injuries on my hand were caused by my training."
Jiang Xiaorou was stunned. Practicing martial arts?
"Yun-er, who did you learn martial arts from?"
"I secretly learned it,' said Yi Yun honestly.
Jiang Xiaorou's expression changed. Secretly learning the tribe's martial arts would be a crime. Also learning martial arts was no easy task. Even without herbs and meat, one needed to have a good meal. Yi Yun only ate gruel and wild vegetables daily. Where did he have the strength to train?
This could be a matter of life and death.
"Sis Xiaorou, do you believe me?" Yi Yun grabbed Jiang Xiaorou's hand while looking into her eyes seriously.
Jiang Xiaorou paused before nodding her head subconsciously.
"Well, if you believe me, don't ask any further. Sis Xiaorou, I'll lead you to a better life in the future!" Yi Yun said seriously. Jiang Xiaorou was the first person he met in this strange world, and she was the person who had cared for him with her life ever since.
He felt a sense of gratitude towards her. He wanted not only to change his own fate, but to also change Jiang Xiaorou's fate.
Jiang Xiaorou looked at Yi Yun in a daze while a thought rose in her mind–her brother had grown up.
He was no longer the child of old. The words he said were not to be treated as baby talk. He was working hard to match his objectives…
Yi Yun was slowly growing accustomed to the plain meals he had. Or it could be said; he had no choice but to do so.
Although the grain porridge tasted bad, Yi Yun would digest it immediately after having an increase in appetite. Without the Lian Clan Herb Mountain to support him, Yi Yun would have starved to death, not to mention breakthrough into the Vigor realm.
However, although the herbs could supplement the body's nutritional and energetic requirements, it was not enough to replace meals. The taste of the herbs was worse than grain porridge.
As the days passed, for a glutton like Yi Yun, it was a torture for him.
The only thing good in his life was Jiang Xiaorou's pickled vegetables.
It was sad to say that although Yi Yun was not considered rich on Earth, he had the opportunity to eat anything he wanted. But ever since he came to the strange world, he had not had a taste of meat. Pickled vegetables were now a delicacy.
However, Jiang Xiaorou's pickled vegetables were considered very delicious. For Jiang Xiaorou's family, pickled vegetables were considered an extravagance, as the village did not have any salt. All the salt had to be bought from the bigger tribes.
Much of the salt was provided to the warrior preparation camp. They used the salt to cure the meat, so only tiny amounts of salt were distributed to the commoners. It was mostly used to boil vegetable soup. Using it to make pickled vegetables was obviously an extravagant way of eating.
After a couple of days, all the herbs on the Lian Clan Herb Mountain were picked dry. Even with the Purple Crystal's guidance, even decent herbs couldn't be found. To hand over the herbs, the villagers even uprooted the sprouts of the herbs.
"Having picked the entire herb mountain dry like that, without any consideration of the future. It seems the Lian tribal clan has gambled their all, and have given up on the land they stayed. All hope rested on Lian Chengyu. However, even if Lian Chengyu passes the Tai Ah Divine Kingdom's warrior selection, only a few people from the warrior preparation camp would benefit. It is likely that all the commoners would be abandoned…"
Yi Yun had mixed feelings. This was the way of living in the vast wilderness. There were limited resources; the strong obtained more resources while the weak were eliminated.
With the value of the herb mountain's value getting lower and lower, the Lian tribal clan's upper echelons stopped focusing on the herb mountain. All their attention and energies were placed on the refinement of the desolate bone.
This piece of desolate bone was of the highest importance. For this piece of desolate bone, the Lian tribal clan had placed all their bets on it
All their hopes were pinned on it.
Even Lian Chengyu had put in his all, his ambition, his hopes; his everything was now bet on this!
The refinement of the desolate bone required sixty days!
On the tenth day of the refinement process, something weird happened.
A few villagers in charge of the refinement of the desolate bone fell sick. It began with a cough and fever, but it soon broke out into diarrhoea, skin rashes and depression. The symptoms resembled typhoid.
In a small tribe in the vast wilderness, a common warrior with good physical fitness and strong physical resistance would be fine, but for the poor villagers, once ill, there was no such thing as a minor illness.
Because of their weak bodies and poor resistance, with the tribe only having one doctor who served the upper echelons, the poor were doomed to die from the cold ailment.
Yi Yun felt something was amiss when he heard the news.
Typhoid sounded like the cold, but it was actually a bacterial infection. Yi Yun wasn't sure if the typhoid in this strange world was the same as on Earth. But with so many ill, it had to be some type of communicable disease.
What Yi Yun couldn't figure out was that common infectious diseases usually spread through water or air. However the villagers who were refining the desolate bone were confined to the cauldron where the temperatures were extremely high!
Under sustained high temperatures and low humidity, most common bacteria would find it hard to survive. If there was an outbreak, it would be from others, not from the people refining the desolate bone?
Could it be a bacteria that spread easily under dry conditions?
Thinking of this, Yi Yun's heart sank. The matter of the villagers falling sick was not so simple!
With five people ill, the people of the Lian tribal clan and especially the rest of the people refining the desolate bones began to panic.
With them being there, they could contract the disease anytime.
Although life was tough, no one wanted to die.
Thankfully, the upper echelons of the Lian tribal clan did not brush the matter aside. The Patriarch came forward to calm the masses, and gave each of the ill a red pill.
The pill was the size of a longan, red like blood. According to the Patriarch, it was an extremely expensive herb obtained from refinement. Each pill was worth a fortune.
The Patriarch instructed the ill to swallow it down with warm water and that their illnesses would be cured after having the medicine. And the ill that ate the pill felt better on the first day. They felt energetic after a night's sleep. By the evening of the second day, they were no different from normal people.
On the third day, the ill were even livelier, better than before they fell ill.
Besides that, the Patriarch distributed a palm-sized piece of bacon to all the villagers who fell ill. This was meat, something these villagers had not seen for months. It was a great gift to them.
The poor cherished this piece of bacon and ate tiny amounts of it. Some of them gave it to their children, some to their wives.
The news that the Lian tribal clan distributed pills and bacon to the ill, spread like wildfire.
The people in suffering did it for the tribunal good, and worked even harder for the refinement of the desolate bones. Some even wished to fall ill themselves, for they would receive a pill that made them feel even more energetic, and obtain that piece of bacon.
Yi Yun frowned when the news reached him.
A pill that could cure the illness, and make them feel even better?
Although Yi Yun had no medical training, he knew that having such great effects after eating a pill must be something that stimulated the people, which would have strong side effects.
Examples were stimulants such as drugs and other prohibited drugs that could ignite a person's potential.
Yi Yun was especially sceptical about the higher echelons of the Lian tribal clan spreading the news of them handing out pills made of extremely precious herbs.
The Lian tribal clan could never be this generous. Besides, to be able to be generous, they had to have the precious herbs, and from Yi Yun's perspective, even the upper echelons of the Lian tribal clan were poor too. It was a situation of pot calling the kettle black between the upper echelons and plebeians. Also they had limited resources, and they had used it all on Lian Chengyu, how could they hand out herbs to the poor?
Yet another day, the Lian tribal clan distributed the herbal dregs. These herbal dregs were the remnants of what Lian Chengyu had finished using. It was for those who had refined the desolate bones with the goal of strengthening their bodies. Those who received the herbal dregs were naturally grateful.
The Lian tribal clan's elders' compound late at night.
"Peng!" The door to the compound was pushed open. A young man with a complexion as clear as jade walked out.
"Chengyu, why did you come out?" The Patriarch stood up the moment he saw the young man. Lian Chengyu had previously announced that he wanted to isolate himself till the Tai Ah Divine Kingdom's warrior selection began.
Yet it had been less than a month before Lian Chengyu came out of isolation.
"My cultivation encountered some problems…" Lian Chengyu's expression didn't look good. He had planned to use two months to accumulate a strong base before using the desolate bone essence to break through to the Purple Blood realm!
By doing so, his fundamentals would be strong, and having accumulated sufficient strength, he would reach the peak of the beginning stages of the Purple Blood realm when he broke through into the Purple Blood realm. Among the others in the beginning stages of the Purple Blood realm, he would be able to keep his head up, and it would aid him in breaking through to an even higher realm in the future. It would be very beneficial!
Tai Ah Divine Kingdom's warrior selection was particular about a warrior's fundamentals and cumulative progress. If Lian Chengyu could meet all those requirements, he could get the recognition of the Tai Ah Divine Kingdom's officers during the warrior selection, and obtain excellent results.
However, the circumstances did not permit so. After picking the Lian Clan Herb Mountain dry, Lian Chengyu's cultivation had a slow development despite all the good herbs!
Lian Chengyu believed that he had met his bottleneck.
In fact, the attitude towards martial arts mattered most when in isolation. With a good attitude, strong confidence and perseverance, it would be easy to break though.
When in self-doubt, thinking that something was wrong with the cultivation process, such as hitting a bottleneck, would inevitably cause a loss in momentum and make breaking through even tougher.
The psychological effect usually did not have significant effects, but Lian Chengyu had originally lacked the resources for his cultivation. Matters were made worse, causing Lian Chengyu's progress to be even slower. In the end, he chose to end his isolation prematurely.
By clearing his mind and taking a break before obtaining the desolate bone essence, he could then re-isolate himself to break through into the Purple Blood realm.
This was Lian Chengyu's plan. It was a reasonable plan. Sometimes it happened that a breakthrough was not possible, but taking a break might result in miraculous insight, allowing him to make a breakthrough unknowingly.
"How has the refinement process of the desolate bone been?" Lian Chengyu asked the question that concerned him the most. This piece of desolate bone was his entire fortune and life!
"Yes, it's still going as planned, but… A few of the poor villagers involved in the refining were poisoned a few days ago. I was originally planning on letting them hang on a few days, but seeing that they were doing badly, I gave them some Blood Thinning Pills. They have all recovered by now and the refinement will not be affected."
Lian Chengyu knitted his eyebrows upon hearing it as he said, "Those soulless trash are really useless. It's just been a few days and they can't take the toxicity from the Frost Python desolate bone! After eating the Blood Thinning Pills, it will overdraw on their vitality. Under such circumstances, they will die before the refinement of the desolate bone is done!"
Lian Chengyu's words were cold and inhumane. The Patriarch felt he was going overboard and said, "Chengyu… You are asking for too much. These people seldom eat a proper meal or wear proper clothes. How would they be able to endure the toxin from the Frost Python? They have already sacrificed themselves for the Lian tribe. In the future when you make your meteoric rise, you must take care of their families."
"Got it," said Lian Chengyu with a straight face. "I'm only worried about the refinement process and fear it will be delayed unnecessarily. If these people end up dying too early, it would affect the refinement process. Grandpa, please send the order down to the tribe to gather more help. The more the merrier. With more people, they can all share in the toxicity of the Frost Python and last longer. Although the Blood Thinning Pill isn't a very expensive drug, with most of our money gone, we have to save every penny."
Lian Chengyu had said those words lightly. The Patriarch sighed hearing this. He knew that for every person recruited, another life was lost.
The pitiful poor even scrambled to join in the refining of the desolate bone for the bacon.
"For the Lian tribe, I guess it has to be so…" exclaimed the Patriarch "It's such a pity. If we had a piece of desolate bone without any toxicity, there wouldn't be so many deaths due to the refinement."
"A piece of desolate bone without toxin?" Lian Chengyu scoffed. "With the finances of our tribe and that incomplete technique manual, would we have been able to exchange for a piece of desolate bone without toxicity?"
"Besides, the Frost Python desolate bone does not have toxin, it just has a hard to dissipate frost Qi. Once it enters the body, it freezes the organs, causing a person to lose his life. With a Desolate Heaven Master he could easily dissipate the Frost Python's frost Qi. But why would a Desolate Heaven Master be willing to help clear such a low-grade desolate bone's toxicity? There is no chance for them to come to our Lian tribal clan!"
"The only reason I could get my hands on this desolate bone was because of its cheap price: the young masters of big tribes weren't willing to use something of this quality! Just like how a rich family will give the remaining bones to feed the dogs, to the big tribes, I'm like a wild dog waiting to eat their scraps!"
Lian Chengyu self-deprecating last words were said with his lips twitching and fists clenched tightly. His nails were piercing into his flesh.
He hated his circumstances!
The young masters and mistresses of the large tribes could pick from a spread of desolate bones. They would choose not to use those with side effects or low efficacy!
But for him, he had to go through all the trouble and sacrifice his wealth just to obtain a rejected piece of Frost Python desolate bone!
Putting all his hope on a piece of desolate bone, which had immense side effects, and risking his life to consume it was pathetic!
"Chengyu, it has been hard on you all these years. But you have to know even the bright onew in the big tribes are few in number. There are even plenty without the talent in the big tribes, they too don't get much of the desolate beast meat…" The Patriarch felt guilty. He knew Lian Chengyu had great talent, but due to the Lian tribal clan's poverty, they were unable to nurture him. All these years, the Patriarch had known that Lian Chengyu had a grudge towards the tribe despite him never uttering a word.
It was hard for Lian Chengyu to listen to what the Patriarch had to say. He answered, "Grandpa, don't console me. Heaven is heartless, treating all things as worthless. Since the world is unfair, I will use my own strength to gain that fairness! Sooner or later, I will take control of my life, and will take control of the lives of others! In the future, I will have all the children of the big tribes at my feet!"
"I understand," said the Patriarch with a sigh. "Tomorrow I will pass the order to gather more people to refine the desolate bones. I will not care about the number of deaths. With more people, they can absorb more of the frost Qi… making it safer for you when you consume the desolate bone."
The Patriarch knew that Lian Chengyu would not feel any remorse for the poor who died for him.
Lian Chengyu hated the unfairness of the world. He felt he was extremely unlucky, so how could he be bothered with the unluckiness of others?
To Lian Chengyu, the poor were like ants. Even Lian Chengyu saw himself as a slightly bigger ant.
The survival of the fittest, this was a notion ingrained deep in Lian Chengyu's heart. Only by eating the smaller ants could he keep growing till the point where he could, as a top expert, control his own fate and the fate of others.
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