Chapter 199: The Halo
After seeing off Chief Lorenzo’s couple, the time was no longer early.
However, because he had to go find his son tomorrow, Kaelen still tried to sit and examine the items that the gathering team brought back today. Perhaps the Eastern continent was more favored compared to the Southern and Northern continents; in the pile of items everyone brought back, there were complete groups: staple food crop group, supplementary food crop group, cash crop group, industrial crop group, and fruit tree group.
The staple food crop group included: ordinary rice, sticky rice, wheat, and corn.
The supplementary food crop group included: potatoes, sweet potatoes, cassava, and yam (which was exactly the white flour tuber everyone on the Eastern continent was eating).
The cash crop group had soybeans, hyacinth beans, sesame, tomatoes, amaranth, napa cabbage, cucumbers, winter melon, and luffa.
The industrial crop group had jute plants, flax plants, and cotton plants (although they had not fruited yet, they could be confirmed ten parts out of ten to be cotton plants). The most important thing was there was sugarcane! In the area where everyone found sugarcane, there was an entire giant forest of it!
There were even all three nerve-stimulating items: tea, coffee, and cocoa.
The fruit tree group had bananas, dragon fruits, and lychees. Especially, Kaelen also saw a tree-ripened jackfruit that had been two-thirds eaten by some animal.
Kaelen immediately categorized them into different groups, starting to make a reasonable planting plan.
He knew the tea planting technique because he had already planted spiritual tea in his past life. But he did not know about coffee and cocoa, only able to tell everyone to mark the areas and care for the wild-growing plants; waiting for everyone to carefully observe the growth characteristics of these two types of plants, they would naturally figure out the planting methods.
The cotton plants also grew concentrated in one place, so there was no rush to transplant them yet. Kaelen marked the area where the cotton grew best, intending to wait until after harvesting the cotton to clear it as a cotton planting area entirely.
The lychees here were very sour, even sourer than wild apples; Kaelen concluded that the soil here was not suitable for planting lychees, and he intended to bring them back to the Southern continent to plant. Dragon fruits were still suitable for planting in the forest, where there were many large trees for them to cling to; everyone just needed to gather them in one place and care for them carefully.
The team members knew how to handle cash crops and food crops, so Kaelen just needed to write down the planting methods once...
As for sugarcane, this thing could survive anywhere it was thrown; its only flaw was being very susceptible to stem borers because it was too sweet. Without Theron’s group here, Kaelen knew he could not make pesticides, having to let everyone put in extra effort to care for them.
All the harvested sugarcane would be chopped and brought back tomorrow, pressing the juice to make sugar immediately. Aaron knew all these things, and Kaelen handed everything over to him...
After finishing arranging the work, Kaelen demanded two bowls of potion mixed at the 8:1 ratio from Draven again, intending to heal their injuries today. Because Nova had said the spiritual power in Draven’s potion had an effect on Ryder, Chloe was currently taking on the role of a spiritual power transfer station.
However, after transferring a portion into Ryder’s body, Chloe discovered the spiritual power stagnated in his body instead of transmitting into the space like before, and the little girl stopped immediately. Sane speculated:
"Perhaps what Ryder’s space absorbs is not spiritual power but the life force in the orange tree that Chloe sucked. You should take a bottle of pure potion from Draven tomorrow, when the time comes, choose a secluded place for the children to try."
Kaelen nodded, running off again to snatch two bottles of pure healing potion from Draven, making him so angry he beat his chest and stomped his feet. Holding the potion bottle in hand, and looking at the two un-drunk potion bowls on the table, Kaelen suddenly had an idea:
"Brother Sane, how about we try applying it externally to see the effect?"
Sane hesitated for a moment, then nodded in agreement: "Then try on my body first."
There were quite a few wounds caused by the demonic bird’s wind blades on Sane’s body; Kaelen chose a deep wound on his shoulder, used a cloth to soak the 8:1 ratio liquid potion, and applied it to the wound.
The healing effect was not much different from when drinking it into the body.
Kaelen chose another similar wound on his back, using the pure liquid potion to try applying it. Sane only felt his back itching, his whole body twisting continuously. Finally, unable to bear the itch, he had to transform back into his beast form and slither outside. He wrapped around an orange tree trunk, continuously rubbing his back against the tree trunk.
Kaelen regretted endlessly seeing this scene; had he known, he would have used small animals to test first, he should not have tested directly on Sane’s body like that.
Sane rubbed for a while, shedding a whole pile of scales, unexpectedly entering the molting period. Snakes during the molting period were extremely weak; the Warriors were extremely tense and raised their vigilance, guarding against someone unexpectedly rushing in.
By midnight, Sane finally finished molting. The original green-black color had now changed to black mixed with purple hues. Kaelen was endlessly surprised, feeling this Soaring Snake clan had genetic problems. If the green-black color changed, it should at least change to pure black, shouldn’t it? If Sane changed to black mixed with purple like this, then would he turn completely purple the next time he molted?
Previously, he thought Oliver’s purple color was due to the influence of Divine Energy and bloodline; looking back now, it seemed it was due to genetics.
Sane felt his entire body extremely sluggish after finishing molting. He shrank his body and slithered onto his mate to act spoiled. Chloe said: "You should soak the Chief in the diluted liquid potion. That liquid potion is like spiritual spring water; it helps recover health faster."
Kaelen then dropped Sane into the potion bowl. The little snake swam a circle in the bowl, then rested his chin on the bowl rim, closing his eyes to snore.
Kaelen found it funny; after cleaning up the pile of snake skin, he told everyone to go to sleep to gather strength for tomorrow’s work. He himself drank the remaining 8:1 potion bowl, then spread the paper on the table, preparing to draw Oliver’s portrait. He had asked a Wind-attribute Warrior to help dry this drawing paper; its quality was quite good. The watercolor painted on it did not smudge, maintaining its realistic freshness, and the ink dried quickly.
Kaelen gazed at the beautiful purple-haired, purple-eyed child on the drawing paper, never getting tired of looking. He joked with Chloe: "Your skill is even better than a paper shredder; after returning to the tribe, you should take charge of the pulp-making job, alright? Of course, there will be a salary; one bottle of Draven’s potion per month, how about that?"
Chloe rested her chin on her hand to think for a while, feeling it was quite a bargain, and nodded in agreement. Finnick let out a long yawn, buried his head in his Papa’s chest, and said softly: "Papa, let’s go to sleep quickly..."
The painting was not completely dry yet; Kaelen used stones to press heavily on the four corners on the table, then extinguished some torches, and hugged his son to go to bed. Near dawn, Sane finally woke up, feeling his entire body overflowing with strength. He had sucked all the medicinal power in the potion bowl dry; now it was just a bowl of clear water.
Sane slithered out of the bowl and transformed into human form. Looking at his soundly sleeping mate and children, Sane felt he did not know where to vent this abundant body strength, so he immediately ran to the Illusion Forest to hunt beasts. Pitiful wild beasts in the forest, sleeping soundly only to be dragged up by the neck and beaten to a pulp. After that beastman beat them to a pulp, he ruthlessly sent them ’on their way’; what a dog!
When Kaelen woke up, Sane had already carried a pile of wild beasts back and piled them in the courtyard. Seeing him wake up, Sane smiled and said:
"Are you awake? I have assigned all the work, and I have also handed the detailed plan over to Aaron. After you finish your personal hygiene, we will set off, eating breakfast on the way."
Today’s breakfast was fried yam and ordinary rice flour cakes stuffed with meat, along with a hot cup of soy milk, which could be eaten while walking.
Kaelen quickly went to the toilet; after brushing his teeth and washing his face, the family set off. This trip would be three to five days if short, or ten days if long; all tasks were handed over to Aaron for full authority. Sane only led his mate and two children along, not taking any Warriors.
Teaching knowledge to the four tribes was no small matter, so all eighty-nine Warriors had to be utilized to the maximum; they truly could not spare anyone to go find Oliver with them.
Among the people going to search for the two children this time, besides the Silver Snake tribe and Sane’s family, there was also participation from the remaining three tribes. The number could match a small squad.
Kaelen showed the drawing of Oliver to everyone once. These people all sighed at the exquisite drawing paper, as well as praising the beautiful Sub-Beast child in the painting. Showing the features of a beauty at a young age, who knew how many beastmen would fight tooth and nail over the boy when he grew up.
Everyone went into the Illusion Forest together; arriving at the area where they discovered traces of the two children, they began dividing into three teams, branching into three different directions to search. Kaelen went with the Silver Snake tribe’s team.
In a flash, three days passed; from the mouths of the Silver Snake tribe’s Martial Artists, Kaelen and Sane also knew the reason Lorenzo’s son went missing.
Lorenzo and Jude’s son was named Siley, an eighteen-year-old Silver Snake beastman. Siley was a peak Saint-stage Martial Artist; early this spring, he went to the Martial God Shrine to take the examination to advance to Elementary-stage Martial Artist.
On the way to the Martial God Shrine, the Sub-Beast engaged to Siley also went along. That was a White Snake clan Sub-Beast named Fidelia, originally considered the most beautiful Sub-Beast among the sixty tribes bordering the Illusion Forest. Everything also started from this Sub-Beast.
"Fidelia actively pursued our young chief, but our young chief only had the Martial path in his heart, originally having no interest in him, taking a detour upon seeing him. It was just that accidentally once, the young chief caught sight of Fidelia bathing under the waterfall, and was just coincidentally caught by the White Snake tribe people. So there was this engagement."
Siley was also a responsible beastman. Even though forced, he gave Fidelia the treatment that should be given to a mate without lacking anything. For this trip to the Martial God Shrine, Fidelia insisted on coming along.
"The grandson of the person hosting the examination took a fancy to Fidelia, played dirty tricks during our young chief’s examination, causing the young chief to suffer a backlash from his own martial power. The young chief luckily did not die, but his core was severely damaged, his martial power dissipated, becoming a cripple regressing to a cub form."
"Fidelia immediately demanded to break the engagement with the young chief, turning around to flirt with the very scumbag who harmed his former fiancé. Thirteen days ago, those two bastards even led each other in front of the young chief to mentally attack him, causing the young chief to flee into the Illusion Forest in a fit of humiliation!"
This group of beastmen became more agitated as they spoke, hating that they could not immediately rush to level the White Snake tribe. One person among them said indignantly:
"The young chief degenerating to a cub form and fleeing into the Illusion Forest has an eighty to ninety percent chance of intending to commit suicide. The young chief is the pride of our tribe; even if crippled, he is still the belief of the people in the tribe, we definitely must find him and bring him back!"
Sane frowned: "Did the White Snake Chief show no attitude about this matter?"
"The White Snake tribe receives benefits from the relationship between Fidelia and that Martial God Shrine beastman, therefore they pretend not to see whatever Fidelia and that beastman do. Not only that, they have also spoken disrespectfully in front of us many times. If it was not for Chief Lorenzo forbidding it, we would have beaten them to a pulp!"
Kaelen sighed emotionally. This Siley truly held the script of a genius youth counter-attacking. Once the darling of heaven, then framed by villains to become a cripple. If his protagonist halo was strong enough, who knew, after this wandering trip he might encounter some opportunity, then become strong, returning to slap the faces of those who despised him.
It must be said that Kaelen’s imagination was quite rich.
But Siley was no protagonist, nor did he have a protagonist halo.
He was just an extremely lucky person, in the most desperate and darkest moment of his life, encountering a halo reserved just for him...