One month later.
Ye Xi had a bird nest in his left hand while his right hand dragged a tree branch covered in leaves as he weaved his way through Mud Mountain's jungle.
The wind ruffled his hair while branches and leaves brushed past his ears.
In this month, the constant nourishment of meat had made Ye Xi's body significantly more muscular. Although he still looked rather thin, he no longer appeared frail. His entire body was brimming with energy.
And the nourishment of the fiendbeast blood had been a great boon to Ye Xi's agility and explosive strength. As he weaved his way through the forest, he was ascending at twice the speed of his first ascent of Mud Mountain.
"Hey! Stop right there! Let me take a look at what you've found!" Someone suddenly dropped from a tree and lunged at the bird nest.
Ye Xi was caught off guard by this ambush, but before his mind had time to react, his body instinctively moved to the side.
"Eh?" Awl was astonished to see that Ye Xi had dodged.
Awl didn't give up, intentionally trying to see just how much progress Ye Xi had made. Like a bolt of lightning, he snatched at the bird nest in Ye Xi's hand.
Ye Xi dodged several times, but his speed was gradually unable to keep up with Awl's attacks.
Just when Awl was about to seize the bird nest, Ye Xi treated the bird nest like a discus and threw it into the distance.
This kid! Eggs can break! Awl flew after the bird nest.
Ye Xi saw Awl's exposed back and softly smiled as he gripped the branch and gave him a heavy thwack.
"That's for your ambush!"
Awl had just grabbed the bird nest when he was suddenly attacked.
"Ye Xi, you're too sinister!" Awl yelled as he held up the bird nest.
"That's called being smart, not sinister." Awl was a provisional Warrior. In normal circumstances, he would have been Awl's plaything. He naturally needed to use his brain a little to win.
How can this not be sinister? Awl inwardly grumbled.
Awl had a big heart, so after grumbling a little, he threw the incident to the back of his mind. In any case, it barely hurt. He looked at the bird nest and said, "Oh my, this nest has six eggs! Not bad, not bad."
"Get your own eggs, unless you want to owe me for these six."
"Heheh, right, you've made even more progress over the last two days."
Ye Xi said to himself, Of course. The fiendbeast blood is nourishing me every day, so it would be far stranger if I made no progress. Half a month had passed, and he had been using every moment to digest fiendbeast blood and hone his body. Now, he was finally showing a little result.
"Only a little."
"Don't be humble. You're advancing with almost divine speed. If this keeps going, you'll have the right to enter the provisional trial two years from now!"
Ye Xi shook his head. He had basically finished off the fiendbeast blood, and the shaman had yet to bring him the promised fiendbeast meat. Sustaining this progress was impossible.
"Right, what's the use of that tree branch? Firewood? But it's too thin. And besides, we can do something like gather firewood."
"…This is food, not firewood."
"Oh? It's food! Let me try." Before Ye Xi could react, he pulled off a few leaves and stuffed them into his mouth.
"…It tastes like leaves." Awl chewed, and once he was done, he evaluated, "It's not very good."
Ye Xi teased, "That's not how you eat it!"
Not wanting to stay on the mountain any longer, Ye Xi smoothly took the nest from Awl's hand, and took out an egg from inside and stuffed it in Awl's hand. "Alright, this one is for the toll fee. I'm leaving first." After saying this, he headed down the mountain.
"Then how do you eat these leaves!?" Awl shouted.
"You'll know soon…" Ye Xi called back from the distance.
Once he got back to the base of the mountain, Ye Xi put his things away, grabbed a few pieces of jerky, and found a middle-aged man in the cave who was in the middle of making stone tools.
This uncle was called Strong Work, and he was the artisan of the tribe. He was skilled in the production of both stone and wooden tools.
"Uncle Strong, are you busy in a little while?"
Strong Work's hands were covered in white stone powder. When he saw Ye Xi, he smiled and put down his stone tool. "I'll be done once I finish this one. Do you have something you need me to do?"
"Yes, I want to make…" Ye Xi gave a detailed description of the tool he wanted.
Strong Work nodded. "No problem. It's rather simple."
"Right, Uncle Strong, this is your reward. See if it's enough." Ye Xi passed over the jerky.
"I don't need it." Strong Work hastily waved his hands. "For a little something like this, I don't need any reward."
Ever since he had successfully gotten water, the tribe members' attitude toward him had grown even warmer.
"Take it," Ye Xi insisted. "If you don't take it, I'll find someone else."
While Strong Work was an excellent crafter of stone tools, he was still an ordinary person. He was not given much food every day, and primarily relied on the food he made from making stone tools for others. Ye Xi would not allow himself to take advantage of Strong Work.
Strong Work was rather moved. Since he couldn't refuse, he might as well accept it. "…Fine."
But in his mind, he decided that he had to work hard and make it better so that Ye Xi would be satisfied.
Dusk.
Plate, Awl, Courage, and Butcher were gathered together and getting ready for dinner.
They had lit the bonfire and were proficiently spitting meat to roast on the fire.
Ye Xi had Plate help him start another fire on the side.
Plate curiously asked, "Why build another fire?"
Ye Xi mysteriously said, "Tonight, I'm making some special food." He had grown somewhat bored of eating the same roast meat for more than half a month. Today, he had gone around the mountain to search for other foods to improve his meal.
The other instantly became curious. What special food? Was it tasty?
Awl speculated that it might be the leaves, upon which he instantly lost interest. No matter what you do, leaves can't taste good! he firmly thought to himself.
Ye Xi went into the cave and brought back a big pile of things, and everyone curiously watched as he placed them next to the fire.
Ye Xi then took out a flat-bottomed stone pot. Once the fire was hot enough, he placed the stone pot directly on the fire.
He then placed a wooden board on the ground. Borrowing Courage's bone knife, he chopped the washed leaves into a fine powder. After that, he took a large bowl and cracked all the eggs, placing their contents in the bowl. He then took chopsticks and began to beat the yolk.
These eggs weren't large, each one slightly smaller than a chicken egg. But all their yolk was enough to fill the bowl.
Once the yolk had been evenly stirred, Ye Xi added a little water so that the scrambled eggs would be softer and more appetizing. He then sprinkled the powdered leaves over the bowl and mixed them with the yolk.
"What are these tree leaves?" Awl couldn't help but ask.
"
Once he was done with this, Ye Xi carefully took out a small wooden jar.
Plate and Courage were surprised by what Ye Xi was doing. Could it be…
The jar was opened, revealing white crystals streaked with brown. Ye Xi lightly shook the wooden jar, lightly sprinkling some of the crystals on the yolk.
"It really is salt. This is far too extravagant," Courage sighed.
Salt was far too precious for the Mud Mountain Tribe. Normally, they would only use a small spoon with great reluctance, but Ye Xi was liberally sprinkling it.
The shaman had secretly given Ye Xi the small jar of salt as an additional reward for getting water.
Of course, while it was in a small jar, there was really only enough for a single spoon.
After spending long enough here, Ye Xi knew just how rare salt was, and he was also unwilling to use it. But after eating unsalted meat for more than half a month, Ye Xi couldn't take it any longer. He decided to live a little today and sprinkle some salt.
The stone pot was hot enough by now, so Ye Xi threw in a piece of fatty meat and began to flip it around in the pot.
After a little while, the fatty meat began to sizzle and exude oils. Once he could no longer produce any oil from the meat, he threw out the burned piece of meat.
By now, the pot's surface was covered in gleaming yellow oil that unleashed a wonderful aroma.
Ye Xi poured the mixture of yolk and fragrant cedar leaves into the pot.
The yolk immediately turned golden upon touching the oil, exploding with an alluring scent.
It was difficult to control the heat of the bonfire. Ye Xi gripped the handle of the stone pot, and when the fire burned too strongly, he would move the pot away. When the flames weakened, he would move the pot closer.
"It smells great!" At some point, a crowd had gathered.
Those tribe members who had finished their meat and were getting bored saw that some new food was apparently being cooked up, so they all curiously gathered around.
"Shoo! Shoo! Ye Xi is making it for us. All of you, stand aside." Courage and the others hurriedly drove the crowd away.
"Hey, hey! We're just watching! We can at least do that, right!"
"Hmph, then you'd better just watch," Courage and the others warned.
The eggs had turned golden-yellow and fragrant, mixing together with the young red leaves of the fragrant cedar to produce an even more alluring aroma.
When he saw that the scrambled eggs were just about done, Ye Xi put out the flames and picked up the scrambled eggs with fragrant cedar leaves from the pot with a pair of chopsticks.
"Those two things are made from tree branches! They seem very flexible in their use!" someone chattered in the crowd.
There were six wooden bowls in all, one for each member of the 'fire'. Ye Xi divided the fragrant cedar scrambled eggs into six even parts and placed them in the bowls.
And then he gave each person a pair of chopsticks.
"This… is for us to use? We can just use our hands!" The people of the tribe used their hands to eat meat. They were not used to using chopsticks.
"It's done. Try it."
They held up their bowls, grabbed their chopsticks, and felt like they did not know how to eat anymore. This was particularly the case for Butcher's child, Wash, who was only five. He was clearly much clumsier with the chopsticks than the others.
Plate maneuvered the chopsticks into closing around the scrambled eggs and took a bite.
"Delicious!" Plate's eyes brightened.
The surrounding crowd swallowed their drool.
"It really does look tasty!"
"Right, right! I'm feeling hungry."
"Didn't you just have a piece of meat?"
"I don't know either. I just suddenly feel hungry."
Courage, Plate, and the others heard the chatter of the crowd, and as they smugly ate their scrambled eggs, they made a show of it, smacking their lips and loudly chewing.
Butcher's child Wash was also very naughty, intentionally shouting, "Big Brother Ye Xi, this is wonderful! It's really too delicious!"
"That's right. It looks pretty good, but I didn't think that it would taste even better!" Awl said to Plate with a smack of his lips, his voice loud enough for everyone to hear.
"Right, right. It's just that there's so little that I'm somewhat unwilling to eat it all," Plate loudly agreed.
"I know where Ye Xi found these things. Tomorrow, I'll get some eggs and those leaves. Tomorrow, you can make more so that we can eat our fill!"
Everyone perked their ears, wanting to know just where these things were. But Awl refused to say!
It was just a joke, of course. If they found out where it was, they would have plucked the tree bald!
Eating some fragrant cedar scrambled eggs and drinking some clean water, this was a merry life indeed!