"Ye Xi, wake up! Ye Xi..."
A muddleheaded Ye Xi heard someone calling out to him.
Ye Xi's eyes flew open, and he discovered several large faces worriedly examining him.
"Ye Xi, you're awake," a man with a bearded face caked in dirt happily said.
It took a few seconds for Ye Xi to recognize that this was Courage.
Carving came over and said, "Ye Xi, were you thrown into a pile of shit? Why is your entire body so dirty, and why do you smell so bad?"
Plate pushed Carving aside. "Why are you worried over whether he fell into a pile of shit? What's most important is whether he's injured." Turning to Ye Xi, he asked, "Ye Xi, do you have any injuries on your body?"
Dirty and stinky? Ye Xi sat up and looked down at his body. Why was he covered in black grime, and why did he smell so awful?
"…What's going on here?"
"I don't know," Carving said. "When we found you, you were just lying here like this."
Ye Xi stood up and realized that not even one drop of the milky water remained, leaving only the bare bottom of black rock.
"Where's the milky water? Did you guys see it when you got here?"
Courage frowned. "There was nothing. What milky water?"
Ye Xi hastily asked, "Did you see any other person or creature when you came in?"
Seeing how serious Ye Xi was, Courage and Plate glanced at each other. But after seriously thinking it over, they all shook their heads.
Ye Xi frowned. What was going on here? How had an entire pool of milky water disappeared without a trace? Looking down at his filthy hand, he had a thought. Could it be…
"Ye Xi, why don't you wash yourself a little? You smell awful," Carving said.
Seeing that Ye Xi didn't appear injured, the Warriors relaxed, but they still couldn't stand the stench coming from his body.
The Warriors handed over their water bags.
"I'll just give myself a little rinse. I'll take a proper bath once we get back to the tribe."
Ye Xi didn't argue, removing the stopper from a bag and washing himself down.
As the black grime was washed away, fair white skin, almost crystalline, was revealed.
"Ye Xi, how did you get so white?!" Plate stared at Ye Xi's skin with eyes wide open.
This skin was as glossy as a white jewel. When compared to the Warriors and their skin tanned black from the sun… it was far too tragic.
Ye Xi was also taken aback. "I don't know either…" Ye Xi suddenly remembered something and blurted out, "Wait, it could be the miracle flower!"
"Miracle flower?!" the Warriors shouted in unison.
"Right, I found a half-bloomed miracle flower here. I was heavily injured at the time, so I just ate it whole, after which I fell unconscious."
The Warriors were shocked to hear that it was a miracle flower, and their eyes instantly blazed.
This luck was just too good. This was a miracle flower, such a rare object! They had only ever seen miracle flowers from a distance, but the areas in which they grew were extremely dangerous and shrouded in poisonous gas. No one dared to approach, much less pick one.
They hadn't expected Ye Xi to get so lucky after being seized by apes. Once their excitement had passed, they all felt happy for Ye Xi. After all, Ye Xi was a part of their tribe, and what he obtained, the tribe obtained.
Courage happily said, "Some of the precious miracle flowers truly do have such an effect. Try and see if anything else has happened to you besides your skin getting whiter."
Ye Xi looked around. "…My vision seems to have improved."
And his body was brimming with strength. He squatted down and jumped, surprisingly reaching a height of four or five meters.
The Warriors were flabbergasted. Ye Xi was no Totem Warrior, but he was still able to easily jump so high.
Miracle flowers truly were miracle flowers!
"I was able to jump so high!" Ye Xi muttered in shock once he got back to the ground.
Courage was happy for Ye Xi. "What else do you feel?"
"I feel like my body is bursting with energy. I've probably gotten stronger."
"See if you can raise this rock with both hands," Courage said as he pointed nearby.
This rock weighed around two hundred catties, and in the past, he wouldn't have even thought about picking it up. But now, Ye Xi walked over and looked at this rock, sensing that with his current strength, picking it up wasn't impossible…
Ye Xi squatted down, his hands wrapping around the rock as he prepared to exert his strength. But to his surprise, he picked it up with barely any effort!
The Warriors were all astonished. They could see that Ye Xi wasn't red in the face or gasping for breath, signs that he was barely exerting his strength. A miracle flower could make an ordinary person so much stronger! Not even Courage had expected Ye Xi to be able to so easily lift the rock.
Ye Xi didn't find the rock very heavy, so he decided to see what happened if he let one hand go. While it took a little more strength, he was able to raise the rock with just one hand over his head!
The pupils of the Warriors constricted. Although this sort of strength could not be compared to a Totem Warrior's, it was definitely enough strength to be a provisional Warrior!
Ye Xi threw the rock to the ground and happily said, "I really did get stronger!"
Courage joyfully patted Ye Xi on the shoulder. "Great! I said before that you would need a few years until you were ready to become a provisional Warrior, but it seems like you can do it this year."
Plate and Carving did not know yet that Ye Xi wanted to become a Totem Warrior. When they heard Courage, they asked, "Ye Xi, you want to become a Totem Warrior? Isn't it fine being the disciple of the shaman?"
Ye Xi shrugged. "Being the disciple of the shaman doesn't conflict with being a Totem Warrior, right?"
Plate frowned in disapproval. "But Totem Warriors need to go into the jungle to hunt, and hunting in the jungle is very dangerous."
"Alright, I understand." Ye Xi didn't want to keep talking about this, so he craftily changed the topic. Pointing at the body of the giant boa, he said, "Let's bring it back to the tribe. We should leave this place."
The corpse of the Titanoboa was still sprawled across the cave.
The Warriors realized that they had yet to ask Ye Xi what was going on with this giant snake. They had followed the words of the shaman to reach this cave, and they had been scared out of their wits when they saw all the blood and the massive snake corpse inside.
Their hearts had truly been ready to burst out of their chests. They weren't afraid of the giant snake, but of the possibility that Ye Xi had been devoured. If not for Carving discovering Ye Xi, so covered in black grime that he was almost perfectly concealed in the darkness and the black bottom of the pool, they might have already cut open the boa's stomach.
Courage couldn't help but ask, "Ye Xi, how did you manage to escape, and how did this giant snake die?" Ye Xi would never have been able to move that rock by the cave entrance. Only the giant boa could have done that.
This boa was covered in wounds, but the fatal wound was at its heart. The shape of its wound was very similar to Ye Xi's weapon, but Ye Xi could not have been so powerful as to kill it on his own.
It was far too absurd a theory, and Courage had almost immediately rejected it.
"It's a long story," Ye Xi said. "I'll explain as we walk. What time is it? Don't we need to hurry back to the tribe?"
The Warriors realized with a start that it was getting late. It was afternoon when they found Ye Xi, and they needed to get back before the sun set behind the mountains.
First, they needed to bring back this giant snake.
This snake could feed the tribe for several days, so it naturally couldn't be wasted. As it was so huge, the Warriors carried it on their backs.
They walked toward the cave entrance.
Ye Xi saw that five Warriors had come this time. Besides, Courage, Plate, and Carving, there were also two Warriors that Ye Xi recognized but did not know the names of. Thus, he casually asked the shorter of the two Warriors, "What's your name?"
The short Warrior refreshingly smiled as he carried the giant snake. "I'm called Char, and he's called Big River. We're both members of Courage's hunting team."
The Warrior called Big River heard them talking and smiled at Ye Xi.
Ye Xi returned the smile. "I have to thank you for coming to search for me. Right, how did you manage to find me?"
A look of respect appeared in Char's eyes. "We have to thank the shaman's divinations. You had already been missing for three days, and we all thought that you were dead. But the shaman said that you were still alive, and pointed us in the right direction."
The shaman can also perform divinations! His methods are truly unfathomable, Ye Xi thought to himself. It was also said that he had been missing for three days. Had he been unconscious in the pool for that long?
They talked and walked, but when they reached the middle part of the cave, Ye Xi asked them to stop. "Wait a second."
Char was puzzled. "What's wrong?"
Ye Xi didn't answer, running to a dark corner.
Courage had the other four continue to carry the snake while he ran over with Ye Xi. He did not dare let Ye Xi go alone. Who knew what else might happen?
Ye Xi ran to the wall and stopped.
There was no light here, and Courage could see nothing in the darkness. "What's here?"
"There's a sand pit here."
"A sand pit?" Courage was surprised that there would be a sand pit in the cave.
Ye Xi's vision was excellent now, able to clearly see in the darkness of this place. In the sand pit, he saw three white objects poking out of the sand.
Ye Xi pushed aside the sand and discovered that those three white objects were actually eggs.
These three eggs were long and ovular, the size of goose eggs. They appeared like large-sized pills.
Ye Xi carried the eggs and went back to the team with Courage.
There was more light here, and when the Warriors saw the eggs, they were surprised. "How could there be eggs? The eggs of the snake?"
Carving immediately rejected the thought. "How could that be? This snake is so huge and these eggs are so small."
The other Warriors began to chatter.
Ye Xi: "Whether they are or aren't, let's take them back to the tribe first. The shaman might know."
Everyone nodded in agreement. As they passed the shed snake skins, the Warriors also gathered them up. Ye Xi borrowed Courage's bone saber and cut off a portion of the snake skin to make a bundle so that he could carry the eggs on his back.