The creatures had yet to return to the jungle, and the fruits on the trees had all been spoiled. Thus, the tribe members had nothing to do except weave beast hides and produce stone tools.
Thus, the chief decided to send ten people with wooden barrels to the lake to get water. It was best to get more water while the jungle was still.
Over the crisis, the tribe had emptied half of its water jars.
Seeing that the majority of people still had nothing to do, Ye Xi proposed that they refine salt.
Mud Mountain was still lacking several dozen catties of the salt that had been promised to the Blackpond Tribe, so while everyone was free, it was better to produce all the salt and send it to the Blackpond Tribe.
Although they knew the Tiger Tribe had been wiped out, everyone was confident that the Blackpond Tribe, with its geographic advantage and greater strength, had probably passed through the crisis without much trouble.
Thus, they should fulfill the promises they had made.
Everyone began to work on digging up the salty soil and boiling away the brine.
The tribe was still happy from defeating the Earth Tribe, and even though they had nothing to eat but insect meat, they were all still beaming.
A good mood meant high efficiency, and in just three days, they finished refining the salt for the Blackpond Tribe.
On that day, faint movements began to come from the jungle. The creatures were coming back.
The chief selected some people to deliver the salt, deciding that it was best to deliver the salt to the Blackpond Tribe while the dangerous creatures had yet to return.
As for the hunting team, it was itching to start hunting in the jungle again.
…
As time passed, the creatures that had fled began to return. The jungle became bustling once more, and the trees damaged by the insect flood began to recover.
As the creatures slowly returned, the hunting team returned with more and more game.
One afternoon, the hunting team returned with two carnivorous dinosaurs, each seven meters tall, frightening the entire tribe.
Awl stared in wide-eyed shock at these two massive creatures. "Uncle Courage, when did you get so strong?"
Courage had a beaming smile on his face. "Our luck was good!"
"Our hunting team was truly lucky! We ran into two Terror Beasts fighting each other," Big River amplified excitedly. "They were so heavily injured that we were able to kill them both!"
The tribe usually referred to dinosaurs as 'Terror Beasts'. The smaller ones were called Little Terror Beasts, the larger ones were simply called Terror Beasts, and the extremely large ones were called Giant Terror Beasts.
These two Terror Beasts were at least six meters tall, but there was still some gap between them and the truly giant creatures. Thus, Big River simply called them Terror Beasts.
"Awooo~"
It was a soft and immature sound.
The hunting team members turned around and saw two small Terror Beast juveniles squealing as they ran toward one of the Terror Beast corpses.
The hunters of the tribe were not to kill juveniles while hunting. This was a rule set down by their ancestors.
Big River helplessly glanced at them. "These two juveniles were the children of that mother Terror Beast. They followed us all the way to the tribe, and they just wouldn't leave, even after we kicked them."
Since they couldn't kill juveniles and these two juveniles were also being a nuisance, some of the tribe members began to kick them, hoping to drive them out of the tribe.
They had probably just broken out of their shells. They were tiny and very young, bowled over with one kick. But they were also very stubborn, staggering back to their feet and making their way back to the body of their mother.
Kicking them several times proved useless, so someone picked up a juvenile and began to walk out, intending to throw it out of the tribe.
Another tribe member saw this and picked up the other juvenile by the tail.
The two Terror Beast juveniles squealed and struggled, wanting to return to their mother's side.
"…Wait," Ye Xi suddenly said.
The two tribe members returned with the juvenile Terror Beasts.
After experiencing the disaster, Ye Xi once more understood the importance of strength. In order to survive in this dangerous prehistoric world, one had to get stronger.
But his own abilities were limited, so he could only slowly, step by step, help out the tribe.
The two juvenile Terror Beasts had given him an idea.
Ye Xi looked at the two juveniles and said, "Our tribe still lacks any battle beasts. Why not try and tame them? If we have a battle beast, it will make hunting much easier."
He recalled the eight-legged, frilled insects raised by the Flint Tribe and the giant bears of the Yellow Bear Tribe.
If the tribe had such large battle beasts, it would make it much easier to travel through the jungle. They would be capable of both fighting and carrying burdens.
If Terror Beasts could be successfully tamed on a large scale and become battle beasts for the tribe's Warriors…
The thought of a group of Warriors mounted on Terror Beasts, wielding their weapons and riding through the jungle after prey, had his blood seething.
Courage saw Ye Xi staring at the two juveniles and immediately understood what he wanted. "Now that the tribe can refine salt, we don't need to worry about food. We truly can consider raising battle beasts. But while Terror Beasts are fast and powerful, it's very difficult to raise them as battle beasts."
"Why?"
"Because their minds are too stupid, their natures too savage. They're not easy to train and not very obedient," Courage explained. "Many people have tried to train Terror Beasts, but they all failed."
Unruly natures? Dumb minds?
Ye Xi looked at the two juvenile Terror Beasts and considered his options. "Let me try first. In any case, they won't eat that much food."
The Mud Mountain people naturally wouldn't defy Ye Xi over such a small matter.
The two tribe members with the juvenile Terror Beasts came over and passed them to him.
Ye Xi took them and placed them on the ground.
The two juveniles wobbled on the ground for a little while before running up to their mother and squealing by the corpse.
Ye Xi looked down at the two juveniles and pondered how he would train them.
He had raised dogs and cats in his past life until they were good and obedient, but juvenile Terror Beasts were different. They were much wilder than dogs or cats.
"Don't touch their mother for now. Let these two juveniles remain at its side for now," Ye Xi ordered after he had finished organizing his thoughts.
…
The two juveniles squealed and yelped until the sun set below the horizon. Tired out, they crawled onto their mother's body and fell asleep.
Ye Xi had the tribe members secretly carry them back into the cave.
It was wrong to think that creatures were dumb. They could remember certain things very clearly.
For example, in his previous life, when he was taking a cat to get sterilized, the veterinarian told him that he could not directly hand the cat over to him. Instead, he needed to pretend that a bad man was coming to seize the cat and do his best to protect it. The cat needed to feel that its owner had no choice. Otherwise, once the sterilization was done and the cat woke up, it would bear a grudge against its owner.
While it was said that Terror Beasts were stupid and it was hard to say whether they would remember grudges, Ye Xi didn't want to take the risk.
Thus, Ye Xi waited until the juveniles got tired and fell asleep to have them carried away.
The next day, Ye Xi began to officially train the two juvenile Terror Beasts.
The two juveniles had been hungry this entire time because their mother was dead. Squealing, they looked around for their mother.
Of course, they couldn't find it. That Terror Beast had already been butchered, the meat left to dry in the sun.
Ye Xi minced some boar meat and placed it in a bowl, then he grabbed one of the juveniles.
The juvenile struggled in his embrace. Ye Xi scooped up some of the minced meat with a spoon and moved it toward the juvenile. It took a sniff, immediately stopped struggling, and frantically took a bite.
The other one also smelled the meat, and it raised its head and began to jump at Ye Xi's feet, anxious to be fed.
Ye Xi fed a little less than half the bowl to the first juvenile, which squealed in protest as he put it down and began to feed the second.
He did not plan to fill their stomachs all at once. He fed each of them until they were about half full, then he walked into the distance with a bowl of minced meat and looked at them.
The two juveniles stopped searching for their mother. Lured by food, they hopped over to Ye Xi.
Ye Xi waited until they were at his feet, squatted down, and fed them a little food to reward them. He then walked back several steps.
The two juvenile Terror Beasts knew that they could follow this human to get food, so they hopped over to Ye Xi once more.
Once they ran over, Ye Xi finally fed them until they were full.