After some awkward minutes passed, one of the two burly warriors, Gutin, looked at Danulo with extreme seriousness and spoke in a frustrated manner,
"Senior Danulo, how did you find this child? What was that reaction? Is this kid cursed or—"
"As I told you all earlier, he's just a troubled kid. I still believe there was some fault within the runic medium." Said Danulo, breaking off Gutin's sentence midway.
"Are you planning on adopting him then, Senior? He needs to live somewhere, right?"
"Oh, that's not a problem, right Chief?" Replied Danulo as he turned his head towards Hans.
Hans heaved a miserable sigh, seemingly to digest this stream of stunning blows, before speaking,
"Yeah, I'll adopt him as my foster child but not now, I'll announce it after his discipleship is over, to tie him deeper with the tribe."
The other three men, who believed they had had enough shocks and surprises for the day were suddenly flustered by their Chief's decision. Their words also, therefore, reflected their thoughts.
"WHY? There hasn't yet been a background check on the boy."
"WHAT? The kid needs to be purified first." Gutin used the word 'purified' to refer to a ritual that every child of the tribe goes through when turning five years old.
At that time they're locked in a huge cauldron with medicinal herbs and spring water. Then the cauldron is heated for 5 minutes along with the child and their body's impurities are forcibly cleansed.
After this ritual, even if the child has no magic affinity, he can still lead a respectable life as a warrior if he works hard enough as physical training after the ritual would yield double the results with half the effort.
Along with the material advantages of the ritual, the folks of the three Rohanic tribes considered themselves 'Warriors of the Jungle', and to survive the calamitous jungle, unity is paramount. Rituals like these also unite them towards a common purpose, therefore, for senior warriors like Gutin, any outsider with a different lifestyle than themselves was impure and corrupted.
The other two tribes also had their own rituals, the Conta Tribe doing something related to Gods to increase the magic affinity of the kids that would soon have their magic affinity tested. Though since there was no method of verification whether it worked or if the talent of the kids was just natural, this method was frowned upon by everyone currently present within the tent.
The ritual of the Harita was even more special, it forced their children to walk the path of being a 'totem warrior', something very unique to the tribe.
"Chief, he looks too soft. I'm afraid you would break him." Gutin's elder brother, Gumin, also supported his brother with narrowed eyes.
The prejudices of the two burly brothers were reinforced through the abnormal and unsettling magic affinity test of Ryne.
Danulo realized that the two brothers were keen on finding faults with the kid, with the most probable intent of excluding him or throwing him out of the tribe but he wasn't someone to take things lying down.
'These idiots, no wonder they're destined to remain where they are throughout their miserable lives. Not an iota of common sense or elegance. Not being able to see the benefits we can potentially have, so annoying.'
Danulo tried his best to suppress his urge to beat the two of them right then and there.
As the leaders of the second and third assisting hunting group, the two brothers were simultaneously his juniors and competitors.
Suddenly Danulo rose from his seat and snorted, speaking on behalf of Hans,
"Gumin and Gutin, Chief has already made his decision based on his personal choice. If the two of you think you've grown huge enough balls to make him change his decision, why don't you spar with me first?"
"We wouldn't dare, Senior, we wouldn't." Both brothers replied at once as they understood that their senior had decided to be unreasonable this time.
Hans opened his mouth but closed it again without speaking anything as he saw Danulo standing up and replying on his behalf.
'If there was no fault within the runic medium, what else could it be, an omen? Danulo is putting too much effort towards this. I'm afraid he will be disappointed soon. There's no way we can pave a way towards the desolate east with the help of a little kid.' His lips twitched a little when he felt the outrageous conviction radiating from Danulo's body.
Suddenly, he saw Danulo bowing towards his side, signaling him something. He understood what was expected and played along,
"Alright, I hereby bestow Esteemed Golver the responsibility of choosing a master for Ryne, my soon-to-be foster child. The meeting here is adjourned. Everyone can leave. Danulo, begin preparing for hunting along with Senior Emertius."
Golver wanted to say something but choked his words before they appeared on his tongue as Hans quickly moved on towards the next topic.
'Chief and Danulo are definitely planning something but why am I included in their plans without even knowing any of it.' He wanted to shed a tear in private. 'How am I supposed to explain what happened here to everyone? Why would anyone accept this paranormal kid as their disciple? Chief oh chief, I trust you but what am I even supposed to do here.'
One by one, all of them rose from their seats, bowed towards Hans, and left in silence. Perhaps the only one who left the tent happy and satisfied was Danulo as everyone else had stiff smiles on their faces to cover up their grievances and gloom.
When Hans was the only one left within the tent, he slouched on his chair, looked towards the entrance of the tent, where Danulo was ruffling the hair of Ryne and cheerfully explaining something to him, and muttered to himself,
"Danulo's overbearing might've ended this meeting earlier today but the seeds of doubt that are forcibly trampled would only grow more tenaciously later. It's also surprising how frantic Danulo becomes whenever 'that thing' is mentioned, I guess being so swept up in the bigger picture would lead to a lot of losses too, ah well, I hope this kid is not like that little demon of his, otherwise, I'll be forced to retire and sell vegetables in the city much earlier than planned. His kid's talent sure is exceptional though, we need to train him quickly, even though he might not be of much help, every piece of strength will need to be utilized, 'that time' is not far away."
...
"Uncle, why were their reactions so odd?" Ryne ran towards Danulo as he saw him come out of the tent and whispered his question.
"Haha, don't worry kid. Those mages are dumb, they can't even make heads or tails of your affinity and talent. Don't worry about it. I'm sure Golver would figure something out." Danulo replied as he ruffled his hair while Ryne kept nodding.
Golver left the tent gliding two feet above the ground calmly at this time and faltered a little when he heard Danulo indirectly telling him to make someone accept the weird kid he found outside as their disciple.