Uncle An and some of the men in the camp were digging a drainage canal with shovels, and with his high-waisted leather boots on, he accidentally stepped into a puddle of water and was so unsteady that he stumbled and almost fell into the muddy water.
"I... Be careful." The man beside him muttered, wiping a hand over his face, which had been fairly clean, but was now blotchy. The fertile black soil and the newly emerged grass had been trampled into the mud, and all the paths in the camp were almost impossible to walk on, so that when one foot stepped on it, the black mud was directly above one's ankles.
Uncle An shovelled up the sticky mud and flung it into a pile of mud, cursing, "This damned weather."
"Old An, you should feel lucky, if this rain had fallen three or five days later, we would have frozen to a pile of ice on the iron salt road, and even if it didn't, once that road was frozen, those three little daughters-in-law of yours would be waiting to be kicked out by those people from the street office." The man next to him had black mud smeared all over his face, and only when he spoke did he show a mouthful of white teeth.
Uncle An stood up and saw that he was standing at the edge of the camp, so he put a small red flag in the ground and said, "Come on, we've been working all morning, let's dig here!"
The main step in building the drains was to choose the lowest part of the camp, dig out a pool of water, use the drainage ditch to divert all the water from the camp, and when the water was almost dry, clean up the path between the tents that had been trampled into mud and put some dry soil on it. There was no shortage of strong men in the caravan who could shout out dozens of them to clear the mud and water.
The bored women sat on the edge of the car, chatting and gesturing at the men working in the camp, and from a distance, the rows of flowery dresses swaying in the wind reminded me of the girls' dormitories on a university campus. The dancers who came out of Ken were the regular dancers in the company, the tableaux, as they were respectfully called, were hiding in their caravans all day long and refused to come out. I had heard Uncle Fred say that these caravans were lavishly decorated inside, but had never seen them.
I must admit that Cuz cooked the twenty-seven guinea pig skins so softly that we sat on two stone piers and worked all morning to cut them into standard squares, very neatly. It was surprising how patient a normally careless wolf orc like Kurtz was when it came to these, approaching the point where he might have wanted to cut the pelts as regular as possible. The cooked guinea pig fur was an oily indigo colour, very smooth and soft to the touch, and no matter how much it was kneaded, if the fur was laid flat, the fluffy hairs would automatically return to their original smoothness, and what was even rarer was that no matter how much water was spilled on the fur, it would disperse into even droplets and slide down, without the fur itself dripping. Kurtz said it was the best thing for a sleeping bag, as it was moisture and water resistant, warm in winter and cool in summer. I think what he said is a bit unrealistic, I can accept the warmth in winter, cool in summer? I can live with that. Kurtz and I were trying to work out how much silver it would cost to get a tailor from the dance troupe to sew me a sleeping bag. Our pockets were cleaner than our faces and Kurtz said to me, "Why don't we go into the pasture in a couple of days and try our luck?"
I took my skinning knife back into the shed, dusted off the edges and said, "Not unless we meet a lone gazelle, but can you catch it?"
Kurtz sighed and just touched the hunting bow on his back and said glumly, "If I could have an ironwood bow, I might be able to."
"There would be." I whispered to reassure him.
Kurtz had always wanted an ironwood bow, but hadn't been able to get one. There were reasons why old Kuru had got in the way, but there was also the fact that a barely serviceable ironwood bow cost at least 15 silver coins, which was the equivalent of half a month's hard work for an ordinary man, and Kurtz couldn't afford to buy one. I was thinking about drawing out the boar traps from memory and asking the merchant blacksmiths to make some for hunting with Kuz on the Pai plateau, or for something else, the most important thing being to make some money. Nowadays, even among the orc tribes, people like to trade with Imperial gold coins.
In the afternoon, the roads in the camp were paved with a fresh layer of soil, making them much better to walk on. I sat next to old Kulu and listened to him tell me about the scrolls of high magic herbs written on parchment in the ancient orc language, many of the words were so cryptic that even old Kulu seemed to have to ponder them for a long time, but he did show an excessive devotion to these parchment scrolls, which made me pay attention to them. The first handful of precious materials, an ancient document inscribed with blood and sweat.
It turned out that there were many kinds of high grade magical herbs that were ground and mixed with different proportions of ore powder, which were processed through a complex process into the final magical dyes that could be used to draw magic patterns. At this point, old Kulu looked up at me before saying, "There are nearly a thousand dye recipes known to have been published to the public, and inscribers have discovered that they can be fine-tuned in proportion to their composition, and new dye recipes have been obtained through constant experimentation, many of which have been improved by inscribers to become more relevant than before, not only increasing the success rate of drawing and improving the properties of magic patterns, but some It has to be said that you humans have done a much better job of this than the old men who hide in their ivory towers. The most northern province of the Grimm Empire has a famous Shroyt Ivory Tower Magic Academy, which claims to have the most comprehensive collection of books, but only the part of the recipes that have been made public, the really valuable ones are still the most core secrets of the major magic academies and magic guilds around the world."
Old Kulu looked a little nostalgic for the days when he studied and researched at the Sloat Ivory Tower School of Magic, and the stories were given to us rotten. "Every good inscriber will have their own unique recipe for dyes, so this requires the inscriber to have quite a deep knowledge of herbalism. We orc wizards have a different understanding of herbalism than you do, and our paths of inscription diverge greatly. We prefer to speak of these mysterious magical symbols carved into stone sculptures that contain magic, enhancing the skills of warriors and bringing about special effects that cannot be achieved under ordinary circumstances. The thousands of orc tribes, large and small, on the Pai Plateau have inherited the totems of their ancestors' various abilities, and this is the secret of the true orc heritage that they carry. The ancient sages who were able to make the totems were revered by us as the Weavers of the Law."
He looked at me and said, "The scholars within the human world's magic guilds are more focused on the study of magic scrolls, their research is more commercial in nature, how to reduce the cost of making them and increase the success rate, and these are at the forefront. Magic scrolls are directly effective in boosting attributes and skills for a short period of time, and all of the high level magic scrolls that are currently popular on the auction block are from magic guilds. Making magic scrolls is also the path most junior inscribers must take."
"They prefer to inscribe magic scrolls on the bodies of magicians with a certain degree of enhancement, but such inscriptions are very demanding for inscribers, requiring them to be able to depict magic scroll formations more accurately. requirements before an inscriber can be qualified to inscribe on the bodies of other magicians."
"The study of inscribers in the Elven world tends to be inscribing inscriptions on magical equipment, and they are very stubborn in separating inscribers who can inscribe magic patterns on weapons from inscribers who inscribe magic patterns on magical defensive equipment, the former following the old title of the Elven world and being called enchanters, and the latter only being called inscribers by the proud and paranoid Elves. Oh."
Old Kru clearly felt some resentment towards the Elves, his tone full of disdain and contempt. Kurtz sat drowsy, barely holding his eyelids open, but even a fool could see that the boy wasn't listening at all. It wasn't until old Kulu said, "The last of the orc weavers was named Kulu. Shaman. Weaver. Soulwalker. Mandani, my great-grandfather. He returned to the beast gods one hundred and seventy-three years ago at the foot of the sacred mountain."
With a jolt, Kurtz opened his sleepy eyes as wide as a bell and looked at the old Kuru with respect, as if listening. This was a sign of reverence for his ancestors. It seemed that the so-called inscriptionists of the Orcs had lost their heritage? As I was thinking about this, I heard Old Kuru say again, "This time when I return to the orc tribe, I will inherit the position of Elder Weaver of the Gurudin orc tribe and become the new generation of weavers of the orc tribe in a hundred years."
I'll be damned, so the old orc in front of me was a quasi-weaver, how could I not have seen that? I suddenly had a wonderful feeling of having won the five million dollar jackpot, just as I was secretly happy, old Kulu said, "The magical heritage of the orc tribe is in the hands of the elders in the tribe, once you become a tribal elder, you need to follow the will of your ancestors, all as much as possible to maintain the interests of the orc tribe, at that time, according to the rules of the tribe as a tribal weaver elder, it is impossible to be allowed Until then, I will teach you as much as I can, and then I will arrange for you to go to the human world and live a normal life, until one day you will grow up and be strong enough to cross the thirteen gates of the Orcs, and then I will allow you to come and see me. Otherwise you and I will never see each other again."
Sometimes it is better to know the truth than to be kept in the dark. I panicked because what Old Kulu had said meant that I would be forced to part with Kuz and Old Kulu when I arrived at Gurudin, the orc tribe, and that was something I was afraid of. Old Kulu had always been my strongest protector and I would not have been able to live in this caravan without him. Kurtz was obviously aware of these things, and at this point he took my hand and said, "Ja, why don't you learn something else? I don't think you'll be able to be a spellcaster, oh no, you probably won't. If you want to be a warrior warrior you can stay, the orcs will never care if you become a warrior warrior, or a hunter king, anything else as long as you are not a lawweaver."
The old kuru shook his head helplessly, looking into the sincere eyes of his grandson, it was hard to spit out a word of reproach.
My eyes became firm after a moment of hesitation and I said with a fierce determination, "But I still want to learn inscription."
I think I'm compulsive and can't pull back from whatever I'm determined to do. I admit that sometimes the thought of visiting the human world rises in my mind, of seeing the exotic towns, maybe I'll stop at every scenic spot, I'll look at the old streets in the drizzle for a beautiful girl, I'll follow the paths in the fields along the road for a tall windmill, or I'll be in a quiet place with an open restaurant only at night.
But at the moment I wanted to hide under an umbrella, to savour the wonders of the world and plan my life, how could I not make the most of this opportunity now that I was living again.
The dark clouds cleared and the afternoon sun poured through the clouds, making it feel extra warm on my face.
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