As the daylight gradually diminished, the children of the tribes were all getting to the tree, some came unwounded, while others came with animal skins, tooth, and other parts.
The rest coming were injured, with large or small wounds and some lost their limbs but they were just the minority about four in numbers, as they gathered near the tree as the tribe herbalist treated their wounds.
Some of the children who were unwounded all sat together and started talking about their journey, how they hunt, and all the dangerous animals they saw.
"By the way, the four great geniuses of the tribe haven't returned, what if they are seriously injured or worse died?" one said.
"Don't say anything bad about them" another quickly rebuked.
So why aren't they here already? Most people that are not here are either dead or seriously injured so they can't come here.
As they were talking Fejiro arrived at the tree with tree leaves and vines tying his wounds all around his body.
"Hmm didn't I tell you guys, I'm sure they would have overestimated themselves trying to fight those dangerous animals and would have gotten injured like this," he said again.
"Yes, when we get to the tribe we would have to reevaluate ourselves for the title, seeing him he might have already lost his chance of being a genius," one of the girls around them said.
As the others heard them talk they went to meet Fejiro to ask him the questions, "Fejiro, how did you manage to make it here alone?" one of them asked, eyeing his wounds.
Fejiro not used to this attention, stepped back a little and spoke, he felt a mix of relief, embarrassement and fear as his eyes widened as he recounted his encounter with the rats.
" I was trying to hunt an antelope I saw, I climbed a tree so I could kill it while jumping from above, and suddenly the branch broke I fell from the high tree landing on my buttocks then I couldn't move again, immediately rats started coming out of nowhere and started biting my skin, giving me all this wounds. But the rats weren't normal, I felt like they had died, they smelled rotten their suffocating smell churned my stomach but somehow I had survived and managed to kill the rats."
" I learned somethings from the herbalist of the tribe, so I found bitterleaves, some vines, and large leaves which I used to clean and cover my wounds."
"You're really lucky, to have survived the mutated rats."
Fejiro turned around and saw his senior, as his eyes lit up with a relieved smile at Okoro who just spoke.
"Migwo, he greeted bowing his head."
"Vrendo," Okoro responded.
It was a culture in the tribe to always greet you're seniors if you haven't seen them for some time, or every morning, and evening if you see them.
Okoro was one of his seniors in the tribe, he was close to the age of 20, he was a warrior and hunter like them, he was a genius, he had surpassed four different threshold if he was ranked he would be among the top 20 in the tribe. He was given the title of an elder but he humbly declined it saying he wanted to be more stronger and experienced first.
"Did you see any of your mates on your way here?" Okoro asked.
"I didn't see anyone," I replied, the forest was eerily quiet for some reason, most weak animals were hard to find, if you found them they were either in a group or had the speed to leave you in their dust or could hide very well.
"What he's saying is true, we barely found any weak animals around the forest, the ones we found were either too strong for us to even think of fighting or were in a large group so we barely hunted much, that's why most of us are seriously wounded," the other children said.
"Well Fejro about your injuries there are two options, the first is to wait for your parents to make enough contributions to the tribe to get a fruit that will heal all the wounds on your body or you have to cross a threshold then vow to protect the tribe in times of danger"
Fejiro smiled confidently, which left the other children confused. The jealous ones were already saying, "look he's so confused he started smiling."
"I have crossed the threshold of endurance," his voice was so loud that everyone around the tree could hear him. Some were shocked! some treated it as nothing as if they already knew he would cross a threshold.
"How did you cross it?" Okoro said having a rare trace of shock on his face, "I crossed it while I was dealing with the mutated rats, or else I would have been dead already"
"So there's no problem, your wounds will be healed but some scars will still remain, the wounds on your body are too much, if a normal person were to be wounded like this they would be dead already," Okoro said.
There's no need to do much to your wounds since you treated it properly, just wait till you reach the tribe for your reward.
The children started chattering and discussing about Fejiro who crossed a threshold.
Fejiro held himself in high esteem, he was proud of himself it was rare for a child to cross a threshold unless they were a genius and he just did"
"Hmm, he's just lucky, if not he wouldn't have crossed the threshold" the jealous one spoke again.
"Shut up, can't you learn to be nice for just a moment, since you said it was luck why weren't you lucky?" the rest of the children attacked him immediately.
"Stop, you all should stop arguing while we wait for the rest of the children to come here, I just hope none of them died" Okoro spoke in a sad tone.
At that moment Eruvwu, Ovie, and Ese were just reaching the tree.