Ch43 – Arrival

After a few months of separation, things might stay the same, but people would be different...

No, no. That wasn’t quite right. He had only been away for less than a month!

Xiang Tian looked at the pool that had changed completely and almost went crazy.

He had only gone back to take part in the Beast God Sacrifice. Who had come here and stolen away his divine fruit?

The divine fruit, also known as the Beast God Fruit, was the general name for many different plants.

In this world, there were many miraculous plants. These plants did not necessarily produce fruit, but all such plants were all called divine fruit. The people of the Beast God Temple considered them to be a gift from the Beast God.

Of course, Xiang Tian didn’t believe that.

To him, those people in the Beast God Temple were nothing but a group of crooks who swindled and cheated others using the banner of the Beast God. Taking advantage of the fact that they had more knowledge than the general public, they spent all their time fighting and maneuvering between themselves for power and profit.

Many powerhouses like him didn’t believe in the Beast God Temple’s schemes. In this world, power was the only thing that mattered.

However, the ordinary beastmen believed in the Beast God, and the Beast God Temple wasn’t so easy to deal with, so the two sides had come to a truce.

The Beast God Temple would provide the Beast Kings with all sorts of benefits, and the Beast Kings would help protect the Beast God Temple whenever necessary.

Xiang Tian did not believe in the Beast God’s existence, but he had been born to a large tribe. From an early age, he had been aware that divine fruits were real, and he also knew how miraculous they were.

He had also personally verified that the crystal core in his body had originally been about to collapse. However, he had discovered the divine fruit growing here, and after staying by its side every day, his health gradually improved.

The only regrettable thing was that this divine fruit was slow to mature.

The type of divine fruit that he had discovered had been documented in the Beast God Temple’s records. It would take countless years for it to reach maturity, so the only thing he could do was wait.

He felt that as long as he was able to eat this divine fruit, his body and crystal core would definitely recover.

Yet now, the divine fruit had actually disappeared!

Xiang Tian almost suspected that he had gone to the wrong place.

This area he was in was the wild forest. Very few beastmen lived here, and powerful beastmen were even rarer. Moreover, this divine fruit was surrounded and protected by a group of arthropleura. Who exactly could’ve come here and taken away the divine fruit?

No. The divine fruit hadn’t necessarily been taken away. If this type of divine fruit was harvested before it ripened, it would wither immediately and end up wasted. If that person had wanted to take away the divine fruit, they would’ve only found that all their efforts were in vain!

So, someone had discovered the divine fruit and wanted to take it away, but due to a strange combination of circumstances, had ended up destroying the fruit?

Xiang Tian roared towards the sky. The energy in his body went out of control, streaming out of his body and destroying everything around him. For a while, the earth churned, giant trees breaking and toppling.

After experiencing the apocalypse, Zhou Ji attached a lot of importance to the environment. He was completely unwilling to destroy his surroundings so casually, so even though he had destroyed a lot of plants when he trampled around in his mammoth form, he had ultimately done a very good job restoring everything. Now, however, it was different.

Amidst Xiang Tian’s wrath, this place had been completely destroyed.

Not only that, even a large swath of the surrounding forest had fallen.

Dozens of arthropleura hidden under the foliage on the ground drilled out and fled anxiously, but they were caught by several streaks of energy that Xiang Tian blasted out towards them. These arthropleura were instantly shot to pieces.

“Useless things!” Xiang Tian gritted his teeth.

When he had first discovered this divine fruit, these arthropleura had already been here, living beside it.

They ate rotten, dead plants and wouldn’t harm the fruit. On the contrary, they could protect the divine fruit, so he hadn’t dealt with them.

With his strength, it would be a cinch for him to kill off these millipedes when the fruit matured in the future. Since he had nothing to fear from them, he naturally didn’t concern himself with them!

Keeping them, on the other hand, allowed them to protect the divine fruit fruit when he was away.

Generally speaking, as long as it wasn’t someone at the Beast King level, it wouldn’t be easy for them to take the divine fruit from the hands of these millipedes.

And yet in the end, the divine fruit was gone!

Could it be that one of the other Beast Kings had come here? But he hadn’t heard any news of it...

Or perhaps these things hadn’t looked after the divine fruit properly and had accidentally removed the divine fruit from the ground, destroying it.

Xiang Tian finished venting–that towering rage that reached the skies had lessened slightly, but feelings of anger still roiled about endlessly in his chest.

No matter whether it was a person or something else that had damaged his Beast God Fruit, he would make sure to rip their corpse into ten thousand pieces!

While Xiang Tian was still raging by the remnants of the pool, all the creatures in the forest had already picked up and fled as fast as they could, the fastest of which had been the arthropleura.

Firstly, they ran very quickly. Secondly... these millipedes had lived around the divine fruit for a very long time and had absorbed a lot of energy, which made them smarter and stronger than other creatures living in the forest.

They knew that Xiang Tian was very dangerous.

Within the Big Bear Tribe, Xiong Ye had already fallen asleep and was sleeping very soundly.

For the past few nights, Xiong Ye would have Zhou Ji ‘help him’ every night, but he remembered that he needed to go out hunting early tomorrow morning, so he had gone to bed early that night.

After he went to sleep, Zhou Ji began to make furniture out of the wood that Xiong Ye had brought back.

The quality of this wood was very good. It had a very pleasant fragrance and was also non-toxic to humans. The only drawback was that it was very difficult to carve–the wood was very hard!

However, when Xiong Ye had been carving the wood last time, Zhou Ji had helped him out, so he hadn’t realized this at all. Recently, Zhou Ji had been using the wood to make some pots and other things. Xiong Ye hadn’t seemed to have made any special note of it –Zhou Ji spent all his time at home, so making a few bowls wasn’t anything unusual.

When Zhou Ji saw Xiong Ye’s lack of reaction, he simply made more things. By now, they had a simple wooden shelf in their cave where a lot of household items were placed, along with two additional stumps that acted as stools, and a simple table.

Zhou Ji also planned to excavate and expand the cave further, then separate the cave inside from the one outside with a door, leaving the outside area for cooking while they slept inside. However, these things could come in time. If it was possible, he also wanted to hollow out a chimney inside the cave.

In the world he lived in before, some people had indeed lived in underground caves. Since underground caves could be lived in, stone caves could of course be made habitable.

What Zhou Ji was making today was a smoke rack. While he was putting it together, he suddenly felt a burst of energy coming from a certain direction...

Zhou Ji glanced in that direction, and shock burst out in his heart.

After he had arrived in this world, he had only been exposed to the people in the Big Bear Tribe and the dinosaurs in the surrounding area. At the time, he had felt that the people in this place were very weak compared to the environment he had come from during the apocalypse.

But now...

Zhou Ji looked in the direction the energy came from, and his expression turned solemn.

He didn’t know who that person was, but he knew that that person was very strong–very, very strong.

This world was more dangerous than he had thought!

Before, he actually wasn’t concerned at all about Xiong Ye’s strength improving slowly. After all, although there were many dinosaurs around that Xiong Ye couldn’t beat, as long as he didn’t take the initiative to provoke them, escaping wouldn’t be a problem.

Now, however... He had to help Xiong Ye improve his strength as soon as possible!

With that in mind, Zhou Ji looked towards the place the energy was coming from once again.

Wait a minute, that direction... Seemed to be the place he picked up the fruit from?

Zhou Ji’s brows wrinkled slightly. Could it be that the fruit he had picked had an owner?

After living through the end of the world, he wouldn’t feel guilty because of something like this, but at the end of the day, he still felt somewhat embarrassed.

The next day, Zhou Ji got up even before the sky began to brighten.

There was a potato-like plant plant that grew around the tribe. It had already begun to grow this season, and although it was somewhat small, he produced a bit more of it to take home with him.

In the morning, he first put these in the fire and roasted them, then poured oil into the pot and began frying the eggs that Xiong Ye had given him yesterday.

There were only two eggs, which wasn’t really enough, so Zhou Ji added in some green vegetables.

When the fragrance of scrambled eggs spread throughout the cave, Xiong Ye woke up.

“Xiong Ye, breakfast isn’t ready yet. Have some fruit first.” Zhou Ji spoke up and pointed to the wooden bowl beside him.

Xiong Ye obediently went to eat the fruit.

He originally hadn’t been very fond of eating vegetables and fruits, but after being with Zhou Ji for a long time and eating more of it, he had already become rather used to it.

The main reason for this was because the fruits Zhou Ji gave him were very delicious. And after those green vegetables had been stir-fried with oil, much of the grassy taste that he disliked had also faded.

Xiong Ye ate half of the fruit, leaving the rest for Zhou Ji, then watched as Zhou Ji drew out something from the fire...

“Earth eggs?” Xiong Ye was a little surprised.

This type of food was similar to potatoes. The people of the tribe called them earth eggs; Zhou Ji nodded. “They’re already cooked. Have some.” He had used his spiritual powers to keep an eye on them, and they were perfectly cooked.

“Aren’t earth eggs the size of a fingernail right now?” Xiong Ye was a little shocked at the size of these earth eggs that were the size of a child’s fist.

“These grew faster because I added fertilizer.” Zhou Ji explained.

“Fertilizer?”

Zhou Ji said, “The priest and I discovered that using a small amount of animal waste can make plants grow better.”

“That’s possible?!” Xiong Ye was really surprised. He picked up an earth egg and ate it directly without peeling it.

He didn’t like eating vegetables, but this particular food had always been a favorite of his.

Not only would it fill him up, it was also very delicious!

Zhou Ji had been worried that Xiong Ye wouldn’t like them, but he could rest assured now. Thinking about it, carbohydrate-rich plants provided a lot of energy, so it made sense for the people from this primitive era to like them.

He laughed slightly and thought about what other staple foods he could add to Xiong Ye’s diet while considering how to teach Xiong Ye to peel the earth eggs.

Zhou Ji peeled the skin off an earth egg, then placed it into Xiong Ye’s bowl.

The two of them had breakfast happily, but in the tribal valley below, some people were kicking up a ruckus. It was Xiong Qi, who was making trouble for Shi Li.

Xiong Qi had returned to the hunts after he recovered from his injuries. He deliberately joined the same team as Shi Li, purposely performing better than Shi Li, doing better than him in all aspects. Not only that, he would also make a few snide remarks whenever he saw Shi Li.

However, Shi Li would always look at him with disdain, which made him even more angry. By now, the complications between him and Shi Li had already boiled all the way up to the surface.

For example, early this morning, Xiong Qi had arranged to go hunting together with some others. When he saw that Shi Li was about to go out too, he taunted Shi Li by saying that he certainly wouldn’t be able to catch anything.

Zhou Ji felt that this habit of Xiong Qi’s was like that of cannon fodder from novels or TV dramas and movies who always ran over to find trouble with the main character at the start of the story, conveniently sending experience points to the main character.

Although Shi Li didn’t try very hard when they hunted, his strength had grown rapidly. Perhaps Xiong Qi would get beaten up again before long.

However, he had no intention of involving himself in the matter.

Even if Xiong Qi was very good at flattering Xiong Ye, it had nothing to do with him. And for Xiong Qi to be so naive and childish even at his age, getting beaten up would be normal...

Zhou Ji continued to eat, but unexpectedly, while he was eating, a strong pressure suddenly enveloped him.

That was the powerhouse from last night! Zhou Ji was shocked.

Outside, Shi Li was equally surprised–Why did Xiang Tian, who should be showing up two months later, come here early?

Juurensha: Oh noooo, ZJ fight off your dad!

xiin: my earth egg potato eating days have begun... damnit ZJ