The "Virtual Sun" rises.
Under the warm and gentle red light, a group of dwarfs are busy beneath a distant rocky cliff.
It is a large fertile land, and within each neatly arranged field, peculiar crops grow abundantly.
From even further away, the sound of clanging and banging can be heard coming from the mines.
On the training ground, Wu Zhan's body is filled with steaming hot air, rising in a white mist that reaches over a meter high. His muscles are twitching intensely as he holds a stone ball nearly as tall as himself. Under his bronze skin, streaks of meridians occasionally flash with flowing light.
Wu Jin, Wu Yin, and Wu Tong are also exerting themselves on the training ground. Various heavy weapons are wielded and tossed up and down in their hands, occasionally resulting in loud crashes when they are thrown to the ground.
Inside the stone fortress, Wu Tie sits at a table by the window, where he can see the scene on the training ground.
On the table, within a sandbox, Grey Scholar uses a stone to write down rows of characters and looks at the scrolls brought back by Wu Zhan and the others from the Xiong family with a worried expression.
"Difficult, difficult, difficult... Is this... the way to make crossbows?" Grey Scholar taps his forehead hard with the stone.
"Crossbows... made from buffalo horns?"
"Buffalo horns?"
Grey Scholar ponders as he looks at several Xiong family warriors on the training ground, swinging axes made of wood and roaring happily as they spar.
"Xiong family... buffalo horns... the horns on their heads, can they be used?"
"Then, what about this fish glue?"
Grey Scholar is troubled and knocks his head hard on the table.
"The profound and unfathomable... this is the knowledge left behind by our ancestors... peace!"
Grey Scholar raises his head, rubs his aching head, and looks seriously at Wu Tie.
Wu Tie withdraws his gaze and also retreats from his reverie—he had been fantasizing about becoming a powerful cultivator who effortlessly handles the heaviest equipment on the training ground.
Looking at the complex characters on the sandbox, his scattered gaze solidifies, and Wu Tie lets out a sigh.
"According to you, Teacher, wisdom is not just blind memorization and inheritance, but even more importantly, the ability to question!" Wu Tie looks earnestly at Grey Scholar. "So, the existence of buffalo horns and fish glue... is questionable."
Grey Scholar is stunned.
Wu Tie continues earnestly, "Just like the sun, moon, and stars in the books, or the rivers and lakes... they don't exist."
Before Grey Scholar can respond, Wu Tie continues, "Just like the apricot flowers sold in deep alleys during the Ming Dynasty... don't exist."
Grey Scholar raises the stone and forcefully taps Wu Tie's head. Angrily, he looks at Wu Tie and asks, "This is how you question?"
Wu Tie spreads his hands and says, "No one has ever seen it!"
Grey Scholar is stunned.
He slowly puts down the stone, mixes up the characters in the sandbox with his hands, and sighs heavily.
Grey Scholar's eyes become filled with sorrow.
He reaches out to touch Wu Tie's forehead and softly says, "The premise of questioning is that you have enough wisdom... Tai Ping, neither you nor I have enough wisdom to question what our ancestors left behind."
Wu Tie also sighs.
Grey Scholar stands up and walks to the window, looking at Wu Zhan and the others on the training ground.
"My master once told me," after a long silence, Grey Scholar mumbles softly, "We must not be engulfed by darkness, we must not become beasts... violence and slaughter cannot overshadow the light of our ancestors' wisdom."
"Look at your father!" Grey Scholar points to Wu Zhan, who is dripping with sweat on the training ground. "He is the most powerful warrior among the neighboring castle families... but twenty years ago, after he saved me... he also understood the importance of respecting knowledge and inheritance."
"Him?" Wu Tie looks at Wu Zhan in surprise.
He then looks at Grey Scholar and says, "I thought, Teacher, that you've always... been a part of our family!"
Grey Scholar smiles and takes out another scroll, carefully unfolding it.
"The things in here are even more interesting..." Grey Scholar says softly, "Come, let's contemplate together... oh, look at how beautifully these words are written... I really don't know what kind of great figure the ancestor of the Xiong family was, to leave behind such a legacy..."
"青青子衿悠悠我心..." [Lit. Green, green collar, my heart is carefree...]
Grey Scholar sighs heavily again, "Truly beautiful... but how do we explain it?"
"Uh..." Wu Tie spreads his hands and subconsciously looks in the direction of the training ground.
On the training ground, Wu Tong is drinking water on one side, while Wu Jin and Wu Yin stand a dozen meters apart. They exchange glances, and their long knives suddenly fly out of their hands, transforming into two black auras that collide violently.
Sparks fly, and the clangorous sound deafens the ears.
The two long knives fiercely clash in the air thirteen times before separating, falling heavily to the ground.
Wu Jin and Wu Yin both let out a sigh of relief, and large beads of sweat emerge from their bronze skin. The sweat, like rain, drips continuously to the ground.
Following the cave recently returned by Wu Zhan and the others, they walk through a winding and confusing tunnel with many forked paths, traveling through nearly a hundred miles along the correct path, bypassing many dangerous sinkholes, and then crossing a natural stone bridge and a scorching lava river before reaching the territory of the Xiong family.
In a dark diverging tunnel, a fist-sized glow-in-the-dark mushroom emits a dim blue light, illuminating a wounded rocky dwarf.
When the Xiong family was wiped out, this rocky dwarf luckily escaped the pursuit of the Wu family warriors, but today, he has fallen into the hands of an even more dreadful person.
In the darkness, a curved dagger shimmering with a faint blue light passes across the throat of the rocky dwarf.
A large amount of blood splatters, and the rocky dwarf convulses and falls to the ground.
The blood of the rocky dwarf naturally carries a trace of greyish-white color, but soon, the blood turns into a pale blue color that is almost identical to the dagger, and the body of the rocky dwarf also takes on a slight blue tint, commencing rapid corrosion and decay.
A highly toxic and terrifying poison.
"蚩尤牙!" [Lit. Chi You's Tooth!] A night-glow mushroom is crushed, and a gentle voice is heard in the darkness.
"In such a remote place, there are still good things?" Another voice resounds.
"I told you, the more remote the place, the better the things." A voice laughs.
"A strike that shatters a steel shield, Chi You's Tooth!" The initial gentle voice says, laughing, "Unfortunately, it was taken away."
Unidentifiable laughter echoes in the darkness, and then darkness returns to tranquility, with no other sounds coming out.
The "Virtual Sun" rises, and red light illuminates Wu Valley.
In the main hall of the stone fortress, by a large stone table, Wu Zhan is dealing with a slab of oily roasted meat while giving hazy instructions to Wu Tie.
"Eat well, eat your fill, then come with me to the mines."
After forcefully swallowing a large piece of meat, taking a large gulp from a big jug of clear water, Wu Zhan heaves a satisfied sigh.
"That group of dwarfs used the Exploding Mountain to find the veins. It seems they have dug into another limestone cave."
Lost in thought, Wu Zhan scratches his thick beard. He smiles like a satisfied king of the jungle, "I really hope that it leads to an area with people... there's never a shortage of opponents!"
Wu Tie bows his head and struggles to deal with a large piece of boiled beast bone.
He has managed to break the bone, and with great effort, he has finally managed to dig out a large piece of tender white marrow, which he promptly stuffs into his mouth.
After hearing Wu Zhan's words, Wu Tie can't help but roll his eyes.
Wu Zhan suddenly feels awkward.
He rubs his head and dryly chuckles, "You thought about what happened three years ago? Hahaha, who knew that behind the exploded mine, there would be a den of poison spiders? Damn, I don't know what those beasts were fed on, for them to give birth to so many little spiders!"
At the side, Wu Jin, Wu Yin, and Wu Tong's faces all stiffen simultaneously.
"Father, we aren't that unlucky this time, right?" Wu Jin looks at Wu Zhan seriously.
Wu Zhan stands up, glares fiercely at his three sons, then grabs Wu Tie's shoulder and walks out.
"You three, stay at home and behave."
"Hmm, the earth rice mushrooms are almost ripe, have your men come and fertilize them for the final time... if you don't work, where will we get food?"
"Remember! The earth rice mushrooms like the dung of the rock python! Although it smells... if you don't work, where will we get food?"
The faces of the three Wu brothers simultaneously freeze.
In the winding, deep mine, the rocky dwarfs have deliberately grown a large number of night-glow moss.
No torches are needed; the night-glow moss is enough to illuminate the mine.
Many small lizards and spiders can be seen crawling on the walls of the mine. Occasionally, a few venomous snakes emerge from somewhere, but before they can prey on the small lizards, the nearby rocky dwarfs swiftly crush them.
Within the span of a single breath, these venomous snakes are torn apart until not a single scale remains.
Riding on the back of a grey stone lizard, Wu Tie swiftly moves through the mine. Private conversations between the rocky dwarfs can be heard from the branches of the mine's tunnels.
"Sss..." Their whispers are filled with fear. In the dim light of the night-glow moss, many rocky dwarfs can be seen kneeling in terror.
These small creatures, standing at only one meter tall, with thin arms and legs, are at the very bottom of the food chain in this cruel world.
Even though they possess a relatively high intelligence, as Grey Scholar put it, they don't have "wisdom," so they don't possess "strength."
Without "strength," they become pitiful prey in the face of stronger predators.
Moving forward through a newly opened tunnel for three to five miles, fist-sized golden specks can be seen dotting the walls.
This is a quite decent gold mine, and gold chunks are undoubtedly first-class hard currency!
Over a hundred rocky dwarfs are energetically wielding small mining shovels, striking numerous sparks against the wall.
Upon seeing Wu Zhan and Wu Tie approaching, the rocky dwarfs quickly stop their work and hurriedly kneel down.
Wu Zhan ignores the dwarfs and pulls Wu Tie to the end of the tunnel, where a cave with a diameter of several meters can be seen. Cold, damp winds blow out from the cave, carrying an inaudible rumbling sound of water.
Several grey dwarfs stand to the side, watching Wu Zhan and Wu Tie with utmost respect.
Wu Zhan pats Wu Tie on the head and says in a deep voice, "I know what you're thinking..."
Wu Tie shrugs and looks at Wu Zhan, "But I can't do it!"
Squinting his eyes, Wu Zhan looks at Wu Tie, "Perhaps... only your mother's side can help you... but it may require paying a heavy price... too greedy, too greedy... I mean, your grandmother... that old hag..."
He curses with an impressive string of profanities. Wu Zhan spits on the ground, "But you're my son, right?"
Shaking his head, Wu Zhan sneers, scrapes Wu Tie's nose with his finger, and says, "Store up some good things in the next couple of years. In a few years, I'll take you and the youngest to meet your mother... But only men with guts are worth me paying such a heavy price!"
With a twitching facial muscle, Wu Zhan grits his teeth and says, "Greedy... too greedy... do you have the audacity?"
One of the grey dwarfs lights a large torch and throws it into the dark cave mouth with force.
Wu Zhan pulls out a long knife and nods at Wu Tie, "Starting today, I want to test your courage from time to time! Ha!"
After a loud laugh, Wu Zhan beckons to a group of warriors following him and is the first to enter the cave.
"Tai Ping... if you're afraid, just go back..."
"Honestly, stick with Grey Scholar and study... studying is always a good thing..."
"That's something your grandfather said to me when he smashed my head with a club the thickness of a bowl and spoke directly to me!"
"That old man always makes sense!"
Two bull warriors, two green wolf warriors, and dozens of grey dwarfs follow them into the cave.
Wu Tie is stunned for a moment, ponders for a while, and opens his mouth, "Mother?"
He pats the grey stone lizard under him and slowly drives it into the cave.
A cold, damp air rushes out, and soon Wu Tie's hair and face are covered in droplets of water. The humidity behind this cave entrance is astonishing, and one can faintly hear the sound of rushing water.
The ground is full of pits and depressions, and quite a bit of water has accumulated in some places. Surprisingly, quite a number of small, phosphorescent organisms, transparent and phosphorescent, can be seen happily swimming in the puddles.
Wu Tie has never seen or heard of many of these creatures before.
Among them are some thumb-sized, round creatures with tentacles that elegantly swim in the water. Their movements are so exquisite that Wu Tie becomes lost in thought.
One torch after another is lit, and rocky dwarfs bring in large quantities of night-glow moss, which accumulates in the distance, illuminating the darkest corners with a fluorescent light.
"Wahaha... Hahaha!" Wu Zhan suddenly bursts into laughter.
"This place is interesting, a good place! Truly a good place!" Wu Zhan exclaims with laughter, "A water source! We won't need a scarce water source anymore!"
Wu Zhan is excited, dancing with his hands, and the warriors by his side are also excitedly jumping and shouting. The two green wolf warriors in particular are driven wild by their instincts, running on all fours and frolicking.
Wu Tie takes a few steps forward, and before him lies a vast expanse of dark water.
In his entire life, Wu Tie has never seen so much water before.
The water roars and rumbles, and all over the surface, large and small whirlpools can be seen. The water's force is extremely dangerous.
Wu Tie feels dizzy, and subconsciously takes a few steps back.
"Is this a river?"
"Is this a lake?"
"Is this the sea?"
"I've never seen... I've never seen so much... so much water!"
Outside the Wu family stone fortress, two bull tribe people sneakily hide behind a small stalagmite, comfortably lying on the ground, happily gnawing on cooked white mushrooms.
Suddenly, blue nocturnal light flashes, and their necks split open, spraying blood. Their heads the size of wine barrels roll off silently, tumbling a few steps.
"Hush... the hunt begins!"
In the darkness, a gentle voice is heard.
(End of the chapter)