LSLFBW: Chapter 8

Inside the cave, two large stone pots were set up at the same time. The location of the stone pots was just under the stone platform where Yang Luo often stood.

The bear meat and wild vegetables in the pot had been cooking for a while. At this time, everyone was divided into two groups and sat around the stone platform.

If they looked up, they could see large leaves neatly arranged on the stone platform.

On these leaves were cut bear meat, marinated piranha meat, and cleaned wild vegetables and fruits.

Of course, what attracted more attention than these foods was the simple rack made of branches in front of the stone wall.

AT this time, the complete bear skin had been simply treated with plant ash and was hanging on one side of the stone wall like a huge mural. This instantly made the bare stone wall change its appearance.

Yang Luo stood in front of the bear skin, faced everyone, and said in his unique tone, “Beastmen, the time has come. It is time to build our tribe!”

Yang Luo’s words excited everyone.

It was because all of them knew one thing clearly. It was that they couldn’t return to their original tribe.

Yang Luo once said that the north was the habitat of the Beast God. No one could step into it to prevent disturbing the Beast God’s sleep.

Of course, Qi Bai didn’t know if there was really a Beast God in this world, but the fact that the north was a forbidden land for beastmen was a legend that almost all tribes passed down from generation to generation.

Therefore, no tribe migrated to the north when the flood came.

As for these beastmen, they were more driven here by the flood rather than escaping here.

Among them, there were those who left the tribe on their own initiative because they were old. There were also those who were abandoned by the tribe like Qi Bai. Of course, there were slaves who escaped from the tribe in the chaos.

In short, most of them had a hard life in their original tribe. Perhaps leaving was the better way out.

However, in the beastmen world full of dangers, a lone beastman without a tribe would be like duckweed, floating and unstable. It would be difficult for them to survive alone.

Thus, Yang Luo willingly led everyone to hunt and gather, and establishing a new tribe was what these beastmen had always hoped for.

At this moment, they heard Yang Luo finally speak, and everyone seemed to have a backbone. No one would object.

Everything that followed seemed to come naturally.

Yang Luo naturally became the first priest of the tribe.

Qi Bai watched Yang Luo hold the bear bone he had carefully selected in front of his chest as a scepter. His expression was more complicated than Qi Bai had ever seen. He had a sense of satisfaction at getting what he wanted but also a sense of loss and a dazed feeling.

Hou Yan became the first chief of the tribe.

Compared with Yang Luo’s composure, the newly appointed chief was obviously ‘uncomfortable’ with this high position.

Hou Yan walked onto the platform at Yang Luo’s request. However, he stood on the stone platform for a long time, and his dark skin turned red. In the end, he could only utter one sentence. “Our days will definitely get better and better.”

Yang Luo felt a bit disgusted with his future partner for not having momentum, but at the same time, he was quite complacent. After all, the status of the priest of a tribe had always been what outsider priests cared about most.

Unlike the priest positions inherited in the tribe, the outsider priests often faced a strong chief after joining a tribe, so many priests had an awkward position in the tribe.

Everyone respected them, but in fact, not many people would listen to them.

Even so, Yang Luo didn’t perfunctorily select the chief. He carefully observed everyone.

Unfortunately, he found that among all the people, Lang Ze was the one with the most potential to be the chief but was a slave. For the others, he could only pick the tallest among the dwarves and barely selected Hou Yan.

Hou Yan used to be an ordinary horned beastman in his tribe. He had the qualities of kindness, honesty, hard work and endurance that all beastmen had, but he lacked some of the domineering qualities of a chief.

Yang Luo shook his head secretly in his heart, but it didn’t matter. As long as he was there, he would teach Hou Yan little by little how to become a qualified chief.

In any case, he had finally become a priest. His tribe was small and poor, with an unreliable chief and a group of unreliable tribe members.

Nevertheless, he knew he would definitely become a great priest admired by everyone.

No one present had time to pay attention to Yang Luo’s ambitions because they were discussing a more important matter. In their eyes, Yang Luo becoming the priest and Hou Yan becoming the priest was a foregone conclusion.

What they were more concerned about was that since they had already established a tribe, what should their tribe be called?

“I think it should be called the Piranha Tribe.” The speaker was Bao Yue. Bao Yue was Bao Xing’s sister. At this moment, she was drooling at the smell of grilled fish and couldn’t help wanting to name it this way.

“How can it be called the Piranha Tribe? Obviously, bear meat is more delicious. I think it should be called the Black Bear Tribe!” Hu Meng was the first to jump out and protest. Obviously, despite being a member of the cat family, Hu Meng preferred the aroma of black bear meat.

“I think we should call it the Li Grass Tribe. Li Grass is the first food we got!” Tu Ya fought for her rabbit animal form.

After that, everyone started to discuss it again. Rather than naming the tribe, it was better to say they were arguing about which food was more delicious.

In the end, the Black Mountain Tribe won with a slight advantage.

The reason was that they had never heard of a tribe named after food. Since they lived on a black stone mountain, they could call themselves the Black Mountain Tribe.

In this way, as long as they told others the name of their tribe, others would also know that they lived on a black mountain.

It could be said that the people of primitive tribes gave names at will and in a concise manner.

Qi Bai laughed softly when he heard this name.

Lang Ze didn’t care much about the name of the tribe, but he looked over in confusion when he heard Qi Bai’s laughter.

Qi Bai mysteriously leaned toward Lang Ze’s ear and whispered, “There are old monsters on the Black Mountain. Then aren’t we going to become little monsters in the future?” Then he laughed to himself.

Lang Ze’s ears moved. He didn’t know what the ‘monsters’ Qi Bai was talking about were, but he could see that Qi Bai was very happy.

Since then, the prologue of history of the ‘Black City’ that all beastmen yearned for finally opened.

Of course, everyone didn’t know how admirable they would be in the future. At this moment, everyone had only one thought in their mind.

It was that it was delicious!

This was because after the name of the tribe was determined, the broth and grilled fish in the two stone pots were already cooked.

Yang Luo waved the bear bone scepter in his hand. “Black Mountain Tribe, let’s eat!”

The bear meat was slow-cooked until it was soft and could be easily removed from the bones with a light push. The milky white bone marrow was elastic and smooth, and the fragrance rushed straight to the brain.

The grilled piranhas marinated with red fruit had a crispy and fragrant skin and a soft and tender inside. It had the delicious taste of fish meat and the fragrance of red fruit. There was no fishy or bitter taste at all.

After being able to eat meat and such delicious grilled fish, the people of the Black Mountain Tribe felt that their tribe was already the best tribe in the world. They couldn’t imagine a better life than this!

Qi Bai felt that his quality of life was soaring like a rocket.

The day before yesterday, he was still eating wild vegetables raw. The next day, he drank broth and ate grilled fish. Today, he could eat meat in large mouthfuls.

The people of the Black Mountain Tribe finished a satisfying meal and waited in their seats for Yang Luo’s arrangement.

The dishes of the beastmen didn’t need to be washed at all because every mouthful of soup and meat residue was eaten cleanly. Qi Bai also saw some little beastmen licking their stone bowls from time to time even if they were full.

Everyone might be full of hope for their tribe, but they still had to face what they should face.

It was the most important thing for the development of the tribe.

Salt.

Sure enough, the crowd quieted down without Yang Luo needing to speak again once they heard about salt.

Yang Luo said, “Salt is the most important material in a tribe. Without salt, our warriors will get weaker and weaker. Without salt, we won’t be able to store enough food in winter. At that time, our tribe members will suffer from hunger or even death.”

Yang Luo took out a leather bag and said, “This is the last salt left in our tribe.”

His next action made everyone exclaim. Several orcs sitting in the front row even jumped directly onto the stone platform to try and catch the falling objects.

However, nothing fell.

Yang Luo opened the leather bag and turned the mouth of the leather bag downwards. There was nothing inside.

There was no salt left in the tribe at all.

The young children might not understand what this meant, but they knew how to read other people’s expressions. They saw the solemn expressions of others and hid in the arms of adults with fear.

Qi Bai knew that salting wasn’t the only way to store food, but Yang Luo was right about one thing. Beastmen couldn’t lack salt.

Short-term salt deficiency might not be obvious, but there will be an electrolyte imbalance in the human body if it continued for a long time. The muscles, bones, blood and even other organs would suffer serious damage.

Yang Luo sighed. “Our most important task now is to find salt.”

“I have discussed it with Chief Hou Yan.” Yang Luo pointed to the bear skin hanging behind him and then the rabbit skin and mouse skin not far away. “Whoever can find enough salt for the tribe to survive the winter can get a piece of animal skin. It will become their private property.”

Such tempting conditions made even Qi Bai gulp.

Qi Bai had discovered the unusual weather this year from Mao Bai’s memory.

There had been no long and wide-ranging storms in previous years, and the temperature alone shouldn’t be so low at this time.

Perhaps it was the change in temperature of the whole world or it might be that they had fled to the cold area in the north.

But in any case, Qi Bai could conclude that this year’s winter would come early and might last longer.

Everyone might be a beastman, but not all of them had thick fur in their animal form, not to mention that after turning into human form, the fur they could transform only covered the key parts.

In general, beastmen in human form were only slightly better than running naked. The pieces of animal skin transformed from their own fur couldn’t keep them warm at all.

Therefore, a large piece of animal skin, even if it was only one-third of the size of a bear skin, no, one-quarter the size, could help Qi Bai survive the cold winter.

Yang Luo saw the expressions of the crowd and continued, “Even if you don’t know where the salt is, you can get a reward as long as the information you provide can help the tribe find salt.”

It must be said that Yang Luo really had a talent for inspiring people. Someone in the crowd immediately responded.

“There is salt in underground caves. My previous tribe took salt from that cave. The salt grows on the cave stone. It took more than 30 days and nights to get there from my original tribe,” the horned beastman said before lowering his head. “But I don’t know where my original tribe is.”

This horned beastman should be talking about a salt mine as well as his original tribe. He was a slave and had been sold many times. So he didn’t know where his original tribe was.

“There will be salt on land where no grass grows,” a sub-beastman said. “The old man in the tribe once said that our former tribe passed through a dry land during migration. There were large areas of salt on that land. Unfortunately, beastmen can’t live on such land. They left there and never saw such a place again.”

The sub-beastman should be talking about saline-alkali land. High concentrations of saline-alkali soil would indeed make it impossible for plants to survive.

Several people gradually expressed their ideas. They mentioned salt fruits, salt trees, and even salt stones.

But no one mentioned the sea. Qi Bai searched through Mao Bai’s memories. It seemed that the place where they originally lived was inland, and there was indeed no sea.

However, for a modern person like Qi Bai, the most common salt was naturally sea salt. He said, “There is countless salt in seawater. As long as we find the sea, we don’t have to worry about running out of salt any longer.”

“What is the sea? I have never heard of the sea,” Bao Xing asked.

“The sea is endless water. The water in the sea is blue and tastes salty and bitter…”

Before Qi Bai finished speaking, a young horned beastman couldn’t wait to interrupt him. “Is there really so much salt in the sea you mentioned?”

Qi Bai was stunned for a moment. He saw the other person looking at him like this and couldn’t help becoming nervous. “Yes, the salt in the seawater can not only give us enough salt to survive the water, but also ensure we never lack salt again.”

The young horned beastman jumped up excitedly. A horned beastman beside him quickly pulled him back.

The two of them were brothers. The younger one was called Ma (horse) Ling, and he was called Ma Shu. The two of them were slaves who escaped from their tribe during the chaos, so Ma Shu was very afraid that his younger brother would do something wrong.

However, Ma Ling said to him, “Brother, don’t you remember the water that ate people before we came to the tribe?”

Ma Shu finally remembered what his brother was talking about. He turned pale and shook his head desperately, saying, “There are huge beasts in that water. All animals and beastmen who approached it were swallowed up. That water isn’t drinkable at all. Drinking it will only make you more thirsty.”

Ma Ling finally realized the danger. He gulped and regretted his impulsiveness.

However, what he didn’t expect was for Qi Bai to be overjoyed. He stood up excitedly and said, “That is the sea!”