novelFirst Contact with Half-beast Villagers
| ← Ch.115 | Ch.117 → |
Yale spent a whole week flying as fast as he could, the border area was the most dangerous one, so he avoided any common path and crossed the mountains by flying. He was able to fly for almost an hour without stopping, so in a week he had already left the border area.
He wasn't too far from the border counting merely the distance, but due to the terrain, walking he would have to need at least three months to reach the same place, and that was without any problem happening on the way.
The chances of humans reaching that area were almost zero, so Yale was able to relax and stored his cloak. After all, traveling with that cloak would be a little suspicious, it was still necessary with the risk of humans in the area, but Yale was already in a part of the half-beasts territory where humans didn't dare to go, so it was better to show his transformed appearance openly.
Yale had been using pills to restore his energy the whole week to stop the less time possible to recover Origin Qi before starting flying again. Thus, after having reached a rather safer zone, he stopped a bit and decided to go hunting.
Yale had food in his Storage Space, the food would be able to remain in a good state a lot of time there, but Wyba liked more the fresh meat and eating something different also seemed a good idea to Yale.
Furthermore, in case of being able to obtain more food easily, it was better to not waste the food in the Storage Space that could be used in any situation.
The area where Yale stopped had a lot of small beasts, so the hunting was easy even if Yale was being careful not to disturb any powerful beast that could be nearby.
Yale was able to cover two hundred meters with his Spiritual Sense, and the Mapping function had the same range, detecting preys was easy, and Yale had personalized a bit the Mapping function, it showed with different colors those who were weaker than Yale than those who were stronger than him.
Of course, the distinction was only based on comparing the realms and not on the real chances to win, Yale had a great battle prowess for his level, so if the opponent were ordinary even if that opponent's realm was a bit higher than Yale's, Yale would be able to win.
However, Yale didn't want to mess with any beast who was at his realm or higher even if he was able to win; he had enough with normal beasts to eat, so there wasn't any need to have problems with stronger beasts.
That personalization of the Mapping function was enough to Yale; even if Yale wanted to compare real the battle prowess, it was impossible, the Spiritual Sense could detect only the other's party level, and with those far stronger than him it wasn't even precise.
The next day, Yale detected some half-beasts at the limit of his Spiritual Sense and followed them secretly since they were weaker than him.
Yale didn't plan to harm them as he didn't have anything against half-beasts, those half-beasts who attacked him before were bandits, and there were also human bandits. Furthermore, the human bandits had also harmed a lot of half-beasts, so there was no real reason for the hatred between species. Bandits and outlaw groups were the main culprits of instigating the hatred since ancient times.
There was also the way of thinking about the other species both parties had, but without those constant conflicts happening, both would mostly ignore the other instead of hating them.
Sadly, Yale's way of thinking wasn't shared in the Zuatania Republic or the Anpaes Kingdom, not being in a war against the other was already very good for them.
Yale discovered a small village, but that village was the most undeveloped place Yale had seen in his life.
The village was still better than the places where beasts live, but it was more near to that than to human communities.
Furthermore, everyone in the village was only at the Mortal Rank, the strongest being only at the 2-star; it was a place without any danger for Yale.
Yale decided to go to the village to obtain some first-hand information; he didn't want to rely only on the books he had read.
Yale didn't know how would half-beats react if they saw his relationship with Wyba, so he hid her in the Storage Space. He didn't want to reveal her existence to anyone, those villagers weren't dangerous, but they could speak to others.
When Yale entered the city, the villagers had fear in their faces as they felt that Yale was far stronger than them and their instincts were telling them that Yale was someone who would eat them.
"I am only a traveler; I don't have the intention to harm you."
The villagers relaxed a bit after hearing Yale's words; they were too naive to believe someone with just those words, fortunately for them, Yale was telling the truth.
However, even if their consciousness were already convinced about Yale's lack of evil intentions, they couldn't avoid trembling due to being unable to control their instincts.
"I am curious about how is the lifestyle in this area. Can you told me about it?"
The half-beasts in the village had too bad bloodlines; they had almost no human features; to them, Yale's appearance was one a young master from some powerful tribe or clan.
The one who replied Yale was an old man who looked almost completely like a squirrel. However, that old-man was still the most human-like, the younger ones seemed even more beast-like than him, even if everyone seemed to have the same bloodline.
"There is nothing to explain; we have just enough with obtaining food to eat and avoiding being killed by the bandits. We also try to expand our bloodline, but with our poor quality bloodline, there isn't anyone in the other villages who wanted our youths to reproduce."
The village was too small, and all of them were blood-related, so they needed to look for people in other villages to have descendence, but their bloodline was impure and weak, the other half-beasts wouldn't dare to weaken their descendence by having children with them.
"Why didn't you try to improve your bloodline?"
Yale knew that half-beasts could improve their bloodlines. Although he didn't know the exact method, he had a rough idea.
"That may be possible for someone of the wolf family like you as there are powerful wolf beasts, but there aren't any squirrel-type beast with a good bloodline to use."
The method to improve the bloodlines in their bodies was to absorb blood from beasts of the same species or similar ones.
Until that point Yale knew it well, the unknown part was how the half-beasts treated that blood before absorbing it, simply absorbing the blood from the beast would have more negative effects than positive ones.
Failing to refine the blood correctly would cause a loss of purity in the bloodline, those with luck at least would obtain more strength, but for others, they could turn even weaker.
Yale and Wyba could absorb any blood due to the system and the Origin Qi, even if the bloodline were from other species, the system would manage to refine it in a perfect state, but Yale was curious about how the half-beasts did it.
However, it was clear that the people in that village didn't know anything about it, looking their appearances and their reply, they had probably absorbed some fresh blood in the past and ended in a state inferior to even other half-beasts.
There were squirrel-type beasts of more than the 2-star Mortal Rank, maybe their power limit wasn't as high as wolfs or tigers, but Yale had seen squirrels more powerful than those half-beasts.
Although the elder said that there wasn't any, the real problem was that they had been unable to refine them well and they ended weakening their bloodline even more.
Yale had read that half-beasts who weaken their bloodlines too much could be turned into normal beasts. Initially, he believed that it was an exaggeration, but after seeing that village, Yale started to think that it could be true.
Those villagers seemed that would be turned into normal beasts in a few generations; it was already difficult to tell that the kids in the village were half-beasts and not huge beasts if one didn't look well at them.
As every generation seemed less human-like than the previous one, that village bloodline was really doomed.
The intelligence was also affected by their bloodline purities as they weren't humans turned into half-beasts, but they had been born as half-beasts. A human transformed, even with a bad bloodline will be able to have an human-mind even after turning into a half-beast, maybe the instincts could be stronger, but the intelligence wouldn't be lowered.
However, the descendants of those transformed had never been humans before, and thus the bloodline had a greater impact on them.
The instincts of those villagers were already surpassing their consciousness, that was a bad signal to a half-beast. Once they started to move only by instincts losing their consciousness, they would be only normal beasts.
In the end, Yale left without asking any other question to them; he didn't believe that he could obtain anything useful from those people who have a lifestyle like real beasts, only thinking about surviving and reproducing.
| ← Ch. 115 | Ch. 117 → |