Southern Wasteland, Vine Tribe.
"Finally finished carving the herbs I used before."
In the bamboo house, the old witch put down his stone chisel and hammer, stood up from a large round stone, and thumped his waist.
The big stone is oval in shape, like a round egg, with the surface polished very smooth and standing straight up.
On the right side of the big stone, there are several ancient shamanistic inscriptions carved on it: The Great Wilderness Hundreds of Sketch Maps.
Then, there were rows and rows of smaller fonts of witchcraft characters, neatly arranged.
Some of these witchcraft words resemble strange-shaped grass, some resemble flowers, some resemble birds, and some resemble certain parts of animals...
These are witchcraft words. From the perspective of ordinary people, these witchcraft words are messy and it is difficult to understand what they mean.
But in the eyes of witches with witchcraft power, every witchcraft text contains a lot of information.
There are two types of shaman, one is ordinary shaman, which can be understood by anyone who has studied it specially.
For example, those tribes that have lost their totem gods, although their shamans have no witchcraft power, still inherit part of the witchcraft and can use the witchcraft plus pictures to record the major events that have happened in the tribe.
The other kind is the witch writing carved by the old witch. This kind of witch writing is more mysterious and cannot be understood by people without witchcraft power.
Because it is not just as simple as connecting words to form a sentence, each mysterious witchcraft text contains a large amount of information. It is necessary to use witchcraft to activate these witchcraft texts in order to see what the writer really wants to express.
There are a lot of herbs that need to be recorded in the Great Wilderness Hundred Sketches. If I use ordinary witchcraft and want to record them all, I don’t know how many animal skins and how many stones will be carved.
Moreover, because there are too many record carriers, it is inevitable that there will be deficiencies due to various reasons during the inheritance process.
But it's different when using mysterious witch scripts. Each witch script can record a kind of herbal medicine, which can save a lot of materials and help to pass it on completely.
The old witch walked around the egg-shaped boulder twice, observing the witch inscriptions, and was quite satisfied with the partially carved sketch of the Great Wilderness.
The old witch said to himself: "The herbs I used before have been carved, and it's time to look for new herbs."
The reason why the old witch named it Great Wilderness Hundred Sketches instead of Eastern Wilderness Hundred Sketches was because he wanted to record as many various herbs on this continent as possible.
He knew more about the herbs in the Eastern Wilderness, but the old witch knew less about the herbs in the Southern Wilderness, Western Wilderness, and Northern Wilderness.
Because of this, the old witch is ready to continue riding the giant eagle to various places to find more herbs, understand their effects and growth habits, and then record them in the Great Wilderness Hundred Drafts.
This is bound to be a difficult and time-consuming job.
The old witch rested for a while, ate something, then walked out of the bamboo house and went to the bamboo forest at the foot of the stone mountain. He found red peony root and told her that he wanted to continue traveling and looking for medicinal herbs.
Chi Shao couldn't help but said: "Old witch, why don't you stay here? I'll ask the Teng tribe warriors to pay attention to various herbs when they go out and bring them back to you."
The old witch knew that Chi Shao was worried about his safety, and a smile appeared on his old face.
"Although I am old, I have not yet reached the point where I can no longer walk. I want to ride a giant eagle to go to more places and find more herbs."
"For every herbal medicine, I want to see with my own eyes what it looks like, where it grows, what effects it has, and then record it."
"The Hundred Sketches of the Wilderness is what I will pursue for the rest of my life. I hope I can complete it myself."
The old witch paused and then said: "If I really have an accident outside, I believe you will help me complete it in the future."
Chi Shao nodded and said: "Don't worry, old witch, I will try my best to do it."
The old witch smiled and nodded. He believed that Chi Shao was a trustworthy person and a talented witch. Even if he died outside, Chi Shao could still complete the Hundred Sketches of the Wilderness.
The old witch asked again: "Where is Xuan? Why haven't you seen him these past few days?"
Chi Shao said: "I took the hunting team out, I didn't say how many days we would be back."
"Then don't wait for him. I will leave on the giant eagle tomorrow. If everything goes well and I find enough new herbs, I will come back."
After the old witch finished speaking, he left Chishao's yard. He needed to make some preparations for this trip.
The next day, the old witch took his luggage, closed the door of the bamboo house, and left the Vine Tribe on the giant eagle.
"Hey..."
The giant eagle circled into the sky in circles, then flew into the distance and gradually disappeared.
In the courtyard of the bamboo forest, Chi Shao looked at the direction of the giant eagle and silently prayed that the old witch would return safely.
…
On the barren mountain northwest of the Teng tribe, Jiang Xuan led the hunting team to dig for two days and dug out a large amount of copper ore and tin ore.
"That's almost it. Let's bury the veins first."
Jiang Xuan felt that enough ore had been dug out, and any more would affect the speed of the soldiers, so he ordered part of the soil to be backfilled.
The purpose of backfilling the soil is to cover up the mineral veins to prevent them from being excavated.
After all, even if people from other tribes don't know how to smelt metals, tribesmen still like beautiful stones like malachite and are likely to dig them out when they see them.
The soldiers of the hunting team backfilled some soil with a bang, then pulled some dead branches from nearby, and covered them with weeds, making some simple camouflage.
After everything was done, Uncaria said to Jiang Xuan: "Chief, that's it."
"Okay, take all the stones and return to the tribe!"
Jiang Xuan thought for a while and then said: "After returning to the tribe, no one is allowed to reveal our whereabouts and harvest to others, otherwise we will be expelled from the tribe!"
Jiang Xuan's words made everyone in the hunting team feel shocked. Expulsion from the tribe was the most severe punishment for them.
Everyone secretly warned themselves to keep their mouths shut.
Undo asked: "Chief, what if someone asks?"
Jiang Xuandao: "Let's just say that we found some good stones and dug them back to make stone tools."
Uncaria nodded, and then shouted to the people in the hunting team: "Did everyone hear clearly? If anyone asks, they will say that we went to dig stones."
The hunting team soldiers nodded one after another.
In fact, Jiang Xuan did not tell them what kind of stones these ores were or what they were used for.
The hunting team soldiers think there is nothing wrong with the idea of ​​digging stones, and it is not a lie.
"Okay, go back!"
Jiang Xuan tied the two large bags of ore together, put them on Yue Ya's back, and sat on them himself.
The Black Wind Rhino is extremely strong. It can bear two heavy bags of ore and a person sitting on it.
The soldiers of the hunting team also put large and small bags of ore on the backs of their mounts, and then followed Jiang Xuan back to the tribe.
One day later, they successfully returned to the Vine Tribe with all the ores.
In order to keep it secret, all these ores were put into the cave in the mountain on the other side of Feiyu River, and that area was designated as a restricted area, with soldiers taking turns to guard it every day.
In fact, if it weren't for the fact that Shen Teng didn't like flames, Jiang Xuan would have wanted to put these ores at the foot of the stone mountain. It was the safest place in the entire tribe and no one would dare to break in.
Next, it is time to consider how to smelt these copper ores and tin ores into bronze.
Jiang Xuan's understanding of bronze is limited to knowing that it is an alloy of copper and tin. As for the ratio of copper to tin, he is not very clear and needs to try it bit by bit.
However, he did have some impression of how copper ore was smelted into copper.
The first step is to burn the charcoal.
Whether copper or iron is smelted, charcoal or coal are essential fuels.
If possible, it is best to use coke, because coke has stronger firepower and burns longer.
The Vine tribe has not yet obtained coal and can only use relatively primitive charcoal.
If you want to get charcoal with stronger firepower and longer burning time, you can't save the trouble and just go to the fire pond to pick up the defective products.
Jiang Xuan planned to build an earth kiln and burn several kilns of high-quality charcoal.
He first found people from the Teng tribe who were good at building, dug a big pit on the hillside, and built an earthen kiln.
The earth kiln is oval in shape and about two meters high. Half of it is built with the help of the mountain and half of it is made of mixed mud. There is a wide air inlet at the bottom and a flue at the top.
In fact, the earthen kiln is equivalent to a large stove, except that the upper part does not need to hold a pot and is directly closed.
After the earthen kiln was built, Jiang Xuan personally led people to chop down many thick branches with stone axes, cut them into pieces of wood of similar length, and then piled them neatly into the earthen kiln from the wind entrance.
When the charcoal is piled up in the earthen kiln, it can be ignited.
Jiang Xuan found some dry firewood and piled it in the spacious air inlet. Then he borrowed kindling from a nearby fire pit and lit the firewood.
The dry firewood burned quickly, and the temperature in the kiln rose sharply.
To be continued...