The rise of the pervert primordial

Espi nodded at Aster to then communicate with those snakes, which after exchanging hisses between each other, answered to the little wyrm’s question.

“Hissss”, Espi turned to see Aster and then gave Aster an interesting answer.

Apparently, the snakes didn’t know what the animals they have seen are called like, so they simply gave descriptions of them, which shouldn’t be the case.

All the information about a spirit beast’s race is transmitted through their blood, to their descendants, that’s why even a distant relative can evolve into a higher ranked race through cultivation.

At this point, the race to which the striped wood snakes in front of Aster, belonged, should have gathered information about other animals, and thus they should at least know what they are called.

‘Could it be that they are not being suppressed, but actually haven’t received any spirit energy since they came to life?’, wondered Aster, that would make these animals different than the ones that welcomed them alongside those resources, in one more way as well.

Anyway, based on the descriptions given by the little wyrm, Aster made a few quick sketches on paper sheets, before speaking with the others.

“For aerial predators, there are birds in this forest, at night the snakes can’t be in the open with ease, because they might get taken away by what I assume are owls and more importantly, they have seen an eagle or two coming from the inner part of the forest, they must be young ones who can’t prey on the animals there so they come here to learn”.

“When it comes to ground animals, besides wolves which we already knew were present, the most common appear to be felines, judging by the description and the fact that the snakes say they are most of the times suppressed by the wolves, they should be lynxes”, said Aster as he showed the first sketch, which looked like a spotted cat with a short tail.

“The lynxes apparently live at the part where the middle area of the forest ends, but the older and bigger ones sometime adventure into the inner part, and those are the times when the snakes had managed to see wolves appear to fight with them, besides them there are boars, foxes and racoons too”.

“As for water, they have seen big fishes which are twice their size upstream, judging by their description they appear to be catfishes and according to those four’s parents, there are also big snakes larger than Espi that go from the ground to the water and vice-versa, those should be anacondas”.

“Luckily they have never heard about an animal whose description matches the one of a bear, so we should be able to cross that out of our list of worries, I guess”, concluded Aster.

Having finished their side of the deal and with no other information to offer, since those four were young snakes, they proposed to leave, when Aster got an interesting idea.

“Wait a second, tell them that if they find some things for us, we’ll pay them with food, it’s a low-risk task because they will be looking for seeds, plants, fruits, legumes and tubers”, said Aster to the little wyrm, while he made a few simple sketches in preparation for the positive answer he expected.

“Hissss”, Espi conveyed Aster’s words to the four snakes who almost instantly nodded, normal snakes are strictly carnivores so food for them means meat, and they were offered it in exchange for useless things they see all the time but are unable to eat, they were charmed by such a sweet deal.

Seeing those four happily agree, Aster nodded to his insides, as weird as it might sound the snakes are a good business partner for them, because they only eat meat, and humans need other things to have a balanced diet, they can find fish outside of the forest, but all the other dishes and ingredients will have to come from the forest.

And it will honestly be a hassle to have to look for them, so if the snakes could do that for them, in exchange for just some meat, it was a win-win situation for both parties.

After showing the snakes, the sketches and giving them descriptions of the areas where those things should be easily found, same which the little wyrm translated for them, the snakes left, they were told to bring everything they found to the place where they first met, before the sun left the sky.

“This feels a bit like cheating”, said Iris, which made Aster chuckle.

“Well, mortals also raise cattle and tame wild animals, it just to happens that the one I’m good at dealing with are reptiles instead of cows, it’s a skill that doesn’t require spirit energy so it’s not against the rules, right Espi?”, jokingly said Aster to the little wyrm, who cutely rubbed her head against his hand in response.

“Hissss~”.

Though a bit unconvinced by Aster’s reasoning, the others had to admit that the strange abilities of the black-haired youth and that pretty white snake, saved them a lot of trouble, now they could skip on wasting time in fully exploring the middle area of the forest and focus in crossing the forest to the rocky area at the other side, which was their most important goal for this day.

“Let’s take some distance from the creek first, then we’ll follow it upstream to reach the inner part of the forest, be ready to fight at any moment from this point onwards”, said Aster.

If the objective was to hunt, then be as close as possible to the creek was the best idea, since animals will have to show up at some point whether they want it or not, but that same ideal hunting area made the creek a troublesome guide through the forest, if they wanted to cross it as soon as possible, because encountering animals will be inevitable

So, by taking some distance, they would be able to avoid a lot of troubles and will still be able to use the creek as a guide mark, Alice and the others nodded and after walking a couple of dozens of meters to the east which is the direction that pointed to entrance of the area, meaning that that the animals they have to be wary of, should in most cases appear at the other side of the creek, they started advancing upstream.

In a rough calculation it should be around 10:30 am, since the sun had barely raised into the sky when they appeared in this place, and it’s been around two hours since they left to explore.

Of course, it took them more time to reach this point because they took some time to look for usable things in the outer area, where the girls of the sect should be safe to wander later, it will take them way less time to cross this part on their way back, so the exploration team was still good in terms of time.

After following the creek upstream for around thirty minutes without stopping for a second, which spoke of how big was the middle area of the forest, Aster and the others reached a different kind of scenery.

Apparently, the very thing that signaled the start of the inner part of the forest was a clearing, which was also the area from which the creek originated, as in there was huge pond surrounded by some rocks here and there in the clearing, there were also some other connections that ended in said pond.

“This forest was probably the border of the rocky area, but was turned into a green area, there should be an underground river that comes from outside of the forest”, said Cayden as he observed the rocks that surrounded the pond.

Unfortunately, they couldn’t advance freely like before, because there were animals blocking their way, it was a small pack of wolves, consisting in four members which had marked the border of the middle area of the forest as their territory, they were feasting on a lynx too.

The positive part is that those wolves were young, this was probably a new pack that was formed by offspring of other wolves which left their parent’s side, but probably because of that, those guys were incredibly aggressive, even after having clearly filled their stomachs, they immediately growled and charged at Aster and the others, even if they haven’t entered the territory they have marked.

“Hissss!”, the little wyrm prepared to jump into action, but Aster stopped her from doing so, those wolves had never seen humans before, so they weren’t afraid of them, but that also meant they didn’t know about the biggest difference between animals and humans, the capacity to make and use tools to make up for their lacks.

“Change to the clubs, we don’t want to spill blood in an area we’ll have to cross on our way back, so let’s just drive them away, they’ll probably escape through a route that doesn’t overlap with anything stronger than them, so they’ll work as scouts for us”, said Aster which made that dragon sister of his wildly smile.

From this point onwards, the wolves were about to live a nightmare, the strange animals in front of them, who lacked claws or sharp teeth, meaning they were easy prey, suddenly grew a strange tough “extremity” which they swung at them.

“Grrrr…lll!”, what was originally a growl, turned into a whimper when Alice smacked her club against the head of the wolf leading the charge, the other three reacted by jumping at her, but two were blocked by Tiana and Cayden while the last one was stopped by Mylene.

The pink haired girl is used to close combat, so regardless of being able to use spirit energy or not, she is a skilled fighter, with her club she first attacked the legs of the wolf, instantly destroying its balance to then start beating it up.

The leader wolf saw his pack members being easily defeated by the enemies, while he was being chased around by one of them and instantly howled, signaling the start of their retreat.

“Oh, come on, I was just getting to the fun part”, complained Alice as she saw her opponent running away from her, that being said, the claw and biting marks on their clubs showed what could have happened if they were to face wolves bare handed.

“Let them advance a bit, it’s better if they don’t feel cornered by us, we’ll follow their tracks instead”, said Aster, their first battle was a short and relatively easy one but in part that’s because they didn’t have the intention to kill.

The wolves didn’t feel cornered since their way of retreat wasn’t cut, nor were they suffering any serious wounds, they would have for sure fought way fiercely if they had to fight for their lives instead.

“They didn’t seem to have any idea about what humans are, but the snakes though hadn’t seen one, knew what humans are, right?”, asked the youngest of the three sisters, she didn’t get to fight this time so she was completely dedicated herself to analyze the fight.

“Well, some snakes live up to forty years, but wolves would at most live fourteen, perhaps information about us wasn’t passed by the ancestors of those wolves, but the snakes who lived more told the tale to more of their descendants so the information survived longer in their memories”, concluded Aster.

It was strange to see animals who didn’t seem to have their legacies stored in their bloodlines, even the ones that lack the capacity to cultivate and are raised as cattle by mortals, tend to inherit some slight traces of a spirit beast’s lineage

“That should be enough for those wolves to have gained some distance between us, let’s get on the move before other animals start appearing due to the ruckus of before”, said Aster. Chapters first released on novel[f]ire.net

Luckily the clubs didn’t get stained with blood, but Aster and the others still washed them with the water of the pond, and then rubbed them against some grass in order to erase the scent of those wolves, in case that would make other wolves confuse them for a pack that wanted to invade their territories.

The wolves had run in a very specific direction, if one looked carefully, there was a “path” that started to form there, meaning it was an area which many animals used to move through, in fact there were some bones at the side of the road here and there.

Imagine Aster’s surprise when midway through the road, he got to see those wolves once again, with the difference that they… were dead, the culprit of the massacre was not too far from them, eating the meat of one of the wolves.

Ironically it was a lynx, but this one didn’t look at all like the small one that was being eaten by those wolves earlier, nope, it was actually really big for a lynx surpassing the 1.5 meter mark for its length, without taking the tail into account, and being almost one meter tall, as for its weight Aster calculated it to be above forty kilograms

Had it not been for the characteristic short tail, one might even confuse it for a young leopard instead of a lynx, besides the unusual size, another special characteristic that was painfully noticeable was that it had a scar that crossed through its forehead and ended below its right eye, but it wasn’t blind on said eye.

“That must be one of the oldest and biggest lynxes, who ventures into the inner area of the forest, which those snakes mentioned”, said Lina.

Lynxes might hunt young wolves, if they find them alone, but this one killed four of them and judging by the multiple cuts on the wolves’s bodies, it wasn’t an ambush, the lynx attacked them head on and defeated them without receiving a single injury.

What’s more, the first thing that lynx looked at when it caught a glimpse of Aster and the others, wasn’t them, but their backpacks, more accurately the handles of the clubs which protruded out of them.

And even more interestingly, the lynx didn’t show any sign of hostility, instead it grabbed one of the corpses by the neck and calmly disappeared into the foliage, leaving that bloody mess behind.

As interested as Aster was in that strange lynx, they had to leave this area as fast as possible, because the blood will for sure attract other animals.

‘What a shame Espi can only communicate with reptiles, I should perhaps bring Mira the next time around’, amusedly thought Aster which made a certain ligress feel angered out of nowhere for some reason,

While the mess created by that lynx was troublesome, if used correctly it was a nice opportunity to get out of the inner area of the forest, faster than expected, because the animals in the vicinity will be attracted to it, leaving the areas they usually roam through, empty, so Aster carefully led the group through a path which didn’t have any blood stains on it to keep their shoes clean, in order to not get any unwanted attention.

From afar, Aster and the others saw many figures rushing to the area they just left behind, sure enough there were many other predators hidden here, the little wyrm even felt the eyes of an eagle falling on her, to which she snorted.

That eagle was confusing the little wyrm with a snake, luckily for it, the eagle didn’t dive to try and grab Espi because she is accompanied by Aster and the others, because if that wasn’t the case, the world would have had one eagle less in it.

“Brother Aster, I’m not knowledgeable in that aspect, but didn’t passing on the pelts of those wolves, is quite the loss?”, asked Cayden as he took out a machete to clear the way ahead of them, to which Aster shook his head in response.

“Our priority when it comes to hunting, are rabbits and boars, the first are for eating while the second have good value as food and even more for the materials we can obtain from them, their hides are good for improving armor and shields and their tendons will be used for bows as well”.

Aster is not one to underestimate anyone, if he thought of making metalware their goal, it was normal to believe that others will aim for the same, because weapons can close the gap in skills and numbers in a group fight for sure.

So, he of course had some other plans in mind to outstand from the rest, besides the quality of the equipment he was planning to make of course, but let’s leave that for later.

Half an hour into the inner part of the forest, the group found itself in front of another pond which was connected with the one from earlier, thus being a part of the origin of the creek at the middle area of the forest.

However, there was no rocky terrain around it, and there was another difference, this place was occupied by a species one wouldn’t have thought, toads, really big toads by the way, as in the biggest ones were almost thirty centimeters large, and looked like they weighted two to three kilograms each.

“Hissss”, the little wyrm shook her head as if trying to get rid of something, as she hissed at Aster.

“Oh, so they are poisonous for other animals, I guess that explains why they have occupied this pond and why there are so many of them, they can’t be eaten by most of the habitants of the forest”, while this toad area was incredibly dangerous for animal standards, for humans it was only in the middle.

Toads won’t go against anything bigger than them, and since Aster and the others had no intention to eat them, they simply had to avoid making contact and that was it.

“Those look like giant cane toads, they are poisonous to us but only if the poison is ingested, that being its poison can act as a stabilizer for the paralyzing poison recipe I was planning to use, so we’ll have to catch one on our way back”, said Mylene, as she cutely looked Aster, like saying “get one for me please~”.

Leaving the toad area aside, the group soon reached an area where the inner forest changed to the middle area, the heart of the forest wasn’t a perfect circle after all, there were irregular parts all over it, with clearings and ponds here and there, and luckily Aster and the others had run into part of the inner area which bordered with the middle area way before what other parts of it would.

“We’ll rush all the way to the other side once we have advanced a few hundreds of meters into the middle area, once we reach the outer area, we’ll stop to have lunch before leaving the forest, scouts at the front please”, said Aster it was almost midday.

And it was going to take them around forty minutes to reach the outer area of the forest, a short lunch and a bit of rest later and they should still have time to explore the rocky area ahead, if they found the so needed ores they were looking for in less than four hours, it would be an amazing exploration day.

Having crossed to the middle area, Lina, Sandra and the little wyrm moved to the front of the group and nimbly gained some distance from Aster and the others, who followed right behind of them, the territory of the middle area of the forest on this side was pretty much like the one they had already gone through before.

So, they easily advanced through it, what took them almost an hour was done in a matter of minutes this time, however not too far from reaching the outer area of the forest, Aster whose dragon eyes still gave him a better sight than other people, suddenly called the scouts to stop them from advancing.

“Wait”, with a single word, Lina, Sandra and the little wyrm backed off, returning with the rest of the group, who were curious about why Aster stopped their advance, when they had almost reached their resting point.

The answer to their doubts was given the next second, when Aster took the shovel from one of the backpacks and used it to dig a bit around a fallen trunk which was covered in moss and other plants, unveiling a familiar looking white object, as in there was a human’s skull for everyone to see now.

Well, remains of a human skull which were brutalized, it was obvious that it didn’t happen due to decomposition, because though it looked an old skull indeed, it was crushed and there were four deep marks on it.

“Perhaps the area at the other side of the forest was a settlement for participants in the past and this guy was one of them”, said Tiana, which made Aster frown, those marks gave him a familiar feeling, but he couldn’t pinpoint where has he seen something that matched with it.

In any case, after inspecting the surroundings, there were no traces of animals and indeed after advancing through the forest, they didn’t find any threats, but that was more suspicious because it felt as if this part of the forest was completely devoid of any living beings, besides the vegetation of course.