Chapter 265 – Entering The Bull-headed Races’ Territory
Wales’s group didn’t advance quickly. Currently, they were still in the territory of the pig-headed races. Even though the bull-headed races and the pig-headed races had no mutual favor or enmity, it wasn’t a good thing to bumble around randomly on someone else’s turf. That was why their advance was a careful one. If they came across some small pig-headed tribes, they would need to greet them on their own. It would cause misunderstandings if they didn’t.
For the beastmen, if you didn’t bear hostilities, you had to greet them when you met with them. If you didn’t do so, there were only 2 possibilities: either you had evil intentions, or you were looking down on them. Either possibility would be enough to make them treat you with their weapons.
Beastmen liked having receptions for their friends, so you had to invite them for a feast if you came to their doorstep. Otherwise, not only would they not treat you as a friend, they’d even take you for an enemy.
Wales and everyone were just passing through, but they still had to go visit any pig-headed tribe they came across and stay for a night. Zhao Hai engaged in trade with them. Of course, he used grains, in exchange for their magic beasts.
However, most of the tribes they came across were small tribes, so Zhao Hai didn’t manage to get very powerful magic beasts. Most of them were argali, while the tribes wouldn’t give their exclusive magic beasts to him.
Beastmen treated their tribe-specific magic beasts with great importance. These magic beasts of theirs were commonly their mounts. In other words, the beasts were their beastkin.
If Zhao Hai’s personality hadn’t matched well with Spiel’s, and if he hadn’t had a lot of grains, Spiel wouldn’t have given the squirting boars to Zhao Hai, because squirting boars were the beastkin of the big-bellied pigs.
Zhao Hai was satisfied with the trades he made. Other than getting more than a few argali, he also got a large amount of goat hair products. The small tribes were generous, since they wouldn’t come across a single human merchant in a whole year. When a human merchant finally showed up to conduct trade with them, they were very delighted.
Due to the recent sudden changes, Laura and the others couldn’t stick to their original plan to rendezvous with Ah-Tai. However, Laura still sent a blood hawk to give Ah-Tai messages, in order to establish a foothold in Beast God City and gain a better understanding of the situation there.
Zhao Hai was curious about this slightly mysterious Ah-Tai. He could tell how much Laura trusted him, as he was Laura’s only subordinate on Beastmen Prairie.
He also knew from Laura that in recent years, Ah-Tai had earned a lot of money in her stead on Beastmen Prairie. If she had to count, the earnings he had made were up to ⅓ of her total assets. This was a very large sum.
Everyone knew that business could be lucrative on Beastmen Prairie, but large merchants commonly did business with battle tribes, while the ones who did business with other tribes were smaller merchants. There was a limit to how much money the smaller merchants could earn, and they would often be raided by beastmen. That was why the money they earned was less than what people would expect.
Under such circumstances, the fact that Ah-Tai could earn so much money for Laura had to have something behind it.
The people that Zhao Hai and Laura could use were few. Ah-Tai was one. Xu Wan Ying was another. And then there were Seyer and Orloga.
Zhao Hai had never seen Ah-Tai before, but Laura trusted him very much. Xu Wan Ying was helping Greene and the others attend to matters at Iron Mountain Castle, while the same went for Seyer. Orloga was currently an undead, but the fact that he could become Carlo’s attendant meant that he had certain capabilities. Orloga had now been stationed at the factories, where he did things in an orderly way.
Blockhead and Rockhead’s performances were a little worse off in this regard, but both of them liked training more. They had now reached the level of level 6 fighters. Although it didn’t seem like much, they could count as geniuses on the continent when one looked at their age.
These people were now the master staff of Zhao Hai’s management. He couldn’t use more people even if he wanted to, because they didn’t have enough capital.
Letting Ah-Tai establish a foothold was for the sake of relaying the situation in Beast God City. Although the city was controlled by beastmen, there were a large amount of human merchants that gathered there. Zhao Hai and the rest would lose out if they didn’t grasp the situation well.
Wales and the others weren’t in a rush, but he still sent a team of 50 to obtain information from the bull-headed tribes’ territory. He wanted to check the branch races’ reaction to the incident in the Herculean Bull Tribe. What had transpired shouldn’t have zero effect on all of the bull-headed races. Wales wanted to know what Gasol’s next move was after he returned. Of course, if possible, he still wanted to make contact with West Wonder King.
Wales put the idea of contacting the Buffalo Tribe on hold. He knew that Gasol wouldn’t let down the surveillance there because of Yale. Because Wales wanted to wait for information, he didn’t move towards the bull-headed races’ territory in a hurry. He knew that in doing so, he might have a high chance of being discovered by Gasol.
Now, he and his people were moving forward slowly, as if they were just travelling, while he familiarized himself with the 5 blood hawks Zhao Hai had gifted him.
Wales knew the importance of these blood hawks as aerial reconnaissance too well. There were too few races on Beastmen Prairie that had aerial scouts.
The magic beasts that could be used as aerial scouts were not few, but most of them were under the control of avian races. It would be impossible for other races to get such aerial recon magic beasts. Gasol had gotten the 2 flame birds due to a chance meeting.
Now, those flame birds had been put into the space by Zhao Hai. The level assessment of the flame birds was a shocking level 35, which raised the level of the ranch to level 6. Unfortunately, the ranch had to reach level 7 in order to keep 100 more magic beasts.
Zhao Hai was happy that the space improved the abilities of the blood hawks once again. Now, they could use simple fire and wind magics, while the flame birds had gained some of the blood hawks’ abilities. This was beyond his expectations.
This was good news to him. The blood hawks were powerful, but they weren’t invincible. They had become predators in the sky because of their strength, size, flying height and speed. But they had a weakness, and that was that they weren’t nimble when they turned in the air. They needed a lot of space to turn around, while the flame birds didn’t. Their wind magic could help them turn more nimbly in a smaller area, like a martial artist that would evade an opponent’s attacks using their agile movements.
Just from their fighting power alone, flame birds wouldn’t lose to blood hawks. Perhaps in equal quantities, they might even win against blood hawks.
However, Zhao Hai didn’t prepare to raise flame birds. Even if he did it now, he couldn’t use them. If he brought out too many of them, it would raise Wales’ suspicions.
Wales watched as Zhao Hai put the flame birds into the space, and he knew that Zhao Hai’s space could store living things. Zhao Hai had told him that it was an oddity art, which made Wales very envious. But if Zhao Hai brought out too many of the flame birds, Wales would know that Zhao Hai’s space could raise magic beasts. It would be too much of a cheat, so Zhao Hai wouldn’t let others know about this easily.
Even though Wales and the rest were moving ahead slowly, after 7 days of travelling at this speed, they still entered the outer territory of the bull-headed races. They could no longer see any pig-headed tribes from here.
Zhao Hai was in his wagon while he curiously asked Wales, who was on the back of his bull, “I’m very curious, big brother. How did you mark the territories? These grasslands all look the same. How do you do it?”
Wales laughed in response, “You don’t know, do you? Although they all look the same to you, in us beastmen’s eyes, every grassland is different. A small river, a small hill, or a dried riverbank, these things can be used as standards for marking territories. The small hill we passed was one of the signs used to mark the boundary between our territory and the pig-headed races’. Common pig-headed races wouldn’t go past that small hill.”
Zhao Hai turned his head to look at where they just went past. To be honest, it really was a simple little hill. If the distance was greater, it would only be just a little slope on the prairie. It was hard to imagine that they could even call such a slope ‘a small hill’.
Zhao Hai asked, “Big brother, how many days remain until we reach the Herculean Bull Tribe if we go from here?”
Wales glanced at the northeast direction and replied, “With our current speed, it’ll take about a month to get to the Herculean Bull Tribe’s main camp.”
Zhao Hai was stunned for a bit. He hadn’t imagined that it was so far away. No wonder Wales wanted to enter the bull-headed races’ territory from here. It was because the main camp of the Herculean Bull Tribe was too far away from here. Even Gasol would be hard-pressed to find them.