Chương 56: The Periphery

After testing the blade, Rowan did not immediately begin refining a second flesh armament. He laid the gray-white short blade across his knees, running his fingertips slowly along the cracks on the blade spine. After three Blood Blade Swings, several fine cracks had already appeared across the bone ridge, and the dark red fascia had clearly lost much of its original elasticity. It could still drink blood. But in the short term, it could no longer withstand another full release cycle.

It was not suitable for continuous combat. Rowan had cleaned out the dead blood inside the marrow cavity and pressed in a little of the remaining Mud-Jawed Crocodile blood. The amount was not enough to support three Blood Blade Swings. At most, it could release one more. After that one strike, the blade would need repairs. If judged only by close-range cutting, the high-frequency straight blade was still more reliable. But the value of the Bone-Flesh Blade was not in the edge itself. Rowan picked it up again.

His Mental Power gently touched the dimmed blood-storage pattern inside the marrow cavity. Around one hundred and fifty milliliters. That was the safe capacity limit when this blade first drank blood. Once filled, it could release three Blood Blade Swings. After those three, the blood's activity would be nearly exhausted. Blood was ammunition. The mana crystal was the core. The blade body was the carrier.

Looking at the Bone-Flesh Blade in his palm, Rowan suddenly felt that it was more like a low-end Aether Core made into the shape of a short blade. The difference was that an Aether Core needed to be implanted into the body and occupied part of the mana capacity pool. The Bone-Flesh Blade was held in the hand. Rowan lowered his head and glanced at his wrist. In theory, his own blood could also be used.

The blood of a Tier 1 Mage also carried mana, and its compatibility might not be worse than Mud-Jawed Crocodile blood. The problem was that one hundred and fifty milliliters was not a number that could be casually ignored. Losing that much blood in battle would not be fatal, but it would be enough to chill his fingers and slow his reactions by a fraction. If he kept replenishing the blade with his own blood, it would no longer be a weapon. It would be a hole he was digging for himself. For emergencies, yes.

For regular use, no. Rowan wrapped the Bone-Flesh Blade again and hung it inside his mage robe in a position where it would be easy to draw. There was no need to refine the Tendon-Cord Crossbow or Carapace Bracer for now. What he lacked at the moment was not more blueprints. It was information about this world. How did the people of this world process mana-beast bone, tendon, blood, and mana crystals? How much were low-tier weapons worth?

In their eyes, would a Bone-Flesh Armament that drank blood and released blood blades count as an obscure refining method, or as forbidden evil art? These questions could not be answered by hiding inside a burrow. He needed to get closer to people. The old Armored Horned Rhino battlefield was the clearest lead he had. Since the otherworld mercenary team that had hunted the rhino had been able to go deep into the forest, they must have had a retreat route, and they must have had a supply point.

Hunters would not carry wounded men and large chunks of material all the way to a major city by force. They needed medicine, food, beast carts, material processing points, and perhaps even a camp that could temporarily hold off mana-beasts. Rowan sat cross-legged and cultivated the [Lancer Mana Channeling Art] until sunlight once again filtered through the gaps. By then, he had completed the construction of one secret-art structure within the Lancer Mana Channeling Art.

A mana vortex slowly rotated around his Source Crystal Core. Under the effect of the mana vortex, he could clearly feel that mana was entering the core faster than before. Rowan brought the Bone-Flesh Blade, the high-frequency straight blade, the remaining medicines, and a small bag of food. Chestnut followed beside him. Rowan did not make it hide. In the other world, a wandering mage accompanied by a small exotic beast was not necessarily more conspicuous than a stranger covered in strange equipment.

The traces near the old battlefield had already faded considerably. The tree trunks broken by the Armored Horned Rhino had begun to pale, and rainwater had gathered inside the pits in the ground. Rowan still managed to find several directional clue. The shallow grooves left by retreating mercenaries. Symbols carved into bark by blades. A short piece of old rope caught on thorns. And several piles of campfire ash that had gone cold long ago. As he walked, he used his AR to assemble the terrain into a rough map.

The old hunting trail extended southeast and split into two smaller paths midway. One led toward a water source. The other avoided a low muddy area. The wheel ruts varied in depth, indicating that small beast carts often passed through, but heavy carts were uncommon. After leaving the swamp, the trees began to thin out. The ground changed from damp humus to hard-packed soil repeatedly trampled by people. The smell of rot in the air faded somewhat, replaced by heavier scents of grass, wood, and animal dung.

After another two hours, a little past noon, Rowan finally saw a human settlement. A ring of rough wooden palisades enclosed several dozen tents and hide shelters. The author's narrative has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon. Sharpened beast-bone stakes filled the perimeter. Copper bells, beast teeth, and wooden plaques covered in symbols hung from the stakes. At each of the four corners stood a tall post.

Large antlers were fixed at the top of each post, and thin cords and talisman slips hung between the antlers. When the wind blew, they made a faint sound. In the center of the camp stood several larger gray-hide tents. Beside them were piles of wooden crates, beast hides, skeleton frames, and bundles of medicinal herbs. Several beast carts were parked on the open ground to the west, their wheels half-sunk in the mud. There were two entrances on the outer side of the camp.

Everyone entering or leaving had to pass through a narrow lane hung with talisman plaques. Rowan watched from behind the trees for a long time. It should be a hunter supply camp. Antler Camp. That was the term Rowan repeatedly heard from several hunters entering and leaving. Antler Camp was positioned between the mana-beast forest and human cultivated land. Farther out were hills, pastures, and a trade road. Farther in were hunting grounds, swamps, and old forest. The location made sense.

It was not a village meant for ordinary people to live in long-term. It was a supply camp shared by hunters, herb gatherers, mercenaries, and trade caravans. As long as the wooden palisade, beast-repelling array, warning talisman posts, and that Tier 1 Mage remained, ordinary people did not need to truly live deep inside the mana-beast forest to make a living from the forest's edge. The beast-repelling array outside the wooden palisade was not strong.

Even from far away, Rowan could feel its low-frequency mana fluctuation. It could probably make ordinary beasts and mortal-grade mana-beasts uncomfortable. Against a Tier 1 mana-beast, it would at most provide warning and slight interference. The camp's real defensive strength was the Tier 1 Mage inside, along with several Martial Artists. Rowan did not approach the gate. He circled first. Long-distance observation was not enough. He needed a place where he could record continuously. A tree would not work.

Patrols and birds could spot him. Bushes would not work either. People gathered firewood during the day, and wild beasts passed through at night. If he lay in the same place for several days in a row, his scent would eventually remain. He needed a temporary base where he could hide, rest, cultivate, and withdraw at any time. Rowan looked at Chestnut. Chestnut blinked its black-bean-like eyes. Its tail paused, as if it had a bad feeling. Half an hour later, a temporary observation burrow appeared beneath a slope.

The entrance was tiny, just large enough for Rowan to squeeze through sideways. The inside was far larger than it looked from outside. It was enough for him to sit half-upright, curl up to rest, and complete basic meditation. The burrow walls had been packed firm by Chestnut. Two extremely thin ventilation slits were left above, covered on the outside by grass roots and broken leaves. The observation hole faced the west gate of Antler Camp. For the next three days, Rowan used this place as a temporary base.

During the day, he stayed inside the observation burrow. His AR gradually mapped the outside of Antler Camp. The west gate, east gate, beast cart parking area, material shed, water route, four warning talisman posts, outer ring of the beast-repelling array, patrol intervals—all of them were marked into local cache. On the first day, from dawn to sunset, sixty-seven people entered Antler Camp, and fifty-nine left. On the second day, a caravan arrived, and the number of people entering and leaving approached ninety.

On the third day, after rain, the flow dropped to just over forty. Rowan placed these numbers together with the number of tents, cooking smoke, night patrols, and water collection frequency to estimate the camp's population. Antler Camp's permanent population was roughly eighty to one hundred and twenty. When caravans arrived, it could expand to over one hundred and fifty. Those who had truly stepped into Tier 1 were few, at most four or five.

The rest were mostly ordinary people, apprentices, hunter families, herb gatherers, and porters. Antler Camp sat in the middle like a sieve at the edge of the forest, holding back mana-beast materials, hunters, caravans, and ordinary lives all in one place. Rowan recorded their conversations every day. His AR could not automatically translate the otherworld language, but it could mark repeated syllables and store them together with corresponding actions.

The word repeatedly spoken when someone handed over water was marked as "water." The short phrase that repeatedly appeared when guards blocked someone was marked as "stop" or "inspection." In the material shed, the people checking goods kept repeating "bone," "hide," "blood," "crystal," and "price." Rowan still could not fully confirm the pronunciations, but he could already match them to the items. By the third day, he could understand a few extremely short words. Water. Medicine. Danger. East. How much. Hunter.

Mage. Mana-beast. There was also one word he heard repeatedly. It usually appeared when someone was injured, or when a person was dragged back to the camp by companions. Save. Or help. He still could not guarantee the pronunciation, but he could already recognize the tone. At night, Rowan left the observation burrow. Sometimes, it was to complete his map around the camp's perimeter. Sometimes, it was only to loosen stiff limbs. He ate compressed rations brought from Terra and the remaining dried mana-beast meat.

His water was clean water condensed through water-element mana. Chestnut had little interest in compressed rations. It preferred dried mana-beast meat, which to it was more like snacks, stored and retrieved at will. Late at night, Rowan cultivated. The Lancer Mana Channeling Art flowed much more smoothly here than Terra's standard guidance method. The second mana vortex gradually began to take shape under the pull of his Mental Power.

The wolf girl and the ruin exploration had interrupted his progress with this secret art one after another. The art itself also continuously consumed Mental Power, making it unsuitable to force progress in a dangerous environment. When refining the Bone-Flesh Blade, he had simultaneously controlled long bone, fascia, blood, mana crystal, and armament patterns. That kind of multi-line control was dangerous, but it had also given him a new reference point. His auxiliary core had already reached two-fifths completion.

After these three days, its edge had stabilized another ring. It was now close to half complete. His mana pool was still a little over seventy percent of Tier 1 Single-Phase, some distance from eighty percent. Rowan was not in a hurry. The current priority was not secluded breakthrough. It was to confirm whether he could survive in this world, understand its language, find its trade rules, and then decide how to reach out. At dusk on the third day, an opportunity arrived.

The rain had not stopped long ago, and the muddy road outside Antler Camp had been trampled shiny. The eastern talisman post suddenly lit up, and the copper bells shook out a few short sounds. The guards on the wooden palisade raised their heads. At the end of the old hunting trail, a small beast cart was returning crookedly. The cart was pulled by a thin pack beast. Medicinal herbs and several bundles of wet beast hides were piled on it. Three people walked beside the cart. A middle-aged herb gatherer.

A young girl. And a spear-bearing guard. The guard walked at the rear. There was blood on his shoulder, and his left leg was clearly not moving well. Mana fluctuations came from his body, but he had not truly stepped into Tier 1. He was probably a half-step Martial Artist, or a trained hunting-team guard. Behind them followed a gray-brown mud beast. It crouched very low, its back covered in rough hard hide. When it moved, it almost pressed against the mud. Its mana fluctuation was scattered.

At first glance, it looked like an injured mortal-grade mud beast. The spear-bearing guard had clearly judged it the same way. He told the two people ahead to keep pushing the cart, while he stopped in the middle of the road, lowering his short spear and preparing to pierce the beast's throat when it lunged. Rowan frowned. Wrong. That creature's mana fluctuation was too scattered, and too even. An injured mana-beast's mana would usually leak from the wound. It would not spread across the skin like this.

That was more like restraint. The reeds suddenly split apart. The gray-brown mud beast lunged. The guard's short spear struck its shoulder, but failed to pierce through. Gray patterns suddenly bulged across its rough hide, clamping the spear tip tightly inside the muscle. The guard's face changed sharply. He wanted to release the spear and retreat, but he was already one instant too late. The mud beast opened its mouth. There were no ordinary fangs inside.

Instead, circles of inward-rotating bone teeth lined its mouth. The short spear was snapped by a slap from its front claw. The guard was pulled forward and stumbled. The ring-toothed maw was already biting toward his neck. Only then did the guards on the palisade realize something was wrong. The copper bell was struck hard. Chaotic shouts came from inside Antler Camp. Several figures rushed toward the east gate, but they were too far away to arrive in time. Rowan watched the guard. A wrong judgment.

He had mistaken a low-tier Tier 1 mana-beast disguised as mortal-grade for an injured mud beast. That was not stupidity. Border hunters dealt with danger every day. Experience could save lives. And sometimes, it could lead someone into a dead end. Rowan lowered his head and glanced at his mage robe. Too clean. He reached down, smeared mud across the hem and cuffs, then used the short blade to cut an old-looking tear into the edge of one sleeve. The high-frequency straight blade was pressed inside his robe.

The Bone-Flesh Blade hung outside where it would be easier to draw. Chestnut crawled out of the observation burrow and stood beside him. It did not hide. It only glanced at the mud beast in the distance, then at the Bone-Flesh Blade at Rowan's waist. Rowan said softly,"Let's go. It starts now." Chestnut blinked. Rowan walked out from the shadow of the bushes. The guard had already fallen to the ground, his left arm braced in front of him, barely holding back the mud beast's lower jaw.

The tooth rings scraped across his bracer with a sound that made the teeth ache. The young girl was screaming ahead. The middle-aged herb gatherer gripped a sickle, but did not dare step forward. Rowan could not understand the full sentences they were shouting. But he understood the word that kept appearing. Help. [Wellspring Step] unfolded beneath his feet. He did not draw the high-frequency straight blade.

When the Bone-Flesh Blade left its sheath, the cracks along its spine glowed faintly dark red under the dim evening light. Rowan's Mental Power touched the remaining bloodline inside the marrow cavity. The first trial piece was no longer suitable for repeated release. But one strike. It could still hold for that. A blood-colored arc flew close to the mud, passing diagonally beside the guard's ear and striking the edge of the mud beast's open tooth rings. Pfft. Gray-green smoke rose from the wound.

The mud beast's movement paused. The guard finally seized the chance and rolled away in a sorry state. Rowan slowed his steps and approached through the rain-washed white mist and mud. He did not say anything unnecessary. Only in the otherworld language he had learned over the past few days, he said one word in a low voice.

"Back."