Meng 37 was an inferior Desolate.
There wasn't a 100% chance of success for a Shaman's Wild Release ritual. And even if Wild Release was successful, there was also a chance of Wild Release being of inferior quality, leading to the grown-up Desolate having limited potential.
And Meng 37 just happened to be one of the latter, as an unknown issue had occurred when the Shaman performed his Wild Release ritual, leading to it almost failing. In the end, the ritual only barely managed to succeed, leading to Meng 37's growth being slower than others.
Currently, he was doing his best for the sake of his future.
In the tribe, every individual had their responsibilities, and any Desolate who couldn't provide any benefit to the tribe at all would be treated as a sacrifice to be offered.
Even while they were young, after basic training was over, a Desolate would still need to do things within their capabilities in order to prove their value.
Meng 37's current occupation was the same as most people in the tribe, a hunter.
His job was to hunt all living creatures with flesh outside of his own Desolate tribe in order to supply the tribe. If he couldn't bring back any appropriate prey for three months straight, he would become the prey.
An inferior Desolate's constitution was much worse compared to a superior, or even a normal Desolate, so their ranks in the tribe were always very low and were given nothing but the very worst.
Of course, it wasn't as if there wasn't a chance to change this status, one only needed to become a Warrior for the tribe by obtaining a Totem.
One tribe could only have one Shaman, who had to be none other than the strongest Warrior of the tribe. In other words, to become a Shaman, you must first become a Warrior, which was also the main system of power within the Desolate Sacrifice world.
And to become a Warrior, the very first step was to dedicate enough offering, only then would you obtain a chance of becoming a Warrior.
After dedicating this amount of offering, the Shaman would bring you in front of the Ancestral Wild altar and perform a ritual to give you a chance to witness the inside of the Ancestral Wild with your own eyes, after which everything would depend on the individual's capabilities. By memorizing anything you saw within the Ancestral Wild, even the most mundane thing, you would obtain it as your Totem.
If you couldn't even memorize a single thing, then that meant you didn't even have the most basic qualification to become a Warrior, having no choice but to live for the rest of your life as a normal person.
Usually, an inferior Desolate would find it very hard to collect enough offerings for this. Since they struggled to fulfil even the bare minimum quota of prey, it was hard to imagine any of them having excess strength to hunt even more.
Meng 37 was originally like this as well, until one day when he picked up this beast tooth.
…
Carrying a deer-like prey on his shoulder together with a number of other prey, Meng 37 slowly returned to his tribe while holding onto the beast tooth with one hand. Some sort of power was flowing from the tooth into this body.
At one point in the past, when he had gotten heavily injured while hunting and was on the verge of death in the wilderness, he unexpectedly discovered a set of skeletons inside a cave. The corpse was incredibly large, it was different from any Desolate or beasts that he had known.
As soon as he touched it, the skeleton crumbled to ash as if it had already been thoroughly scorched by flames. Searching through the ash, the only thing he found was this tooth.
While holding onto the tooth, he would feel some sort of power being guided by the tooth before it was transferred into his body. Not only were his wounds completely healed, but he gradually also noticed that the power had strengthened his body beyond that of an inferior Desolate. What was even stranger was that his senses were also heightened to the point that the majority of prey couldn't escape his gaze.
As Meng 37 slowly approached his tribe, he lowered his hand back down. While using this beast tooth, it would very clearly draw some sort of power from his surroundings; a regular Desolate wouldn't necessarily be able to detect this, but the Warriors who had obtained a Totem weren't the same.
I've finally gathered enough prey. When I make it back to the tribe, I'll request a Warrior ritual.
This time, I'll definitely become a Warrior.
Meng 37 planned things out as his tanned face displayed a resolute expression. He wished for higher status, not a forgettable lackey who could die in the wilderness without anyone to pick up his corpse for him.
I will definitely succeed.
Meng 37 confidently thought. Having the beast tooth, he felt that not even a superior Desolate could be as talented as he was.
After returning to the tribe, Meng 37 first handed in a portion of his prey to the sacrificial hut to increase the time for his proof of residency, then brought the remaining prey back home.
Other than the Shaman and Warriors, all members of the tribe had a limited time of residency, and if anyone failed to periodically hand in offerings to increase their time, they would be excommunicated from the tribe, thus becoming a target of the hunt for others.
As this was the case, the offerings that were handed in once per month could only prolong your time of residency for one month. For every year that you hand in your offerings in a timely manner, your total time of residency would increase for an extra month, thus the amount of time you were able to accumulate would directly affect your eventual old age.
Most of the time, there was always a shortage of offerings, and the sacrificial hut would determine the quota of monthly offerings in accordance with the weather and environment.
Meng 37's home was a small wooden hut at the border of the tribe, which had now accumulated a pile of prey. The tribe enforcers would ensure the basic right of wealth ownership for each member of the tribe, ensuring that there would be no stealing, robbery, or thievery in the tribe.
"There's finally enough!" looking at the prey in his home, Meng 37 finally smiled. Becoming a Warrior was his ticket to escape from the status of an inferior Desolate and to obtain more power.
Right at this moment, his door was suddenly slammed open as the captain of the enforcers stepped in while wielding his spear. Observing the prey inside his house, he coldly declared: "Meng 37, you've been found guilty of stealing prey from Meng Li, surrender yourself"
Meng 37 raised his eyebrows questioningly. He had hunted all of these preys with his own hands, so stealing was impossible, he hadn't even seen this person called Meng Li, so this was clearly a false claim.
"Sir, I think there's been some sort of misunderstanding, these preys were…" Meng 37 tried defending himself, but before he even finished talking, the enforcers had used their spears to turn some of the preys over.
When he saw the prey's body being turned over, Meng 37's expression immediately changed. Due to him constantly wearing the beast tooth, his senses had far surpassed normal people, which allowed him to finally notice that these preys weren't actually his, together with another extremely clear evidence.
"These wounds can only be caused by swords, but as far as I know, an inferior Desolate like yourself should not have a sword" the enforcer captain scoffed: "Inferiors are inferior, only capable of using these obvious tricks"
"Is it him?" a young man who was of similar age to Meng 37 entered the room from outside. After glancing at the prey, he glanced at Meng 37, then took out a metal sword and handed it to the enforcer captain.
A longhorn appeared from behind the captain, manifesting a force in his palm as he ran his hand across the blade of the sword. He took out a red aura from the sword and manipulated it to fly towards the prey, after which they entered its wounds.
"The Blood Aura is a match, what else do you have to say for yourself, Meng 37?"
At this point, Meng 37's expression had become completely pale, evidently, someone was trying to frame him.
Sitting on the roof of the wooden hut, a man whose entire body was wrapped in bandages chuckled happily while eating popcorn as he watched the drama.
