Free Web NovelChapter 140: Chapter 140: The Final Decision
After a night and a morning of observation, Kaelen did not find anything unusual on Ryder’s body. Therefore, after finishing lunch, he planned to send Ryder to the nursery.
However, right after saying he would take Ryder to the nursery, his two children opened their mouths and wailed, clinging tightly to the mouse cub, not letting him take the boy away.
Kaelen helplessly shook his head and said:
"I told you yesterday that I would take you to Zale’s place. Ryder cannot come along. If you like him that much, I will talk to Weston about letting Ryder stay at our house for good, okay?"
Ryder’s small ears twitched. Not caring whether his older brother agreed or not, the boy hastily sold himself out: "Yes, yes, I am very good, and I eat very little! I won’t cause you any trouble!"
Kaelen chuckled: "Alright then, now I will take you to the nursery, and then I will go talk to your older brother."
Saying that, he took his two children to Zale’s place first, then circled back to take Ryder to the nursery. After settling the three little ones, he got on the ox cart and headed straight to Obsidian. The ox cart had been modified by Cassian with rubber tires made from tree sap; although it didn’t have the good elasticity of modern rubber, its speed was already three times faster than the previous wooden wheels.
The journey to Obsidian, which used to take nearly two hours of driving, was now shortened to just thirty minutes. Therefore, Weston being able to come pick up Ryder on time after getting off work was entirely thanks to this cart.
Kaelen suddenly remembered Sane saying he would tame horses. If tamed, not only would the time to Obsidian be shortened, but even the travel time to the ore mining area and the coal mining area would be significantly reduced.
When Kaelen arrived, Weston was busy making nests for the silkworms.
The tribe began incubating silkworm eggs at the end of January, when the mulberry leaves were just fresh and tender enough. Silkworms developed very quickly; from the time the eggs hatched into young larvae (ant silkworms) until they started spinning silk usually took about 20 to 30 days.
Silkworms would go through 5 instars with 4 molts. The stages with the most eating were the 4th and 5th instars (often called the ravenous eating stage). After the 4th molt, entering the 5th instar, the silkworms would eat mulberry leaves continuously for about 6 to 8 days. Once they had accumulated enough nutrients, the silkworms stopped eating, their bodies shortened, their skin became taut, shiny, and slightly transparent, turning a pale yellow. This was when they were "ripe silkworms" and began to crawl away to find a suitable place (spinning mountages) to spin silk and make cocoons.
At this point, the task of the silkworm rearer was to use thin wooden frames assembled into a nest consisting of many thumb-sized square compartments, and place the ripe silkworms inside.
When Kaelen stepped into the silkworm rearing area, he already saw Mie holding his pregnant belly, moving back and forth between the silkworm trays to check. Seeing that, he called out: "Mie."
Mie stopped and turned around. Seeing Kaelen arriving, he left his work behind and hurriedly came up to welcome Kaelen:
"High Priest, why are you here?" Up until now, aside from the elders and Walter who still dared to call Kaelen by his name, everyone else called him High Priest.
Kaelen nodded, looked down at Mie’s belly, frowned, and said: "Calculating the time, you are about to give birth. Cael has already made a nest in the delivery room, what are you still running around out here for? It would be a miracle if Theron doesn’t scold you to death when he gets back!"
Mie embarrassedly scratched the tip of his nose and said: "I can’t sit still in one place. Furthermore, right now is the most crucial silk-spinning stage that you mentioned. If I don’t supervise it myself, I can’t feel at ease."
Then he whispered in a low voice: "Please don’t tell Theron~"
Kaelen burst out laughing: "Alright, I’m not a tattletale anyway. You should also quickly hand over your work to go back and wait for delivery. The conditions over here aren’t like in the central tribe, don’t let an accident happen when the time comes. Right, where is Weston? I have something I want to talk to him about."
"Weston is in the backyard making silkworm nests. Let me go call him."
Of course, Kaelen wouldn’t let a pregnant man run back and forth, so he went to the backyard to find Weston himself. In this place, besides Weston, there were a few other people. Kaelen called Weston aside to a corner and expressed his intention:
"You probably don’t know yet, Ryder has already transformed, just last night."
Weston was so shocked his jaw dropped, saying in confusion: "Ryder is only five years old, how could he have transformed already?" He tried to think carefully to see if he had remembered Ryder’s age wrong. After all, when he picked up the boy next to his Papa’s corpse, the boy was just a newly born mouse cub.
Or perhaps at that time the boy was actually already one year old, and he had misunderstood?
Kaelen nodded firmly: "That’s right, he is indeed only five years old, but his talent is extremely high. Entering the transformation period early is not impossible."
His voice carried a bit of worry: "I am afraid that an early transformation will leave serious consequences, so I want to keep him by my side for convenient monitoring. In the coming time, Ryder will stay with me and the Chief. As you know, the Chief and I will soon set out to find resources for the tribe’s development, and we might have to bring Ryder along. Do you agree?"
Weston lowered his head in thought. Although he felt reluctant, he knew this was best for Ryder. Furthermore, Ryder was very much loved by the High Priest. If the boy was personally taught by the High Priest, his future would be much brighter than staying with Weston. Weston took a deep breath and said with determination:
"Since you have such kind intentions, High Priest, I will accept on behalf of Ryder. I will have to trouble you and the Chief with Ryder."
Kaelen nodded and said: "At least for this month we will still be in the tribe, you can come visit Ryder whenever you are free."
"Yes." Weston bowed deeply to Kaelen.
What needed to be said had been said. Kaelen took a stroll around the silkworm rearing area, pointed out a few things to note, and then went to Walter’s place to chat for a while. Nordhal had completely entrusted this area to Walter and Anthony, and the two of them also managed it extremely well.
When he arrived, Walter was sitting on Anthony’s back, smugly watching a match in the distance, occasionally shouting a few instigating remarks. Kaelen curiously approached and asked:
"Why are those two fighting? Aren’t you going to manage it?"
Walter turned and waved at Kaelen, happily saying: "Hehe, isn’t it because of the new marriage law announced this morning? They are competing to decide who takes the initiative. Since this morning, four couples have gone up to the arena. Two couples fought to a draw, so they decided to take turns alternating shifts."
Kaelen: "..." Attention, attention, you are a Sub-Beast, is it really okay for you to talk about beastmen’s affairs like that?!
Walter was arbitrary like that, but this white tiger Anthony wasn’t annoyed at all, even chiming in with Walter: "I think this couple might end up in a draw too."
Walter pouted: "No way, don’t you see that blond Lion is letting that Black Wolf win? He’ll definitely pretend to lose later."
Just as Walter predicted, that Lion beastman really lost. Furthermore, that doting expression on his face really left people speechless.
Kaelen: "..." I refuse to understand the brain circuits of these primitive people.
He looked at the interaction between Walter and Anthony again, rubbing his chin and smiling mysteriously. Ever since this white tiger got his brain cleared, he had started to become more cunning. It seemed the tribe was getting ready to welcome a new mating ceremony. Kaelen just didn’t know if he would be present in the tribe to officiate for them at that time.
After chatting with Walter and Anthony for a while, Kaelen set off to return to the central area. Calculating the time, Sane would probably finish processing the route to the ore mine in a few days. Next, from the ore mine, the road would branch out into a route to the desert and a route to the coal mine.
Desert sand was a good thing. Not only did it help smelt high-purity glass, but desert dust was also an invaluable natural fertilizer. Besides growing watermelons, he also wanted to plant cassava and sorghum in this place. Additionally, Kaelen was confident enough that he would find many other food crops such as potatoes, sweet potatoes, carrots, radishes, peanuts...
On this outing, besides searching for his sons, he also wanted to search for the seeds of many other plants, making Crimson’s agriculture richer and more diverse. With food in hand, they wouldn’t have to worry about hunger or thirst anymore. Even if Crimson’s population became crowded in the future, everyone would no longer worry about lacking food and clothing, nor would they be easily manipulated by the Beast City, the Temple, or the high-level tribes.
As soon as Kaelen set foot on the ground, a guard ran over to report that his two brats had caused trouble at the military camp again. Kaelen hastily jumped back onto the cart, rushing at full speed back to the stationing area of squad two.
Right after stepping into the barracks, he thought he had wandered into some uncultivated primeval forest. Everywhere, trees grew crookedly without any rules, and moreover, all sorts of swamps appeared like traps. Kaelen even saw a beastman submerged entirely under a swamp, with only his head sticking out.
The beastman didn’t dare to move, waiting for a Wood-attribute Divine Energy warrior to use vines to pull him up. Zale was commanding the rescue efforts; as soon as he saw Kaelen, he immediately ran over. With one hand, Zale held the jaguar cub by the scruff of the neck, and with the other hand, he dangled the pouch containing the little Sub-Beast, shoving those two troublemakers directly into Kaelen’s hands. Zale hissed through his teeth:
"Take them back for me, will you! From tomorrow onwards, don’t let them out anymore!"
Kaelen took his two little brats, giving a couple of awkward laughs. In the end, he had to dig out two-thirds of his family’s fortune to compensate the soldiers of squad two for their mental distress.
"Our family is about to become the poorest household in the tribe!" He looked helplessly at his two children. Finnick and Oliver both turned their faces away, not daring to look at Papa.
Just now, they had finally learned how to use the Divine Energy that Papa taught. Temporarily overly excited, they forgot to control their Magical Energy, leading to an unsalvageable situation. Luckily, Zale’s squad was not weak; before the disaster could fully strike, they had managed to escape in time.
In the end, squad two’s stationing area could no longer be used. Zale had to request approval to relocate near Nordhal’s squad one. Also from that day on, news about the Chief’s two little demons spread at lightning speed; all the squads refused to accept the two of them.
Kaelen was also afraid they would destroy other people’s homes, so he didn’t dare to ask anyone else to look after them anymore, carrying his children with him wherever he went. When teaching his children to use Divine Energy, he also had to run out to the periphery of the tribe to avoid damaging any structures.
In any case, his wallet was now completely flat. If the little ones destroyed anything else, even if he sold Sane, it wouldn’t be enough to pay off the debt.
