Chapter 187
The candy cards were real—ten candy cards could be exchanged for maltose candy, as per the Hundred Beasts Tribe’s regulations. Thus, the young cub successfully traded for maltose candy.
Of course, the delivery wasn’t just for the maltose candy; it was transported alongside other needed supplies for the tribe.
This “maltose candy incident” instantly changed the perspective of many beastmen who had been skeptical about the Hundred Beasts Tribe’s delivery service.
If they could even deliver maltose candy, what couldn’t they deliver?
Before the rainy season, the Hundred Beasts Tribe successfully established its first transit hub in the western part of the Eastern Continent.
Having a transit hub meant that goods could be transported much faster than in areas without one. Nearby tribes that had previously traveled to the Hundred Beasts Tribe noticed that the transit hub had almost as many goods as the main tribe. Moreover, because there were fewer competitors, the trading process was much quicker—tribes could either go to the hub themselves or simply state their needs and wait for allocations.
After calculating the costs, the beastmen realized that whether they traveled to the transit hub with their goods or waited for a Hundred Beasts Express courier to deliver to their tribe, both options were more cost-effective than traveling all the way to the Hundred Beasts Tribe. Since the goods were the same, they decisively chose to trade at the transit hub.
For regions without transit hubs, delivery speed was slightly slower. However, since the Hundred Beasts Express was handled by the Feathered and Horse Tribes, it was still significantly faster than tribes transporting goods on their own. Additionally, when placing an order, tribes only needed to pay a small deposit upfront, with the remaining amount due upon delivery. This feature attracted a large number of tribes.
At first, tribes carefully calculated their available supplies before deciding what to trade. However, they soon discovered something—during the few days while waiting for their deliveries, they could accumulate a little more food. While it wasn’t much, it was often enough to exchange for necessities like salt. By the second transaction, they had learned to request slightly more, knowing they could gather the needed resources in time.
Bai Tu only became aware of this when the Feathered Tribe reported a discrepancy—one tribe had overstated its food reserves. When the couriers arrived, the tribe didn’t have enough goods for the exchange. According to their chief’s calculations, they had expected to catch additional prey in the days before the delivery arrived. Unfortunately, a tribe member was injured, and the prey escaped.
It wasn’t a major issue, and the tribe hadn’t deliberately falsified their numbers—it was simply an unexpected accident.
Bai Tu instructed the couriers that in such cases, they could be a bit more flexible. For example, if a tribe had enough food to exchange for ten pounds of salt but needed eleven pounds to survive the winter, they could receive the extra pound as a loan, with the requirement to repay it within a year.
Although the Hundred Beasts Tribe couldn’t feed every tribe, they could offer some reasonable assistance. Bai Tu set a borrowing limit of 20%—each tribe could receive up to 120% of the goods they could afford, with the excess counted as a loan. However, given the number of trading tribes, Bai Tu introduced an interest rule to prevent abuse.
For every 100 pounds of borrowed food, tribes had to pay an additional 2 pounds as interest per year. If they couldn’t repay on time, they had to provide a valid reason. Tribes that deliberately defaulted would be blacklisted—future cooperation would be cut off, even if they later brought goods to trade.
The interest rate was low, and even borrowing food from other tribes would cost more in repayments. As a result, many food-scarce tribes opted to take small loans to get through the rainy season.
Hundred Beasts Express expanded much faster than Bai Tu had anticipated. Distance had always been a major challenge for all tribes, and now that someone was delivering food and salt directly to their area, they only needed to travel a short distance to pick up their goods. This was far more convenient than going to the market or traveling to the Hundred Beasts Tribe.
Since the system was still developing, Bai Tu wasn’t expecting large profits from Hundred Beasts Express—as long as it generated enough food to cover operational costs, that was enough.
The first transit hub was built successfully, and tribes began trading there as soon as goods arrived. Seeing the demand, Bai Tu expanded the hub’s infrastructure by adding a small trading hall.
This hall functioned similarly to the Hundred Beasts Tribe’s marketplace, but with a simpler setup—only a few samples of each item were displayed, along with their prices. Beastmen who came to trade could inspect the samples and select what they needed. Once they confirmed their order, the stationed Hundred Beasts Tribe members would tally the items, and the exchange would proceed—goods for food, hand to hand.
When the rainy season arrived, Bai Tu analyzed the volume of exchanged goods across different regions. Areas with transit hubs had significantly higher trade volumes than other regions. While their past collaboration with the Hundred Beasts Tribe played a role, the presence of a transit hub was a key factor.
Bai Tu took out a map and began considering the locations for future transit hubs.
Since the system was proving effective, Bai Tu naturally wanted to expand it further. He had considered the need for transit hubs from the very beginning, so the tribe had been continuously producing construction materials. Besides distributing materials to tribes that had applied to build livestock enclosures, the rest were reserved for establishing new transit hubs.
The locations for these hubs had to be in spacious, unclaimed lands, preferably near several allied tribes of the Hundred Beasts Tribe. This would prevent them from being easily bullied by hostile tribes when first established.
Since other tribes would be helping to deter potential threats, they deserved some benefits in return. Bai Tu decided to offer trade discounts to tribes that actively helped build the hubs. The amount of the discount would depend on their relationship with the Hundred Beasts Tribe—tribes nearby would receive the largest discounts, while in more remote areas, tribes that helped locate and secure unclaimed land for new hubs would also receive similar privileges.
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With all these regulations in place, more than half a month had passed.
Since the rainy season was short, unlike winter, Bai Tu didn’t have the luxury of taking things slowly. He needed to figure out how to rapidly develop additional transit hubs within a limited time. Otherwise, the system would remain a delivery route rather than a delivery network.
Existing partners needed to be maintained, while new partners had to be continuously established.
Fortunately, with the tribe’s growing population and assistance from allied tribes like the Black Hawk Tribe, they managed to establish widespread connections. By the time the pre-winter market arrived, they had reached nearly every tribe across the Eastern Continent and even the easternmost parts of the Western Continent.
At first, most tribes only dared to trade small amounts of supplies. Before the rainy season, they gradually increased their trades. After the rainy season, they traded freely without hesitation. Half a month before winter, many tribes completely abandoned the market, as it was far more convenient to trade at nearby transit hubs.
The Salt Trading Tribe, which had a long-standing relationship with Bai Tu, had been involved in Hundred Beasts Express from the very beginning. They handled transportation of salt from the coast to central tribes, while the Hundred Beasts Tribe distributed salt further west. This minimized transportation time as much as possible.
With Hundred Beasts Express and the Hundred Beasts Tribe’s trade market, the market attendance plummeted compared to previous years. Why go to the market when Hundred Beasts Express was more convenient and the trade market was more comfortable?
Except for a few stubborn tribes that refused to cooperate with the Hundred Beasts Tribe, most tribes chose to trade locally.
If there was a transit hub nearby, where they could exchange goods as needed, why would they travel all the way to the market?
A journey that once took half a month could now be completed in a single day. Although the prices were slightly higher, the convenience was worth it. No risk of getting lost, no fear of encountering rogue beastmen. Even with the higher cost, local trading was ultimately cheaper once they factored in food consumption during long journeys.
As Hundred Beasts Express flourished, word spread about the Hundred Beasts Tribe’s school. Some beastmen who hadn’t considered education began to panic when they saw others sending their cubs to study. If others were sending their young ones, they had to as well.
The newly expanded school quickly reached full capacity. Bai Tu then came up with a new plan—building schools near transit hubs so that cubs could attend classes locally.
Since young cubs didn’t need to learn complex subjects, Bai Tu designed a structured curriculum to ensure they weren’t overworked. The younger the cubs, the lighter their annual learning load.
For example, Lang Sui and Lang Ying had spent most of last year playing. In beastmen terms, they were simply “practicing combat skills.” They had only learned basic numbers over the entire year.
This year, playtime was slightly reduced as the young cubs began learning simple characters. However, the workload remained light—only one character per day. Cubs under six mainly focused on recognizing characters rather than writing them, since they only gained a human form at three years old and were still unfamiliar with their transformed bodies in the first few years.
Writing practice wouldn’t start until they turned six, and by the age of ten, it would be considered impressive if they could recognize most commonly used characters.
The early years of education were fairly simple, making it easy for most sub-beastmen to handle teaching. Additionally, older cubs who had been studying in the tribe for a few years were capable of teaching the younger ones. Because of this, Bai Tu planned to move early childhood education to the transit hubs.
Once the cubs turned ten and needed to learn more advanced knowledge, such as herbal medicine, they would then transfer to the Hundred Beasts Tribe for further studies.
The early years of learning also served as a selection process—if some cubs truly struggled with academics, they would be guided toward developing other talents instead.
As Bai Tu pondered these plans, he flipped through the transit hub records, considering which location would be the best starting point.
In less than a year, the tribe had successfully constructed seven transit hubs. Positioned in a circle around the Hundred Beasts Tribe, each hub was at a similar distance from the main tribe. This strategic setup allowed efficient and secure transportation of goods while ensuring easy trade with other tribes.
With transit hubs nearby, stealing resources became a dangerous gamble—anyone planning to rob the Hundred Beasts Tribe had to consider whether they could defeat the warriors at the transit hubs.
And even if they managed that, could they defeat the entire Hundred Beasts Tribe?
Once the consequences of raiding the Hundred Beasts Tribe became clear, even the most envious tribes restrained themselves.
These areas were safe and had neighboring tribes helping guard them, making them ideal locations for schools.
After the Black Forest Tribe and West River Tribe were eliminated, no one believed in the superstition that cubs’ blood could summon the Beast God anymore. Many tribes had lost their own cubs in the past, making them extra cautious of strangers. With this heightened awareness, cubs’ safety was no longer a concern.
Building schools would be easy since transit hub schools didn’t need to be as large as the one in the Hundred Beasts Tribe. They only had to accommodate the local cubs. However, the real challenge was assigning teachers.
The sub-beastmen had lived in the Hundred Beasts Tribe for a long time. Suddenly asking them to work in a different environment reminded Bai Tu of his past life, where employees were forced to relocate due to corporate decisions. It seemed unfair.
So, before making a decision, he asked the sub-beastmen for their opinions.
To his surprise, they were very supportive.
“No problem! It’s just the transit hubs, not some faraway tribe.”
“Can I go south? It’s warmer there—I hate the cold.”
“I don’t mind the cold! I’ll go to the northern hub.”
Bai Tu had only proposed a rough idea, yet the sub-beastmen were already excitedly choosing locations. He was caught off guard.
Beside him, Bai Chi raised an eyebrow. “Tu, don’t we get to pick where we work?”
Snapping out of his daze, Bai Tu quickly nodded. “Of course! Everyone can choose whichever hub they prefer.”
Since they were so cooperative, he wouldn’t disappoint their trust. Allowing them to choose their work locations was an easy problem to solve.
“Good! You scared me for a second—I really wanted to go there.”
“The north isn’t bad either. I’ll go, but I’ll need to bring extra clothes since it’s colder there…”
Even after Bai Tu left the room, the sub-beastmen kept discussing their preferences.
After a moment, Bai Chi sighed and said, “Tu is too soft-hearted. He actually asked for opinions on something like this.”
As a tribal leader, Bai Tu could have assigned them locations without question—not just them, but even the warriors would have followed his orders without hesitation.
Yet, Bai Tu always communicated with the tribe first, ensuring that only willing volunteers took on new responsibilities. Bai Chi had never seen another leader make decisions this way.
The other sub-beastmen agreed.
“Yeah, he could’ve just assigned us randomly.”
“Even if it was inconvenient, we’d still listen to him. It’s just a change of location, nothing else.”
Outside the room, Bai Tu had stopped in his tracks. He glanced at the door, then decided to delay his meeting with Bai Chi until later that night.
He still believed discussing things was the right approach.
After all, look how well everyone cooperated.
As he gazed at the sky, a thought surfaced in his mind. He remembered someone else…
