Chapter 192
No matter how unwilling Lang Ze was, he was still taken away. After all, as much as he wanted to accompany the young cubs, his main duty was patrolling and ensuring the safety of the transit hubs.
Letting Bai Tu or Lang Qi spend time with the cubs was fine, but whenever Lang Ze was involved, it usually wasn’t a good thing.
Bai Tu and Lang Qian had a lot to discuss, and it wasn’t until the rainy season was approaching that Lang Qian returned with a list of tribes that had agreed to cooperate.
A total of eight tribes planned to establish transit hubs. Among them, five agreed to cooperate with the Hundred Beasts Tribe and build hubs in more distant locations, while the remaining three were still hesitant. Many of the farther tribes had never heard of this “express delivery” exchange system, and there was uncertainty about whether people in those areas would be willing to trade.
Bai Tu respected their choices and proceeded to discuss the details with the five tribes that agreed to cooperate.
After the rainy season, the Hundred Beasts Tribe planned to establish several more transit hubs outside the existing ones. These cooperating tribes would send people to manage them. During the rainy season, members from these tribes could come to the existing transit hubs to learn the system, so that once the new hubs were built, they could start working immediately. As for record-keeping and other administrative tasks, the tribe happened to have a group of young beastmen who were coming of age.
“These young ones have been learning within the tribe for several years. They’re the first group of students we’ve trained, meaning they’ve acquired the most knowledge. While working, they can also teach you,” Bai Tu explained.
He was referring to the young beastmen who had been rescued from the Red Eagle Tribe. Most of the younger cubs had already been reunited with their families and returned to their original tribes, but the older ones—who had been taken to the Red Eagle Tribe for so many years—had no families left to return to and had continued living in the Hundred Beasts Tribe.
Back when the Hundred Beasts Tribe was struggling, these young beastmen had helped out a lot. As the tribe gradually improved, their main focus shifted to studying. Now, after several years, they had reached the age of graduation.
Bai Tu had originally been unsure of how to arrange work for these newly-adult beastmen. The sub-beastmen in the tribe had adapted well to various schools, and their success had even attracted some sub-beastmen who had previously left with their original tribes. For now, there was no shortage of teachers, nor was there an urgent need to adjust other job roles.
In the past, beastmen had shorter lifespans due to hunger and other hardships. But now, with an abundance of food in the tribe, they no longer needed to spend every day hunting for survival.
With less stress and better nutrition, not only had they avoided signs of aging, but Bai An and the others even looked younger than when Bai Tu had first awakened.
The initial plan had been to gradually reduce the workload for older beastmen. However, as soon as this idea was suggested, it was firmly rejected by the elderly members of the tribe.
According to them, their current work was already much easier than before. If their workload was reduced any further, they might as well be considered useless. Instead, they suggested that the young cubs be given more time to play and start working a few years later.
Bai Tu had no intention of letting anyone be idle, but sending newly-adult, inexperienced beastmen to develop new transit hubs was out of the question. However, assigning them bookkeeping tasks for the affiliated tribes was a much better fit. If any beastmen were uncooperative, the affiliated tribes would naturally handle the issue.
The tribes that agreed to cooperate with the Hundred Beasts Tribe had already done their research. They knew that the Hundred Beasts Tribe had started studying written language long ago. The very concept of writing had been introduced to them through tribes that were familiar with the Hundred Beasts Tribe.
It was said that once someone learned to write, they could send messages without having to rely on a messenger verbally delivering the content. This idea sounded incredibly mysterious to them.
They had also heard that beastmen who learned to read and write often knew about herbs—and some could even make medicine.
Upon hearing Bai Tu say that literate beastmen would be sent to assist them, several tribal leaders became excited. Did this mean their tribes could also learn about medicinal herbs?
Bai Tu nodded. “Of course. If you want to learn more about herbs, I can send a few sub-beastmen over.”
The newly graduated students did know a fair amount about herbs, but they were still slightly lacking compared to sub-beastmen. If these tribes wanted to learn medical knowledge, sending sub-beastmen would be a safer and more effective option.
These tribes were located a bit farther from the Hundred Beasts Tribe and were not as familiar with them as the tribes on the Eastern Continent, who had already built strong ties. They had missed previous opportunities to send their young cubs to study in the Hundred Beasts Tribe. Now that they had the chance to learn, they were eager to seize it.
Bai Tu was pleased to see their enthusiasm for learning. Education meant more interaction, which in turn would lead to stronger connections between tribes.
One of the major reasons so many sub-beastmen had suffered in the past was the lack of communication between tribes. When something happened to one tribe, it often took a long time for others to hear about it, causing them to miss the best window to respond.
By the time the entire continent was aware of the situation, the belief that sub-beastmen were being punished by the Beast God had already spread, and it was too late to stop the disaster.
If such an event were to happen now, people like Wu Jiu would never have been able to capture all the sub-beastmen so easily, nor would they have been able to spread such harmful rumors.
Although Bai Tu was confident that such a tragedy wouldn’t happen again, he still wanted to take precautions. By encouraging all beastmen to learn more knowledge and develop a deeper understanding of the world, they would be able to recognize troublemakers the moment they appeared.
Initially, only the tribes near the Eastern Continent chose to join the alliance. But as the reputation of Hundred Beasts Express spread, several tribes that had been hesitant before also agreed to cooperate.
The conditions Bai Tu offered remained the same. However, with the first batch of affiliated tribes already succeeding, the process became much smoother for the newer ones. Following the existing transit hub plans, they selected suitable locations, transported building materials, and established new hubs. Then, representatives were sent to help with promotions, record-keeping, and other administrative tasks.
As the number of transit hubs grew, their size also expanded. Initially, each hub only had a warehouse, a school, and a trading post. Later, they added medical clinics and food streets.
The medical clinics were a standardized feature established by the Hundred Beasts Tribe. Any transit hub built by them—or by a cooperating tribe—set aside a few rooms specifically for treating injured beastmen. If a beastman in the area got hurt, they could be taken directly to the clinic for treatment.
Most of the staff in the medical clinics were sub-beastmen, though there were also some young female or male beastmen, all of whom had been trained in the Hundred Beasts Tribe. Everyone got along well.
At first, no one dared to enter the clinics for treatment. In the past, shamans charged a large amount of food for treating injuries, and although the healers in these clinics were no longer called shamans, many still feared that they would be required to pay several baskets of food just to leave after treatment.
Upon hearing this concern, Bai Tu immediately listed the costs of various treatments and medicines and posted them outside each clinic.
Not all beastmen were literate, but they could always ask someone to read it for them. Minor wounds only required a few points, while more serious injuries cost around a hundred points. For those who were severely injured and unconscious, the cost was higher—but considering the severity of their condition, charging more was reasonable. Even then, the cost was far lower than what shamans used to demand for treating minor cuts.
The clinics were quickly accepted. Dangerous areas were common outside the settlements, and even though hunting was no longer necessary, beastmen frequently went out. If they were unlucky, they would get injured—especially those who still preferred walking barefoot, often stepping on sharp stones or branches. Without treatment, such injuries could take more than ten days to heal. But with proper bandaging at the clinic, they could recover within a few days.
Beastmen who healed quickly were eager to spread the word about the clinics. Many were surprised that injuries that used to take weeks to heal now recovered in just a few days. However, the real reason wasn’t advanced medical techniques but rather simple hygiene—keeping wounds clean prevented infections.
Beastmen weren’t particularly meticulous about hygiene. If they injured their foot, they would simply smear some medicine on it and continue walking, allowing dirt, leaves, and other debris to enter the wound, leading to prolonged inflammation. Bandaging might use up some cloth, but it effectively kept contaminants out, allowing wounds to heal faster.
With word spreading, even beastmen who rarely visited the transit hubs learned that the clinics provided affordable and effective treatment. Injuries that once took weeks to heal could now be treated in days. Even those who had fallen unconscious—who previously might have never woken up—could fully recover after staying in the clinic for ten to fifteen days.
For minor cuts or punctures, beastmen began purchasing medicine to treat themselves. But for more serious wounds that wouldn’t stop bleeding, they quickly formed a habit of visiting the clinic. After all, ten to a hundred points could be earned back in a few days, whereas untreated injuries could leave permanent damage.
Even though hunting was no longer a necessity for most tribes, injuries still affected mobility. As a result, beastmen who lacked the necessary points would either borrow from others or put the cost on credit, working at the transit hubs to pay off their debt.
As trust in the clinics grew, the range of medical issues people sought help for expanded.
At first, only injuries were treated. But soon, beastmen started coming in with other questions, such as, “Shaman, when will we have cubs?”
The entire clinic fell into silence.
How were they supposed to know when these beastmen would have cubs? And why were they suddenly asking this?
One of the healers patiently explained, “We only treat injuries. We don’t predict when you’ll have cubs.” If complications arose during childbirth, they could assist, but determining when cubs would be conceived was beyond their expertise.
The questioning beastman looked serious. “But aren’t you from the Hundred Beasts Tribe? I heard all beastmen from there know about cubs.”
Silence. Deafening silence.
When Bai Tu heard about this, he too was speechless. Where did this rumor come from? And how did it get so exaggerated?
Still, the fact that people were coming to the clinics for advice showed something important—more beastmen now knew about the clinics and no longer chose to endure injuries on their own.
*
The food streets also developed rapidly. Tribes living near the transit hubs could send people to the Hundred Beasts Tribe to learn new cooking techniques. After choosing which foods to specialize in, they could rent a stall near the transit hub’s canteen and sell their dishes to beastmen coming in for trade.
Not all tribes had members who had trained in the Hundred Beasts Tribe, so many of the new foods were unfamiliar and highly sought after. At first, beastmen only indulged in these delicacies during trade exchanges, but as conditions in the tribes improved, they couldn’t resist visiting more frequently.
For beastmen, the two most important things were food and safety. As their tribes became more prosperous, concerns about safety diminished. After all, with abundant food, there was no need to risk raiding other tribes. As a result, their focus shifted toward improving their diets, driving the food street’s popularity even higher.
At first, everyone’s goal was simply to enjoy a good meal every now and then—things like canned food, jerky, dried fruit, and candy. These were usually eaten only a few times a year, such as when the tribe had an abundance of supplies before the rainy or snowy seasons. After successfully making it through those harsh seasons, they would celebrate with another good meal. Four times a year was enough to satisfy them.
But as the tribe’s resources grew more abundant, four times a year was no longer enough. After all, with more and more prey being caught, simply stockpiling food without eating it felt like a waste.
Beastmen started visiting the transit hubs more frequently. Even if they weren’t in urgent need of salt or preparing for the rainy or snowy seasons, they would still exchange for some delicious food as a treat.
Later, they began bringing more food back to their tribes, tasting new things from time to time.
However, there were only so many types of preserved foods like jerky and canned goods. Eating them too often made them less appealing. When these foods were a rare treat, they were exciting, but once they became readily available, the novelty wore off.
That was when the food streets emerged. The variety of flavors was unlike anything beastmen had experienced before—most dishes were entirely new to them. The only downside was that they were expensive.
Expensive food couldn’t be eaten often, but indulging occasionally was fine. Seeing others enjoy their meals so much, beastmen who had some extra points couldn’t resist buying a portion for themselves. If they found something delicious, they would buy extra to take home.
Every time they visited, they would bring back one or two portions. Within two days, the food would be gone, and when someone from their tribe set out to trade, they would ask them to bring back more. And so, the food streets grew more and more popular.
“Tu, how did you come up with the idea for food streets?” Lang Qian asked while helping Bai Tu with the accounts. The more he looked, the more shocked he became. There weren’t many food streets, but every single one of them generated substantial revenue.
“Once people have enough to eat, they start seeking better flavors,” Bai Tu replied.
When food was scarce, everyone simply wanted to eat more. But when food became plentiful, people naturally started craving more delicious meals.
From Bai Tu’s perspective, the Beast God Continent was vast yet sparsely populated.
In the past, there wasn’t enough prey, and many tribes teetered on the edge of starvation. Their food supply relied entirely on wild animals reproducing naturally—but how much could that provide?
Both beastmen and prey struggled during the rainy and snowy seasons. If the animals weren’t protected when necessary, there wouldn’t be many left when it came time to hunt.
Moreover, there were many edible crops and vegetables, but due to lack of communication, they were only grown near a few specific tribes.
Some tribes even believed that certain plants were a divine gift from the Beast God and didn’t dare to cultivate them themselves, relying solely on the seeds that fell naturally from last year’s plants. With such limited growing areas, food production was inevitably low.
The introduction of farming and animal domestication directly solved these problems. Chickens, ducks, and geese could grow to full size in just six months, or even be eaten as young as three or four months. Pigs, cows, and sheep took longer, but when they were ready, they provided hundreds of pounds of meat per animal. With proper agricultural techniques to enrich the soil, beastmen could easily become self-sufficient.
Another major factor was housing. In the past, most beastmen endured winter in caves, which provided poor insulation. To stay warm, they had to eat more food to generate body heat. But now, their homes were far warmer, reducing their need for extra food.
According to Bai Tu’s calculations, most beastmen’ food intake had noticeably decreased, especially during two key periods: before winter and during the dry season in summer.
Before winter, they ate less because their bodies had adapted to staying warm, knowing they no longer needed to store as much fat. In summer, they ate less because, in the past, they would have been busy hunting, which required more energy and increased their appetite. But now, with less physical activity, their energy consumption dropped, so they needed less food.
Of course, this pattern applied to most beastmen—but for the wolf tribe, whose members remained as energetic as ever year-round, things were a little different.
Bai Tu looked at the application form for the Lang Ze team’s upcoming departure, stared at the food column for a long time, turned around and asked the Lang Gan beside him: “Has the appetite of the little wolves increased recently?”
