In the Blazing Wastes Ridge, where raptors hunted the sky and giant beasts ruled the land, staying alive was already a luxury. For the people of the Chìlí Tribe, expectations were simple—some meat to eat, a night of sleep without terror. That alone was fortune.
Night fell. Bonfires crackled across the stone clearing, firelight throwing shifting shadows over weathered faces. The tribe was unusually lively—men, women, and elders gathered around the flames, talking and laughing, their voices drowning out the distant roars of beasts in the dark.
"Brats, stop running around," an old man with a face full of wrinkles yelled hoarsely. "In a bit, every one of you is going in for a medicinal bath. Sleep on it tonight, and tomorrow you'll be tougher than mountain beasts!"
"Aaah—nooo!"
The children who had been circling the roasting meat exploded in panic, scattering in all directions as if hot oil had been poured on them.
"You little fools," the adults muttered, half angry, half amused. "That's a treasure broth simmered with true fiendbeast blood. You dream about meat every day, but when it's time to suffer a bit to grow stronger, you act like you're being executed."
"I don't want it! Last time it burned like fire all over!"
"Dad, let go, I don't want to be cooked into soup!"
Screams rose one after another, but small arms couldn't hope to win against calloused hands. One by one they were dragged back, dangling like rabbits caught by the scruff.
On one side of the clearing, eight massive bronze cauldrons stood in two rows. Fires roared beneath them, flames licking the bronze bellies. Water inside boiled and surged like thunder.
Several elders tossed handfuls of herbs into the cauldrons—thick roots, twisted vines with a faintly metallic sweet smell. Then came fist-sized venom spiders, hand-length black centipedes, and other uncomfortably lively ingredients that were thrown in whole. The clear water quickly turned dark and murky, rolling and churning, giving off a smell that hovered somewhere between fragrant and foul.
The children watched the water blacken and went pale one by one. Every instinct screamed at them to run back into the stone houses and barricade the doors. Unfortunately, adults' hands were firm on their shoulders. None of them were going anywhere.
Before long, several clay jars were carried over. Elders carefully opened the seals and poured out dark-red blood that was almost black. They drizzled it into the cauldrons, drop by precious drop. A strange red sheen spread across the surface of the black water. Heat surged upward, the air above the cauldrons warping from the intensity.
This was the true blood cut from the fiendbeasts they'd hunted—only a small portion from each beast, and extremely rare. Mixed with secret herbs and boiled over a long fire, it became a brew that could temper bone and blood.
On top of that, they added crushed Hornridge dragon horn, shredded Thunder Bull leg tendon, powdered Wing-Spine Python wing-bone… bit by bit, the concoction grew thicker, heavier, more potent.
When the flames were finally lowered and the contents no longer boiled, just simmered and steamed with dense vapor, the screams started.
So did the splashing.
The first batch of kids were hauled up by the neck and dumped into the cauldrons.
Two or three to a cauldron, they hit the liquid and sucked in a sharp breath at the same time—only to follow it with ear-splitting howls.
"It's boiling! This isn't water—it's fire!"
"Ahhh! My skin is tearing apart!"
They clawed at the rims, trying desperately to climb out, but the adults simply pushed their heads back down. The clearing turned into a chorus of wailing.
Dozens of children went in, batch after batch. Screams rose and fell like waves. Occasionally, one or two would clamp their teeth down and refuse to cry, their bodies shaking uncontrollably, veins bulging on their foreheads—but still not uttering a sound.
Little Dou'er, of course, didn't escape.
If anything, he received special treatment.
He was tossed alone into a dark, heavy cauldron set a little apart from the rest. Very little water had been added to it—inside was almost pure medicinal slurry and true blood, thick enough to cling to the skin, flecked with floating bits of crushed bone.
The children in the other cauldrons took one look at that viscous, glistening mess and immediately felt better about their own situation.
A few adults even hesitated. Dou'er was so small that he disappeared almost completely when dropped in. One careless moment and he could choke to death. Sure enough, the instant he went under, he gulped down several mouthfuls. He surfaced coughing and choking, tears and snot streaming, his little hands paddling desperately.
"Don't worry. This isn't his first time," the old chief said mildly from the side. "For someone his age, his constitution is… unusual. And he already has the Sourcebone Imprint as a foundation. He can take it."
Another white-bearded elder stroked his beard and nodded. "The bone pattern in his body circulates on its own. Half the medicinal force will be dragged along those lines. He'll refine more than he loses."
The medicinal bath went on for a long time. Night deepened. Firelight painted the children's bodies a fierce, feverish red.
When it finally ended, the kids were fished out one by one.
They looked like a group of skinned red monkeys—eyes swollen, lips trembling, teeth chattering. Every time one of them met another's gaze, their eyes burned and nearly filled up again.
Dou'er, bobbing out of the black cauldron, hadn't cried at all. His wide black eyes spun curiously, his little face flushed like a ripe fruit. His body was soft as noodles. When someone lifted him by the back of his collar, his legs swung twice before hanging limp.
"How do you feel?" an elder asked.
He blinked blearily, then let out a tiny burp."Full…" he mumbled in a milky voice.
Everyone froze. Then the clearing burst into laughter.
"Tired," Dou'er added, tilting his head. He slumped straight into the chief's arms, muttered something that sounded like "waa…" and slipped into deep sleep on the spot.
"Take the brats home and let them sleep. By tomorrow, each of them will have made progress," the chief ordered.
Once the children had been carried off, the elders didn't waste the remaining liquid in the cauldrons. They added a few special herbs and lit the fires again, simmering the brew down slowly. When the mixture reduced to a thick, dry crust, they scraped it out carefully and stored it away.
This was one of the tribe's most precious life-saving powders.
In these wild ridges, fiendbeasts were hard to kill and true blood even harder to come by. Even bathwater that children had soaked in would be boiled down to its last trace of potency. That was how the Chìlí Tribe treated survival.
That night, every child slept like a stone.
At dawn, the tribe rang with fresh screams.
"Ah—my skin!"
"Mom! Why is my skin peeling off in chunks?!"
Children jumped off their stone beds, horrified. Gray flakes shed from their bodies, scattering all over the bedding like dried bark.
"Go," the adults said, wrinkling their noses. "Draw water and scrub yourselves clean. After that, go try lifting the grindstone."
"That's for big brother to train with! I can't even budge it…"
"Less whining. You think that whole cauldron of medicine was just hot bathwater? If you can't lift it, your backside's going to bloom like a flower. Now move!"
Soon, the morning of the Chìlí Tribe descended into lively chaos. Kids were shoved out to haul stones and carry water jars, yelping and complaining all the way.
But before long, even they noticed something was different.
Their hands and feet felt stronger. Weight that used to crush their shoulders now only made them grunt. It wasn't a miraculous rebirth, but the increase in raw strength was obvious.
Elsewhere, in front of the chief's stone house, the old man stood with bone patterns glowing faintly on his palm. He hefted a heavy violet-gold hammer and smashed it down on a section of Hornridge dragon horn, turning the densest part into shards. Then he pulled out a piece of Dread Tapir claw bone, a short length of Blazehorn Rhino horn, and crushed them one by one, grinding all of it into a fine powder.
He poured the bone dust into a pot of simmering beast milk. The milky-white liquid took on a faint golden-red sheen, its aroma growing richer by the breath.
Next, he sliced several strange-looking herbs into thin pieces and tossed them into the clay pot to cook together with the mixture. Before long, the liquid thickened into a glossy, fragrant paste.
"Dou'er, time to eat."
Inside the stone house, the little boy had just woken up. His hair stuck out in all directions, and his eyes were still hazy with sleep. The moment he heard the word "eat," he shot upright. He sniffed hard, and his spirit returned instantly.
"Smells good…"
"This batch is brewed just for you," the chief said with a smile. "Not a single drop stays in the pot. You're going to finish it all."
Dou'er didn't hesitate for even a heartbeat. He wrapped his arms around the clay jar and dug in, devouring the paste with reckless enthusiasm. In no time, the jar was scraped clean, not even a trace left on the sides.
The side effects hit just as fast.
He was still very young, and this single pot was outrageously strong. Within minutes, his little face flushed so red it looked painted, his eyes turned bright and wet, and his energy snapped loose like a broken rope.
He burst out of the stone house like a small beast off its leash, darting through the tribe like a gust of wind.
The unlucky yellow dog was once again the first victim. Its tail was seized—firmly. It was dragged in circles across the ground, howling nonstop, certain its tail was about to be yanked bald.
"Hey! Dou'er! Why are you pulling down Auntie's fence?!"
"Hey, hey, hey—that's dried beast hide! Put it down! Don't climb onto the roof—little devil, you try pulling one tile off and see what happens!"
The tribe plunged into chaos. The usually obedient little bean had turned into a tiny disaster beast, going wherever he could cause the most trouble.
The chief and a few elders stood in the distance, watching the mess unfold with broad grins.
"If one furnace of medicine can't pin him down, it means he's absorbing it well."
"Mhm. The bone pattern's spread from his palms up into his forearms."
Their gazes followed Dou'er. As he ran, his small hands swung energetically, faint dark-gold light flickering across his palms. The glow crawled up along his skin, sketching blurry bone-pattern outlines along his forearms, sometimes sharp, sometimes fading, filled with a quiet, eerie mystery.
It wasn't just strength—his speed had clearly sharpened as well. His figure flitted between the stone houses like a shadow off its chain, bouncing from one mess to the next.
Farther away, the kids being forced to move stones paused to gawk.
They all shivered at the same time and instinctively shuffled farther away from the chief, whispering among themselves:
"Dou'er's life is rough…"
It took a full two hours before Dou'er finally burned through the worst of it. He slumped onto the ground like someone had drained him dry, scratching his head in a daze.
"Waa… feels like… I might've… caused trouble…" he muttered under his breath.