Towards Hefei City 1

After the campaign, Xiao Fan had gone to recuperate from all the wounds he had on his body, as even listing them was a small list starting from a small scar on his calf to a shoulder that was almost ripped off.

His seclusion also had another thing in mind, that being Du Lan's breakthrough to become a cultivator.

While one of them had been slacking on physical training on the campaign trail after so many injuries, one of them hadn't her being Du Lan.

She had been working hard every day, bookings her days full of work since her duties consisted of taking care of Xiao Fan's every need that he could think of, while also training herself to become a cultivator before heading towards the tournament venue with Xiao Fan.

Her guess about Du Huan had also been right, as Du Huan hadn't been spotted by any monkey around their old area or the newly annexed areas of the two tribes around them.

That was however, the end of bad news for her because her efforts to become a cultivator hadn't been in vain as only after a few days they had come back suddenly during training she had dropped like a doll on the floor holding her chest area, marking her becoming like him.

Xiao Fan then had carried her into a bed to wake up as grade one Body Warming realm cultivator.

Waking up, she did shed some tears of happiness while mischievously hugging Xiao Fan's chest with her assets.

Xiao Fan had even finally become interested in all the small things she would do around him, and surely didn't deny her at all from doing them.

Furthermore, Xiao Fan had started to become very dependant on Du Lan, making everything for him while he was either recovering or acted as a trainer for her, yet the trade-off didn't feel fair to him.

She was making all things from applying medication to cooking every meal for him, whereas he only talked to her about mutually exciting things.

All this had made him hooked on her pretty badly.

Also speaking about the two tribes. On the Lion tribe's side, no one was left as virtually every lion that by some miracle had survived back home were eaten as food.

On the other hand, the Gorilla tribe had become a force inside Monkey tribe, but it was also clear to everyone that the gorillas would always be a level below a monkey here, as even the Gorilla tribe's chief wasn't taken seriously even if he had a top tier cultivation grade.

When their isolation had lasted for a week or a little more, Xiao Fan ended it by walking to Uruk's cave to talk about his next plans.

However, when he got inside, he was surprised to find that Uruk was talking to the leader of the gorilla's inside his tribe, and as Du Lan had told her, Xiao Fan had missed his shot to ally him, and Uruk had done so in his stead.

Xiao Fan felt some regret in this, but the matter of who leads the Monkey tribe didn't trouble him much.

For him, the Monkey tribe was a home and a pool to pull manpower from, and if those two were met would he be happy with Uruk or anyone else leading; moreover it saved the time from him.

In their short talk after the small shock, Xiao Fan talked about leaving the Monkey tribe to go on a journey.

Hearing about this Uruk didn't try to convince him to stay only making a few remarks that he will surely be missed and that when he comes back, he will have the power of second in command if he was worthy of it anymore.

He said so as after so many decisive victories and new cultivation methods the Monkey tribe had become little cocky, and many were feeling confident that they could soon beat Xiao Fan.

Uruk himself had also broken through a bottleneck he had been most of his life, and the other monkeys were feeling their cultivation becoming smooth.

They hadn't forgotten this was all thanks to Xiao Fan, but if someday he would be understrength to be second in command they wouldn't keep him as second in command.

Simple as animals are, he reasoned and accepted what Uruk has spoken.

So after formalities were over and he had gathered enough herbs to continue his journey, he left with Du Lan to find more challenges and towards the tournament with his first seclusion now over.

Xiao Fan was now healthy enough, and Du Lan wanted real fights as using a bow in friendly duels had a way too high casualty rate, so she had only used her fist.

Not that she was terrible in that, but her calling was with the bow, and if it was so they would need to find a better bow, considering that her current one wasn't suitable for her at all anymore.

First thing after leaving the cave entrance, they walked towards the place they had met only a few weeks ago.

Where a message was waiting for them, or more specifically, it was waiting for Du Lan as it was from her sister.

The message was in the spot that if she would never come around here would she first look at this spot, as it was the boulder that had her arrow marked.

The message itself read.

¨Du Lan if you haven't come here in a year's time I will take that you are dead forever¨ The message was crudely carved and short.

Giving a moment for Du Lan to think about things Xiao Fan opened up later saying ¨What does that rock say?¨

Saying this, he, for the very first time, noticed how he couldn't read and had so asked what the carvings told.

Du Lan, for a moment not saying anything, was unintentionally giving Cao Cao space to laugh a bit in a loud voice about Xiao Fans idiocy before she gave a reply.

¨It's about my sister asking for me to carve something here if I'm alive anymore in a year or she will take me as dead¨ She said normally; however she also soon, noticed what the hell was wrong.

Turning to face him, she looked at him very weirdly, for this man didn't know how to read? Was he the same guy who only slept every third night so he could maximise his reading time on the two books?

After a moment of staring, she asked ¨You don't know how to read?¨

¨Of course I do!... I just don't know this language you see¨ He said in a roundabout way, as to how could he say that he didn't know how to read!

It would be okay for him not to know how to do things women did but saying he didn't know how to read? He would never say something like that to her, she would think him as an idiot who spends all his days reading books he knew not how to read.

Even Cao Cao became interested in watching this drama where the boy is trying his best not to say that he had any mistakes to his crush.

Du Lan didn't show anything suspicious towards him, as there was nothing to gain from shunning him, but having her suspicions, she offered to teach him.

¨I can teach you this language if you want, just remember when we get into a bigger city, you will take me somewhere nice¨ She offered a win-win deal for both of them.

¨Deal!¨ He didn't think about it more after hearing that the prize was to take her out sometime. Even if he had no money right now before long, he would have enough money to take her somewhere nice.

¨Good. Now just let me carve a message back to Du Huan before we leave¨ And then without waiting for his response, Du Lan started to carve a message back to her sister while also teaching some of the very basic to him.

After that event, most of their time on the journey would be spent on Du Lan teaching words for him by either repeating words or forming a sentence while they travelled the track.

The track they had taken wasn't even the one going to Greenwood Town because they were taking the road that began from Greenwood Town and continued towards Hefei City.

They had made a decision not to go inside Greenwood Town. It would only make them much trouble for them, and the message Du Lan had left was enough of a message for her family.

So they were now tracking a path towards somewhere neither of them was all sure of.

Their journey was first to go towards Hefei City and to get there they needed to track this an awful path filled with obstacles and fallen trees.

The roads condition wasn't good for good reasons; the only use was a trader that went to Hefei City a few times in a year.

The Greenwood Town was a very isolated town not worth a visit from anyone, as even their peak cultivators weren't even Body Strengthening realm.

If it were wiped out, no one would remember its existence.

While their first target was to be Hefei City which was a central hub of trade and traffic close to their end goal, or so they hope as this info was from the said trader who went there a few times a year.

To get the however, they tracked days before they saw another road that their small track connected to, getting on it helped their speed vastly.

Though they could only run for a day on the road before they would meet other humans taking the same route, towards the same destination.

Before this during their trip, the only thing they had seen were some animals; not even mutants were these animals, hanging from trees watching them closeby.

Every time they met them, they would either instantly kill these mortal animals before they would alert the tribe of their movement.

However, in one case, they let them send a message, and in turn, they got to fill their bags full of mutant meat they had kindly sent towards them with different intentions.

Unluckily however, none of these tribes they had met was of a suitable race for crafting a bow, so they hadn't stopped before they finally saw this caravan appearing in front of them.

Then to meet with this caravan, they decided to act as mortals and act like them.

Xiao Fan in front and Du Lan behind slowly caught up with the caravan full of kids elderly and other people from every walk of life moving towards Hefei City.

¨Hello! Are you also travelling to Hefei City?¨ Xiao Fan asked one of the people at the back of the caravan.

¨Yes we are fleeing our hometown and seek shelter in Hefei, but we don't have anything to give you if you are asking for something¨ One woman dropped from the others to talk with the two people.

¨I'm sorry to hear that. However, I would like to ask what are you running away from?¨ Of Course, the only thing they wanted was information, so he didn't do small talk with the lady.

The lady also saw him not interested in talking was little saddened and sighed ¨A giant snake attacked our town a few days ago, and we are the only ones who survived the attack¨

¨Oh, so it wasn't the warlord's announcement that destroyed your village¨ Seeing that the lady just wanted to talk with strangers for anything new, he decided to speak with her little more for her troubles and his curiosity.

So the two talked for ten or so minutes about their towns conditions and why were they travelling to Hefei, in the end, the lady asked them to come with them, but Xiao Fan kindly refused this after which he started making camp with Du Lan, letting them go in front of them.

When the caravan was nowhere to be seen anymore, and he and Du Lan were sitting around a fire Xiao Fan was the first one to break the silence ¨Did you hear what they were running from?¨

To which Du Lan nodded happily ¨A snake, just what I was looking for right now. If we get that snake, I'll have an actual bow¨ On their journey there was only one thing more important to look for compared to their way towards Hefei City.

That thing was to find anything that could be used to make a bow suitable for a cultivator that she could then use.

A snake's bones and tendons should be just what she was looking for.

This was evident to anyone if one looked and the person who knew how to craft bows, as Du Lan had clearly been drooling for a bone bow for a long time.

For so long had she wanted one that she had even begged Du Huan to hunt her one.

But now she wouldn't need to beg for anyone's help; now she could do it together with Xiao Fan.