Ethan Brooks thought to himself, this must be the drop of blood formed from the heart of the six-armed giant demon, and the changes it caused after entering his body, right?

　　Besides his wounds healing more easily, what surprised Ethan Brooks even more—or rather, left him both amused and helpless—was that the drop of blood that merged into his body actually had the effect of rejuvenation.

　　After being brought by the giant demon into this unfamiliar heavenly domain, he wandered through the deep mountains and wild forests for over two months. When he finally encountered the tribesmen of the Black Python Clan hunting in the mountains, his appearance had already changed to look about ten years old.

　　This was also the key reason why, after pretending to have lost his memory and inexplicably appearing deep within Mangya Ridge, the Black Python tribesmen decided to take him in.

　　In addition to rejuvenation and faster wound healing, Ethan Brooks's strength had also increased rapidly over the past three years.

　　He now looked only about thirteen years old, but could carry two to three hundred jin of heavy objects, trek over mountains and ridges for half a day without feeling tired, comparable to a beginner-level barbarian martial artist.

　　It seemed that the drop of demon blood the six-armed giant demon left him, this "ant," before dying was truly no ordinary thing; Ethan Brooks suspected that his body still had even greater potential to be unlocked, but he just didn't know how to do it.

　　The Black Python tribesmen still didn't fully trust him, so naturally, they wouldn't easily pass on their thousand-year-old secret martial arts to an outsider.

　　This was something Ethan Brooks had regretted for three years.

　　In this desolate and perilous land, with tribal slaughter, countless fierce beasts and raptors, and the ravages of nature, if one couldn't practice the ultimate barbarian martial arts, ordinary people could barely survive, let alone make it out of the deep mountains to see the outside world...

　　※※※

　　Ethan Brooks firmly strapped the medicine basket to his back, took the short-handled tool in his hand, and slipped down the steep cliff, following the sound of water. Crossing a low ridge, he saw the wild, surging mountain flood sweeping across the stone valley.

　　The creek valley, usually only a dozen meters wide, had now swelled more than twentyfold. The muddy floodwaters, like ten thousand horses galloping, carried rocks and broken wood crashing thunderously against the stone walls on both sides.

　　Ethan Brooks had lived in the Black Python tribe for three years and recognized only thirty or forty kinds of herbs in Mangya Ridge.

　　Among the many plants and trees floating and sinking in the muddy flood, even if Ethan Brooks didn't recognize them, by looking at the shape of the branches and leaves, he knew there were quite a few precious medicinal herbs.

　　Occasionally, he saw the corpses of drowned wild beasts floating in the flood. Ethan Brooks thought that if he could fish one or two out and bring them back to the village, they could feast for several days.

　　But the terrain here was too dangerous. If one accidentally slipped down the rocky slope and was swept away by the mountain flood, even a beginner-level barbarian martial artist would have a seventy to eighty percent chance of losing their life.

　　Ethan Brooks followed the ridge along the flood downstream, thinking that in a place where the terrain was more open and the flood less turbulent, he might have a chance to fish out something good.

　　On the bare ridge, with jagged rocks everywhere, Ethan Brooks moved like a monkey, leaping and running among the interlocking mountains. He headed north for half a day, reaching the convergence of several ridges.

　　Beyond the mountain pass was a grassy slope, crisscrossed with several natural muddy gullies, now all a muddy mess from the flood. The floodwaters poured out of the mountain pass, spread over the grassy slope, and flowed into the Wild Horse Creek to the north.

　　The Wild Horse Creek, with its water level surging, was now more than three to five li wide. The floodwaters overflowed everywhere along both banks, and the scattered earthen houses of some barbarian tribes had been washed away, leaving only some broken walls and ruins faintly visible. Countless trees had fallen, some carried downstream by the rushing waters.

　　Although he had survived in this land for three years, every time he saw such a scene, Ethan Brooks was still deeply shocked. Judging by the water level of Wild Horse Creek, Ethan Brooks could tell that this torrential rain had covered the entire northern mountains of Mangya Ridge.

　　This was still the mountainous area on the northern slope of Mangya Ridge, where the barbarian tribes could choose high ground to build their villages.

　　Beyond Mangya Ridge, to the north, was the lake marsh wilderness.

　　Ethan Brooks thought that with this sudden torrential rain and mountain flood, the lake plain would be even more severely flooded. Thousands of li of lakes and marshes might turn into a vast ocean overnight, and who knew when the floodwaters would recede.

　　The grassy slope on the south bank of Wild Horse Creek was three to five hundred meters deep, with many broken logs, huge rocks, and drowned wild beast corpses carried down from the deep mountains and forests. Not far from the mountain pass, they had been washed ashore, and there was even a roe deer lying dead among them.

　　Roe deer were a specialty of Mount Tu, about the same size as a regular roe. Their skin and fat, when extracted, were especially effective for treating knife and arrow wounds.

　　Although roe deer were not fierce beasts and were quite gentle in temperament, they only appeared in the cliffs and deep ravines of Mount Tu, making them very hard to find. Mangya Ridge was just a branch of Mount Tu, so they were even rarer here.

　　Large tribes, or merchants who risked crossing Mangya Ridge from Canglan City, were usually willing to pay a high price to buy roe deer occasionally hunted by the various tribes.

　　Ethan Brooks had only seen pictures of roe deer in the ""Western Wilderness Classic"" silk scrolls, and never expected that this torrential rain would drown a roe deer and have it washed out of the mountains by the flood.

　　Ethan Brooks put down his medicine basket, picked up a large tree branch to test the way, and waded through the rapids that were deep enough to submerge his chin. His body was swayed left and right by the current, and it took great effort to cross two gullies and reach the roe deer.

　　The roe deer had long been dead, carried down by the mountain flood. Except for the two curved horns on its head being broken, its skin and flesh were not particularly badly damaged.

　　Ethan Brooks tied the roe deer to his back, and just then, another beast carcass was washed down from the mountain pass.

　　This beast carcass was especially huge. As it was swept out of the mountain pass by the flood, it was like a small boat flipping over, blocking the mouth of a gully, and was soon pushed by the rushing water onto the riverbank.