Edward Clark said slowly, “Although you’ve forgotten where you came from, what you’ve learned is truly beyond us old shamans. Nan Liao and Zong Sang just don’t understand you well enough yet. I believe you’ll be able to gain something from this fragment of the silk scroll…”

“……” Ethan Brooks felt a wave of guilt in his heart, but things like crossing the void and the demonic blood entering his body were things he couldn’t even begin to explain to Grandpa Clark.

Edward Clark narrowed his eyes meaningfully, as if he had already seen through all the secrets on Ethan Brooks, and continued:

“I told you before, never reveal what you’ve learned to outsiders. The same goes for this time—don’t mention the silk scroll to anyone, especially Henry Clark; he can’t keep a secret.”

“Ethan understands. Other than Grandpa, I won’t reveal a single word to anyone else,” Ethan Brooks promised.

When he first arrived at the Black Python Stone Village, he saw that the people of the Black Python tribe lived lives even worse than slash-and-burn farming:

Aside from the stone hall, which was grand and imposing and located at the center of the village, the other buildings had no layout to speak of.

The village walls, though built of stone, were extremely simple; there were no drainage systems, wells, or public toilets, and the tribe’s survival depended mainly on fishing, hunting, and gathering wild fruits. They had no idea about farming or animal husbandry.

After Ethan Brooks asked Grandpa Clark to let him stay, he made many suggestions on how to improve the lives of the Black Python tribe.

Grandpa Clark was shocked by his suggestions, but did not follow them. Instead, he told him to keep them secret, not even to tell Henry Clark.

The longer Ethan Brooks lived among the Black Python tribe, and the deeper his understanding of this world became, the more he realized that Grandpa Clark was truly farsighted.

On one hand, tradition was extremely powerful; methods of farming and animal husbandry might be seen as witchcraft by the stubborn barbarian tribes and thus be banned.

More importantly, before the Black Python tribe had built up enough military strength, introducing farming and animal husbandry would only make their lives more comfortable and material wealth more abundant, but if it attracted the covetous eyes of the larger tribes, it would only bring about disaster and annihilation.

The logic was simple: when sheep fatten themselves by eating grass, it’s never a good thing for them.

And in this world, the strength of a tribe wasn’t determined by organizing three or five hundred strong men—or even more—for training.

This was a world for cultivators, a place where the power of individuals could be displayed without limit.

Whether the Black Python tribe could rise again at Mangya Ridge depended more on the number of high-level barbarian warriors, and on whether new supreme barbarian experts would emerge in the future.

This fragment of the “Dao Yun Can Jie” was the same principle.

If Ethan Brooks gained some insight from it—even if it was just a basic cultivation technique—if word got out, many things would become complicated and hard to explain.

If the other large tribes mistakenly believed the Black Python tribe was hiding some secret cultivation method, it would only bring them catastrophic disaster.

“All right, I still have preparations to make for tomorrow’s grand ceremony. You go back and read for now. If you have any questions, after the ceremony, I’ll study it with you,” Edward Clark said.

Ethan Brooks bowed deeply to Grandpa Clark, hid the silk scroll fragment close to his body, turned, and left the stone house, returning to his own little shack—crude, but enough to shelter him from the wind and rain.

※※※

Back in his shack, Ethan Brooks closed the door, and by the twilight filtering through the cracks in the wall, took out the “Dao Yun Can Jie” and began to read it carefully.

The silk scroll fragment was less than a hundred pages, totaling just over twenty thousand characters.

Having become familiar with the barbarian script over the past three years, Ethan Brooks read it with ease, and before nightfall, he had finished reading it thoroughly, finally gaining a general understanding of the cultivation system of this world.

In the Western Wastelands, barbarian martial inheritance was dominant, while in Yunzhou, east of Mount Tu, cultivation traditions were much more diverse.

The cultivation sects of Yunzhou all believed that at the moment of conception, a person receives the essence and vitality of their parents, and the life force bestowed by heaven and earth, thus forming the fetus from nothing in the mother’s womb. Cultivation was all about developing the body’s potential.

The tiny bit of life force bestowed by heaven and earth at conception was regarded by Yunzhou cultivators as the Dao Yun True Yang, and almost all cultivation techniques were based on this Dao Yun True Yang; Arthur Green believed that the essence and vitality received from the parents at conception was actually the foundation of barbarian martial cultivation.

The faint trace of primordial barbarian blood within a barbarian warrior was actually passed down from generation to generation through the essence and vitality received from the parents at conception.

Reading this, Ethan Brooks suddenly felt a sense of enlightenment.

Although Arthur Green did not write down any specific barbarian martial cultivation methods in the silk scroll, he had actually explained the principles of barbarian martial cultivation thoroughly.

As for what exactly the life force bestowed by heaven and earth was, Ethan Brooks still couldn’t quite grasp it, but wasn’t the primordial barbarian bloodline somewhat similar to genetic inheritance?

Before the giant demon died, the drop of golden demon blood that seeped into his body—couldn’t that be considered a kind of “primordial barbarian bloodline”?

The silk scroll fragment recorded that when Yunzhou cultivators reached a high level of mastery, they could guide the spiritual energy of heaven and earth to temper their bodies, greatly increasing their lifespan and even regaining their youth.

Ethan Brooks recalled that after that drop of golden demon blood entered his body, he had reverted to his ten-year-old self within just over a month—wasn’t that exactly what the scroll described as “tempering the body with spiritual energy and regaining youth”?