Chapter 15: Chopping Wood, Picking Fruit, Good News

The Grand Ancestor’s Long Fist has four styles:

Minor Combat, Grand Combat, Free Hand, and Combined Combat.

In his past life, Xia Hong primarily trained this fist style.

Minor Combat focuses on short strikes and defense.

Grand Combat unites fists, feet, and waist into one force, concentrating power to break through a single point—it is offensive.

Free Hand disregards fixed forms, seeking only to cripple the enemy; the head, fingers, palm, fist, elbow, shoulder, knee, leg, hip, and arm may all serve as weapons—it emphasizes timing and lethality.

Combined Combat is a style designed for multiple attackers.

Long Fist was revered in his past life as the most practical fist system—and for good reason.

It not only balances offense, defense, and killing, but all four styles can be adapted to weapons.

Xia Hong had long mastered all four styles in his past life; teaching them to Yuan Cheng and the other six was effortless.

After teaching for a while and observing them, Xia Hong gained a general understanding of each man’s condition.

Yuan Cheng and Yue Feng had the most imposing builds, both over two meters tall; though prolonged hunger had left them lean, once their bodies received adequate nourishment, they would soon regain their strength.

The Minor Combat style involves small movements and low physical demands, making it clearly better suited for them.

Lin Kai, Qiu Peng, and Xu Ning had more balanced builds, longer limbs, and greater agility than the first two—ideal for Grand Combat’s unified fist-foot-waist technique.

Lu Yang, the smallest in stature, was nimble and quick-witted, with exceptional timing sensitivity—thus suited to Free Hand.

The six men, having learned the fist styles, were thrilled and immediately began training, drawing energy from the cold beast’s flesh in their bellies.

After teaching them, Xia Hong left the cave at nightfall, carrying his stone axe.

Last night he had intended to gather crystal fruits, but unexpectedly encountered the Great Stone Camp’s hunting party; though he returned safely with the snow-maned beast, he had not gathered a single crystal fruit.

Before gaining hunting ability, cold beast meat was accidental; crystal fruits were the staple food—so Xia Hong still had to go to the ice-crystal trees and pick fruit.

Second, the camp’s firewood was nearly exhausted.

When they moved from the original cave, only fifteen units of wood remained.

That it lasted over ten days was already remarkable.

The small fire consumed two units daily; had the camp not conserved it—by not lighting fires at night—that small stock would not have lasted this long.

Compared to his first trip, this journey into Crimson Wood Ridge was far more familiar.

Relying on his memory from last time, he quickly located the ice-crystal trees.

Xia Hong approached, surveyed the surroundings, confirmed safety, then climbed the tree and pulled out his leather sack to begin picking.

The tree bore only mature crystal fruits, each the size of a fist, weighing about half a catty; soon he filled over a thousand catties, the leather sack growing heavier with every handful.

When the sack could hold no more, he stopped.

With the crystal fruits gathered, next came felling trees.

Xia Hong carried the full sack back toward camp, only beginning to search for suitable trees as he neared the edge of Crimson Wood Ridge.

It sounded simple—just chopping trees—but it was far from easy.

Ice-crystal trees could not be cut: first, cold beasts might dwell on them; second, they were the camp’s food source, already scarce—cutting them would be self-destruction.

Golden Frost trees were also out: first, they were too hard; his stone axe could not cut them; second, cold beasts preferred sleeping on them at night—disturbing them would end badly.

That left only Zhu Shuang trees.

Around the outer edge of Crimson Wood Ridge, Zhu Shuang trees were by far the most common—roughly ninety percent.

But the problem was, all these Zhu Shuang trees were enormous.

Everywhere he looked, trunks measured four to five meters in diameter, even six or seven; heights of fifty to sixty meters were common; deeper in, he saw trunks exceeding ten meters—and even more extreme.

Looking at these towering giants, Xia Hong didn’t know whether to laugh or cry.

He could foresee that as the camp system advanced, resource demands would grow—so these endless, boundless trees should be a great blessing.

But the problem was, he could not carry away even one right now.

He wanted to pick a thick one and chop it down, but even if he could fell it, he lacked the strength to drag it back.

After searching over an hour, just as his fear of giants threatened to overwhelm him, he finally found a suitable Zhu Shuang tree.

“Over three meters thick, over twenty meters long—similar to the wood burned in the cave before. I should be able to carry it back.”

Xia Hong set down the full leather sack, drew his stone axe from his waist, scraped off the outermost layer of ice crystals from the bark, spat twice into his palms, and began chopping diligently.

Chk… Chk… Chk… Chk…

Three hours later

Boom…

The giant tree crashed down, kicking up a storm of snow.

Soaked through, back aching, arms weak, Xia Hong stepped forward, stared at the fallen Zhu Shuang tree, and panted in disbelief.

Now he understood why Xia Ding’s logging team of thirteen men could bring back at most five or six trees each night.

He had just broken through to Logging Realm—three hours, and he could fell only one tree.

And he was nearly exhausted.

He could clearly sense his body could not endure such intense exertion again anytime soon.

That meant a single Logging Realm cultivator could cut at most one tree per night.

And that assumed safety.

Zhu Shuang trees were already the easiest to cut in this outer zone.

Before venturing out at night, Xia Hong had considered gathering all 200 units of wood needed to upgrade the small fire at once, and worry about the additional 50 units of iron later.

But now, after actually chopping, he realized how difficult those 200 units truly were.

The moment the tree fell, the camp system’s resource bar changed.

【Resources: Wood 5 Coal 0 Iron 0 Silver 0 Gold 0】

After a whole night’s labor, exhausted nearly to collapse, he had gathered only five units of wood.

“Only by increasing manpower can efficiency rise. Once Xia Chuan and Yuan Cheng break through, speed will improve—take it slow, take it slow, no rush.”

Xia Hong comforted himself, rested a while, then rose, tied the crystal fruit sack to the fallen tree, and shouldered it back to camp.

Having seen the snow-maned beast, the others barely reacted when Xia Hong returned with a tree and over a thousand catties of crystal fruit.

Still, with firewood and food replenished, everyone’s hearts grew calmer.

Xia Hong knew that without strength gains, the camp would not change significantly.

So in the days ahead, besides training with the remaining cold beast meat, he ventured out every night.

Of course, not every trip yielded results.

The known ice-crystal tree had been picked three times and was now empty.

When it would ripen again was unknown, so Xia Hong expanded his search range.

Fortunately, in the following period, he discovered two more trees, both heavy with crystal fruit.

He harvested them over six trips, raising the camp’s crystal fruit stock to over seven thousand catties.

With more food, the camp dwellers no longer went hungry; smiles gradually returned to their faces, no longer the lifeless gloom of before.

Besides crystal fruit, Xia Hong felled one tree each night and brought it back.

Twenty days later, wood resources surged from 5 to 87.

Though coal, silver, and iron remained at zero, at least acquiring wood was no longer difficult—Xia Hong was pleased.

This steady routine continued until the twenty-fourth day; as Xia Hong dragged a tree back into the cave, he heard good news.

(End of Chapter)