World Occult Usage Guide

Chapter 236 Hunting by the River

Lin An observed the young man hunting.

Unlike the Southern Continent people of the Eagle Kingdom, he had lighter skin and wore a black braided hairstyle, giving him a rather heroic and spirited appearance. He wore fluffy ornaments on his head, wrists, and ankles.

Upon closer inspection, it was indeed genuine lion's mane.

The man wore a leopard-skin skirt around his waist and had carnivorous teeth around his neck; his entire body exuded a savage, murderous aura.

But his posture was concealed, almost blending into his surroundings.

If he hadn't activated the air-clearing mode, Lin An would never have noticed that there was someone hiding on the riverbank.

Green data flew everywhere, printing out a mysterious tree diagram of the man. Apart from Jim's Zomo, Lin An had not included any of the mysterious illustrations of the Southern Continent, so he was basically in the dark and did not know which mysterious archetype the man could awaken.

All he could see was that the young man's medium was "war emperor".

Based on his previous observations of Deval and Sangsang, Lin An discovered that the young man possessed the potential to awaken a legendary level.

Did he have any contact with the antique artifacts of "Commerz"?
Although the Bantu are little known, their civilization, traditions, and history can be traced back to the 5th century BC. However, they are so poor that they rarely receive any attention.

This country possesses abundant natural resources, such as minerals and timber, but due to years of war, famine, and plague, less than one percent of its land has been developed, not to mention the sparsely populated rainforests, which may still be in a primitive state.

Since this rainforest offers little financial reward, it is unlikely to attract the attention of any powerful families.

It was practically a sanctuary prepared for Lin An.

And this legendary seed in front of us... could it be that his father specially arranged for him to improve his measurement values?
Glancing at the communication device, Lin An asked, "Is this the job you asked me to accelerate the fusion progress of 'Lady with the Lamp,' Dad?"

"There are about 5 tribesmen around you. Good luck! The Grand Master System is rooting for you." Lin Hainan smiled. "This device is almost out of power. See you in six months."

"Are you really not coming to see me?" Lin An asked in a complicated tone.

Lin Hainan fell silent. He seemed to have thought things through carefully before finally speaking in a sincere yet helpless tone.

"Travel is enjoyable, but a father's responsibility is limited to teaching his son to drive, not driving him all over the world."

After saying this, the two looked at each other in silence.

Despite his efforts to keep the atmosphere lively, Lin Hainan's eloquence was not as good as that of Professor Adria, and he was used to awkward silences in front of his eccentric son.

Lin An remembers that when he was a child, his father would often ramble on and on, then fall silent, leaving him only to silently accompany him.

Memories flooded back, and Lin An opened his mouth, about to exchange a few words of concern with Lin Hainan, when the device emitted a "ding-dong" sound and automatically shut down.

Lin An shut his mouth.

Perhaps Lin Hainan is dealing with the Black Capital. He thought.

Sasaki had reminded him that the fewer people who knew about Lin An's existence, the better, and especially that no powerful family should discover that he still retained a clear mind.

Therefore, this barren and primitive Bantu rainforest is clearly a feng shui treasure land for Lin An to accumulate the initial "integration level".

As he gains more and more power over the "Lady with the Lamp," Lin An will be able to handle even if powerful families come after him.

Having calmed the turbulent emotions surging within him, Lin An put away the communication device that had run out of power, turned the Philosopher's Stone, and controlled the direction of the bamboo raft.

The air current lifted the small boat, and he hid under a chinaberry tree, observing the tribespeople on the riverbank.

The young man was seen holding his breath and crouching in a shady corner.

"Gululu..."

Several hippos lay in the water, their eyes and nostrils showing, slowly moving toward the shore.

These river horses are the second largest mammals in the South Pacific, after elephants.

Despite their obese size and comical appearance, hippos possess formidable strength and are extremely dangerous, even being among the world's most notorious "killers."

According to statistics, in villages along the Kuba River, half of the deaths of local residents are caused by hippos; the other half are attributed to elephants and carnivorous felines.

Hippos are herbivores. They bask in the sun during the day and rest on the shore, while at night they climb onto land to eat large amounts of grass to sustain their massive bodies.

Hippos have a strong sense of territory, and any male hippo will attack a human without hesitation if the human enters their territory.

If an ordinary person accidentally enters the attack range of a hippopotamus that has come ashore, their life is usually in danger.

However, this organism plays a very important role in the ecological environment of the Kuba River.

Its large amount of excrement becomes fertilizer for the grass in the river, and the lush grass in turn promotes the growth of fish and other animals.

So much so that there is a Bantu proverb: "Where you drive away the hippos, the river dies."

The river meanders and twists, and the hippos walk from the calm pools at the bends onto the riverbank, their deep "ha, whoosh whoosh whoosh" sounds joining the chorus of the rainforest, as strange as an old man trying to cough up phlegm from his throat.

These are the sounds of the hippos, mainly coming from the male hippo in the center that is leading the pack.

It is enormous, weighing nearly 1.5 tons, and its four fangs on either side of its mouth look blunt, but are actually very sharp.

Hippos don't like to use their tusks to tear apart their prey when they attack; instead, they swing their spongy mouths from side to side to lash out and cause fatal injuries to their victims.

Humans without guns would find it difficult to defeat such terrifying animals, as hippos can easily destroy their fragile bodies.

During Lin An's observation, the young tribal man in the center of his field of vision moved.

The sound of hippos spitting out phlegm came again, this time in unison.

"Ha—whoosh whoosh whoosh!"

Upon spotting the intruder, the ferocious male hippopotamus raised its head, let out a tremendous roar, and charged towards the hunter, splashing water as it pounded the soft, wet mud. Just as it charged, the man drew back his bowstring, and a long arrow whistled as it pierced the hippopotamus's tongue.

Just then, the male hippo opened its gaping maw, revealing four large, gleaming blunt teeth, and in that instant, it let out a painful roar, caught off guard.

Of course, it did not back down; the arrows that humans could pull were too little harm to it.

The male hippo charged at the man again, but he had anticipated this and grabbed a vine, swinging nimbly like a monkey to another tree trunk.

"Boom!"

The tree trunk trembled violently as the male hippo rammed into it, and the wood and bark cracked with a pitiful sound.

The man was jolted, but remained calm. When the male hippopotamus struck for the third time, he reversed the spear in his hand and suddenly attacked it.

The male hippopotamus did the same thing, shaking its head and lashing out at the human's fragile body.

Surprisingly, it was noticeably less agile than before and missed its target.

It turned out that the arrow the man shot when he was off guard was coated with a poison that temporarily paralyzed the nerves. Just then, the poison took effect, paralyzing the nerves in the male hippopotamus's neck, causing it to be a beat too slow and miss its target.

In the battle between carnivores and herbivores, a single misstep often means death.

The man was so agile that modern people would doubt whether they could still be considered the same species as him.

He flipped in mid-air with more agility than Olympic gymnasts, though lacking their graceful technique.

The lion's mane, the cheetah's skin, and the hyena's teeth trembled in the wind on his body.

This is a contest between humanity and nature.

"Pfft!"

Blood trickled from the hippo's thick skin. The sharp edge of the spear was coated with a deadly poison that had invaded the male hippo's blood vessels. It continued to emit low, hoarse, threatening roars as it chased the man, but its movements became increasingly clumsy.

The two chased each other into the rainforest, disappearing from Lin An's sight. He used his teleportation mode to track the man until they reappeared on the riverbank.

The hippopotamus was covered in scars from various traps, and it limped when it ran. It had already switched places with the man.

Realizing it could not defeat the humans before it, it twitched its tiny ears, trying to quickly return to the river.

The man wouldn't give it a chance; he drew his bow, nocked an arrow, and fired several shots at its plump rear end.

“Whoosh, whoosh, whoosh!”

The arrow grazed the male hippopotamus's skin, leaving a gruesome bloodstain. Its fat reserves were astonishing, but they couldn't withstand the poison specifically made for hunting them.

The outcome is decided.

Even without guns and ammunition, humans can still stand at the top of the food chain using various primitive tools.

Finally, the hippo stopped just meters from the riverbank, its massive body collapsing under the strain.

"thump!"

It hadn't died yet, but only death awaited it.

"Jili, jili gulu!"

The man climbed back to the treetop, looked at this scene, his eyes bloodshot, and squeezed out a few words that Lin An couldn't understand.

I almost forgot about the language barrier.

The extraterrestrial spirit gave Lin An a photographic memory and a reading and learning speed far exceeding that of ordinary people, but even he had never learned the language of this tribe deep in the Kuba rainforest.

Bantu people typically pass on knowledge and wisdom orally, as their local dialect has no written form and cannot be disseminated online.

Fortunately, we are now in the magical era of "Commerx".

"System, use the 21 words from the entry 'The 72 Demons of King Solomon I: Barbatos'."

Wearing a tattered cloak, his features obscured by impenetrable shadows, Barbatos appeared behind Lin An.

He was hunched over, leaning on a cane, his greasy, root-like tendrils a grotesque mockery of the wise hermit, his beard trembling as it emerged from the darkness surrounding his face.

The ill-intentioned Barbatos did not harm Lin An; He was merely a summoned phantom, and besides, He was a relatively gentle and harmless demon.

A shadow enveloped Lin An, and the demon's three glowing, strange red eyes formed a pyramid shape, etched downwards into his brow. New knowledge appeared out of thin air and flooded his mind.

"Father, I have avenged you with my own hands!"

The next moment, the young man's ambiguous syllables transformed into a meaningful language.

Mastering a foreign language in three seconds. Lin An thought, if I offered this service at the university, it would probably be very popular.

"Boom!"

The young man knelt on the ground, his eyes closed, and punched his chest in the direction the river was flowing.

"In my heart, you will always be the best hunter on the banks of the Kuba River."

"Misuru, how dare you show your face?"

A new sound came from behind, and several people dressed similarly to the young man pushed aside the leaves and came out.

"The chief has long forbade the 'Spotted Lion' tribe from hunting here!"

(End of this chapter)