We made you the chief, and now you've become the world's chief?

Chapter 33 Totems are Productivity!
When the sun became scorching hot, Xia Minghao told Ye Zi to stop.

Originally, I wanted to see how long the leaf could hold out before using this special totem power.

I didn't expect it to last so long, and it seemed quite easy.

Upon arriving at the drying kiln, Xia Minghao first tried touching the few blanks.

It wasn't hot to the touch, just relatively warm.

I tested the dryness of these blanks. The blanks from three days ago were in a large vat and were completely dry.

The earthenware pots and pans made two days and one day ago also showed varying degrees of improvement in dryness.

If the blanks from two days ago had stayed in this drying kiln for a whole day, they would have been as dry as if they had been dried for four or five days.

If it is dried for another full day, it will definitely reach the level where it can be fired directly.

The most time-consuming part of pottery making is air-drying, and the most common reason for pottery firing failure is incomplete drying.

With this controllable wind force, coupled with the self-built drying kiln, the pottery production time can be reduced by at least half, and the yield rate can be greatly improved!
Moreover, it's not just pottery; in the future, iron smelting and all sorts of other processes will require bellows to create controllable wind.

Now that it has leaves, it's practically a natural bellows!
So many things can be easily accomplished with the power of this totem.

As I guessed, totems are indeed a source of productivity!
A surge of joy welled up on Xia Minghao's lips as he turned to look at Ye Zi.

"Ye Zi, how long can you do that?"

Ye Zi thought for a moment, then held up one finger.

"one day?"

Xia Minghao looked on in confusion, but Ye Zi shook her little head and said a Chinese word that he had taught her when he was teaching her to count a while ago.

"Always……"

……

……

……

I never thought that the limiting factor for pottery was not the availability of clay, but the lack of charcoal made from wood.

Looking at the various pottery pieces piled up in the cave, Xia Minghao suddenly felt like he had become the richest man in the primitive era.

By controlling the wind through the leaves and using a drying kiln modeled after a hot air circulation drying box, the pottery is dried to a high standard.

Even including the barely usable defective products caused by unfamiliarity with the craft, the success rate of firing pottery is still 80%!

Moreover, the pottery-making time has been greatly shortened. Large pottery pieces like earthenware jars can be made from casting to firing in just four days.

In the past few days, Xia Minghao has also gained a better understanding of Ye Zi's ability to control the wind.

This mysterious totem power wasn't as extraordinary as I had imagined; in fact, the upper limit of this wind control ability was quite low.

The strongest wind that the leaves could generate felt to Xia Minghao not much different from the wind that used to blow the pages of his textbooks in his middle school classroom.

According to Ye Zi, the strongest shaman in the Wind Tribe could only do something slightly better than her, the only difference being that the range was larger.

It's almost impossible to create a gale-force wind of level eight.

After learning about it, Xia Minghao was somewhat disappointed, but he also felt relieved.

Although it is only a partial analogy, it can still lead to the basic conclusion that the Fire Tribe, which was rooted in the flood plains and practiced theocratic rule, was probably not very powerful and still had its limits.

Of course, this is just speculation; we need to see it for ourselves to draw a realistic conclusion.

Night fell again, and the Xi tribe had completely changed.

Around the campfire, everyone held small bowls and chopsticks that Xia Minghao had specially polished to make them more convenient.

On the campfire were three large earthenware pots, all brand new.

Xia Minghao had already placed the first pottery pot elsewhere, waiting for the people of the Lizhu tribe to arrive so he could "sell" it to them.

The three earthenware pots in front of me were filled with different kinds of meat.

The pot containing three blackfish was filled with whitish fish soup and tender fish meat.

The reason it turned white was because Xia Minghao used the soup he had just made the day before to fry the blackfish.

I've forgotten when I saw this tip about cooking fish soup. I guess it was from a chef's tutorial video. I just happened to come across it and it stuck in my head.

The other two pots contained wild boar meat and pheasant.

It wasn't the chicken, but a wild chicken that was strangled to death by a lasso while struggling.

Xia Minghao originally wanted to get some mushrooms and make a chicken stew with mushrooms.

But neither Hima nor Wamu could make up their minds, and Xia Minghao had no knowledge of how to distinguish mushrooms, nor did he want to lie on a plank in this primitive era, so in the end they gave up.

Even without side dishes and seasonings, the aroma emanating from these three pots of stewed meat is already enticing enough.

The women were still a little unaccustomed to the current way of eating, but they listened to Xia Minghao and first used a ceramic spoon to divide the meat into their own ceramic bowls, and then used chopsticks to pick up the meat from the bowls and put it into their mouths.

Casual conversation during meals remained their usual form of entertainment, and some people even started to initiate conversations with Ye Zi. It was only thanks to Xia Minghao's frequent praise of Ye Zi's "contributions" that most of the Xi tribe members finally stopped treating Ye Zi, an outsider with totem power, with prejudice.

"Ye Zi, you're so amazing, why didn't you tell us sooner?"

Suddenly, a woman who was originally from the Wa tribe spoke up.

Ye Zi's gaze became somewhat evasive, and she murmured softly.

"I, I'm scared."

This reminded everyone who heard it of what happened that night, especially Hima and Hifa, who seemed a little embarrassed.

But then Ye Zi continued.

"I'm afraid of being eaten..."

Everyone was taken aback at first, then burst into laughter, seemingly laughing at Ye Zi's wild idea.

But Xia Minghao realized something was wrong and put down the ceramic bowl to ask.

Why are you afraid of being eaten?

The leaves stirred the minced meat and broth in the bowl, creating a small whirlpool.

Then, he raised his head and said to Xia Minghao.

"It's the wolf tribe, they ate my people..."

Upon hearing this, everyone's laughter stopped abruptly, and they all turned to look at Wangcai.

Wangcai was eating meat in his special "earthenware pot" when he sensed strange gazes. He whimpered twice and hid behind Xia Minghao.

"Do the people of the wolf tribe become wolves, or do they raise wolves?"

Having learned from his previous experience, Xia Minghao had already begun to habitually speculate whether it was another tribe with some kind of weird totem abilities.

Ye Zi shook her head.

"I don't know. They say that eating tribes that possess totems will make them stronger. They are already very strong, able to uproot trees."

A powerful cannibal?

Previously, Xia Minghao had only inquired about the other members of Ye Zi's Feng tribe.

After learning that Ye Zi couldn't be found either, they didn't ask any further questions.

They turned out to be a group of cannibals...

However, it cannot be ruled out that the wolf tribe Ye Zi mentioned is also a totem tribe.

"Ye Zi, it's alright, the chief is protecting us!"

At that moment, Shia suddenly spoke.

The women, who had initially looked fearful, immediately felt relieved upon hearing this and looked at Xia Minghao.

Even Ye Zi, who had personally experienced the wolf tribe's invasion, felt the same way.

Seeing the gazes cast upon him by the women and children of the Xi tribe, Xia Minghao suddenly felt a heavy sense of responsibility.

But if they were to actually encounter the wolf tribe that Ye Zi mentioned now, the current Xi tribe would likely be wiped out...

We still need to develop quickly. After realizing that there is a mysterious power of totems in this primitive era, Xia Minghao's sense of crisis has grown day by day.

The population of the Kexi tribe was too small, and there was too little they could do. Their development was also greatly limited, and they simply couldn't spare enough manpower to search for malachite and other things to achieve a leap forward in civilization.

Now we're just waiting to make contact with the Li tribe again and accumulate another wave of population.

Damn it, Li Tribe, why aren't you here yet? I've already figured out how to make sure you're all settled, so hurry up and come!

……

“No, the men of our tribe cannot come to your tribe. But we are willing to offer you the meat of a wild boar, if you just come with us to that Xi tribe.”

Bald Liba felt a little uneasy being surrounded by women dressed entirely in black, but he still spoke directly.

Looking at the determined eyes of the bald man Liba, the Great Mother of the Wu tribe, Wusa, after thinking for a long time, finally nodded.

"We'll sleep in the trees outside your tribe, and we'll go to the Xi tribe when the sun rises tomorrow!"

Liba's face immediately lit up with joy, and then he led Lipa and a dozen other men out of the tribe.

"The blackfish didn't make us stronger. Tomorrow we must make the Xi tribe return the women!"

“We still have people from the Wu tribe, and the Xi tribe will be afraid! They will then return the women to us.”

Lipa then said.

The other men thought it was a good idea; if they didn't fight, they wouldn't die, especially since the Xi tribe was so mysterious and terrifying.

Everyone was full of confidence. Liba climbed up the tree, threw the snake sleeping on the branch down, hung himself on the tree, chose a comfortable position, and waited for tomorrow to arrive.

(End of this chapter)