I am the sacred tree, evergreen for eternity.

Late at night.

Inside the huts of the Xia clan tribe.

Hui, an ordinary male member of the Xia family, lay on a straw mat in the corner, tossing and turning, unable to fall asleep.

Today, he failed to collect qi again.

This is the nineteenth time.

"Perhaps I was never meant to cultivate myself."

Hui felt a tightness in his chest, so he simply got up and tiptoed out of the shed.

The tribe's camp was quiet, and the night wind blew in, carrying a chill.

Hui wandered aimlessly, and before he knew it, he had reached the edge of the tribe.

He sat down on a rock and looked up at the sky.

The Milky Way shone brightly, like a ribbon of light stretching across the sky.

Countless stars twinkled in the night sky, some as bright as lamps, others as dim as dust.

His gaze followed the points of light, and a feeling he couldn't quite describe suddenly welled up inside him—

Those stars were so far away from him, unimaginably far, yet their light could still pierce through the endless void and fall into his eyes.

"If only I could project my power far and wide like the stars..."

Hui muttered to himself, a thought suddenly flashing through his mind.

If there were a weapon that allowed you to kill prey from a distance without close combat or a strong physique...

that would be nice.

The thought had barely crossed his mind when Hui shook his head self-deprecatingly.

"How is that possible?"

Hui sighed, and was about to get up and go back when suddenly—

A streak of light flashed across the night sky.

The beam of light was incredibly fast, leaving a long trail as it swept diagonally across the northeastern horizon before disappearing below the western horizon in an instant.

meteor.

Hui's breathing suddenly stopped.

It was as if something in his mind had been shattered!

The trajectory of that shooting star, that beautiful yet deadly arc that streaked across the sky...

What if he could throw a wooden spear like a meteor?

No, it wasn't thrown by hand.

The throw was too short, too weak, and too inaccurate.

If there were something that could unleash the power accumulated in a wooden spear in a single instant—

Make it fly farther, faster, and more accurately!

Hui's eyes grew brighter and brighter.

He leaped off the rock and stumbled back to the village, rummaging through all the materials he could find:

Tough wood, flexible bamboo strips, dried animal sinews, and sharp stone flakes.

He squatted on the open ground outside the shed, and by the moonlight, began the first real "creation" of his life...

A month later.

Hui stood in the open space in the center of the tribe, holding a special crescent-shaped object in his hand, facing a dark mass of people.

Hong stood at the front, followed by a dozen totem walkers, and then hundreds of curious tribesmen.

"You're saying you've created a weapon capable of killing prey from thirty paces away?"

Hong's gaze fell on the strangely shaped weapon, his eyes scrutinizing it.

Hui's hands were trembling.

He took a deep breath, drew back his crescent-shaped weapon, nocked a bone arrow on a bowstring made of deer sinew, and turned to aim at a thick wooden plank erected fifty paces away.

That was a target specially prepared for him by his tribe. The wooden board was three inches thick and covered with a layer of dried animal hide.

"Buzz—"

The sound of the beast's sinews vibrating still echoed in the air as the bone arrow was already embedded in the wooden board.

It doesn't just nail to the surface, it penetrates.

The three-inch-thick wooden plank, covered with a layer of tough animal hide, was pierced through by that arrow.

Arrowheads peeked out from the other side of the wooden plank, gleaming coldly in the sunlight.

The entire room fell silent.

Hong stepped forward, reached out and touched the bone arrow that had pierced the wooden board, then looked at the sharpened bone fragments on the arrowhead, a hint of shock flashing in his eyes.

He turned around and looked at Hui.

"What's this thing called?"

"Bow." Hui's voice was a little hoarse. "Arrow."

"Bow...arrow..."

Hong chewed on those two words and suddenly burst into laughter.

"Good! Good! Good!"

Hong stepped forward and patted Hui on the shoulder with such force that Hui almost knelt down.

"From this day forward, you are the Xia family's bow maker!"

"Every hunter must be equipped with a bow and arrows!"

"Your name will be engraved on every single bow!"

Hui's eyes reddened.

He lowered his head, hiding the tears that threatened to spill from his eyes, his voice choked with sobs, barely able to speak.

"Thank you... thank you, Chief!"

"I will try my best!"

Hong helped him up, his gaze sweeping over everyone present, his voice booming like a bell.

"You all saw it!"

"Hui didn't become a Totem Walker, but the bow he created could give any ordinary person the power to kill their prey!"

"This is what the Tree God meant when he said, 'Everyone has their own unique talents, and each person has their own purpose!'"

"From this day forward, the Xia family will no longer only have wanderers! There will also be bow makers, apothecaries, weavers..."

"Everyone can contribute their own strength to the tribe!"

The crowd fell silent for a moment, then erupted in deafening cheers.

At this moment, the young people who had failed to absorb Qi, and the ordinary clansmen who had once felt inferior and frustrated, had their eyes rekindled with light.

The bow and arrow became widespread in less than three months.

The hunting party soon discovered that the ranged weapon was far more powerful than they had expected.

Wild beasts that used to require close combat to hunt can now be wounded by arrows from dozens of feet away.

Once they are wounded and flee, the totem walkers can then pursue them with extremely high efficiency and very low casualties.

In just a few months, the hunting party's catch doubled, while the casualty rate dropped by 70%.

More importantly, the Xia clan began to realize one thing—

The existence of totem walkers meant that hunting parties were no longer a burden on the tribe's population.

In the past, almost all young and strong men had to participate in bloody hunts in order to ensure the tribe's food supply.

Now, those ordinary clansmen without cultivation talent can finally be freed from this predicament.

They have more time and energy to do other things—

Farming, construction, medicine making, food...

Hui's bow and arrow were just the beginning; all sorts of civilized creations sprang up like mushrooms after rain.

Before we knew it.

The Xia clan is no longer the primitive tribe that only knew how to "hunt, eat meat, and sleep".

It began to take shape as a nascent civilization with various industries, clear division of labor, and vibrant life.

The relationship between the totem walkers and ordinary tribesmen began to become harmonious.

During a certain sacrificial ceremony.

The map of mountains and seas depicted by the tree god, which Hong displayed, became the last straw that broke the ice.

When the tribespeople saw that scene—

I saw the valley where the Xia clan lived, as insignificant as dust in the vast wilderness; I saw those terrifying beings, powerful to the point of being suffocating, entrenched in all directions…

Everyone fell silent.

The Totem Walker is very strong.

But compared to those mythical beings who truly stand atop mountains and seas, they are not even ants.

Ordinary members of the tribe no longer felt inferior.

They understood—

In this brutal world where the strong prey on the weak, no one is superfluous.