A convoy of more than thirty people is advancing alone on the endless prairie. There were not many vehicles, only seven or eight vehicles, but those people in leather clothes riding horses surrounded by them were all young and full of energy, and some of them were only eleven or twelve-year-old children.
At the front of the convoy was an old man in gorgeous costumes riding a yellow horse. He wears a red fox fur hat. There are knife-like wrinkles on the forehead. His face was slightly purple. A three-color brocade belt representing identity is tied around the waist, which is the symbol of the master of a book.
This place is already in the south of Tianlan Grassland, and this is a team of sudden people who are going to pay tribute to the temple.
"Tianlan Grassland" is what the Tuwu people call the Mulan Grassland, because the Tuwu people have always believed in the rumored "Tianlan Beast", and please regard it as the patron saint of their own family and worship it for generations, so the grassland has this name.
Originally, the Tuhu people only occupied the southern half of the Zhengtianlan Grassland, but since they defeated the Mulan people in one fell swoop in the middle of the grassland thirty years ago, they have occupied the entire grassland ever since, and their power has naturally increased by leaps and bounds. There is no opponent on the entire grassland.
Of course, the Tuhu tribe is so huge, and there are countless internal tribes, ranging from small tribes with hundreds of thousands of people, to super tribes with a population of roughly hundreds of millions, all over the entire grassland. And because there were so many people who made contributions in the last holy war, many new independent tribes emerged. Some of these tribes are not small, and some are even more insignificant, with a population of only tens of thousands.
The "Heron Tribe" where the old man was located was such a miniature tribe that was differentiated from a large tribe. Although it could be called a tribe, in fact the entire tribe only had 70,000 to 80,000 people.
The old man's name was Yinglu, and he was extremely brave in battle when he was young. He defeated several small tribes of Mulan people in a row in the holy war, and captured many nobles alive, so he gained his current status. But now he can't stand the ravages of the years, coupled with the hard work of these years, although he is only in his fifties, his body is already showing an old appearance.
It was noon now, the old man looked at the scorching sun in the sky, then looked back at the young children in the motorcade behind him, and heaved a long sigh.
It stands to reason that no matter how big or small a tribe is, it must enshrine certain immortal masters. Otherwise, in case of natural disasters, man-made disasters, or monsters, ordinary mortals will not be able to resist. But such a new small tribe like them couldn't recruit any immortal masters at all, even the lowest level immortal masters were unwilling to enter such a small tribe. After all, for immortal masters, the bigger and richer the tribe they join, the better they can supply sufficient resources for their cultivation.
The reason why some small tribes can still have some low-level immortal masters is that these immortal masters were born in these tribes themselves, or their own cultivation qualifications are poor, and the big tribes are unwilling to enshrine them, so they have no choice but to stay.
The Heron tribe where the old man belongs has not yet had the opportunity to train the immortal masters of his own tribe, so in recent years, he can only hire low-level immortal masters from neighboring tribes with a lot of money to help. But these fairy masters also demanded extremely high prices, and a few shots would cost the entire tribe a year and a half of income, which made the Heron tribe, which was not rich in the first place, even worse.
Fortunately, the opening day, which comes once every twenty years, is finally approaching. Yinglu, who had been concerned about this matter for a long time, naturally couldn't let it go, and immediately led several tribe children who were tested to have spiritual roots in the tribe to the Tianlan Temple closest to their tribe.
The Tianlan Temple was originally built to enshrine the Tianlan Holy Beast, but after so many years of evolution, it has become a sacred place in the hearts of the Tuwu people, and a place dedicated to cultivating low-level immortal masters of the Tuwu tribe.
There are several high-level immortal masters in each temple, who are responsible for teaching some basic cultivation methods. Once successful, those with lower aptitude returned directly to the various tribes and were enshrined by the tribes, while those with a promising future were accepted as disciples by those high-level cultivators for special training. Ordinary people who have not undergone the opening ceremony are strictly prohibited from being taught by high-ranking immortal masters privately.
These temples are not many in number, only sixty or seventy, but they are evenly distributed throughout the grassland, but each one is almost the center of a large area, surrounded by thousands of tribes of all sizes.
As the only temple in the region, the larger the tribe was, the closer it would be to the temple, while the heron tribe was allocated far away because it was too small. It takes three months to go from the tribe to the temple. In desperation, as early as four months ago, Yinglu led the team out of the tribe.
Speaking of the last spirit day, although he had already separated the tribe, he couldn't collect enough tribute, so he could only miss it. This time, Yinglu did not want to miss anything. Even if the entire tribe has to cut down on clothing and food in the next few years, it is necessary for the tribe to have its own fairy teacher.
However, it is extremely dangerous for people like them to cross such a vast grassland with tribute. After all, tributes are things that are very useful to immortal masters, and they are extremely precious to ordinary people. Many people with malicious intentions take this opportunity to rob weak teams, and even some real immortal masters may also take action. This has happened many times during the opening of the spirits over the years.
The tribes that were closer to the temple were better. They were finally afraid of the name of the temple and did not dare to be too presumptuous, but tribes far away like them were extremely dangerous.
I heard that last time, a medium-sized tribe in this area had an elixir that was nearly a thousand years old in the tribute. As a result, after the news leaked, the whole team disappeared strangely on the way to the temple, and no one could be found. . As a result, many people have heard rumors that a high-ranking immortal teacher from a certain large tribe is envious of this treasure, so he shot and killed to seize it. The people in the temple were naturally annoyed by this matter, and they heard that they also sent the immortal master in the temple to investigate, but for some reason, nothing happened.
So even though the tribute was ready this time, there was no immortal master in charge, which made the leader of the heron tribe feel uncomfortable sleeping and eating since he came out.
During the period of the spirit opening day, the immortal masters of all tribes were equally busy accompanying the team to the temple, even if they had spirit stones, they were not willing to be hired. Occasionally, a few wandering immortal masters were hired by several larger tribes nearby with a lot of money. As the weakest tribal leader, Yinglu could only stare blankly.
Thinking of this, the old man sighed, and couldn't help but glance behind him.
Among the seven or eight carts behind him, four of them were loaded with tributes, and the carts were all carefully selected horses from the tribe. These vehicles are also presciently made of red birch, the strongest wood in the tribe. Of course, in order not to attract attention, all the surfaces of the vehicles look tattered and extremely old. But thanks to these measures, otherwise, something might have happened long ago.
That's it, when we met a small group of wild wolves last time, the team almost lost staff. But in order to rush out of the wolves, the convoy had to discard the slowest two cars to get here safely.
Although there was nothing valuable in those two cars, they were filled with most of the food for the next two months. It seemed that they had to stop on the road for a few days. I remember that after two days' journey, there will be a canyon nearby. There are few people in it. Maybe there are some bison and wild sheep. They can hunt some prey back first.
Thinking of this, the old man came back and touched the hardwood bow hanging on the saddle, with a thoughtful look on his face.
"Hey! What's that?" A clear female voice suddenly came from beside the old man, full of surprise. It was the voice of a delicate young girl who followed closely behind the old man. This woman is Yingshan, fifteen or sixteen years old, a junior of Yinglu, and one of the few people in the tribe who have been tested to have spiritual roots, so she is naturally favored by Yinglu.
The old man was startled when he heard the words, and hurriedly looked up. As a result, not far ahead, in a dense bush, there were bursts of blue light flickering, as if there was something faintly inside. And he remembered very clearly that before returning just now, there was no such light in that direction.
The old man's heart trembled. As a tribal leader, he was no stranger to the spiritual light emitted by the immortal master when he cast spells. Is it true that there are immortal masters who want to attack such a poor team like them
Yinglu's heart sank, and suddenly he raised his hand, and the team behind him stopped abruptly. The others also saw the blue light in the bushes ahead, and they couldn't help showing a bit of panic and alertness on their faces.
The old man forcibly reined in the reins calmly, and stood still, but all kinds of thoughts in his mind turned sharply, thinking hard about self-protection strategies.
But after a while, the old man realized that something was wrong. Although the blue light in the bushes kept flickering, no fairy master appeared, and no fairy magic was issued.
Yinglu's eyes lit up, and he hurriedly looked carefully at the bushes. The bushes were so densely packed that one person could not see anything clearly.
"Tumeng! Go over and see if there is really an immortal master there." The old man's eyes flickered a few times before he suddenly said.
"Yes, patriarch!" A strong young man with a mighty face in the convoy was startled when he heard this, but hurriedly agreed, then got off his horse, and walked cautiously towards the bushes more than twenty feet away. When he was only five or six feet away from the land of blue light, after a moment of hesitation, the young man subconsciously stopped his footsteps.
"I don't know which fairy master is here? I'm from the Heron Department, and I'm here to see the true face of the fairy master." The young man seemed to have some status in the Heron Department, and his words were gentle, with a smile on his face. Respectful look.
However, there was still only spiritual light flowing in the bushes, and there was no sound. Seeing this, the young man couldn't help but glance back at the old man.
The old man thought about it for a while and then nodded silently at him. The young man suddenly gained some confidence and walked forward quietly. When he reached the bushes, the young man hesitated for a moment, but he still gritted his teeth and stretched out his hand to separate the bushes in front of him.