Chapter 28 – I want to learn stone crafting (2/2)

The kid also snorted at Shao Xuan as he looked back when he was about to enter the room, displaying his pride of his moves. His moves earlier were quite impressive among his peers, his father often complimented him for being able to run faster, jump higher and leap further than the other kids.

Shao Xuan scratched his jaw, was it really okay for him to tag along with the hunting team, since he made such a big noise when landing?

However, since Fei could come with the hunting team for the first hunting mission of the year, obviously he was under someone’s protection. What’s more, his protector must be someone with a high reputation and status, because, some normal warriors like Lang Ga could never have a saying in this kind of things.

Surely he was spoiled, with all the protection he got.

However, Shao Xuan was not affected by that, and his emotion were also not affected by Fei’s attitude. After all, he was not really a little kid, and he understood the importance of gradual progress. Therefore, he was not that eager to succeed. The earlier incident might be influence others, but Shao Xuan did not care that much.

Shao Xuan took Caesar for fishing. After an entire winter’s rest, the fish in the river were still as stupid and dumb as earlier. They did not release once they took the bait, and so they got captured easily. They might look ferocious, but they were not intelligent at all.

From Lang Ga and the other warriors’ earlier discussion over hunting skills, Shao Xuan learnt that many beasts in the forests were just like the piranhas in the river. They might look ferocious, with sharp teeth and big mouth. But once you found the trick, they could be captured easily. However, some other animals might seem to be gentle and weak, they dieted on plants and had no sharp teeth. But instead, they could easily kill you in silence, and they were no less aggressive than many predators.

Since it’s not the world that Shao Xuan was familiar with, he thought that he should get as much preparations as he could get.

With the fish and some pieces of old animal skins, Shao Xuan asked someone to help him make an animal skin bag. He paid the manual fee with one fish, and then went to the stoneware crafter, Ke’s place with the other three fish. Now Shao Xuan had more strength than before, so he could easily lift four big fish without Caesar’s help.

When Shao Xuan arrived, some men were just leaving Ke’s house with finished stoneware in their hands, for example, stone knives, spearheads and stone adzes.

Those people were here to trade stoneware, since the hunting season had begun, and they had to store more tools for hunting missions. Ke was considered as a famous stoneware crafter among the mountain foot district, naturally more people tended to come to his place. If Ke had a better temper, he would for sure have gained more customers than now. Every year, Ke would drive away some people who wanted to do the trading with him, just because of his bad temper.

Some people said that Ke was behaving too straight-forwarded. Instead of keeping it gentle, he tended to blast things outright in others’ faces as he talked. However, Shao Xuan did not agree with that. Was Ke really that ignorant of things? Or did he have a straight-forwarded character? He didn’t think so.

Shao Xuan lifted the curtain and walked inside after he got Ke’s permission.

Ke was working on a stoneware. Most of the stoneware he made during winter had been traded out, and there were still some stone cores and food piled up in his room. They were the “processing fee” that he did not had the time to put away.

Placing the fish by the pile of food, Shao Xuan approached Ke.

“Uncle Ke, I want to learn how to craft stoneware.”

Last time when Shao Xuan was here to learn, Ke refused him because he said it was not the right time yet, and he had to wait until his totemic power awakened.

Now since Shao Xuan was awakened, he decided to have another shot at this. Also, according to Lang Ga and the others’ advice in training, he needed a lot of stone tools. Shao Xuan did not have enough food to trade for so much stoneware, so he planned to craft them by himself.

Ke stopped his work at hand, and measured Shao Xuan closely from head to toes. And then he gazed straight at Shao Xuan’s eyes.

Shao Xuan did not avoid his eyesight.

After a few seconds, Ke passed Shao Xuan a stone hammer and pointed to somewhere not far, where a stone core was placed. On that stone core there were a few lines, curved and meandering.

“Hit along the lines.” Ke said.

As a rookie Shao Xuan held the stone hammer, he looked at Ke and then glimpsed at the stone core placed there, before he swung the hammer and hit down.

The first strike was too cautious. He did hit the lines, but because of limited strength, it only left a slight dent on the stone core.

Again!

For the second strike, he hit it too hard, so he pierced down a stone chip instead of a flake of stone. Also it went beyond the line.

Shao Xuan could tell from Ke’s exposed veins by his forehead, that Ke was extremely unsatisfied with his earlier two strikes. But since Ke kept his silence, Shao Xuan continued hitting on the stone core along the lines. Also, he struck boldly, and he did not become timid because of the first two failures.

Peeling down certain amount of stone flakes from a stone core was not as easy as it seemed to be. Stoneware crafters needed to estimate the length of time when the hammer should hit the stone based on different materials when he made the stoneware. Also, the angle and speed were also very important. Should the hit be straight or curved? What’s the hammer’s quality and the stone’s? How much strength should be used? There were many aspects that needed to be given serious consideration before one strikes the stone core.

Ke had mentioned these all to Shao Xuan, and Shao Xuan had seen a lot when Ke was peeling stone flakes from the stone cores. However, when he got to do it himself, he knew that it was extremely difficult!

A small discrepancy could lead to a major error.

Again!!

As Shao Xuan hit the stone core one strike after another, Ke sat aside and watched him in silence.