Chapter 37 – Ground komodo tooth sabre (2/2)

Indeed, he was exactly like Lang Ga’s described him, a grumpy old fellow.

Entering the room, Shao Xuan shared the news that Mai allowed him to tag along during the next hunting mission.

Ge’s jaw almost fell on the ground at the news, he was totally stunned, while old Ke answered with a single “hmm” calmly, as if he had already expected that. Without any more comment, he asked Shao Xuan to come inside and craft the hunting tools.

The stone tools for hunting need to be in much higher quality than those for training purposes, and crafting those stone tools took longer time. Shao Xuan already had plenty stone tools for training, but he only had a few for actual hunting purposes. Half of his handiwork was traded out by old Ke, and he gave those specially-made tools to Lang Ga and Mai as gifts. So what was left for his own use was quite limited in quantity.

Shao Xuan also did not explain more, and he went inside after taking off his animal skin clothes.

Ge looked at the straw curtain hanging there as a separator, and snickered. He knew that old Ke was treating Shao Xuan pretty seriously and he was hiding him from the others!

It was true that during this period of time, old Ke allowed no one to come inside the house. However, there were people like Ge, who would try to enter by using the window. Of course there were also others that couldn’t be stopped by old Ke, and Lang Ga’s grandpa was just one of them.

Old Ke was trying to keep Shao Xuan hidden from the others so he didn’t get stolen away by some other stone crafters.

“Hey, old Ke. Do you know why they allowed Ah-Xuan to join the hunting mission in advance?” asked Ge.

Old Ke remained silence.

“Humph, you can keep your little secret all to yourself anyway.” Ge walked inside and carefully lifted the straw curtain a bit. He quietly stared at Shao Xuan inside, trying to see what was different now, that made the old-fashioned stubborn Mai change his style.

After a while observing, Ge walked back with one hand cupping his jaw with mouth wide open. He was totally stunned, as if he had seen a carnivorous animal suddenly become a herbivore.

“He, he, he…” Before Ge had the chance to describe what he saw, he noticed that old Ke was polishing a tooth-white sabre. All his words were swallowed back into his stomach, and after some time, Ge pointed at the sabre being polished and jabbered, “You, you, you…”

There were a lot of marks on the sabre’s body, and plenty of dense small gaps were spread out over the blade. Seen from afar, they looked like serrations, but in fact, these marks were caused by constant use. The original hilt was broken long time ago, so old Ke tore it down and the handle part now was exposed with an extending part of the sabre, the base the original hilt was installed on.

Ge’s sight was fixed on that sabre and it took him a really long time to come back to his senses. He had guessed what old Ke was about to do, which surprised him, that was even more shocking to him than seeing Shao Xuan’s totemic patterns.

When Shao Xuan came out of the room, as he had finished today’s stone cores, old Ke was installing the hilt to that well-polished sabre. The thing he used for the hilt was a special kind of resin. After it had been mixed and heated up, it was then shaped into the shape of a hilt and covered the extending part of the sabre, until it cooled down and then became a new hilt. Shao Xuan also normally uses the same process, as those kinds of hilts felt much better than wooden ones or those made from straw ropes.

“Wait a second, take this sabre with you after I finish with the hilt.” Old Ke said to Shao Xuan, who was just about to leave.

Shao Xuan looked up at that sabre. It was relatively wide, and the blade was nearly half a meter long. The back of the sabre was as thick as a thumb, which was much thicker than most of Shao Xuan’s work.

Judging from Ge’s expression, Shao Xuan knew that the sabre was something significant. He had not yet touched the sabre, so he couldn’t say anything certain, but as he stared at the sabre, he sensed that a heavy icy feeling was permeating in the air, as if it was trying to push people down to the ground.

“That is…?” Shao Xuan was confused.

“That is a sabre made from the tooth of a ground komodo.” Ge glared at the sabre with all the reluctance in the world. He wanted to grab it into his own arms. Ever since old Ke had his leg broken, no one had ever seen that sabre. In the past, he had begged old Ke for a thousand times, but old Ke still refused to take it out and let him have a look. However, now, old Ke was giving the sabre that represented his glorious days to Shao Xuan!

Ge envied Shao Xuan in his heart, but he knew his own situation and he knew that he could only admire it, and lose all other thoughts.

“Ground komodo?!”

It was a ground komodo!

Although Shao Xuan had never seen one in real life, Shao Xuan had heard from Lang Ga and the others, that a ground komodo was a giant beast living under the ground. When facing a ground komodo during a hunting mission, no warrior should think about tossing any stone spearhead at him, and the only thing one could do was to run for their lives. No one wanted to challenge a ground komodo, because a human could never win.

After listening to so many hunting stories from Lang Ga, Shao Xuan had never heard which hunting team had encountered a ground komodo.

After old Ke passed the sabre to Shao Xuan and pushed him out the door, Ge was still staring at Shao Xuan’s back but his sight was fixed on the sabre.