Chapter 629 Another Use For The Water Moon Stone (1/2)

When he was heading to the beast pens, he met Ao, who was coincidentally looking for him.

Ao was holding a bulging beast skin bag filled to the brim.

“The Drumming Tribe brought this over, as debt repayment. See how many regular water moon stones it’s worth.” Ao handed the bag over.

Shao Xuan took a look inside the bag but couldn’t see much because of the bright sunlight. He headed into a wooden hut nearby with Ao. It was a temporary shelter for the animal keepers and patrol teams who passed by.

Seeing Shao Xuan and Ao approaching, everyone resting inside quickly left and took initiative to guard the area, not letting anyone approach. They knew that Ao and Shao Xuan must have something to discuss. It didn’t matter if it was secret, without permission, they would do their best to stay away and prevent other people from eavesdropping.

After entering the hut, Shao Xuan closed the windows and only left one open for ventilation.

Now that it was dark, the water moon stones inside were a lot more obvious.

“Not bright enough, inconsistent transparency and quality.” One look was enough for Shao Xuan to determine the quality of the water moon stones within the bag.

Good quality water moon stones were as bright as light bulbs plus they looked clean and clear. This was why they could be used as trading currency.

However, some of these in the bag were very dull, not bright enough for practical usage. Not just a light bulb, they were dimmer than fire torches. Some barely met the brightness requirements but they were murky. Only barely a tenth of the stones truly met their standards.

“The Drumming tribesmen must’ve chosen these from their stocks to pay us. I think these must be the best stones they have, though this is all they could afford,” said Ao.

After merging with the fire seed, the Drumming tribe slowly dissociated their mindsets from the primitive fire seed to its powers already inside them to generate water moon stones. Unfortunately, within such a short time period, the water moon stones made still did not meet previous standards. This was understandable to Ao.

“What are you all going to do about it?” asked Shao Xuan.

“We’ll accept it. Since the quality of these aren’t up to standard, we can’t price it like before. But when we built Flaming River Castle, the Drumming Tribe helped us many times and did not accept any gifts from Flaming Horn. I was thinking about valuing them at one third,” said Ao.

He meant to value these water moon stones at one third the price of regular stones.

Actually, Ao was satisfied with the Drumming Tribe as their neighbours. In comparison to the Wanshi Tribe, he was definitely happier with the Drumming Tribe. Plus they’d helped Flaming Horns many times. Now that Drumming Tribe had just rebuilt their houses and undergone major changes, they weren’t living their best lives now either. That was why Ao did not want to trouble them too much.

But that was just his opinion, he still wanted to listen to Shao Xuan’s opinion. Gui He had no problem with it but if Shao Xuan disagreed, it was still a no.

“Sure, just carry on as you planned.” Shao Xuan handed the water moon stones back to Ao. “Keep the duller ones separately.”

“I know.” Ao did not plan to use the dimmer stones anyway. They couldn’t even be used for reading anything one palm’s distance away, let alone light up one’s path.

“Bring the dimmer stones to the crop fields later, leave them there and see if any insects are attracted,” said Shao Xuan.

With more crops in the fields, there were more insects too. Although there were people in charge of killing pests and even the green ducks eating the insects in the fields, those were just during the day. They had a pest problem for nocturnal insects. Some people used fire torches to chase them away, which was effective because most living things feared fire. However, it was impossible to keep this up for an entire night.

Perhaps due to high human activity in the Flaming Horn tribe, most birds did not approach the village, especially not at night. This caused the nocturnal bug problem to proliferate. The warm weather, moist river banks and large crop fields were paradise for bugs. The ones flown over from the Fearsome Beast Forest area were especially annoying.

Coincidentally, these nearly useless water moon stones could be used. They couldn’t be used practically but they were still glowing at a brightness equivalent to a phone screen. Perhaps they would attract some nocturnal bugs.

There were all sorts of insects, many were attracted to light but they weren’t as dumb as the flying ones that would kill themselves in fire. They were clever enough to avoid the hot source of light- fire torches. That was why Shao Xuan thought it was worth an attempt with these stones.

When Shao Xuan mentioned it, Ao understood. He was the chief after all.

“You mean those nocturnal insects might like the glowing water moon stones?”

Ao had once walked outside holding a water moon stone. He had met many insects flying near him too, though he thought it was because of him, not the stone. Now that Shao Xuan mentioned it, could it be the glow of the stone?

“Many bugs that come out at night like the moon but the moon is too far away. But I don’t know if they’ll be attracted to the stones,” explained Shao Xuan.

“I see.” Ao was impressed, thinking, ‘No wonder he’s the Grand Elder, he knows so much.’