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Chapter 796: By the Volcanoes

The entire battlefield was filled with radiant light, holy and pure, as though Li Feng had opened the gates to heaven.

As the light receded, however, the mammoth herdleader seemed to vanish. Nothing was left behind; he seemed to have evaporated from the world.

The golden mammoth stared at the scene in shock. He had understood the principles behind all the blows that had been exchanged in the battle to date—all except for the very last blow.

Li Feng slowly dropped his sword and released a deep breath. "I was almost sucked into the attack myself. Better not to use something like this too much."

The golden mammoth\'s mouth was still agape; he had yet to recover from the shock of Li Feng\'s attack. Subsequently, a bloody blizzard descended from the sky—a rain of blood which had frozen over given the temperature.

As the heavens mourned for the death of the king, the golden mammoth finally came to his senses. "Just what was that final attack? Where did the mammoth herdleader get transported to?"

Li Feng turned to the golden mammoth. "Ah, you haven\'t died yet."

At the start of the battle, he had tried to move away from the wounded mammoth, but as the battle dragged on, Li Feng completely forgot about his existence.

The golden mammoth asked again, "Just what was that final attack? Could you be a wuxia swordsman yourself?"

Li Feng scratched his head. "How should I explain this... I don\'t suppose you\'re familiar with data modeling? ?Vector space modeling? Advanced mathematics? Conversion of energy, refining energy, the second law of thermodynamics?"

The golden mammoth shook his head more and more furiously.

Li Feng shrugged. "In that case, I won\'t be able to explain it to you."

The golden mammoth sighed. "To think that humans possessed so many other private collections of wuxia techniques! We mammoths have truly underestimated your kind."

Li Feng\'s lips spasmed. "I suppose they are... wuxia techniques... of a kind, but ones so complicated that you wouldn\'t want to delve deeply into them."

The golden mammoth sighed again. "In the end, we were far too arrogant!"

The mammoth herdleader\'s arrogance had gradually spread to the rest of the herd. The mammoths believed that, after they had learned some human knowledge, that they had eclipsed humanity entirely. They believed that their understanding of the world, built upon the foundations the humans had taught them, had long since eclipsed human knowledge.

Now, however, the mammoths were learning that they had been entirely mistaken.

The humans had hardly shared everything with the mammoths; they had simply passed on a small gift, one which didn\'t contain many core principles or advanced extensions of the same ideas.

After the mammoths learned and mastered this knowledge, after hunting became trivial for them and they were able to build stronger and more insulating shelter, they grew more and more arrogant. They believed that the information that humans had provided them were the limit of what weaklings like the humans could accomplish; that they, mammoths with far superior constitution, could advance themselves further.

The golden mammoth knew this to be a lie, but he had no way of proving it to the rest of the mammoths.

Li Feng nodded. "An understandable development."

The golden mammoth continued, "Ever since the king of the realm emerged from our herd, we no longer visited the other neighboring worlds as much. Instead, we isolated ourselves. Trying to change my herd\'s mindset will require a sudden shock."

Li Feng nodded, understanding what the golden mammoth meant. The mammoth wanted to shock his herd out of complacency, while Li Feng needed to acquire the proof of kingship. Their goals were aligned.

Li Feng asked, "But are you really willing to give up on the proof of kingship so simply?"

The golden mammoth nodded. "Even without the proof of kingship, we mammoths can likewise become strong."

The golden mammoth was wise beyond his years, so much so that Li Feng would have been a little worried as to just how strong he would become in the future if not for Zhang Lie\'s presence.

He countered, "Aren\'t you afraid that I\'ll wipe out all the mammoths after taking the proof of kingship?"

The golden mammoth replied, "I wouldn\'t tell anyone else where the proof of kingship is, but you\'re a different story."

"You trust me?" Li Feng was skeptical. He had only fought against the golden mammoth once; it was hardly as though they were old rivals.

The golden mammoth smiled. "If you were planning to kill all the mammoths, you would hardly spend so much time talking with me. Isn\'t that so?"

Li Feng nodded. "I suppose that\'s reasonable."

The golden mammoth continued, "Of course, the primary reason is that you\'ve conveyed your feelings to me through your swordsmanship."

That... was a very wuxia-flavored answer.

Li Feng strode forward, lifted the golden mammoth, and slung him around his shoulders.

The golden mammoth suddenly requested, "Can you haul me on your back in a different position? This is how you\'d carry me to the herd if I were your prey!"

"You\'re rather demanding, aren\'t you?" In the end, Li Feng didn\'t adjust how the mammoth was slung on his back.

Although the draconians had provided Li Feng with some information about the mammoth lands, this was the first time Li Feng had witnessed it for himself.

There were eight volcanoes in the region, with the one in the middle being the largest. The other seven surrounded the central volcano in a rough ring. All eight volcanos were active, and smoke trailed out of their craters. They warmed up the mammoths that gathered around them.

The golden mammoth explained, "Because of the warmer climate around the volcanoes, there are more prey in the region."

The lifeforms of this frozen world had unwillingly adapted to the cold; they preferred slightly warmer climates. Of course, that didn\'t mean that they wanted the climate of the equator rather than of the North Pole, but rather that they sought spots of warmth—exactly like the volcanoes would provide.

The nearby volcanoes meant that the ground around the mammoths wasn\'t frozen, and was far more convenient and comfortable than the rest of the land.

The genetic lifeforms tended to be active in the vicinity of the volcano. None approached the volcanoes directly given the presence of the mammoth herd and the fact that they wanted warmth, not extreme heat.

As more genetic lifeforms gathered around the volcanoes, so too did their predators. Thanks to the large numbers of lifeforms around, there were plenty of lifeforms for the mammoths to hunt. No longer did they have to wander hundreds of kilometers away or hunt on precarious terrain like a frozen river.

The mammoths even tried to grow plants and vegetables in order to add variety and essential nutrients to their diet, in the same way that housecats would sometimes consume weeds and wild grass to deal with the accumulated fat in their stomach.

In the past, the mammoths had had to trade for such precious supplies, but now, they could even grow their own sustenance.

Li Feng\'s eyesight was very developed, and he could see pillars of flame from afar, which rose and fell in sync with a pulse from the ground.

The golden mammoth explained, "We craft and forge our weapons from the earth\'s fire. Although we learned how to forge weapons from humans, it was far too expensive for us to maintain other types of forges in this weather. Our wise ancestors were the ones who thought of this idea."

Li Feng rolled his eyes. "And then, the intelligence and wisdom amassed throughout generations of hard work—your herdleader destroyed it all!"

The golden mammoth\'s face turned downcast. "I won\'t judge the herdleader for his actions. Although he had truly grown too arrogant by his demise, he has contributed greatly to the clan himself. His accomplishments shouldn\'t be judged by our contemporaries, but rather by our descendants."

Li Feng contemplated, "A wise leader making a terrible mistake near the end of his life? I can\'t help but feel a sense of deja vu..."

The mammoth lands were divided into an inner and an outer sanctuary. The inner sanctuary consisted of mud houses, along with a simple wall formed from bricks of ice. The outer sanctuary had igloos.

Li Feng asked, "What separates these two regions?"

"The warriors live on the outskirts, while the women, children, and elderly live within."

"Oh? It looks like your herd is surprisingly harmonious." Li Feng was a little shocked that the warriors who fought on behalf of the herd were willing to sleep in such icy quarters.

The golden mammoth peered at him strangely. "You don\'t think we would separate our community into serfs and lords, do you?"

"Don\'t your warriors mind?" Didn\'t they think that shedding blood for the clan made them deserve better treatment?

The golden mammoth shook his head. "This frozen world is a worse place to live in than the draconian world, than wherever you humans live. The threat of frightening beasts lies all around us. I freely admit that. It\'s precisely because we need to protect our herd that we warriors have to fight, to guard, to defend. All mammoths, once they come of age, become warriors that contribute to the safety of the tribe."

The mammoths thought this a natural progression of life, but Li Feng somewhat pitied the mammoths for not having even the right to decide their own fate.

Peering carefully at Li Feng, the golden mammoth added, "You pity us? We disagree. Only a few talented mammoths are willing to become smiths for the tribe, and only because the herdleader forced them to. We never have enough smiths, since being a warrior is a matter of peerless honor."

Li Feng sighed. "It\'s clear that your herdleader was excellent at brainwashing the entire herd."