The Age of Swords begins with the Xia Clan from the forest...
Not long after Aliya returned to the forest area, she came to the Xia clan again.
He brought Xiao Chirp and the baby birds to Chaoxia, took out the food Chaoxia would eat during the snowy season, and then disappeared once again.
Back in the fruit-growing season, Jiang Yunlan thought Xiao Qiu was a bird and couldn't raise beastman cubs, but it turns out it really could. The beastman cubs that came to the Xia clan are now being cared for by Xiao Qiu, except for providing them with food, of course.
Little Chaoxia has already learned to bring herself food, can walk and crawl, and can understand many orc languages, so she doesn't need any orc care at all.
This is perhaps a characteristic of the Earth Beastmen. Despite having only recently hatched from his egg, he is already almost able to take care of himself.
He doesn't like to move, can't talk, and doesn't play with other cubs. His daily routine consists of eating, sleeping next to Little Chirp, being soothed back to sleep by Little Chirp when he wakes up crying, and being pushed by Little Chirp to sunbathe.
Having witnessed the scene of the giant bird raising the earth beastmen, Jiang Yunlan suddenly understood why the earth beastmen would give their offspring to birds to incubate when they couldn't hatch them.
The big bird really does raise its chicks well once they hatch.
A few more days passed.
Just as Aliya had said, Chaoxia cried less and less after he distanced himself from his tribe. His connection with his tribe seemed to have weakened, and he was no longer in so much pain. This should have been a cause for celebration. But one day, Jiang Yunlan noticed that when he was awake and not crying, he was always looking in the direction of the wooded area.
For a moment, she sensed that the cub wasn't less distressed, but rather that it was gradually realizing that no matter how much it cried, it wouldn't help.
His weeping did nothing to heal his people.
Jiang Yunlan sighed and turned back to study gunpowder. As long as there was one Earth Beastman in the hands of the Bear Beastmen, the suffering of the Earth Beastmen would not end.
Why did they insist on capturing the orcs? She couldn't understand it.
Neither strength nor speed is possessed by the earth beastmen. Despite their small size in both body and beast form, they are only adept at burrowing underground.
The doubt remained in Jiang Yunlan's heart.
She's busy again.
Before the snow season arrived, Jiang Yunlan had considered making a spinning machine and a loom when she had some free time. However, she was too busy, and it wasn't until now, when the ramie harvest had already begun, that she realized she still didn't have a spinning machine and a loom.
She didn't have time to deal with the ramie, so she asked Qiuguo to take the beastmen to handle it.
Having received the ramie task, the beastmen struggled to suppress their restless hearts and painfully peeled, soaked, and scraped the ramie fibers...
While all the orcs were busy, Jiang Yunlan hid in an open space where no orcs would go and continued refining gunpowder. Perhaps because they had moved to a different world, the materials had changed, and the gunpowder formula from their original world was no longer effective in this one.
She was re-tuning the device, and occasionally trying to add something new.
"There was a sound, but it didn't completely explode. It should be soon. The recipe is finally complete; now all that's left is to adjust the proportions." She finished speaking and looked around. Good, no orcs noticed her presence.
One material was missing, making it impossible to continue the experiment. Jiang Yunlan decisively stood up and listened intently to destroy the traces she had created.
Making gunpowder was too dangerous, and she didn't want any orcs to know about it until she had created gunpowder that could be safely detonated.
If they had known, they would definitely have tried making gunpowder themselves. Their boundless energy, coupled with their lack of proper understanding and awareness of the dangers of gunpowder, makes it difficult to guarantee that no accidents will occur.
Jiang Yunlan had some free time before she could gather enough raw materials for the next batch of gunpowder. She remembered that Maple Syrup had said the beastmen had already processed the ramie.
It was time to spin thread and weave cloth. With that thought in mind, she found some orcs who could sit still, took out the blueprints, and worked with them to study the hand-cranked spinning machine.
The horse-beastmen, who are usually quite quiet and rarely speak, are surprisingly obsessed with handicrafts. Give them a tool and a piece of wood, and they can sit from dawn till dusk without finding woodworking boring at all.
Their world is so quiet that it's hard to realize where you are unless you're busy with something.
"Tap tap, tap tap."
The beastmen sat down, each with a saw, chisel, and other tools, and made the parts needed for the spinning machine according to the ink lines drawn by 022 on the wood.
Frame, pulley, handle, spindle.
The orcs made the parts needed for a hand-cranked defensive machine, and Jiang Yunlan took the parts and assembled them under their watchful eyes.
After installing the hand-cranked wire-blocking machine, she took out a piece of thread spun with a spindle, wound the thread and outer thread onto the unloaded rope wheel, and placed the outer thread on the spindle.
"Weave, weave, weave—"
Pull the handle, and the hand-cranked spinning machine starts turning smoothly.
Feng Er heard it. The sound of something spinning and moving forward.
“Lan, I like this.” She suddenly spoke up, her gaze focusing on Jiang Yunlan, who was cranking the spinning machine.
Upon hearing this, Jiang Yunlan withdrew her hand, stood up, took two steps back, and said to her with a smile, "Feng Er, come here. Come and try out the spinning machine you made."
She obediently walked over, sat on the stool, grasped the handle of the spinning machine, and began to spin her arm.
"Weave, weave, weave."
A faint sound approached her from afar. The world was no longer quiet; she heard it clearly—it was the sound of a turning pulley.
"Weave—weave—weave—"
As Feng Er watched the spinning hemp thread, she suddenly realized that the object in front of her was something she had made.
"Does Feng Er like spinning machines?" she heard Lan ask her.
She looked in the direction of the sound. The squirrel-beastman cub smiled and gazed at her with its bright black eyes.
She nodded, a smile appearing on her face. "I like it. I like making this."
"So you like woodworking. Then Feng Er, you can do some woodworking too. I also need a few spinning machines and a few looms." Jiang Yunlan's smile widened, her tone cheerful.
The Xia clan doesn't have any orcs who specialize in carpentry, so it's wonderful that Feng Er is willing to continue doing carpentry.
Carpentry is too tedious, and the active beastmen don't like this job.
Feng Er agreed and got up to let the other beastmen come and try. Horse beastmen, ram beastmen, squirrel beastmen... all the beastmen involved in the work turned the spinning wheel a few times.
Orcs are always full of curiosity about new items and will try them out with great enthusiasm.
However, since the spinning could only be repeated, and the spinning thread needed to be changed every time the arm was turned, the beastmen quickly got bored with it.
This is much more boring than carpentry. Many orcs thought.
Feng Qi and his few orcs, however, did not find it boring. The "weaving, weaving, weaving" sound was interesting, as was the ever-increasing number of balls of yarn, which made them want to weave the few balls of yarn into more.
Seeing that Feng Qi and the others enjoyed it, Jiang Yunlan pulled them away from the woodworking pile and led them to spin thread. She felt they would probably also like weaving, and decided that she would let them try it out when she made a loom.
Things turned out exactly as she expected.
Upon first encountering a loom, Feng Qi and a few other orcs decisively abandoned their old love of spinning and went off to weave.
Weaving cloth, blacksmithing, building houses.
These three things became the most important tasks for the Xia clan orcs during the snow season.
Time passed, and the snow drifted away with the wind.
With spring approaching, Jiang Yunlan and 022 discussed the crops to be planted that spring. The Xia clan now lived on the grasslands, where they could grow crops with a longer growing season.
After agreeing on the long-growing crops, they also decided on several short-term crops. Jiang Yunlan heard the beastmen calling her name.
She stood on the road where the weeds had been cleared, and looked up to see a wolf-orc running towards her with an iron sword in both hands, followed by a ram-orc.
"Wolf! Hold the sword close to your chest. Holding it up like that is too high. We only made this one sword!"
The argali orc chasing after Wolf Ann shouted, holding a large rock in his hand.
Wolf An, who was running ahead, agreed repeatedly, slowed down, put the iron sword in his pocket, and then suddenly accelerated and stopped in front of Lan.
"Lan! Look! We've forged the sword you said could split a boulder!" Lang An held the sword's scabbard and handed the hilt to Lan so she could take it out and try it out.
Jiang Yunlan was shocked. She looked at the iron sword the woman had handed her, then at the woman and the argali beastman behind her.
Both of these are the free-spirited type among the blacksmith orcs. The free-spirited type of orcs are mostly those with wildly imaginative ideas, who are very willing to try new things and are particularly stubborn.
Once, an orc said, "Even if you combine this item with that item, you still can't create what you want."
They didn't believe it and insisted on trying it themselves. If they failed, they weren't upset; they put down the hammer, laughed, and started thinking of the next method.
Jiang Yunlan still remembers that when they asked her what iron products she wanted besides tools, she answered with various weapons and armor.
She was thinking about combat and defense at the time, and just casually mentioned it. She never expected they would actually pull it off.
"Lan, try it! Is this the sword you want?" The ram-beastman ran to Lang An's side and stopped, looking at Lan with the same anticipation as her. These free-for-all blacksmith orcs didn't forge iron tools; they specialized in the weapons and armor Lan had mentioned.
Although they had never seen the weapons and armor that Lan mentioned, they were captivated by Lan's narration.
I want such a powerful item that can protect my people!
The group of free-for-all blacksmith orcs had failed countless times, and they were all burning with determination. They wanted to create the weapon that Lan had described—the one that could split stone.
Having gone through so much trouble to create this sword, they wanted to gain Lan's approval.
Stared at intently by the two orcs, Jiang Yunlan raised her hands and took the scabbarded sword.
It's so heavy.
The moment she picked up the sword, those two words filled her mind. She had no idea how the orcs had forged it; it was a little difficult for her to hold, but thankfully, she could manage just one swing.
Jiang Yunlan took out her sword from its sheath and swung it with both hands at the large rock that the ram beastman had placed on the ground.
"bump--"
The stone in front of her split in two, and she also plunged the bright, undamaged sword into the ground.
“Very sharp,” Jiang Yunlan said, shaking her arm, which was still a little numb from the impact. “It’s a good sword, suitable for strong orcs.”
She offered her assessment, smiling as she praised the two orcs before her, as well as the other free-faction blacksmiths who hadn't come over. She didn't frequent the blacksmith's workshop, but she had overheard the inheritor-faction blacksmiths telling her about how the free faction stayed up all night every day forging weapons and armor.
Having gained Lan's approval, the two orcs who had stubbornly run over instantly collapsed into sleep, completely unconcerned that they were lying outside in the cold wind. Of all the free-for-all blacksmith orcs, only the two of them had just fallen asleep.
Seeing the two orcs fall asleep instantly, Jiang Yunlan opened her eyes wide, helplessly left 022 behind, and went to find the two orcs to carry them to the bed.
With the advent of weapons and armor, the orcs now have a few more items to protect themselves.
very nice.
Continue read on readnovelmtl.com
