His three hours of trailing had paid off... However, now there was a different problem.

The excitement on Uhtred’s face slowly eased off, and he began to analyze how he was going to approach this territory.

It was not new knowledge to him that the moment he entered someone else’s territory, he would immediately pop up on their radar.

The exact same way the Homo erectus scouts had been visible to him on his territory panel was the exact same way he would be visible to whoever controlled this place.

Thinking about it that way, he also began to entertain the idea that perhaps this could even be a trap.

The fact that the ancient variants had a clear-cut territory, not just some open-air base they made themselves, but a system-enforced territory like his own, pointed to a glaring fact:

They surely knew the mechanics of how territories worked.

So why then had the two Homo erectus scouts been so oblivious to the fact that he had spotted them?

They hadn’t behaved like they were aware that entering into someone else’s territory would make you immediately visible on their territory panel.

Either they were being purposely oblivious to lure him into this place, in which case he had already fallen for their trap...

Or, the low-level ancient variants simply didn’t have knowledge of such things.

It was not far-fetched to think about it that way. Even among humans, Uhtred could see the exact same thing happening. The people back in the different sectors had no knowledge of the same things pioneers, for example, knew.

In fact, even he was doing the same to an extent with Diya, Minh Quan, and Dennis. There were things they still did not know about the System... things he simply hadn’t told them yet.

It seemed more likely that the Homo erectus scouts had simply not known how territories worked than this being some sort of elaborate trap... at least that was what Uhtred hoped.

Well, nothing has happened yet, and I’ve been hiding here for nearly a minute now...

Uhtred looked around, scanning the surroundings again. He could see nothing particularly suspicious or out of place.

The ancient variants didn’t even seem to place any sort of importance on guarding the outside of their territory.

The camouflage was already more than sufficient. And this wasn’t just because of its shrouding effect.

As Uhtred stared at it, he felt some kind of compelling push that made his attention glide right across the surface of the area where he knew their territory was.

It seemed territory barriers also had another kind of passive effect that diverted attention.

That would explain why they had no security outside their territory.

Just to be safe, though, Uhtred still waited for several minutes. But after nothing occurred, he decided to just bite the bullet and follow after the Homo erectus scouts.

Decisively, he stood up from his spot and crossed the small expanse of dry leaves, very careful for any sort of trap.

There weren’t any, and in no time he was directly at the border of the territory itself.

Priming his body and mind, holding his battleaxe tightly in his hands under his camouflage cloak, Uhtred stepped through.

The dim light of the forest shifted immediately, and everything inside became completely clear to his eyes. 𝑓𝘳𝘦𝑒𝑤𝑒𝘣𝘯ℴ𝘷𝘦𝓁.𝑐𝑜𝑚

Just like he had expected, it was their base. A fully-fledged outpost that looked like a small town.

The territory within was much larger than his own meager 2,000 square meter territory. He couldn’t even see the ends of it from where he stood, though in truth he wasn’t really standing at a high vantage point.

After being shocked by the size of the outpost, the next thing that drew his attention were the structures within.

Uhtred had thought he would see caves or huts, but there was nothing of the sort. Rather, the buildings that filled his view were tall, stony and blocky structures that were brutalist in their architectural design.

Barely any windows or aesthetic, the buildings were simply functional and nothing more. They were arranged in neat formations, spreading across the expanse of the outpost.

Looking at the structures, every last bit of underestimation in Uhtred’s mind about the Neanderthals and Homo erectus’ level of intelligence disappeared entirely. It seemed these ancient variants were even more developed than he had thought.

He quickly reined his shock in and continued to move, making his movements erratic as he walked along the outer edges of the area.

He was being extremely vigilant, observing everything while being acutely aware that his position was probably being observed by whoever was in control of this place.

Neanderthals and Homo erectus of every age and size filled the outpost, talking over each other in their prehistoric language that sounded like a cacophony of noise.

As they milled about, none of them seemed to notice him at all. His camouflage cloak was working as intended, allowing him to move close enough to them to pick up on traces of their conversation through this translation device and also observe them in more detail.

The one thing that immediately stood out to him from his observation was the obvious hierarchy here. Like a kind of caste system.

It wasn’t particularly surprising, seeing as even in human society the same existed.

However, here it was very apparent.

The normal grunts were a mix of Homo erectus and Neanderthals, but there were more Homo erectus doing grunt work than they were Neanderthals.

These grunts made up the most numbers in the outpost. They were literally everywhere doing menial tasks. Above their heads, Uhtred could see that these were the low-level individuals in their society, the common grade talents among them.

They all sat well below Level 5, with most of them closer to Level 1 and Level 2.

In comparison to human numbers, even within Uhtred’s own camp, Diya was the highest-leveled at Level 5, so most of these grunts could be compared to Dennis and Minh Quan.

But within the context of the ancient variant society, these were simply low-leveled individuals, especially because Uhtred could see the levels of others around.

With a grim realization, he noticed that the average level he had seen so far for the enforcers keeping these low-level grunts in order was somewhere between Level 7 and Level 10.

Their average strength was much higher than humans, which immediately told him something new...

It seemed these guys had gotten access to the System much earlier than humans had...