My Weekly Refreshing Mentor Spirit-Chapter 294 - 274: Triangular Trade

The young general arrived in the Northern Icefield this time.

This is the world’s harshest environment for Demon Beasts to live, with freezing temperatures, barren land, and the ever-present frozen rivers and seas that define the landscape.

Yet this place has the most Beast Kings, with as many as two of them: one is the Titan Giant, the overlord of the Extreme North Icefield, and the other is the ruler of the Icefield Tigers.

However, he hopes all the Beast Kings here are male; he’s starting to feel that if this continues, let alone conquering all the Demon Beasts, he’ll soon fall apart himself.

This time, he smoothly arrived at the gathering place of the Icefield Tigers, and the young general found it intriguing to learn that one branch of these Icefield Tigers has distant relatives living with humans.

So, Demon Beasts also need to cooperate with humans? It’s not all life-and-death struggles.

In fact, it makes sense; in a way, humans in this world are just the largest group of Demon Beasts. They, too, once survived in the great forests, only to be the first to develop civilization.

And a distant relative of the Icefield Tigers turning to humans is no different from other races’ Demon Beasts pledging loyalty to these Beast Kings.

Soon, the leader of the Icefield Tigers met with the young general. It was a robust giant tiger, male, and this time, the young general breathed a slight sigh of relief, feeling a bit more at ease.

If every time he subdued Demon Beasts required him to offer himself, he might really die.

This time was even smoother because the Icefield Tigers had quite a few interactions with humans, and the young general had two other "Transformed Beast Kings" with him as evidence and persuasion.

After all, their own distant relatives working with nearby humans creates mutual benefits.

This seems to have become a basic trade relationship between humans and Demon Beasts.

And when this Icefield Tiger successfully transformed, a gigantic, muscular white tiger with a broad back and massive girth appeared!

Standing over three meters tall, covered in fur and muscle, its sheer presence was intimidatingly powerful.

"Thank you, Lord Sadwind, for your assistance," the Icefield Tiger King offered a peculiar gesture of respect.

The young general didn’t mind, as every race had its own ways of showing respect, and he wasn’t interested in teaching them what proper manners were.

"I know you need our strength, so I promise that as long as I’m around, the Icefield Tiger clan will always be your ally, forming an eternal friendship with you," the Tiger King said candidly, which the young general appreciated.

Fortunately, this was a male Beast King, without other intentions.

The young general was almost ready to whistle; his task was progressing rather smoothly.

"Alright, I’ll..." the young general was about to leave to visit another Titan Giant tribe when.

"Please, wait!"

The voice of the Icefield Tiger King suddenly chilled his back, making him turn mechanically, only to see the tiger, resembling a Beastman, displaying a cheeky expression, saying, "Your lordship’s great favor, we have nothing to reciprocate with..."

The young general: "..."

You’d better not! Forget it!

"How about this, since you accept our transformed appearance, why not take one of my daughters as a concubine?" the Icefield Tiger King suggested slyly.

The young general: "..."

He was almost startled; he wondered if something was wrong with this world. Fortunately, the Tiger King meant what he did, or else...

All for the purpose of killing that disgusting Heart Stealer!

Then, a simple and slightly foolish-looking tiger emerged, licking him.

A pure white tiger, purely a beast.

The young general: "..."

Seriously, brother...

You’re taking everything you’ve got, thinking that after transforming, you’d manage to get your daughter to transform as well?

But after a while, the young general quietly left the cave, accompanied by a Half-Dragon and a spiritual bird, and now there was also a two-meter-tall, broad-backed muscular tiger girl...

... 𝘧𝓇𝑒𝑒𝑤ℯ𝑏𝓃𝘰𝑣ℯ𝘭.𝘤ℴ𝘮

On the other side, at the Western Desert Border.

Xue Dili looked in the opposite direction of the sun, quietly writing in his book.

"Innovation Era: Day Four, Sandstorm"

Though this desert is technically the territory of the Teaching Country, the Teaching Country can’t fully control the desert area, so over half of it isn’t under their complete control. Only the part near the river can the people of the Teaching Country live and guard.

Further west lies the desert and the mountains, where even in winter, daytime temperatures soar above 60 degrees, dropping to over 50 degrees below zero at night, making it unsuitable for human habitation.

So the westernmost city here is not in the desert, but is situated atop a river, known as the extreme west city.

Further west lies a vast desert stretching hundreds of kilometers, home to numerous sandworms and small desert demon beasts, as well as some extremely drought-resistant plant-type demon beasts that manage to take root here.

When the carriage had not yet arrived, the entire legion here was put on alert. Unlike the scattered tribes in the Northern Territory, they seemed to maintain the formal configuration of the Teaching Country.

You could even see the knights of the divine nobles among them.

They were naturally not wary of Xue Dili, but of the nearly hundred-person team behind him.

They thought they might have encountered refugees or bandits, both of which were possible. In these borderlands, the defenses seemed intact, but in reality, they had long lost their combat system.

These garrisoned troops thought they were here to defend the west of the Teaching Country, but others might think they were exiled here.

Yellow sand, fierce winds, sandstorms, and even the river waters flowing down from the high mountains — a flood occurs every few years, hitting those living and stationed here with great force.

Yes, you heard it right. In the desert, a flood happens once every few years as if it’s a cycle — a few years of drought followed by a sudden, unmanageable flood.

Even the divine nobles’ armies and their knights, at this time, each had rough skin, wrapped in cloth.

Even here, they had to take off their shoes every few hours to shake out the sand; many had missing teeth from often biting into sand, a unique problem caused by the desert.

When they saw Xue Dili and the people behind him, they were cautious, but when they saw the people wearing clothes with a strong Northern Territory style, they were all surprised.

Those from the Northern Territory had no intention of entering the city; they camped just outside. The carts dragged by the cats contained their supplies and tents, and under the guidance of experienced old cats, they found a leeward lowland in the hills to set up camp.

Soon after, someone with a cat, carrying meat and fish, begun negotiations and trade with the locals.

Unlike those in the Northern Territory who relied on fishing and hunting to survive, the people of the Western Border almost had their eyes light up seeing the meat and fish.

They could hardly see any meat for months at a time.

Because this was a formal garrison, most of their food was grains. In this desert, the most common sight was sandworms.

Regarding the river, it was precisely the river washed down from the melting glaciers of the high mountains, containing almost no nutritional resources, so naturally, there were no big fish or shrimp; they could fish all day and not get enough for a meal.

In the desert, sandworms were most common, and they were mainly reliant on sandworms for protein. As for the taste of that...

Some have said cow dung is better than sandworms; who knows what they have experienced.

Meanwhile, Xue Dili stated his purpose.

"I am a traveling Healing Mage, looking to enhance my Healing Magic. I plan to offer free treatment and consultations in the city, preferably for major injuries or illnesses," Xue Dili explained his purpose.

This left the garrison soldiers here utterly perplexed.

Why would mages abandon their comfortable lives in the Divine Capital and come to this borderland that even a dog would wag its head at, to heal people?

They couldn’t understand it, so they casually spread the word.

And the group of Northern Territory people following the mage-grandfather had plenty of oil, salt, meat, and fish; all things the desert severely lacked, and they were only willing to trade for grains.

Coincidentally, they didn’t lack grain here.

So a lot of aged grain stored in the warehouses was brought out, and they got hard-to-come-by meat and oils in return, while the Northern Territory people happily accepted the old grain.

They didn’t mind the aged grain at all because, in the Northern Territory, many people barely ate any grains in their lifetime.

And with hundreds of pounds of meat, they could exchange for thousands of pounds of grain; both the Northern Territory and desert people felt they had made a great deal.

The tribe had a small team of people take the excess grain back to their tribe with the cats and informed them that they could send more meat, eggs, and dairy products this way, leaving marks along the way.

They were even puzzled why their ancestors hadn’t thought of this trade route to the Western Border, which would have prevented so many deaths from hunger in the winter each year.

However, trading in the Teaching Country was illegal, and only split-family nobles (Kshatriya) could trade among themselves; ordinary people were not allowed to trade among themselves. They had continually sought to trade with some internal cities in the Northern Territory but were always rejected.

But this was the Western Border, a place like the Northern Territory where the Teaching Country’s control was weakest.

Even the garrison here didn’t see trading as an issue. Both sides thought the other was a fool, while they had hit the jackpot.

In the desert, the split-family nobles traded with such arrogance, pricing meat and oil at dozens of times that of grains, which was incomprehensible, so they could only chew on dry rations, and the most meat they had each year was the sandworm, said to be worse than cow dung.

As for what would happen if the split-family nobles discovered them? They would cross that bridge when they came to it; they could not even lift a sword due to lack of protein, oil, and salt. Since the nobles priced their goods so high, they had to seek resources elsewhere.

So they felt this trade route would not be a one-time sneaky affair, but something they could operate long-term. After settling accounts, in addition to cursing the divine nobles, they even called the trade among themselves—the triangular trade.

As for Xue Dili’s arrival, offering Healing Technique for free was spread around, but such a windfall seemed unbelievable to everyone.

Rumors even spread that it was a conspiracy by the Necromancer, surely an attempt to conduct human experiments.