Chapter 61

“You mean the method to turn half-beastmen into beastmen? Yes, it’s the sinkhole,” said the orca beastman.

Song Xu casually asked, not expecting to get an answer so easily.

Excited, she asked, “The sinkhole? Can I go take a look?”

The orca beastman replied nonchalantly, “Why not?” It was just a place in the tribe where the young ones played and fetched fresh water.

Song Xu followed a few orca beastmen toward the sinkhole at the back of the tribe, chatting with them along the way to inquire about the snake and the tiger. Unfortunately, the orcas hadn’t seen them.

Among the three islands, only the orca tribe wasn’t a mixed tribe. Apart from orca beastmen, there were few other species of beastmen here.

Song Xu followed a group of young orca beastmen into the tribe, then swaggered with them towards the sinkhole, attracting curious glances from the orca beastmen they passed.

Fortunately, no one made things difficult for her. They either looked at her with curiosity and friendliness or simply ignored her. The little squirrel was deemed harmless without the dangerous snake, and her status rose sharply. She was easily accepted and could walk freely in the tribe without any obstacles.

Even when they encountered an older, fierce-looking female orca near the sinkhole, the little squirrel wasn’t troubled.

The young orcas lowered their heads and called out, “Xini.”

Song Xu, blending in, also called out, “Xini!”

The fierce-looking female orca patted the squirrel’s head and smiled terrifyingly. Seeing the rows of big teeth in her wide-open mouth, Song Xu shrank her head along with the young orcas.

Grandma, your smile looks like you’re about to eat a child.

The bored young orcas led Song Xu to the sinkhole in the tribe. This sinkhole was larger than the ones on the other two islands. An orca beastman picked up a stone emitting a faint blue glow from the pit: “Look, this stone, if a half-beastman eats it, they can transform.”

Song Xu took the stone, which glittered in the sunlight. At first glance, it was black, but when turned, it showed tiny glowing specks.

Looking around the pit, these stones were everywhere, some even several meters long, their surfaces shining brilliantly like the night sky filled with stars.

“Just… eat it, that’s it? So simple?” Song Xu thought to herself that obtaining the true scriptures in the West was not this easy for Tang Sanzang and his disciples; there were trials and procedures.

“Simple? It’s not easy for you land beastmen to get here. There are primitive beasts across the sea, and many beastmen die there.”

Song Xu felt like she had reached the end of a game, facing a high-level treasure chest without any monsters guarding it.

“Such an important place. Don’t you have anyone guarding it?” How could a place with treasures not have guards? It didn’t make sense!

“Why guard it? It’s not important.” The muscular, shiny orca beastmen smiled innocently, “These stones are just pretty. They don’t mean anything to us.”

“Yeah, and we have to hunt and play. Who has time to stay here? It’s boring.”

Got it. These stones were treasures only to half-beastmen; the locals didn’t care about them.

“Can I take a few stones with me?” Realizing this, Song Xu made the request.

She had already thought it through: pack more stones for the snake, and maybe the big tiger would need some too. She could also share them with half-beastman friends she met along the way. Plus, these stones were local specialties, so taking more might come in handy later.

Song Xu had it all planned, but the orca beastmen shook their heads.
“These stones are useless once taken away.”

The orca beastmen explained in a cacophony of voices. Song Xu filtered out the parts where they started arguing and cursing, focusing on the key points.

These stones were only effective within the sinkhole. They would gradually lose their glow once removed, even to other parts of the island. When the glow completely faded, the stones would turn gray and crumble into powder, which was useless for the half-beastmen’s transformation.
Moreover, the glow faded quickly. To see how fast, Song Xu picked up a stone and stood outside the sinkhole to test it. She found that the beautiful stone had lost its glow in no time and crumbled into bits much faster than she could run off the island.

With this, her plan to pack and take the stones fell through.

Song Xu was extremely disappointed. She stared longingly at the stones she couldn’t take, feeling the agony of facing treasures she couldn’t use.
No wonder half-beastmen had to brave the journey across the sea to the island, and these stones never circulated. It was due to the difficulty in transporting and preserving them.

Curious about the sinkhole’s environment, possibly due to its magnetic field or geographical reasons, Song Xu circled the pit several times, trying to find out why these stones couldn’t be taken away.

At the bottom of the sinkhole, near the freshwater, Song Xu found several black stones with carved marks, forming stone engravings.

“What is this?” As Song Xu wandered around the bottom of the sinkhole, several orca beastmen who had satisfied their curiosity about the squirrel left, discussing where to catch fish. Only the two orca beastmen who first discovered Song Xu remained.

These two looked young and were brothers. Hearing Song Xu’s question, one said, “That’s been there for a long time. It was there when I was a kid.”

The other said, “You idiot! She asked what it was, not when it appeared. You should say it’s a stone with carvings!”

Song Xu: “…” She could see it was a stone with carvings.

“Those are ancient carvings, said to have existed since the birth of our tribe,” said Xini, the older female orca they had met before, who walked over.

The arguing orca brothers squatted aside, continuing their dispute in low voices. Xini pointed out one of the carvings to Song Xu: “This carving means that the moon fell from the sky and created this sinkhole.”

Song Xu couldn’t understand the marks at all. With Xini’s explanation, she realized that the big circle represented the sinkhole, and the small circles inside it represented the fallen moon.

Of course, it wasn’t the real moon. Song Xu guessed it might be a meteorite. She leaned closer to Xini, asking eagerly, “What about this one? What does it mean?”

She pointed to a carving that interested her. It depicted a human with a fishtail—a mermaid! Although the human figure was very abstract and barely recognizable, the fishtail was disproportionately large and somewhat terrifying.

Contrary to her fierce appearance, Xini was quite patient with her questions: “This drawing means that the moon caused the sea beastmen to evolve, giving them beastman forms. Initially, they had human bodies and fish tails, but later they transformed into complete beastmen forms…”
She also shared the tribe’s legends about the stars, sun, and moon: the sun guides the way, the moon is the beastmen’s homeland, and the stars are those who have departed.

Song Xu had heard similar legends before, suggesting that these stories were common on land and sea and possibly contained unknown information.

The phrase “the moon is the beastmen’s homeland,” combined with the vague carvings, could be interpreted as meteorites from the moon falling and causing the surrounding marine life to evolve into beastmen. It might also imply that beastmen originally came from the moon. Regardless, the “moon” in this legend was undoubtedly not the same as the moon in her previous world.

After examining the row of carvings, the two young orcas waiting nearby grew restless. Young beastmen at this age couldn’t stay in one place for long, so they quickly greeted her and left.

The squirrel’s stomach suddenly growled in dissatisfaction. She approached her guide with a cute smile: “Xini…”

After drifting at sea for so long, she was starving. No matter what, she needed to get some food first.

On the first island, the big snake couldn’t sense the presence of the squirrel and the tiger in the sinkhole. Frustrated, he thrashed the ground, tearing the wounds on his tail and splattering blood on the nearby rocks. He wanted to leave, which intrigued the mother and daughter blue sharks watching: “Is he trying to leave without eating the stones?”

“Strange, is he looking for something?”

As the snake was about to crawl out of the sinkhole, the great white shark appeared at the edge. Without his two companions, he wobbled slightly as he walked, defiantly shouting from the edge, “Do you think you can just eat our tribe’s stones? I won’t allow it! Get out of here!”

The snake, already agitated, immediately attacked upon hearing the provocation.

A great white shark transformed into his beast form on land, trying to crush the snake with his weight. However, he ended up being constricted and bitten, with two holes in his body. They rolled down the slope of the sinkhole into the freshwater lake at the bottom.

The mother and daughter blue sharks fetching water witnessed the whole scene: “…”

“What’s that idiot Sharp Teeth doing? He’s messing up the water!”

“Alright, stop complaining. Let’s help separate them before something serious happens.”

The older blue shark entered the water, pushing the two seemingly dazed creatures to the shore. The younger blue shark on land grabbed the great white shark and dragged him aside. Accidentally hit by his wild thrashing, she got angry and bit him, creating several bloody holes, finally calming him down.

The older one skillfully used her strong arms to hold the snake’s head. When he instinctively opened his mouth to hiss, she grabbed a large stone nearby and stuffed it into his mouth.

“Crack…” The stone firmly blocked the snake, with a bulge appearing inside his neck.

The older blue shark released him, looking at his neck and pondering, “Is this stone too big?”