I am a Primitive Man

"Clink, clink, bang, clink, clink, bang..."

A series of musical notes echoed around the copper mountain’s colorful pool. This wasn’t the sound of a thawing stream flowing freely, but rather the self-indulgent clamor of Han Cheng, the great divine child, lifting a hard stone and relentlessly smashing it here.

At this moment, Han Cheng wore a mischievous expression. While everyone else was busy working with malachite, he wandered around, casually striking any stone that caught his eye.

After some time, a pleasant surprise appeared.

After being struck, a dark stone shed its black shell, revealing a bright golden hue under the sunlight.

Seeing this fist-sized, yellow-bright object, Han Cheng’s face lit up joyfully.

Of course, this wasn’t gold but copper.

Just as gold mines contain pure gold chunks, copper mines also have pure copper. However, like gold, pure copper oxidizes like iron when exposed over time. The black shells that Han Cheng smashed open were the oxidized layers.

This piece of pure copper drew the attention of many people in the Green Sparrow Tribe. They came over to touch it, feeling its weight and different texture compared to ordinary stones, clearly excited and amazed.

This showed that "judging by appearances" has existed since ancient times.

Han Cheng became even more enthusiastic in his hammering with this pure copper as motivation. However, he didn’t allow others to join; Shang, Mao, and the others continued working with malachite and other copper ores.

After all, these copper ores were the main material for smelting copper, and pure copper was a rare find.

Han Cheng wasn’t just casually smashing rocks in search of pure copper; he was also observing the distribution of the copper ore here, getting a simple and preliminary understanding of the site.

“There!” Shang shouted excitedly.

Hearing his shout, the others gathered around, and Han Cheng, carrying a small chunk of copper he had found, rushed over to see what Shang had discovered.

When Han Cheng arrived, the people gathered around made way for him, and the scene came into view.

It was a small, irregular pit about half a meter deep, surrounded by green malachite. It was clear that the pit had just been dug out.

Inside the pit, more green stones were exposed. They varied in size and shape, but they appeared to be of a purer quality than the ones seen before.

Without a doubt, they had encountered a high-quality malachite deposit.

After inquiring about the situation from Shang and inspecting the area, Han Cheng immediately gave the order to stop searching around and to start mining directly with tools.

Since the Green Sparrow Tribe's stone picks and bone spades weren’t very effective and could easily break, after clearing the relatively small amount of dirt around the pit, the mining tools turned to the most common and versatile weapon of the primitive age—a wooden stick.

Of course, using a wooden stick to mine had its conditions.

For some unknown reason, the ore in this area was relatively fragile. There were gaps between the stones, and where they couldn’t be removed by hand, they would use sturdy wooden sticks to pry them open, utilizing leverage to lift them or hammering the sticks along the gaps to split them apart.

Mining in open pits was as carefree as this.

Of course, at this point, Han Cheng couldn't proceed in any other way.

Because before the copper was fully extracted, he couldn’t create high-quality tools.

Finding the breakthrough point of a high-quality ore vein meant high efficiency. By the time the evening approached, the mining pit had grown larger and deeper, and not far from it, there was already a large pile of high-quality malachite. 𐍂ΆNỒBËS

Stones were heavy, especially ore-containing rocks that were denser than regular stones. Just this pile alone quickly weighed over a thousand pounds.

The copper mining was going so smoothly that Han Cheng was somewhat surprised. At this rate, they could return home in just a couple of days.

Seeing that it was getting late, Han Cheng instructed everyone to stop what they were doing and head toward the cave of the now-dissolved Flying Snake Tribe.

For the next few days, they would make camp there.

However, Han Cheng and the others didn’t settle directly into the cave that night.

The Flying Snake Tribe’s cave hadn’t been inhabited for over half a year, and there was no telling what might have taken its residence.

By “things,” he meant not fox spirits or ghosts but creatures like venomous insects that liked to crawl into cracks.

So, Han Cheng ordered the gathering of dry branches and leaves, which were then used to create a smoke-filled environment inside the cave.

On top of the dry leaves, they also piled up some damp mugwort they had found nearby.

Many tribe members didn’t take the Divine Child’s cautious behavior too seriously, since they had grown up in the wilderness and had only started living in houses in recent years. Before that, they had always stayed in caves, and nothing dangerous happened.

Still, despite their indifference, they all followed the Divine Child's instructions, with some gathering dry leaves to smoke the cave while others began cooking.

The flames rose inside the cave, and the acrid smoke began to fill the air.

The people who had initially been unconcerned now began to look uneasy as, with the fire burning, more and more disturbing things started to emerge from the cave depths.

More and more creatures were crawling out.

There were spiders as small as eggs, with grotesque markings on their backs, long legs, and coarse hair; centipedes as long as chopsticks, their bodies black and claws red; scorpions with their tails raised high; and long, greasy, and nameless worms that oozed a bad aura.

These creatures, driven out by the flames and smoke, made the people of the Green Sparrow Tribe pale in fear.

Though they were fierce warriors, they couldn’t help but feel anxious when faced with these nasty insects.

Compared to wild beasts, these small venomous creatures sometimes instilled even more fear, leaving one feeling helpless, as though there was no way to guard against them.

Seeing so many of these creatures made the tribe members look at the Divine Child with admiration.

Fortunately, the Divine Child was there. If not, who knew what would have happened if they had stayed in the cave overnight? Perhaps someone would never have woken up...

Little did they know, the seemingly calm Divine Child was just as nervous.

Han Cheng had expected that with the cave being uninhabited for so long, there would likely be an abundance of nasty insects. Still, he hadn’t anticipated that there would be this many, to such a terrifying extent.

Another reason was that he suddenly recalled the caves in his tribe, which were used as kitchens and dining halls...