Chapter 50: Just One Last Step

“According to the Animal Hide Scroll, I first need to first carve out the grooves for the Shaman Runes on the animal bone, and fill it with materials that can absorb Shaman Power.” sᴇaʀᴄh thᴇ NƟvelFɪre.ɴet website on Gøøglᴇ to access chapters of nøvels early and in the highest quality.Su Bai looked again at the production process recorded on the Animal Hide Scroll, He picked up the Red Tooth Knife, preparing to carve on the animal bone.

One second, two seconds, three seconds… ten seconds.

He held the Red Tooth Knife, not knowing where to start, and frustratedly complained: “This won’t work. Carving without any guidelines will end up crooked nine out of ten times. I need to find another way,” Su Bai frowned, thinking, planning whether to first draw guidelines of the Shaman Runes on the animal bone.

He scanned the limited materials on the stone table and immediately decided: “I must draw out a guideline first. After that, I can carve it out.”

“Xiao Yu, bring me a piece of charcoal,” Su Bai softly called out.

“Okay,” Yu Ying quickly responded, pushing off Yan Hua, who was lying on her lap, and quickly running towards the hearth.

*Ahh~~* Yan Hua yawned sleepily, almost falling asleep while Yu Ying was playing with her hair and ears.

She looked at the figure by the stone table, feeling somewhat emotional, [Being a Shaman isn’t easy, studying about Shaman Epistemology all night.]

Yu Ying picked two cooled pieces of charcoal from the hearth and ran back to Su Bai, softly asking, “Shaman, will these do?”

“Yes,” Su Bai chose a thumb sized piece of charcoal and started sharpening it with the Red Tooth Knife, making it very pointy.

After sharpening, he saw Yu Ying still standing nearby and gently said, “It’s fine. You can go busy yourself. If you’re tired, you can sleep first.”

“Okay,” Yu Ying replied, shaking her fox ears.

Su Bai took the charcoal and began sketching on the animal bone, using the animal hide to erase mistakes.

Half an hour later, he barely managed to draw the guideline, though it still did not look very nice.

*Whew…* Su Bai blew the charcoal dust clean from the animal bone and smiled, “Fortunately, I didn’t start carving directly, otherwise I would have wasted an animal bone.”

He wiped the Red Tooth Knife clean with animal hide, focused his mind, and began carving, following the guideline, carefully scraping away bone fragments.

*Crack crack…*

After half an hour later.

“I’m finally done!” Su Bai shook his wrist, shaking off the bone fragments. He exclaimed with a wry smile, “I wonder how the Old Shaman carved them out. Did he practise on animal bones all the time?”

It took him an hour just to complete the carrier for a single Shaman Bone Tablet, and that was with him drawing out the guideline. If he had carved directly, it would have been unqualified to be used.

“Good. Next is to prepare the materials to fill the Shaman Rune grooves.” Su Bai put down the animal bone and picked up the bowl made from a Ferocious Beast Skull. Looking at the Animal Hide Scroll, he muttered softly, “Three petals from a Sunflower, three Curved Hook Grass, twenty-five drops of Star Pattern Unicorn Ferocious Beast Blood.”

He began searching on the stone table according to the descriptions on the Animal Hide Scroll. The Sunflower was easy to find, as there was only one type of flower on the table.

The fist sized Sunflowers had been dried under the sun. Its dehydrated petals shrivelled and curled. There were four Sunflowers in total, each with six petals.

“Three petals,” Su Bai plucked three petals from a Sunflower and tossed them into the Ferocious Beast Skull bowl.

He then looked for the Curved Hook Grass, which was also easy to identify as there was only one plant that looked like a fish hook.

“The naming convention of primitive society is so simple,” Su Bai picked up three grass roots, which felt as hard as dried tree roots, and put them in the bowl.

“Next is the blood of a Star Pattern Unicorn Ferocious Beast. The trickiest part is getting exactly twenty-five drops of blood…” Su Bai felt troubled, as the size of blood drops could vary greatly, with no standard measurement.

He picked up the Ferocious Beast Bone bottle containing the Beast Blood and forcefully pulled out the stopper. He was surprised to find a pure white bone spike on the stopper.

“Amazing. It doesn’t stick to the blood even when soaked in it?” Su Bai looked at the bone spike connected to the bottle stopper and saw blood slowly sliding off it without leaving any residue.

He frowned in thought, watching the blood drip onto the animal hide. He suddenly realised, “The Old Shaman had already arranged everything. The blood sliding off the bone spike should count as one drop.”

“One drop, two drops… twenty-five drops.”

Su Bai dipped the bone spike on the bottle stopper into the Beast Blood, dripping it into the bowl drop by drop, quickly completing twenty-five drops.

He put the stopper back onto the bone bottle and sighed in relief. “Finally! Got all the material proportions right.”

“Huh? Is it coming back alive?” Su Bai was surprised to see what was happening in the Ferocious Beast Skull bowl. After absorbing the Star Pattern Unicorn Ferocious Beast Blood, the shrivelled Sunflower petals were slowly turning reddish gold.

He remembered the details from the Animal Hide Scroll and watched the bowl intently. As time passed, the reddish gold Sunflower petals actually started to slowly dissolve. The Curved Hook Grass, hard as dried tree roots, also began to dissolve, just like ice meeting the sun. They completely melted into the Beast Blood, turning the red blood into a reddish gold colour.

“This is amazing, it feels like I’m doing a chemistry experiment,” Su Bai looked at the slightly viscous reddish gold mixture in the bowl.

He picked up the white beast hair brush from the stone table, stroked the brush head, and found it extremely smooth. It felt like silk to the touch.

“I wonder what Ferocious Beast it is from. It would be very comfortable to make clothes with,” Su Bai commented, feeling it was no worse than Earth’s silk.

He composed himself, as there was just one last step. If he could successfully fill the Shaman Runes, the first Shaman Bone Tablet would be complete.

[noscript][/noscript]