Chapter 136 100-Year Path
Sagar Kingdom had no future due to a lack of resources. To date, despite its stabilisation over two centuries, the sole cultivator at the Body Stage was Gann-Sagar.
Even iron, the most common material used to build Human Avatars was lacking here. Forget entering the Body Stage, the nutrient content in the crops grown in the region was so lacking that ingesting it didn't even fully satisfy their body's nutrition requirements, not to mention converting that into Prana.
Therefore, their cultivation was slow, often staggeringly dead, with the strongest among them barely hitting eighty Prana.
The density of energy in the food was abysmally lacking. Therefore, even if one stuffed themselves to the brim and digested to the limits of their daily consumption, they still wouldn't be getting enough nutrients.
It was a stark contrast from their previous home, the fallen Empire. The land was bountiful there, the grown crops not only gave a high yield but were also rich with nutrients, causing Prana to be built up in people naturally over time, even if they didn't cultivate.
That wasn't an option in Sagar Kingdom. If there existed at least one Parute Tree, they could have nurtured some cultivators to the Body Stage. But that was simply a big question of 'if.'
Gannala didn't wish them to reach the Body Stage either, which was another factor. It was because over ninety percent of Sagar Kingdom people were connected to her by blood. They were her descendants.
For a Pranic Beast to create a Ravaged Tribe, centuries upon centuries were required. Time, patience, luck, and a necessity for evolution were what created a Ravaged Tribe successfully.
But that was because the only connection between the Pranic Beast and the humans part of the Ravaged Tribe was the Pranic Beast's imprint in their Spirit Containers. Therefore, evolution took time.
It was different for Gannala. Her targets were basically people connected to her by blood. Therefore, they were already family in the first place.
Even though none were aware, since she had never activated it, they were all part of her Ravaged Tribe already.
Her actions were also why Gann-Sagar called himself a foolish king. Because he wasn't competent enough to give them a future where they could stay as Free Humans. Hence, once he saw his kids settling throughout the city to create their families under Gannala's instruction, he gave in to his fate.
He wasn't wise enough to offer his people a future as Free Humans. Therefore, he surrendered himself to Gannala's plans, as that was the next best thing.
There was one last step left for Gannala's Ravaged Tribe to become Clansmen. And that was to be accepted by an Empyrean Tusk and made part of its immune system. From then on, they would become Mammoth Clansmen.
Her human form morphed, revealing a baby Empyrean Tusk that was the same size as a baby elephant. She would have to grow as an Empyrean Tusk from scratch.
But her strength remained in her, thanks to her two centuries of accumulation as a human. Therefore, her Prana values were already close to completion. She only needed to grow her body to fully realise the potential of her strength.
Gannala's Empyrean Tusk form was a tsunami of hope that washed through the people. After all, the majority of them were related to her by blood. Hence in extension, they were related to an Empyrean Tusk, the Pranic Beast that stood at the peak of Sumatra Continent, worshipped as a Deity by many races, including, but not limited to, Mammoth Clansmen.
And upon seeing her Empyrean Tusk appearance and feeling her Empyrean Tusk presence at full brunt, their Spirit Containers reacted, instinctively making them realise what they had to do next—nurture Gannala's growth until she was ready to accept them as part of her Mammoth Clan. n.-o)-V-(e(-l((b.-I(-n
For the next eighty years, the Sagar Kingdom people zealously helped bring her resources, collected from far away. Plants, nutrient-rich soil, Pranic Beasts, etc.
Anything Gannala required was brought by them. Once her body had grown enough, Gannala ventured out on expeditions, accompanied by large armies of people as they hunted and gathered resources from various regions.
During the process, once her body reached a kilometre in height, a couple of Parute Trees began to grow in the biome forming in her stomach. That was a cause for celebration.
And at the end of eighty years, since she revealed her Empyrean Tusk form, Gannala finished growing fully as an Empyrean Tusk. Of course, she hadn't realised her potential, for the damage sustained at the Sandy-Grey Void and her de-ageing process stunted her growth.
But that didn't stop her. For, she believed that even if she failed to achieve it, one of her successors might inherit her path. She only needed to create enough variables to make that happen.
On that day, she accepted 86 people as her Mammoth Clansmen, selectively picky about it. Exactly a year later, 43 baby girls were born in her Settlement.
By using up a large portion of her essence, she turned the 86 people into those with the Fragment Disease. They were the ones that were highly attuned to her bloodline, almost born with the Fragment Disease naturally.
She had been gearing the relationships of every one according to their genetic compatibility, raising this probability. In the end, she obtained 86 candidates, all of whom succeeded, a success rate unprecedented among Empyrean Tusks.
The success rate was barely one percent and plenty of factors affected the result. A good majority of the time, the born baby dies quickly due to genetic defects.
As the Supreme Tusk, Gannala was empowered with a lot more power than a regular Empyrean Tusk. Moreover, she worked on her direct descendants, performing everything necessary to raise the success rate to the maximum.
43 baby Empyrean Tusks were successfully birthed, and healthy. Unfortunately, their parents became collateral to the success.
Once the baby girls were born, Gannala conducted the inheritance ceremony, naming them all before granting them everything necessary to be an Empyrean Tusk.
Of course, she excluded the information behind the births of Empyrean Tusks, unwilling to do anything that would alert the Boar King. After all, by the time these 43 Empyrean Tusks matured and grew strong enough to birth more of their kind, the Boar King would have become even more terrifying.
Even now, having consumed enough Primary Natures of Empyrean Tusks, the Boar King was able to hear the cries of a baby Empyrean Tusk. Therefore, it was a dangerous risk to undertake.
The other herd in Sumatra Continent had already sustained some damage based on the information she had collected. Their population was shrinking slowly thanks to the Boar King's relentless pursuit and hunt.
Gannala brought the 43 baby girls to the biome in her stomach and made them become Empyrean Tusks prematurely in a response to ensure they never remember about them being birthed as humans.
That was how the secret would remain a secret. Sixty years later, 43 Empyrean Tusks appeared in Sagar Kingdom. Alongside Gannala, they divided the people of Sagar Kingdom into 44 portions, making them their respective Mammoth Clansmen.
By now, hundred percent of the population were related to Gannala by blood. After living low for another sixty years, they accumulated strength.
Eventually, four centuries after the establishment of Sagar Kingdom, 44 Empyrean Tusks emerged, trampling the abandoned Sagar Kingdom to ruins, erasing all traces of their existence there as they ventured into Sumatra Continent, picking a route far away from the other herd's route.
That was the start of their infamous hundred-year travel path mentioned repeatedly in Sumatra Chronicles.