Chapter 632: Committing an error and a stroke of luck
Translator: Translation Nation Editor: Translation Nation
Apart from those aforementioned merits, Sheyan could also faintly sense that Mbenga had yet to reveal his fullest potential. By reflecting a little, even within such a treacherous environment where Mogensha and the Growth-hunter Reef had met with bitter defeat, Mbenga had instead fought against the overflowing vast sea and exhibited great heroism. From this, Sheyan could fathom Mbenga’s untapped potential, or perhaps, his amazing strokes of fortune.
"Oh, right." Right when Mbenga was helplessly running out of fables, he sudden cast an earnest countenance and declared. "I just recalled another legend, one that at this point in time, only a handful know. One that came true roughly... about a dozen years ago."
When Sheyan heard ‘about a dozen years’, his heart instantly thumped with vigour. Strictly determining, didn’t that coincide with the period Little Lord Fokke visited this continent of Africa, to plunder the ‘Stairway of the Sun’?
Sheyan immediately hastened Mbenga.
"Quick, tell me the contents of this legend."
Mbenga scratched his head as he begun.
"When the season of dryness and rain alternates a full round for eight individual’s worth of fingers, then shall a tremendous broom appear in the sky. The grasslands and jungles will wither, and the flow of the river shall cease. Scorched dry crevices will appear throughout the earth, and the great wetlands shall shrink."
Sheyan understood that the changes in the four seasons and temperature weren’t distinct in this region, where winters wouldn’t be excessively cold. Therefore, these aborigines had straightforwardly segregated to seasons of the year into two phases – the season of dryness and the season of rain. Therefore, every time the season alternates a full round, it represents a year.
An average person only has 10 fingers. Thus, eight individuals would add up to 80 fingers. This indicated the legend referred to something that occurred approximately once every 80 years.
"A tremendous broom shall appear in the sky...." The first thing Sheyan thought of was – Halley’s Comet.
Halley’s Comet was a phenomenon that would surface in the sky roughly every 76 years. Moreover, it was so incredibly distinct that every human on Earth can see it. Surprisingly, the period of time of Mbenga’s fable roughly coincided with it, of course, one cannot expect the astronomy knowledge of a calendar of these natives to be on par with the Greenwich Observatory.
As for the other contents of the fable, it basically details the signs of a widespread drought approaching…...therefore, Mbenga’s legend was undoubtedly indicating a foreshadowing; that once Halley’s Comet appears, an unprecedentedly devastating drought would occur.
Hence, Sheyan could immediately make an audacious deduction – "Could it be, the reason Little Lord Fokke and his gang had painstakingly awaited her for over 5 months…...was in anticipating for this widespread drought?? Dare I say this represents that, the secret underground passageway into the inner core reaches of the Kijuju Marshland, will only surface when the drought arrives? Inferring a step further, the most valuable resource during a drought would be a water source..."
"Hence! During normal times, this secret passageway is actually just an underground river! Only when the flow of the river ceases during the drought, would it tacitly covert into a secret infiltrating channel! As for the Ndipaya barbarians, regardless of how vigilant they may be, they would only be guarding all dry passageways into their tribe. They would never take notice of a seemingly impossible and untraversable channel of access. The channel of an absolutely safe underground river!"
"Moreover, under normal circumstances, even the bravest of Ndipaya barbarians wouldn’t dare to jump recklessly, into an incomparably dark and abstruse underground river. An exploration into that river may very possibly be a journey of no return!"
"This is sufficient to explain why Bernard Fokke, an ordinary man, could successfully steal a ‘Stairway of the Sun’, and how his descendants could follow accordingly; repeating the feat and acquiring that strange yet invincible ‘Stairway of the Sun’ flower! That is because…...an exploitable flaw like this, is seemingly unguarded."
When Bernard Fokke had plundered their ‘Stairway of the Sun’ by taking advantage of the secret underground passageway centuries ago, the Ndipaya tribe elders would definitely have exhorted the next generation; be on guard of infiltration from the entrance of that underground river....but, the average longevity of these Ndipaya tribesmen was at most forty plus years. Whatever cultural traditions of inheritance, would be passed down through primitive recording methods or orally transmitted. Therefore, one can simply imagine the preservation date of the elders’ warnings.
Yet at this moment, though Little Lord Fokke’s infiltration enjoyed full preparations, favourable time and geographical conditions, the current Sheyan didn’t possess even a single one of those three elements.
Firstly, it had been merely over a decade since that devastating drought had appeared, Halley’s Comet was still years from entering the Earth’s orbit! The advantage of time was still present, but this time, skewed towards the Ndipaya’s side.
Without the occurrence of that devastating drought, the underground passage should probably be experiencing turbulent surges of torrential currents; definitely not a favourable advantage.
As for manpower and preparations....alright, Party Ace originally had three formidable members invading this brutal world of carnage, but right now, it was left with a single member.
Furthermore, this member was left with a single arm.....therefore, suitable manpower was obviously out of the question.
On the contrary, having been taught a bitter lesson by Little Lord Fokke a decade plus ago, the Ndipaya barbarians who personally experienced that fiasco wouldn’t be a minority…..
Thus, this was exceptionally disadvantageous to Sheyan, because the Ndipaya tribe would definitely scale up their vigilance and protective measures against that secret passageway.
Time, geography and people weren’t to Sheyan’s advantage. It could be said, they were the biggest obstructions to Sheyan’s plans. Nevertheless, Sheyan was exceedingly clear that if he could overcome this hurdle, everything else would be like a flat land he could simply gallop across.
He was utmostly confident that the current him, was much stronger than the refined and gentle Little Lord Fokke of that year. What Little Lord Fokke could accomplish, he naturally could as well and even better at that!
At this moment, Sheyan also realized he had missed another pivotal character – demon horse, Momore. If he was able to recruit its assistance, it would be equivalent to a job half done. However, to settle Momore, mind you, settle but not kill it, Sheyan reckoned he would’ve at least have to waste 1-2 worlds worth of time. This was definitely not an investment worth partaking in.
"Hmm, I guess let’s find the entrance of that secret passageway first before deciding." Sheyan then made his resolve.
As the saying goes, unresigned until reaching the yellow river, unceasing until meeting one’s objective. With nearly 100 hours left for his free stopover in this world, since idling was pointless, why not put in some effort?
Although even till now, Sheyan hadn’t obtained any direct information regarding the secret passageway entrance, but sometimes, only with patient analysis, can one uncover the hidden scenes beneath the multitudes of information.
Just like when the iPhone 4s first made their way into China’s market. On the eve of release, countless apple fans had queued up at those Apple stores in anticipation for this grand occasion. People would always harbour an urgent mentality towards things they loved or thirst for. Regardless if they failed to obtain it temporarily, they would still hope to inch closer towards it.
Little Lord Fokke was similarly a human. At least, he was one capable of waiting patiently for the inauguration of that secret underground passageway. Therefore, when choosing a base camp, he would most likely abide with the customs of mankind; deliberately selecting a location nearest to the underground passageway as the base camp.....not only will it satisfy his anxiousness, it also saved them the energy from pointless trekking through the jungle. More critically, he had 5 months and 16 days to choose!
Therefore, Sheyan could define his exploration scope – with Little Lord Fokke’s campsite as the nexus, he would search the area within a 2 kilometres radius.
Furthermore, there was a huge chance that the secret passageway entrance was located at the tiny river stream, just beside Little Lord Fokke’s base camp. Moreover, the entrance of the secret passageway will be comparatively wider, allowing even the yet to be demonized horse, Momore, to pass through.
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In the end, the process of searching was extremely arduous. Sheyan was no god and had committed a grave error during his starting deduction.
This was the most dreaded aspect of all deductions, causing one to tread a path that leads to defeat. Eventually, the more hope one harboured, the greater one's disappointment.
The truth of the matter was this – That year, before the unprecedented drought arrived, the water source of that underground passageway would slowly dry up as well. But before it did, due to that particular secret underground river being similarly connected to the core reaches of the Kijuju Marshland, the water would also be polluted with toxins and harmful substances.
During the drying process, the river would gradually evaporate with poisonous miasma, and to ordinary humans, such poisonous miasma would lead to deadly diseases if not death!
The two unlucky brats who perished in this base camp, had in fact, been repeatedly dispatched by the impatient Little Lord Fokke to explore the possibility of entering the entrance. As a result, they became ill after excessive inhalation of the poisonous miasma and died bitterly in that hill cavern.
As such, right from the start, Sheyan’s deduction of 2 kilometres radius from the base camp was wrong.
This error meant that no matter how hard working one is, it would ultimately be futile. Hence, after squandering a total of 80 hours on this, Sheyan eventually obtained disappointment.
However, at this instant, Sheyan’s keen and meticulous perception once again aided him.
Right before he was about to kickstart his ‘nth’ attempt at searching, he suddenly noticed a scar on a tree, approximately 10 metres from Little Lord Fokke’s base camp.
To everyone’s knowledge, humans feared to pull a tendon while trees feared to have their barks peeled. Once a tree's bark got peeled off and its inner wood essence gets exposed, it would be tough to grow out that portion of bark again. Hence, Sheyan was now eyeing this large, striking, and old scar.