Chen Xu surveyed the low mountain ridge before him. The sun-bleached branches and withered wood scattered across the forest floor were a testament to the long absence of rain. In this era, the entire Earth outside the oceans was covered by dense forests—there were no plains, no deserts, no other terrains.
Dead branches were as common as stones.
Still, Chen Xu was satisfied with the work of his ape companions. Using his broken ape-language, he managed to communicate his approval to ten of them. Their excited reactions were immediate and intense.
This simple act of praise—something so ordinary in the future—was, in this primitive society, a revolutionary innovation. Historians of the distant future would recognize that this marked the very beginning of "commendation" language in human history. Social clusters had reached a stage where such modifiers, indicating hierarchy and encouragement, became possible—and Chen Xu had accelerated this by hundreds of thousands of years.
Waving his hands to quiet the apes, Chen Xu pulled a coarse vine from his waist. He tested its strength, tugging it with all his might. Even without using inner qi, the thick mountain vine creaked under his force but did not break.
Chen Xu smiled to himself. The resilience of these ancient vines was extraordinary. If his memory of the Three Kingdoms era served him, the legendary vine armor was said to be made from similar material, though those were sourced from the wild borderlands and far less robust. Compared to the ancient mountain vines in his hands, they were nothing.
"If we had oil, I could even attempt full vine armor… though in the old tales, it took over a decade to craft a single set," he muttered. "Perhaps a simplified version will suffice."
Setting the vine aside for the moment, Chen Xu focused on the gathered firewood. He divided it into several large bundles, selecting a particularly heavy one—roughly three to four hundred pounds—and secured it with the vine.
He tested the weight. Even with his current strength, lifting this bundle single-handedly was possible but precarious. Using inner qi, he estimated he could raise two hundred fifty pounds with relative ease. Still, simply carrying the load down the mountainside by brute force would be impossible.
Chen Xu inhaled deeply. Slowly, carefully, he guided the bundle down a gentle slope from the mountain top to the cave entrance. Once it reached the ground, he motioned for Ape One and the other ten apes to approach. Using a combination of gestures and his rudimentary ape-language, he taught them to hold the vine and support the load.
After a few tense moments, the apes grasped the method. Chen Xu let go, signaling them not to slacken their grip.
Then, with a flick of his arms, he swung along a nearby vine like a squirrel, descending rapidly to the cave. The remaining three members of the hunting party—Ape Two, Three, and Four—looked on in awe and confusion at the suspended bundle of wood.
Chen Xu chuckled silently. Even knowing their limited intellect, it was amusing to see them fail to grasp such a simple principle at first.
He reached out, grabbed the swinging bundle, and yanked it into the cave. The startled apes froze, their eyes wide. Then, signaling them to lift the wood inside, he untied the vine, spreading the logs neatly within the cave's depths.
This marked the first organized material transport in recorded history, and Chen Xu demonstrated the process several times to ensure the tribe understood it fully. In a sense, he had leapfrogged human technological evolution by hundreds of thousands of years.
With all firewood stored, Chen Xu reignited the central fire. Beside the flames, he began preparing the bamboo spears he had previously crafted. One by one, he hardened the bamboo in the blazing heat, drying out centuries of sap and moisture, sharpening each into a deadly point.
By the time thirty or so spears were fully treated, the sun had climbed to a position slightly west of due east—around nine or ten o'clock by Chen Xu's reckoning.
Using vines, he bundled the spears and carried the first batch to the mountaintop. As the apes followed, he released the bundles, hiding the ropes among the bamboo groves to prevent loss. Then, he distributed the spears: five per capable ape, ten to himself, and smaller shares to the weaker tribe members.
Finally, Chen Xu demonstrated the use of the bamboo spear—how to thrust in close combat and hurl for distance. The apes, observing intently, quickly grasped the basics.
Chen Xu allowed himself a moment of satisfaction. His tribe, once armed only with crude stone tools, now wielded advanced bamboo weapons, ready for hunting and defense. He knew the next step awaited: testing their new tools in the field.