Yarra’s Adventure Notes
Chapter 792 - 57: Scale Armor Tribe

Chapter 792: Chapter 57: Scale Armor Tribe

The Scale Armor Tribe was one of the large tribes of the Whispering Swamp, with a population exceeding ten thousand. Located in the northeastern area of the Northern Swamp, it was quite close to the Kingdom of Mages and belonged to the tribes that had more exchanges with other races. The Swamp People always considered the Scale Armor Tribe to be favored by Artemis because it was a prolific source of the Lizardmen’s spiritual leaders, the hunting priests. Since the Third Epoch, out of the thirty-nine generations of hunting priests, fifteen generations came from the Scale Armor Tribe. This distinction led many devout Lizardmen to even regard the Scale Armor Tribe as one of the sacred sites of the swamp. However, aside from this characteristic, the tribe itself had no peculiarities; the Lizardmen there lived their lives hunting and gathering, just like those from other tribes.

Accompanied by the High Priest Alcmene and his daughter, the six members of the adventure team crossed Firefly Plain and entered the dwelling grounds of the Scale Armor Tribe. When they first arrived, the girls didn’t even realize they had entered the tribe itself, thinking they were merely in some functional area of the tribe. Inside the dwelling place, they didn’t see any houses or buildings. Although there were plenty of man-made items around—tables, cabinets, tools—all sorts of items were present, but there were no buildings to speak of. Only when several unfamiliar Lizardmen appeared before the girls did they realize they had already entered the core area of the Scale Armor Tribe.

Indeed, there were no buildings in the Scale Armor Tribe, or to be more accurate, none of the tribes in the swamp built any structures like the other intelligent beings. The construction of Lizardman tribes was distinct, often situated in parts of the swamp that were relatively higher ground, flat and firm, to prevent the rising water levels from flooding the tribe during the rainy season.

"Our race never needs buildings, hiss hiss, we use purely natural architecture," Galantis, holding her mother’s tail, happily followed behind her mother and turned back proudly to explain to the surprised girls, "Look, this is what we use as houses in our swamp, hiss hiss hiss, you would never have guessed."

What Galantis was referring to was a large area of suguwood forest on the flat high ground. Here, the suguwood was relatively dense, and the canopy network above was thick. Although it was not possible to appreciate it at night, it was likely that even during the day, the light here would be very faint. However, affixed at seven or eight meters high on each suguwood was a spherical luminescent object. These objects were likely minerals similar to phosphorite, with a cold and faint light, but their abundance grouped together was still enough to illuminate the entire dwelling place.

"It’s often easy to find open-air phosphorite veins in the swamp, hiss hiss, very convenient to obtain," Galantis explained on behalf of her mother: "After we get the phosphorite from the veins, we carve them into the same shapes, hiss hiss, then place them on every tree, hiss hiss hiss, in this way, we ensure the lighting of the entire tribe without needing any energy source."

The sturdy suguwood trunks, surrounded by man-made items easily spotted everywhere, cast a cool fluorescent glow from atop the tree, where the weak white light coated the tribe in a layer, making everything in the dim light emit a faint silver sheen. Under the silver glow, a suguwood suddenly opened a hole, and several Lizardmen crawled out from within the trunk. As they emerged, they saw the group of people standing outside. Although they were surprised to see a large number of humans, seeing their High Priest accompanying them, they didn’t show excessive curiosity. They simply nodded in greeting before turning to leave, soon knocking on another trunk and entering the suddenly appearing hole.

Only then did the girls understand that all these suguwood trees were the Lizardmen’s homes. The clever Lizardmen were adept at utilizing all resources around them. To save space and construction materials, they chose the suguwood trees abundant in the swamp as their homes. When they needed to build a house, they hollowed out a suitable suguwood within the tribe’s range to use as rooms. The suguwoods were thick enough; their diameter alone could reach tens of meters, allowing for a sufficiently large interior space. Furthermore, suguwoods had a key characteristic—they were extremely resilient, and most of their nutrients were transported through their outer bark, so even if the trunk was hollowed out, it would not have much impact on them.

And so, the Lizardmen hollowed out tree trunks to serve as their houses, and they made doors and windows from the original bark. Once the doors and windows were all closed, from the outside, it looked just like a typical suguwood, and nobody would imagine that inside there could be three or four levels of rooms, let alone think that hunters lived there.

"Come, this way, hiss," Alcmene waved her tail, flipping the daughter who was in between her and Catherine to the other side. Galantis seemed to enjoy this game; despite being tossed around, she still clung to her mother’s tail, laughing with a hiss. Alcmene glared at her daughter, telling her to restrain herself a bit, before pointing to a large tree trunk and saying to the girls, "Please come in, hiss. This is where Galantis and I live, and you down there," she hissed, "crawl out and join us."

Following Alcmene’s stamp on the ground, amidst the circle of girls, the earth churned, and a miniature hydra emerged from the soil. Though called miniature, it was still about as tall as an adult human, yet far smaller compared to its original size. In the Yarran World, many powerful magical beasts could resize themselves to a certain extent by controlling their energy. However, shrinking in size not only required energy to compress oneself but also significantly reduced their offensive and defensive capabilities. On the other hand, increasing in size, while also consuming energy, didn’t reduce their combat abilities, but it did significantly affect their agility and flexibility. For these reasons, most magical beasts were reluctant to do so.

After shrinking in size, the hydra Jack’s voice also became much thinner. Nine heads excitedly twisted around, looking everywhere, cheerfully saying, "Al, is this your home? So much fun, you’ve never invited me to your place before."

"It’s because your arrival always causes panic, hiss," Alcmene said with resignation. "Just think about it, hiss. In the nearly one hundred and twenty years that we’ve known each other, hiss, every time you and your kind come in groups to the Northern Swamp to lay eggs, it always causes so much trouble for my people."

"That’s not my fault," Jack said sulkily. "I didn’t do anything."

"But your other kin aren’t as intelligent as you, hiss. Even if you restrain them, it doesn’t change their wild nature," the High Priest sighed, pushing open the door of the tree house. "Don’t stand outside, hiss. If any of my people see you, they might be startled. (To be continued. If you like this work, we welcome you to go to qidian.com to vote for recommendation tickets and monthly tickets. Your support is my greatest motivation. Mobile users, please read at m.qidian.com.)