Chapter 54: Following the Pattern (Bonus Chapter with 300 Monthly Tickets)

Although there was no single task in the tribe nowadays that depended entirely on him, in a way, no task could do without him either.

This made Zhou Xu's daily life quite busy.

Over at the Equipment Department, after explaining the designs and a few points to pay attention to to Zhuang Mengdie and briefly checking on the work progress of the other members, Zhou Xu got up and walked toward another area.

After walking a short distance, he soon arrived at the spot where the Agriculture Department raised and bred wild rabbits.

To be honest, spending time and energy on raising other animals was completely unimaginable for primitive people.

After all, from the perspective of primitive people, the first thing to do upon finding food was to eat it.

They could barely feed themselves; how could they possibly have any surplus strength to raise animals?

Moreover, their former chieftain, who was also a Chosen One, had never intended to do anything of the sort. In this tribe, Zhou Xu could be said to have broken new ground.

As the tribe's rabbit keeper, the daily routine was actually quite simple: just ensure at all times that these rabbits had dried grass to chew on and water in their bowls to drink.

Aside from that, if there was any other work, it consisted of carefully observing the physical condition of the rabbits and cleaning the rabbit hutches—because these rabbits were absolute production lines for excrement!

Once the number of rabbits in the hutches increased, let alone skipping a day of cleaning, he felt that the moment he turned his head, the cage he had just cleaned would be piled high with rabbit droppings all over again!

Every single one of these rabbits was a ruthless manure-producing machine.

At first, he had been quite close to a breakdown over this situation, but by now, he had gotten used to it.

He was now able to calmly shovel out those rabbit droppings and load them into a bark basket nearby.

That basket had been made especially for him, featuring a tighter weave to ensure that the rabbit droppings loaded inside would not fall out.

Once collected, these rabbit droppings naturally would not be thrown away; he would send them over to the farming group.

That was a group within the Agriculture Department consisting of only one person, whose main job was to till the soil and build up fertilizer on the plots outside the camp cleared by their chieftain.

According to their chieftain, after these rabbit droppings underwent fermentation, they could become excellent fertilizer.

Although none of them knew what on earth that actually was, nor did they understand why they had to do it, their chieftain had said so, and therefore they just had to follow orders without overthinking it.

"Just as I thought, it's pregnant. This rabbit's belly has grown a lot."

Arriving at the breeding group and looking at the rabbit that had been isolated separately after they previously noticed something unusual, its belly had visibly grown larger over a period of time.

During this period, guided by the traits of pregnant rabbits he had described earlier, the rabbit keeper had successively caught five more rabbits and placed them in the adjacent waiting-to-litter area.

After all, rabbits were creatures with an astonishing reproductive capacity.

Against this backdrop, Zhou Xu and the others had shut up so many rabbits together in rabbit hutches with limited space.

In the past, when rabbits lived in the wild, they had to constantly watch out for various natural predators to avoid accidentally becoming a meal for other animals.

But now things were different: a large flock of rabbits was locked up inside these hutches, the threat of natural predators was gone, and there was a continuous, uninterrupted supply of dried grass and fresh water every day.

Aside from eating and sleeping, the only thing this group of rabbits could do every day was to make the female rabbits' bellies grow.

Of course, this was exactly what Zhou Xu was happy to see.

Keep in mind that he had pinned high hopes on these pregnant female rabbits!

After confirming the condition of the rabbits, Zhou Xu stood up, looked at the tribal member nearby who clearly wore a nervous expression, and smiled.

"Don't be nervous. You're doing a great job; keep it up."

Zhou Xu's praise caught the man by surprise, leaving him thoroughly excited.

"Chieftain! I will definitely keep it up and raise these rabbits well!"

After expressing his approval of the rabbit keeper's work ethic, Zhou Xu walked toward his next destination.

This was roughly what he had to do every day.

He would go to each department and group one by one to check on their progress, and if they encountered any problems they didn't know how to solve, he would help them solve them.

Yet, during the period when Zhou Xu was constantly busy shuttling between the various departments, a few sneaky figures appeared on the outskirts of the Black Woods.

After crossing paths at a distance with the patrol personnel who were responsible at the time for patrolling around the Salt Lake Camp to ensure its safety, the intruders turned around and fled, leaving no room for pursuit.

Facing this situation, the patrol guards at the time had no time to overthink; they sprinted back to the camp at top speed and reported the situation to Shi Lei, who was currently in charge of commanding the Salt Lake Camp.

In the original Black Moon Tribe, he had served as a chieftain after all, and during that time he had naturally experienced conflicts with other tribes.

Therefore, when encountering such a situation, he undoubtedly had experience.

In this era lacking in resources, once two tribes discovered each other's existence, there was basically nothing left to discuss about what would follow.

Whether to expand their own tribe, seize limited resources, or for the sake of their own safety, they would never allow the other party to exist!

This was also the main reason why clashes almost always broke out once two tribes discovered each other.

"You must immediately hurry to the Black Moon Camp at top speed and report this situation to the chieftain."

Having issued this order, Shi Lei turned around and gave another instruction.

"Go notify the salt-harvesting workers to stop what they're doing for now. Have them temporarily join the duty squad and go keep watch on the outskirts of the Black Woods."

Although salt was a very important daily necessity for their tribe, their current salt supply was entirely sufficient, and they had already stored up a certain quantity. Even if the salt workers stopped working for a while, it would not pose any impact on them.

Against this backdrop, the extraction of coal ore was much more urgent.

Their chieftain had only sent people over in the morning to deliver an order, requiring the people here at the Salt Lake Camp to boil water every day, with each member needing to drink at least ten bowls of water daily.

This basically required multiple stone stoves to burn continuously around the clock.

Although coal ore was far more durable compared to burning tree branches as they did before, conversely, restricted by the quality and performance of the stone pickaxes, their mining efficiency at the current stage was actually not high.

Coupled with the increased consumption, it could hardly be described as abundant.

"As for the mining tunnel..."

Facing a battle that could break out at any moment, the tribal members doing heavy labor inside the mining tunnel were undoubtedly an important combat force, and Shi Lei certainly could not allow them to exhaust all their physical strength purely on mining.

"Starting from now, split the mining personnel at the tunnel into two shifts: one shift works while the other rests, rotating in turns."

This kind of deployment method was something Shi Lei had learned from their chieftain, who had previously arranged the camp's guards and patrol personnel in that exact manner.

Now, he was simply copying the template and arranging things accordingly.