Asur and Adsila entered the village gates and it closed behind them. When they saw the interior, he found it was identical to the Deva tribe with the cavern village making him frown but he did not say anything else.

The place was also messier and more military like. There were more watch towers and the guards on watch duty, one could easily see they were hardened warriors compared to the much weaker tribesmen.

“How could the tribe exile so many good men?” Asur thought as he gave one look and could tell just how good each man was. Although their methods were primitive, and needed major improvements, the quality of men in this exile group was very high.

“Ahahaha! Brother in pain, welcome! Welcome!” the man at the watchtower of the gate laughed and jumped down before walking over to Asur.

“Brother?!” Asur said, shocked.

The man suddenly threw his arm around Asur, “Of course brother! You are not the only victim of that fool son of that fat blinded idiot!” he said and pulled Asur along. “Men, call the brothers and we shall have a welcoming celebration for our new brother and sister!” he said.

The tough faced men suddenly loosened into a smile and they cheered.

This made Asur think of something, “This reminds me of those war games i played…” he thought. The attitudes of the men were no different from military camps during war where they were serious but could easily loosen up.

The men brought out large pieces of meat and many baskets of fruit and a large banquete was built. Even though this festival was made under the night sky after sunset it didn’t hide the strange atmosphere of the village.

While eating with Adsila next to him, Asur felt a tug from Adsila and she looked worried at the cavern entrance and saw the dark expressions of some people.

Seeing this Asur looked at Shira, one of the lead figures here and the man who welcomed him.

“What is with those villagers?” Asur asked.

Shira looked and sighed, “The situation here isn’t exactly… stable.” he said.

“How so?” Asur asked.

“Those people can be called the true exiles or outcasts. They were the ones who did something that actually warranted the exile and they still follow the tribal laws. Most of them don’t talk, since it’s forbidden, and are mostly solemn. On the other hand, we are victims of the fool son and pretty much gave up on that village.” He said.

Hearing the words of the man, Asur’s face twitched and looked at the very large number of people. “How can the chief even allow that idiot to exile so many people?” he asked.

“The problem has extended since that idiot was a child. Because he was the son of a Seer, he has always had ambition of being king from the stories the teachers spoke of when speaking of the old Asura kingdom. He wants to reform it but because he isn’t the ‘brightest’, he finds it harder to achieve it so since a young age he has pushed aside anyone with even a little bit more talent than himself out.” Shira said.

Asur froze and almost face palmed himself upon hearing this, “Is… is his brain dead?” he said. “No wonder the village was so lifeless… did he exile everyone with talent towards everything?!” Asur asked.

“Nah, even he wasn’t that much of a fool. It’s mostly men with more combat talent. Better archer, better spear thrower as long as there was someone better at the same age he would try to push them out. The result is that this village has close to 180 people who are his victims and about 40 true outcast.” Shira said.

Asur almost choked when he heard this number and looked in astonishment towards the man.

“Now, enough about us, what about you. What did you two do to get sent here?” Shira asked.

The men quieted down and looked at Asur.

“She is only following me as my partner, as for me, I come from a lower realm and I have purer blood compared to Baal.” Asur said and showed off the four tattoos. “As for how he made me get exiled, he sent me to the living area of Golden bulls and I hunted a guard and royal guard bull.” he said casually.

Instantly the crowd turned silent and looked at him. Some of the men and women had their jaws dropped upon hearing this.

“You actually hunted those devils?” one of the men asked.

The reaction was very different to what he thought, “I thought the Asura considered them sacred?” Asur asked.

“If you actually follow the religion of the tribe you would but we gave up on that shit because it's what led that bastard to be as cocky as he was with his mother holding so much power and not stopping his foolishness with her eyes which see the truth.” Shira said.

Upon hearing this, Adsila bit her lower lips. Asur saw her like this and sighed before patting her back.

“Anyway, i did hunt them. I shot an arrow to the knee of one of them before sending another into the eye. As for the royal guard, it needed a few arrows but the first hit the ear followed by the right eye. This made the rest of them run away and I finished it off and shot the other eye. I waited until the bull herd returned and left for good and then took my catch.” he said.

The men had clear admiration in their eyes and the women had worship for the strong.

“Did you keep any trophy?” one of the men asked.

Asur smiled and pulled out a tiger skin pouch and unwound it. The men fixed their eyes on the skin.

“Is that a Savage Claw pelt?” Shira asked.

“Yep, this bastard tried to kill me while i was returning. I killed it when I shoved my spear up his mouth right into his brain.” Asur said.

Many of them felt a shiver as they imagined the scene of the massive feline jumping at themselves and trying to accomplish the same feat.

Finally he took out four horns. Many of them gasped as they saw the shiny horns under the light of the flames. There have been many people who were unfortunate to meet these creatures and were impaled. As for successfully hunting them, that was impossible.

“Seriously how could you hunt these savage beasts?” Shira asked, extremely curious.

Asur smiled as he found a great time to spread his own influence he began to talk about his techniques when he hunted. How he focused on the sense of touch and could feel the wind better and decide which side was down wind so that the bulls couldn’t catch him. How he had the sun at his back to blind the bulls from pinpointing where the arrow came from as well as being unable to see the arrow when it came from above.

The warriors were slackjaw at the many tricks and tips that could be implemented to make a hunt more efficient as well as kill without even engaging in a war of attrition.

Their hearts beat faster as they imagined themselves taking down many savage beasts many times their size or strength with a few arrows. Their gaze turned fierce but they held it in with their control.

“My little brother, you really are a man of surprises.” He said.

“Thank you, frankly thought… I don't want to insult you and your hard work you did to make this place safe but this location is incredibly horrible for a village.” Asur said.

The walls were incredibly wide and had to circle the rockface making the needed space to guard much larger and harder.

“Don’t worry, we also agree that it’s shit.” Shira said.

“Why don’t you move?” Asur asked.

“Where would we move?” He asked.

When Shira said that, Asur thought about the map he obtained and realized that it wasn’t a question of where but they simply don’t scout out the land and mark it up.

“Don’t you scout and map the land?” He asked.

“Making parchment is hard but we have some maps.” He said.

“Maybe we should start there. I have good mapping skills for drawing the land in a way which makes it easy to understand. I can teach some men so we can map the land and look for a suitable place to move.” He said.

“Well good luck with that, the men are almost always occupied with hunting or guarding. Even with over 100 men, we have our hands full because the village is under beast attacks almost every two days.” he said.

“What kind of beast attacks?” Asur asked.

“An ancient lizard beast. The beast is nearly five meters big and a massive maw and extremely hard head. We are able to drive it away but after it heals it always returns, those claw marks on the wall are his handy work.” Shira said.

“Ancient lizard…” Asur muttered, “Could it be a dinosaur?” he thought, amazed but this posed a big problem for him because he needed manpower to map the region. “Seems we have to deal with it first.” He muttered.

Shira smiled beside him and shook his head. It’s just that he didn’t know that what Asur was planning would truly revolutionize their entire way of living.

***

The following morning was sunny and the village looked much warmer compared to when the sun was setting. He looked around the outside and was happy to find it didn’t have many buildings. He chose one corner and found Shira, “Is there any problem if I occupy that corner?” he asked.

“No problem but what are you going to do?” he asked.

“Build a workshop.” He said.

“Workshop?” Shira asked.

“Yep, to hunt better you need better tools so a workshop is needed. Don’t worry about helping me build it, i can do it alone.” He said and walked over to the empty space and began to move the loose rubble and then he took out his sack of tools and pulled out a stone axe and walked outside the village and began to chop a tree. The trees are large but the bloodline power ripped out large chunks in each hit until the tree cracked and began to collapse.

He removed the small branches and had help to pull it in before he started to cut the trunk straight down. He stacked this first and made a few piles before making a large pile in the corner. The round truck pieces were then cut into squares making large crudely made planks.

He pulled out the wood planer and smoothed out all the surfaces and began to place them on the ground where he would make the workshop but there was a large empty space left over on one side. He then took a few large pieces of wood and began to shape them differently.

What he was making were bellows like those used in primitive smithies to add air into the flame to get a more intense heat.

He first cut the wood making all the pieces and cutting the needed holes and used wood in the place of nails to bind pieces which are normally iron. He just changed the design a little bit because of the hinges which needed to be made of wood and it took a few tries to make the tube where the wind blew out.

In all it took three days.

In these three days he saw the culprit, it wasn’t a T-rex but more like a giant komodo dragon which was the size of a bus. Using his own bow, he took the creature's left eye making it run away hissing.

After he finished all the wood pieces, he used the stock of cured leather and made the bellow bag to complete the construction. Then he began to use clay and a common fire to make fired bricks and began to build his forge.

Looking at the clay bricks he would make like their pottery, the villagers were curious and some women helped by making the bricks allowing Asur to just focus on gathering clay to place them down. He made a fire around and inside the furnace to heat the clay and dry it after a day of natural drying. It was primitive but it worked, next he made a stone hammer in preparation for what he needed and some tangs made from wood and shaped stone.

“Well now this is interesting, almost done?” Shira asked.

“Yeah, just about, I just need a large flat stone to act as a platform for when I shape the material.” Asur said soon he found a large stone and using a knife as a wedge and his hammer, he struck along a few layers and created a smooth surface on the stone that would become his anvil. “There… smooth enough.” He said.

“So what is this?” Shira asked.

“This is a forge, it's meant to melt metal and refine it into better material.” Asur said.

“Metal? I believe it is common knowledge that metal doesn’t exist in deposits.” Shira said.

“That is true but i am not forging metal.” Asur said and pulled out the horns of the Golden bulls.

“Horns?” Shira asked.

“Don’t you find it unnatural that bone could have such a shiny surface?” He asked but Shira shook his head, “This is the difference between those coming up and those living here. A bone with such a shiny surface is common but for me it’s not. This is a sign of minerals in the bone. I think the ‘metal’ of this world is concentrated into the bones of all living beings. Most likely, the purer the bloodline, the better and more concentrated the minerals in their body become.” Asur finally said his assumption. “Adsila, i will need your help.” he said

He began to lead wood into the forge and used some flint to light the dry leaves. After fanning the flames long enough he spread some wood on top to catch fire. Slowly the fire lit up and he used a long spear shaft to spread the burning logs towards the other logs.

This was a slow start but it needed to be done.

“Alright, Adsila, when i say blow, you lift up this top and push down.” he instructed her how to use the bellows.

“Alright. I’ll do what I can.” She said.

He smiled as he kept watching the fire reach all the wood before feeding in more, finally he took the guard bull horn and placed it inside. “Alright, start Adsila!” he said.

Pshh! Wooo! Pshh! Woo!

Going up and down, the large bellows which opened up a full meter in height sucked in air from outside and blew the fresh air into the forge. The fire inside that recieved it was spurred on with each injection causing the flames to grow increasingly hot.

Standing at the side, Shira felt the heat on his skin and took a step back but Asur didn’t even care as he took the stone tong and watched the horn. His eyes were focused on all the details and he was amazed at what he saw. Under fire, the small layer of top skin began to burn and underneath revealed a glittering mass. His heart pounded as he saw this but he waited to see all the reactions and only when he saw nothing did he take the horn out while it was glowing.

Shira gasp when he saw the bone in this state. Asur lifted the stone hammer covered in his bloodline power and began to strike down. The bone was suddenly deformed and began to flatten while losing heat rapidly. Soon it was placed back in the fire and Adsila began blowing once more until it was glowing. Asur used the edge to fold the horn and put the thinner side under the larger one to form an even block of bone metal. He turned and molded the bone until it was a rounded hammer head before using stone to pierce a hole and used a perfectly prepared shaft for it. Finally a barrel of water that was prepared was the last part and it was dunked in causing it to rapidly cool.

When the bone came out the entire thing had changed. The bone had turned faint golden and shone like metal. The strength had increased as the impurities were beaten out of it.

Shira swallowed his saliva as he saw this scene and thought how amazing that sight was. This strange event would go down as the day the metal era began.

“Seems now we can really start fighting back.” Asur said grinning at the hammer. “My friend, whenever you hunt, no longer throw the bones away, bring them to me and soon you will have weapons of quality that you could never compare to before.” He said.

Shira coughed dryly, “Of course.” He said and let out a loud laugh. “You are truly a lucky star.” He said. The appearance of a true forger in this exile village could be simply passed off as unseen but that this influenced the future in a major way, that is certain. Not just smithy but carpenters also appeared as Asur took women as disciples to teach them his techniques to improve the general quality of the village's goods.

As Shira had said, the people here are those with talent whom Baal saw as an obstacle and so those here also were smarter and even skilled. Their learning abilities were much better.

In little over a week, after arriving, he had laid down a strong grip around the village that he had chosen to firmly grow until it couldn’t be stopped by anyone, even the original Deva tribe.

***

Looking around, a young boy that looked 12 or 13 examined the surroundings. He had many straight sticks on his back.

He took one out and stuck it in the ground. He used a rock to beat the stick until it was his height and then ran counted steps and looked back and crouched down. He planted another stick which when seen from the side would be at the top of the lower one.

He did this five times and pulled a piece of parchment out and drew a point. He ran back down. To his left were many sticks spread about and his parchment was riddled with dots and those that came before were connected with lines.

He started a new line and this one was the last one which would head up to the top of the hill which stretched up quickly into a cliff at the top. He had drawn a section of this mountain and now he started to climb.

“Mark my height with a stick…” he reminded himself of his orders and stood back to back with the wall and held a knife he placed on his head and turned around.

The spot he struck a few times. The dagger was not stone, it was made of a metallic bone and cut stone easily.

He took out the staff which had a small piercing tip. He placed it on the opening and with a wide bottom on the other hand he punched it. The young boy had amazing power and pushed half the staff in. He jumped on it and did the same with the next.

Pretty much, it was a step ladder and the boy punched each of them with the help of the flat stone which was in the center for all but the first.

When he reached the top, he found other children, almost all the same size as him, arriving or already there. They were around a fire and many of them were drawing.

“This is the last one!” the boy shouted and turned around. He counted the number of staves, “Three over ten!” the boy said.

These children didn’t know all the numbers but counting in tens were easy enough.

He spotted the parchment with thirteen dots and drew a line following the last line to the end of the page.

“And we are done!” the boy said and everyone cheered.

They all began to climb down and all ran the same direction and soon found a man with four red tattoos on his limbs.

“War chief! War chief! We finished!” they all said.

“Alright alright! Get in order like I lined you up when we first arrived.” he said.

This person was none other than Asur. He didn’t have the strength but he had the skill to be a war chief.

They lined up in a specific order and presented the parchments.

Asur took them in order and when he finished taking them, having had a glance at each, he nodded.

“Good job you all, you can go back to the village, Adsila will prepare a nice meat soup.” he said.

They all began to drool when they heard that. The taste of meat that wasn’t roast meat was a novelty which Asur limited. It made it a reward to the children which they loved greatly.

Of course, Adsila had a strangely good ability for cooking and quickly picked up the skills in this field as did all women.

They all cheered and ran off to the village. Nearby a hunter laughed and followed the children so they would be safe.

Asur grabbed his bow and returned to the village behind them.

The village had around 180 people total, 35 were elderly and 65 were children. This left 80 adults split evenly male and female since all the exiles had partners.

To be able to map with precision, Asur opted for a different tactic. He would make groups of 10 children and take them within a specific area to map. This area is checked by hunters and anything found, Asur and the hunters would kill or drive away.

Then the children would be supplied with staves with a two meters of length and a tip at the bottom to pierce the ground and rocks. They would push it half a meter which was indicated by a slash mark at the point and would then see where the next one would go while aiming for a center point, the top of the mountains or cliff walls.

They would place the sticks and after a certain number of counted steps they would make a dot on their piece of the map.

When all the dots were drawn the lines were connected making a geographical map with height usually being about every 10 meters, or every 5 or 6 staffs.

As for the cliffs, the children were carefully chosen and only those 1 meter in height were to do it and would place the staffs climbing.

The result is a very efficient system to draw out the land in a very simple manner of straight lines but compared to the shitty maps that Baal had given him, this was an amazing progress.

At the village, Asur separated from the group and waited for the other groups to arrive. They came much later and each group leader had a stack of parchments which contained one piece of the map.

“Alright, let’s go build the maps.” He said.

They nodded and headed inside. They prepared a room solely for maps and a large circular table, made by Asur, held the most central map which were the maps the children drew redrawn in smaller scale and glued with wood glue in place.

They went to a side table each and opened a wooden bottle which contained the glue and began to piece the maps together. They used a strip of wood to bind the edges and form a solid frame for the map and like so they glued the pieces together forming the full section of the map.

Putting it on the ground, Asur took another square piece of parchment and looked at the map, he drew faint lines with some charcoal separating each of the sections on his map and then he copied down the map in a reduced scale. It took a short time and he finished before taking it to the main map and gluing it into place.

There were already over a dozen pieces. These dozen pieces were gained through hard work over 1 month since he arrived. He had perfectly inserted himself and the silent and solemn village became very active after his arrival.

The outcasts aren’t too talkative but the atmosphere did affect them.

As for who ran the village? It was quite divided when this subject was brought up. There were actually three ‘forces’ in the exiles village. Men, Women and Outcasts. The reason men and women were in different groups is their work areas. Men hunted while women generally managed the village affairs. This made them want to continue this system but Asur was against it. Since no one could agree he suggested a council system.

There would be three powers split among the groups, instead of being gender based, they would be work based. The village wouldn’t limit men or women as hunters and the same for men, they could gather or manage village affairs. This renamed the forces, the Warriors, the Villagers and the Outcasts.

Each group would choose one main leader, or elders, and three chiefs. This would allow each group equal power of choice in village decisions.

Asur was among the War chiefs with Shira and another hunter with the elder being an old retired but wise man who was once a war chief.

Among the Villager groups, they chose women who had much better management skills and their elder was an old woman and the outcasts were a mixed group of men and women with a female elder who was much younger but still in her middle ages.

This was a very simple method to make the village work, the reason why Asur didn’t suggest him command it all is because he didn’t want the trouble early on and because he didn’t have the influence to be accepted by all the groups, mostly among the warriors while the villager group did not see him good enough because of the bias against men. He didn’t mind because his first job was mapping and finding a place where he can safely and securely live above ground and not in caves.

The other map pieces soon arrived and were added in.

“The map is coming along nicely.” Asur said after gluing all the pieces.

“The bigger maps are good for marking specific knowledge, we had not thought there was such a good method to mapping.” One of the men said.

“The old ways can’t even compare, and we can even teach the children tracking and other skills which we could not do so openly before.” the other hunter said happy that his son and daughter were learning the way of the land as they were.

Asur smiled and looked at the map. He looked at one corner to the west. “Shira has had us avoid this area? Why?” he asked.

The warriors turned tense and forced a smile, “That… is land occupied by… a Raksha tribe.” he said, forced.

“Raksha… I remember them being called devils and monsters but I never got the specifics.” Asur said.

“They are called savage man eaters, they care little for talk and are like raiders and bandits. They are said to even eat enemies who battle against them.” one of the men said.

“You mean cannibalism?” Asur said, shocked.

“Yes, if a powerful warrior battles and loses, there is a chance they will eat him after killing him.” the man said.

“Wait! You said powerful warrior, what do you consider powerful?” Asur asked.

“It depends on the person. Sometimes it could be a courageous but weak man or a physically powerful warrior. What we know is that as long as someone forces them to turn into their devil beast forms they will be eaten.” the warrior said.

“Huh?” Asur blinked, “Form? What is this about?” he asked.

“Like we said, they are man eaters, every Raksha has the ability to become beast-like. When they are in this manner, it is impossible to fight against them because their power increases a great degree. It is the innate ability of the Raksha tribe.” the warrior said.

Asur was shocked but then he began to realize something. ‘Innate ability’ this word rang in his mind like giant bells. “If Raksha becomes beasts, what of the Yaksha?” Asur asked.

“We don’t know, all we learned is that they are very intune with nature and catching one once he runs into a forest is impossible.” he said.

“In that case, they probably have an innate ability related to nature itself. Possibly controlling plants or blending into the surroundings. This brings me to question which bugged me since the start, what is the Deva tribe innate ability.” he asked.

They smiled wryly and shook their heads. “We don’t know, in our tribe we have never seen anyone achieve the ability. All we know is that similar to the Raksha, the Deva have the power to suddenly grow stronger but we don’t know how to achieve that.” he said.

“No wonder we have no way to fight them.” Asur said and his eyes moved around only to fall onto the solid asura mark on the arms of each of the warriors.

“Do Raksha and Yaksha have Asura marks?” Asur asked.

“All Asura Race have them but the marks of Raksha and Yaksha are different. Raksha have them on their backs and mimics the marks of feline beasts. The seer has said that their bloodlines purity is determined by the number of marks on their back and torso. For Yaksha we don’t know.” he said.

Asur fell into deep thought. Ever since he arrived, these red marks had always indicated bloodline purity and potential but when one thought of this, it felt incredibly underrated for such a distinct thing.

“Alright, for now we can avoid it but we will eventually have to confront this problem.” he said.

The warriors just smiled and walked off.

Asur waited for the glue to dry before he stored the new large map in one of the piles after numbering it.

He left the room and walked to his home and removed his gear.

He looked at his marks, “Now to figure out your mysteries.” he said.