1001 Stepstones Tribe

"If you want my daughter, then you better be strong," the old man with a big body said as he started walking towards Alex.

"I don't want your daughter," Alex said with an annoyed look on his face.

"Hah! Too late to run away now. You should have thought of that when you tried to get my daughter," he said without stopping his approach. "You already tried to seduce her with your strength."

Alex slowly backed away. "Sir, I did no such thing. I have no intention of marr—"

"I said it's too late now," the old man shouted as he jumped toward Alex.

Alex who was barely stepping had to defend himself when he saw the old man coming at him with a readied fist. He was used to seeing strong and fast people move slowly thanks to his new eyes, so he didn't know exactly how strong the old man was.

Thus, he had to prepare for the worst by using the tiny bit of Qi in his body to use for blocking.

He crossed his arms and the old man's fist landed right there. When the old man's fist landed on his arms, he was surprised beyond belief.

'He's so weak,' he thought. If he were to assign a cultivation realm, the old man would be somewhere in the low True King realm at best.

Due to how well-prepared he was, he wasn't even pushed back at all. However, he couldn't help but be sad that he used up the last of his Qi on someone so weak.

Now, he had nothing. 'Damn it,' he thought. He opened his arms back up, sending back the old man that could only stare at him with shock.

"Ho-how are you so strong?" he asked. Even the bystanders were shocked beyond belief. Their tribe chief was one of, if not the strongest person that they had ever seen. And somehow Alex had been able to defend against him so easily.

The old man's eyes wandered for a moment before landing on Alex again as a smile appeared on his face. "I accept," he said as he stood upright with a proud smile on his face. "You may marry my daughter."

"I don't want to," Alex said.

"What? Why not?" the chief asked.

"I only met her 3 days ago," Alex said. "Besides, I have no intention of marrying anytime soon."

The old man's eyes narrowed in confusion. "Then why did you seduce her?"

"I did no such thing," Alex spoke in a frustrated tone. He was finding it hard to keep his cool when both the father and daughter kept asking him to marry the girl.

"Huh? But my daughter said you hit her. Did she lie?" the old man asked.

"Uhh, about that, I was simply angry because she said she wanted to make me a slave. So I hit her," Alex said.

"So, you didn't hit her because you wanted to marry her?" the old man got sad. "I thought I finally found someone my daughter could accept."

"You guys seduce by hitting each other?" Alex was with a weird face.

"Hahaha, what else would we do?" the chief asked. "I still remember the day I seduced this girl's mother. I had to beat her so hard that she could barely see by the end of the day. Come the next day, she had fallen in love with me."

'Goddamn, that's messed up,' Alex thought.

"Well, I'm sorry to disappoint but I did not seduce your daughter or plan to," Alex said. "Now, can we go in?"

"Yes, yes," the chief said. "Everyone, go do your thing."

The group finally moved along, but even then, they kept staring at Alex from time to time. Li Yun came up to Alex again and grabbed him by the hands before dragging him away even when he kept saying that he didn't want to marry her.

She was adamant that he would turn around to her eventually.

The Stepstones tribe was located on top of a canyon, with a slightly deep gorge between segmented cliffs that were all interconnected by terribly unsteady bone bridges.

There were about 7 different cliffs in total with 6 surrounding a single one in the middle, which was the main site for the tribe.

Alex was simply stunned to see what a desolate place this was. He had not expected these people to live in such a location.

"Come on, let's go," the girl said as pulled Alex along.

The very first cliff where many small huts were present and various beasts and people remained, Alex could see some bone spines dug into the ground.

He also saw a wall of bones to keep things away from the tribe.

Alex walked along while looking at the people starting to carry out the gigantic fish they had killed in Maroon bay. They were taking it to the center camp where the chief and various other stronger folks of the tribe lived in.

The people walked to the canyon's edge and jumped, crossing the entire distance in between in a single go.

He was surprised because it wasn't just one person doing it, but rather everyone.

"Everyone of them is strong? Why the bridge then?" Alex asked.

"Not everyone is strong. It's just that we took the strong ones with us. As for the bridge, it is so we can take slaves and beasts to the other cliffs," Li Yun said. "Come."

She crossed the entire range in a single leap. Alex paused and turned around to see the chief lagging a bit behind, giving instructions to the various people of the tribe.

He shrugged and turned around to jump across the cliff in a single go. As he did, he saw the entire place from the air and finally understood why the tribe was called what it was.

The 7 separate cliffs when looked at from the top looked like stepping stones that one would use as a rudimentary pathway in a field or river.

It was around 3 or 4 in the afternoon, so while the sun would set in a few hours, it was still burning brightly at the entire tribe.

Alex walked through the homes made with rocks and mud and maybe some dried plants such as the bushes that could be found in the desert.

"That's my house there. You can stay in my room," Li Yun said.

"No, thank you," Alex said as he looked around at the tribe. Many dark-skinned individuals were staring at him, most likely for his fairer skin.

The children were even more curious as they ran up to Alex and asked why he was so white. Alex had to take a moment to think of how exactly to answer it when Li Yun spoke up first.

"You kids, I don't see a single wound on you. Shouldn't you be jumping into the gorge?" she asked.

"Yes, sister Yun," they said and as Alex watched, they jumped directly into the gorge.

"What? What did you do?" he asked.

"What? … nothing?" she asked.

"You told the kids to jump into the gorge. They couldn't possibly be strong enough to survive that." Alex said. He quickly ran up to the edge of the cliff and looked down to see that the kids were nearly 20 meters below.

Fortunately, none of them were bleeding.

Alex was about to jump when Li Yun caught it. "Don't bother. Their parents will go get them once they are free," she said.

"What? You not only hurt the children but are also going to leave them there?" he asked.

"They're fine. The most they will have is broken bones. It would be better if they were more wounded, but it suppose you can't spread your resources too thin to improve the kids," she said.

She turned to look at Alex and saw that he looked appalled, even disgusted. So, she put on a frowning face of her own. "What? That's how we do things here. If you're not going to get hurt, you're not going to get strong. And if you don't get strong, the best you can be is bait to lure in beasts."

"Do you want to be the thing that lures beasts?" she asked.

Alex kept quiet. He was in a different location, so he shouldn't be judging them so harshly. He didn't know what kind of life they had lived here.

"I'm sorry, go on then," he said.

"Ok, so you will be staying in my room for no—"

"Not that. I will stay outside if you don't have a place," Alex said.

Li Yun couldn't help but pout. "Fine, you can stay in my mother's room," she said.

"And what about your mother?" Alex asked.

"She's dead, so you won't have to worry about her," she said with a hint of anger and sadness in her voice.

"I'm sorry," Alex said. "How… did she die?"

"Beast attack, 7 years ago," she said.

Alex looked at where they were and asked, "Was your mother out of the tribe at the time?"

"No, she was sleeping soundly in her room. The beasts were simply too many and attacked us too fast," she said. "It wasn't until after we were done dealing with the strong beasts that we found her corpse."

"My god," Alex said. "Are the beasts really that dangerous around here? I thought you said they were relatively rare."

"They are rare, for now. But on that day 7 years ago, they came in a wave, attacking everything in their path," she said.

"What happened 7 years ago to make them behave like that?" Alex asked.

"We are not sure, but we have a general idea," she said. "It definitely had something to do with the disappearance of the northern lights"