Every morning right after the sunrise the whole tribe went out to have breakfast. Obviously it was only normal, but apart from eating their full, apes gathered extra fruits and berries and brought them to their patriarch.
At first Leo thought it was some kind of a tax or a tribute, but then he noticed that the big ape brought everything to a grove not too far away and stuffed all the fruits in a weird looking plant that resembled a tree stump, maybe a yard tall and a couple feet wide.
There were several dozens tree stumps like that in the vicinity and Leo had no clue why the patriarch chose that particular one each time. Meanwhile the rest of the tribe watched the process with stern expressions and yearning eyes. The ritual was so serious that even the little ones didn’t dare to make a sound and sat staring at their leader just like their mothers did.
Since this ritual took place every morning, Leo didn’t pay any heed to it and just hung around without making trouble. But on the forth day in the tribe he made a discovery that completely changed his life on the island and skyrocketed the opinion on the ape tribe members as well.
That afternoon the patriarch gathered the whole tribe and everyone orderly proceeded to the grove with the many tree stumps. Upon arrival after some pondering and hesitation the leader of the silver-backs picked one of the stomps and opened its top.
Leo expected a foul smell of rotten fruits assault his senses when an incredibly pleasant aroma, similar to what his father’s own Firewater smelled like, filled the grove. Every single one of the apes began to salivate uncontrollably, including their patriarch and even Leo was no different. Luckily he, just like everyone else present managed to hold still until the patriarch used his huge hand like a ladle and sampled a handful of the dark paste that was inside the trunk and afterwards gave his verdict.
“U! Uuuuuu!” He roared and immediately the whole tribe joined him.
“U! U! A! U!” Everyone shouted so loud the whole grove shook, but to Leo’s surprise the apes remained orderly in their spots.
It was clear the stuff inside the trunk was good, but everyone still waited for the patriarch to eat several more handfuls. Afterwards it was the turn for the next biggest ape and then the next one. One by one all apes orderly made their way to the tree stomp while the patriarch sternly watched them appreciate their share.
Somehow everyone knew how much they were allowed to sample and when it was Leo’s turn, he also ate only three handfuls he managed to scrape from the inside wall of the trunk plant. Actually the moment he tasted the paste, he realized he would’ve much more preferred to jump right in and spend a whole day inside the trunk, but the hot stare of the patriarch burned his back therefore he obediently stepped aside after gathering the last bits of willpower.
When the tribe returned to their meadow, Leo realized that the stuff they just ate was not only incredibly tasty – it had an additional side effect similar to his own Firewater, except much stronger. Everyone, including him suddenly fell into daze, fell down in the grass making weird expressions and murmuring some kind of nonsense while experiencing a pleasant euphoria.
Luckily Leo had ‘cultivated’ on the ship for half a year and soon understood that the silver-backs were actually expert alchemists. Using some kind of a secret recipe they brewed a strong cultivation supplement and that was the obvious reason for the apes to grow so big and strong.
Unfortunately, even though they were experts, they obviously lacked good cultivation techniques. Because of the ‘Firepaste’, how Leo decided to call the sacred alchemy product of the ape tribe from now on, everyone experienced incredible influx of power. While it was too much for the ape babies who passed out the moment they arrived ‘home’, the larger apes with their patriarch in the lead began humping the smaller ones making weird huffing and puffing sounds. The whole tribe had become dumb from being unable to use the Firepaste properly and was doing some weird things.
But Leo knew better – he couldn’t let the good stuff go to waste. After realizing what the Firepaste actually was he immediately sat in the lotus position just like his father taught him and began to cultivate the secret ‘Focusing technique’. Unfortunately, just like during the previous months on the ship, he could not find the fire spark he longed for and only saw lightning bolts flashing around in his consciousness that for some reason only had increased in number. In addition, the effect of the Firepaste soon ran out and he fell asleep.
The next morning everyone woke up and acted like any other day, but Leo knew his life here had completely changed.
During the day he did his best to act naturally, eating and running away from the ape babies like always, but with dusk, while the patriarch was ‘punishing’ one of the smaller apes for who knows what, he sneaked away and found the grove with the tree stump plants. Leo knew he had to act swiftly and stealthily if he wanted his actions to remain a secret and, after pondering for a while, chose a particular tree stomp that according to his memory the patriarch yesterday completely ignored.
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He carefully opened the top, swallowed few handfuls of the paste, closed the top and darted away. His heart raced in the expectation for the upcoming meditation, but on the way to the meadow Leo realized his hand was still covered in a thin Firepaste layer even though he tried to lick it clean.
There was not much time left until the ‘cultivation’ effect kicked in, therefore Leo rushed towards the only brook on the island, jumped right in, quickly washed and then ran back. Fortunately he managed to get back right on time, because the last thing he saw before passing out were tens of silvery ape statures lying around in the lush grass.
The next morning Leo woke up as usual, albeit still a little bit tispy, but the fact that last night he missed the actual cultivation made him upset. If this went on he was no better than the apes wasting such precious cultivation resource instead of properly cultivating, but after he gave the matter some thought he decided to not wait for the effect to properly kick in next time and begin to meditate right after washing up.
From then on the routine was set. Early in the morning Leo returned to the tribe and went to spend the day with them, but in the evening he sneaked out to get some Firepaste and afterwards ‘cultivated’. Ethical conundrums didn’t bother him – apes stole his Firewater so it was only logical for him to use their Firepaste.
The pleasant life he experienced on the ship returned once again and the boy spent his days in the ape tribe in a constantly intoxicated state. He didn’t even notice how the rainy season passed and the only difficulty he had during that time was the inability to properly scale the wet trees. Of course, him regularly falling was the source of entertainment for the apes, but Leo ignored them and payed back by eating more of their delicious Firepaste.
With every passing day he became bolder and increased the consumption of the precious cultivating supplement and it felt like this could go on for eternity. Even though months had passed, the patriarch still hadn’t caught a wind of someone stealing their stuff thus Leo felt safe enjoying the benefits of the ‘advanced cultivation’.
The life here was almost perfect, if one didn’t take the company of apes into consideration and that scary eagle.
Right, the mother tucking eagle. When Leo saw it the first time, he cheered at it taking away a couple of his bullies, but as it turned out the bird frequented this place regularly. While it was not every two or three days, it was at least once a month. And every time it suddenly dropped like a stone from the sky and no ape it was targeting could escape.
Fortunately for the silver-backs, they seemed to be used to the regular thinning their ranks and the frequent birth of babies kind of compensated for the eagle attacks thus they accepted those as a normal occurrence, albeit an upsetting one. The eagle also seemed to target the larger apes, so the whole process kind of resembled a regular cycle of life.
On the plus side every time the eagle attacked and carried someone away, the wise ape leader invited everyone to the tree stump plant grove and the morale was instantly lifted. Afterwards apes returned to their meadow where the males humped the females and everyone was happy.
Indeed, after a couple of months in the tribe Leo finally figured out that the patriarch and other larger apes jumping on the smaller ones was actually some kind of process the two sides enjoyed and not a punishment. In addition, the formerly considered victims often teased the big apes and invited them over showing off their back sides.
Leo couldn’t wrap his head around the reasoning for the whole endeavor, but he had no wish to try it himself and just took it as an ‘ape thing’.
Leo had no clue he already carelessly spent over half a year on the island, abusing hospitality of the apes. The patriarch seemed clueless and the boy already got used to a thought he would never be found out when one fine afternoon the ape leader opened the top of a tree trunk plant and found it empty.
He scratched the butt in confusion, but either he actually had some kind of a system or today was just such star alignment, the next three trunks he opened were also empty.
If after the first empty one Leo was still carelessly smiling, after the second he started to have a bad premonition and after the third empty trunk he realized his happy days on the island were over. Even though the apes seemed easygoing and often dumb, they still had instincts of ranked beasts and their patriarch … was one strong mother tucker! And after he saw the fourth empty trunk, that tucker immediately began to look for Leo.
It all might’ve been fine if they weren’t on a small island with nowhere to run. Leo had no clue what gave him away, but according to logic it could’ve been any other ape as well. The boy had no idea his smell was all over the tree trunk plants since it hadn’t rained for several days and that was all the evidence the patriarch needed.
Competing in speed with a rank five silver-back ape was not something a random person could do. Within a span of few breaths Leo heard ape’s footsteps behind him and did what anyone instinctively would do – climbed the closest tree.
Of course, to escape from an ape by climbing a tree was even more delusional than hoping to escape by outrunning it, but Leo got lucky. The only trees in the vicinity were actually bamboos which technically are not trees, but a tall grass. And while a thin, light body like Leo’s barely made the bamboo sway, the patriarch’s close to eight hundred pounds simply broke it the moment he climbed five, six yards high.
While bamboos are incredibly durable, when they are bent far enough, they’ll break like chopsticks and in his desperation patriarch had to learn it. Seeing Leo jumping from one bamboo to the next while he was left standing below in humiliation, made the huge ape roar in anger and he began wrecking havoc all over the place. He broke trees, uprooted them using his bare hands and used the uprooted ones to smack Leo like he was some kind of a fly.
Fortunately the boy not only had slimmed down enough during the last half a year, he had a ton of practice escaping the annoying ape babies and now the acquired skills came in handy. On a couple occasions the patriarch actually came really close to getting Leo down, but in the end he ran out of breath or at least it seemed so. All he could do was to roar, hammer the ground and his own chest, but that couldn’t scare Leo more than he already was.
What made the boy’s heart skip a beat and mind fall in a complete chaos was what happened next.