Chapter 855 [0852] Target Ahead: Great Glacier
Just like it takes 20,000 miles to cross the yellow sand from Vazun to the Giant God Peak, it takes the towering Ice Claw Mountains and then the Frozen Sea to get from the Lakstak Plain to the Great Glacier.
For anyone who can't fly, this is a difficult journey - although the Ice Claw Mountains are not as famous as the Dragon Spine Snow Mountains, the Ice Claw Mountains are far superior to the Dragon Spine Snow Mountains in terms of altitude and harsh climate.
What's more terrible is that many areas of the Ice Claw Mountains are where the Lost Ones are active. These lost shamans who believe in the old gods and have lost their humanity are more violent and dangerous than the most violent beasts. Compared with these Lost Ones, the man-eating ice trolls are called little cuties.
When facing danger, the ice trolls may scatter, but the Lost Ones are different. If they find an opponent that is difficult to defeat, these guys will not only fight to the death, but also try to summon the power of the old gods - and once the old gods think that this opponent is worthy, He will give the Lost Ones the power of storm and thunder.
So, if it is not necessary, no one is willing to pass through the territory of the Lost Ones.
If this wasn't a trial, Ashe actually had a safer route - she could go west through the Neuskara Pass, then northwest to the Rockfa Peninsula, then north to the Sea of Ice, and from here she could cross the sea to the Great Glacier.
Compared to crossing the Ice Claw Mountains directly, this route is undoubtedly much safer. Although it will pass through some uninhabited areas on the way, and it is also likely to encounter enemies such as ice trolls and dire wolves, compared to the Lost, this is simply a drizzle.
But this is Anivia's trial, and reaching the Great Glacier is also part of the trial.
Although the detour is safe, according to the Freljord people's judgment of wisdom, this does not meet Anivia's requirements!
Escape is shameful and useful, but it is not wisdom.
As a guest, Lux, as an outsider invited to participate in the trial, naturally has no objection to Ashe's plan and route.
Others may be afraid of the Lost, but Lux is not. After all, she had seen the abilities of these Old Gods believers as early as when she was in Mithril City. They were violent and ferocious, and full of worship for the primitive. They were simply the destroyers of civilization.
For Lux, there was no psychological burden to destroy the Lost.
As for crossing the Ice Claw Mountains itself...
I have climbed the Targon, so could the Ice Claw Mountains be more difficult to climb than the Targon?
In this way, after confirming that they would go straight to the north mountain, Ashe and Lux, who were ready, set off on the journey to the Great Glacier.
Neither Tryndamere nor Kalya participated in this trial. On the stage of the trial, there were only two no longer young girls.
……………………
Although Anivia did not give very specific trial requirements, Ashe, as a trialist, believed that she should show the greatest "sincerity" and complete this trial without relying on the power of the Avarosa tribe.
So, when they set out, they brought nothing except a Yukal sled for easy transportation.
Even on this sled, only some necessities and a few tools and materials that are not easy to obtain on the ice field are loaded, and most of the loading space is still empty.
In other words, the food and fuel along the way need to be obtained by Ashe and Lux themselves.
Whether it is hunting, gathering, or logging, since leaving the city of Raxstark, they have to do everything by themselves.
For Ashe, this reminds her of the days when she just lost her tribe and met Sejuani. At that time, their relationship had not broken down and they were still best friends.
But now, the person traveling with her is Sejuani's Terminator, which makes Ashe a little bit uncomfortable at first.
For Ashe, the expression of being unable to let go is silence. On the first day after leaving the city of Raxstark, she just sat on the sled, mechanically driving Yukal, and silently said nothing.
Ashe didn't speak, and Lux didn't speak either.
This was not Lux's first trial, nor her first long-distance trip, so although the journey on the ice field was quite monotonous, she adapted quickly. For her, silence was not a torment. After all, she was also silent in the Shurima Desert, and it was always Kalya who was chattering.
Now that Kalya was not around, she simply emptied her mind for a while.
In silence, time quickly came to the evening. When dusk finally appeared on the horizon, the two people who had been silent finally realized that it seemed that there was no dinner for today.
For Lux or Ashe, missing a meal was not a big deal.
But today, they had just left Laxtak and had to go to bed hungry at night. This kind of thing was somewhat embarrassing - especially when Lux and Ashe were not very familiar with each other.
So, when the roar of Ernyuk in heat appeared not far away, Lux and Ashe's eyes lit up at the same time.
Ashe, who was driving Yukal, stopped the sled and planned to hunt a prey as food for the next few days, and use the fur of this Enuk as material for crossing the Ice Claw Snow Mountain and the Ice Sea.
But Lux's movements were undoubtedly faster. The sled didn't even stop, and she rushed out.
The next moment, the wild Enuk group was in chaos.
When the commotion was over, Lux had returned dragging a large male Ernuk.
This was a rather unlucky guy. It had just lost the battle for a mate. After observing the state of the Enuk group, Lux immediately targeted it as prey.
The reason is not that it was injured in the previous battle and is easier to take action. The main reason is that for the Enuk group, killing such a loser by a hunter will not affect subsequent reproduction.
In other words, if the fight fails, you will be injured and killed by predators. This is the natural law of the wild Enuk tribe. Only the strongest Enuk can obtain a mate so that their offspring can reproduce.
The performance of survival of the fittest on this frozen soil has always been so straightforward.
Lux's performance surprised Ashe - not only her choice of prey, but also the timing of her attack and subsequent handling of the prey.
Because as far as she knew, the warm-blooded people in the south obtained food by growing plants and raising livestock. Hunting was not a part of daily life, but Lux's performance looked like an experienced old hunter, whether it was Tracking prey or bleeding and skinning can only be accomplished with proficiency.
This kind of skillful skill would definitely not be possible without practicing with three to five hundred prey!
What's even more astonishing is that she seems to have a good understanding of many Freljord-specific animals - this kind of understanding is not an encyclopedic understanding from books, but when skinning and decomposing prey, it's like The silky smoothness of Chef Ding's Jie Niu shows ease.
This is very surprising.
If proficiency in hunting comes from hunting experience, where does knowledge of the Freljord's big game come from?
Lux is not from the Freljord!
Ash, who was full of doubts, finally couldn't help but raise his own questions after Ash easily disintegrated a wild Ernuk.
"Ah, do I look very skilled?" Hearing Ashe's question, Lux was also stunned for a moment, "Maybe it's because... I hunted a lot of prey along the way in Newskala, right?"
"For that alliance?" Hearing what Lux said, Ashe quickly understood. "You didn't show yourself to them in person? I've heard about your record in Silver Nugget City."
"You're talking about Mithril City, right?" Lux smiled, "I'm not as good at archery as you are. I can easily get the first place in various categories. I'm better at magic, and in Freljord , spells other than frost magic are generally not well understood by people.”
Ai Xi nodded after hearing this.
Although she doesn't understand magic, she can still understand what Lux said - in the Freljord, only the frost magic mastered by the Frostguard priests is "serious magic". As for other spells and spell-like spells, Means, in the eyes of the Freljordians, are all things for warm-blooded people.
If Lux takes the initiative to display spell types other than frost magic in the alliance, then I am afraid that the result will not attract the respect of other tribes.
In this case, directly using magic to hunt and then display the prey is a very smart choice.
While speaking, Lux had already used her broken blade to roughly divide the prey.
Enuk's leather had to be left behind, and the raft needed to cross the ice sea would have to be wrapped with at least three layers of fur to be completely waterproof.
Most of Ernuk's meat was shaved off, and the other bones except the ribs were abandoned on the ice sheet. These parts could not be eaten by Ashe and Lux in a short time. There will be more in the future. The Ice Vulture rendered it harmless.
After dealing with all this, Lux and Ash leaned on the sled and started today's dinner.
The taste of wild Elnuk is not very good, especially the male Elnuk that has not been gelded. Even if Lux bleeds immediately, the smell is still a little lingering.
But for the Freljord people who have lived on the ice sheet for a long time, they have a special way to deal with this fishy smell - Ashe skillfully found some clean soil and threaded the meat in large pieces. , smeared a thick layer on the surface, and then placed it on the flame.
Then, when Lux thought the meat was cooked and ready to eat, Ashe waved her hand.
"Wait a moment." She looked at the flames with a smile, "Now is not the time."
Although Lux didn't quite understand why Ash said that, she still sat next to the sled and continued to wait patiently.
It wasn't until half an hour later, when the meat was completely burnt, that Ashe took off the "black charcoal".
"Well, just right!"
As he spoke, Ash took out the short knife from his waist and used a rather wild knife technique to cut off all the burnt parts of the large piece of barbecue.
When two-thirds of the barbecue was cut off, it finally showed a completely different side from before - it seemed that all the fishy smell had been cut away along with the burnt shell wrapped in soil, and the large pieces of barbecue became Taking a small piece of juicy deliciousness, Lux took the first piece that Ashe handed over and took a tentative bite. An astonishing meaty aroma instantly captured her taste buds.
Lux had never thought that Enyuk's meat could be so delicious.
You know, in the northern border of Demacia, although Enyuk has become a common livestock, it is mainly for materials such as fur and hoofs. As for the meat of Enyuk, it is generally handed over to food processing factories to be processed into meat floss and other things.
Although it is very cheap, few people are willing to buy Enyuk meat directly to eat - this thing is really too damn unpalatable.
In order to make it delicious, the price of spices needed for cooking is already more expensive than buying beef.
However, now after Ashe's treatment, the taste of Enyuk has become unprecedentedly delicious, which undoubtedly makes Lux's eyes light up.
"Not bad?" Looking at Lux's surprised expression, Ashe also smiled, "I always liked this way of eating when I was a child, but there are really not many opportunities to eat it this way."
Lux nodded.
Although the Enyuk meat tastes good, thinking about the two-thirds cut off, I think any normal Freljord tribe should not be willing to eat it this way.
On this ice field, waste is a very shameful thing.
Only those who cannot take away too much meat, such as Lux and Ashe, are eligible for such luxury.
"When I was a child, many things were very simple. I didn't have to think too much, nor did I have to worry about gains and losses." Lux started to cut meat by herself. "In a sense, it was really pure at that time."
This was completely Lux's subconscious feeling, because compared with other children, Lux's childhood ended very early. When she met Kalya, she had already started to learn to perform.
Hearing what Lux said, Ashe couldn't help but nod her head. Similar to Lux, she was also a person who was "ripened by force". When the tribe was destroyed and her childhood sweetheart betrayed her, Ashe, who originally couldn't hold the True Ice weapon at all, endured the pain and picked up Avarosa's longbow. On that day, she completely bid farewell to childishness and matured overnight.
The dripping barbecue seemed to bring the two sides closer. Across the campfire, Lux and Ashe started to talk while eating dinner.
Unlike the previous negotiations, the content of this dinner chat was more casual. For both parties, it was a process of getting to know each other.
However, as they chatted, the flickering campfire seemed to become a mirror - on both sides of the campfire, Lux and Ashe looked at each other with a familiar look in their eyes.
Karya's Little Class: Freljord Cooking:
Although in the eyes of most people, the recipes of the Freljord barbarians can only be described as rough, as if their limit is "eating enough but not killing people", but in fact, this is a misunderstanding of the Freljord people.
Freljord also has a long history of cooking and a wealth of cooking techniques, but because it is too luxurious, those eye-catching dishes are often tied to some special occasions and are completely inaccessible to outsiders.