Chương 72: Chapter 73: The Tracker of the Dry Land

The interface line snapped to life with a quiet, high-frequency hum. Ethan stepped out from the un-rendered limestone wadi cracks where he had hidden his gear during his trek with Hilkiah. Away from the old Levite priest's traditional, watchful gaze, it was time to completely discard the identity of the humble northern potter.

He abandoned his crude timber hand-cart—leaving the empty wooden frame tucked deep inside the shadow of the rock fissure where it would safely rot caked in dust—and hoisted his heavy canvas tool-bag over his shoulder, setting out along the lower mountain trails entirely on foot. He didn't hit the main international highway immediately.

Moving southwest through the foothills running parallel to the Via Maris, he routed his path toward a small, fortified Canaanite wayside settlement crouching just outside the main Egyptian garrison lines. He needed to secure a proper long-range scouting load out. The settlement was a grim, sun-bleached portrait of systemic decline. The creeping drought had brought the village to its knees.

The local communal cisterns were nothing but dry, cracked mud holes, and the surrounding barley fields had entirely yellowed into dust. Because the herders could no longer source water or grain to keep their livestock alive, they had been forced into a state of panic-slaughter, slaughtering their entire herds before the animals rotted in the sun. The village square was a desperate, metal-starved graveyard of resources.

Piles of raw, salted animal skins and old, sweat-crusted leather defensive vests from disbanded militias were stacked high in the gutters—completely worthless because the local population was starving. Raw leather had become absolute garbage, while a single skin of clean, drinkable water was priced like gold shekels. Ethan walked through the dusty stalls in his simple potter's wraps, keeping his head low. He didn't use silver.

He reached into his tool-bag, pulled out a single, perfectly insulated clay storage jar he had made back at his cave kiln, and traded it directly to a hollow-eyed herder elder. To the starving old man, a high-durability, non-porous ceramic vessel that could seal their remaining precious water reserves without leaking was an absolute miracle. In return, the elder eagerly handed over a premium, multi-layered Boiled Leather Rib-Corslet and a massive bundle of heavy, cured rawhide equipment straps.

Ethan stepped into the shade of a ruined mud-brick wall to equip his gear. He used the salvaged rawhide strips to construct a rugged, cross-strapped Scout Pack, sliding his old canvas tool-bag directly inside the leather framework to completely conceal his artisan tools beneath. He buckled the rigid, oil-darkened leather corslet firmly across his chest and wrapped his non-dominant forearm in overlapping rawhide bands to serve as a high-mobility parrying shield.

Finally, he unslung the custom amber-teal glass mace-cudgel he had forged on the trail with Hilkiah, its razor-sharp jewel teeth catching the harsh sun as he test-swung the handle. The transformation was complete. The ragged artisan was gone; replaced by the lean, athletic, and imposing silhouette of an independent Medjay Desert Ranger. He waded out of the village down into a deep, dry wash bed, his sharp eyes auditing the chemical properties of the soil.

The ground here was a dense, dark-red vein of Terra Rossa clay, heavily saturated with natural iron oxide particles. Ethan drove his trowel into the red earth. Activating his passive [Structural Analysis], his 300% material extraction speed allowed him to instantly scoop and roll the iron-rich mud into dozens of identical, dense, aerodynamic spherical sling stones. He built a small, high-heat charcoal fire pit inside a rock niche, moulding the red clay spheres directly into the white coals.

The intense heat forced a rapid thermal fusion: the iron oxide particles bonded tightly across the silicate, rendering the sling stones into flash-hardened, iron-oxide core missiles. They weren't soft mud balls that would splat on impact; they were dense, heavy, metallic projectiles that held the mass and kinetic velocity of primitive iron shot. He slung the ammunition pouch over his hip, adjusted the straps of his salvaged scout pack, and stepped out onto the open international road on foot.

The dirt of the Via Maris coastal highway was baked hard under a blinding, cloudless Levant sun. Moving with the smooth, high-endurance stride of a desert tracker, Ethan marched southwest along the foothills of the Carmel ridge, keeping his head-cloth low as he passed an isolated Egyptian frontier way station.

The thinned-out merchant traffic, the hostile posture of the resource-starved guards, and the choking dust of the valley lines all confirmed his calculus: the old world was breaking apart, and the wilderness was turning feral.