Chapter 48: Encounter with Saber-Toothed Tigers

Suddenly, the wood element spell blows three rapid whistles, which is a signal of danger. The earth element spellcasters stop excavating. Everyone is on high alert. Someone in the second team hears the signal whistle and blows their whistle, passing it from front to back.
Quickly, more detailed information came: 100 meters in the ten o'clock direction, there is a saber-toothed tiger. It has spotted the team and is slowly approaching.
Tang Zhiga displayed his light work, leaping onto the treetops. With a light touch of his toes, he quietly jumped towards the ten o'clock direction. Originally, his kung fu was not that great, but under Manager Liu's modification, his kung fu and spells have undergone a qualitative leap.
He opened the "Fire Eyes" and not only did it have detailed parameters, but when it reached the advanced stage, it also had a telescope function. Soon, he saw the saber-toothed tiger and the parameters were as follows: Adult saber-toothed tiger. Body length: 3 meters. Strength: 300kg, Speed: 30m/s, Gold elemental spell attack: 300, Earth elemental spell attack: 100.
Tang Zhiga quickly returned and said to everyone, "Sabertooth Tiger, one, 3 meters long, fast, and knows magic. It's very powerful, so everyone be careful."
Mercenary squad leader Adouqin (meaning shepherd) stepped forward to command the battle, and the earth elemental spellcaster quickly built a trench.
When this side of the moat and earthen wall is built, the saber-toothed tiger on the other side senses that these people have discovered it. It hesitates. It's alone, but there are dozens of them on the other side. Originally, it wanted to sneak attack, just like it used to sneak attack reindeer, quietly approaching, charging fiercely, grabbing one and running away.
It walked towards the back of the line, with so many people, the ones in front noticed it, while the ones in the back might not have. But as it continued on, it saw that the group of people were all looking at it accurately, with their faces and eyes. In the end, it left grumbling and cursing.

The team had a false alarm and resumed their journey.
However, soon a message came from the team at the rear that the saber-toothed tiger was following them.
Tang Zhiga summoned Urala the guide and asked for his opinion.

All four Ulaanuur guides are the sons of the Lord of the City, and indeed each of them is an experienced hunter. After joining the team, they began to learn the common language of the Desert North. Now they can communicate with everyone with little difficulty.
The Urala man who teamed up with Tang Zhiga is named Buerlanbai (meaning "swift wind"). He and Tang Zhiga briefly discussed the hunting habits of saber-toothed tigers. They are agile in their movements and enjoy ambushing from behind. They are not greedy and only capture one prey at a time.
Tang Zhiga stroked his chin and didn't expect this tiger, who practices the dual cultivation method, to use such a despicable tactic.
Adou Qin was eager to give it a try and said, "Master Ga, let me deal with the Sabertooth Tiger. I, as a Xianbei warrior, have once killed a Northeast Tiger alone. I have never encountered a Sabertooth Tiger before."
Tang Zhiga looked at the employee's information and found out that he was a wood element spellcaster and also skilled in physical combat. He nodded and agreed, "Bring two more helpers. This Sabretooth Tiger is fast and can also use magic. From my observation, it should know gold and earth element spells."
The captain of the mercenary nodded and called Borlanbai and another mercenary to follow him. Just as they were about to leave, they heard a commotion from behind, and soon received news that the captain of the third team, Agula, had successfully fought and killed a saber-toothed tiger, and returned with the tiger's corpse, albeit with a slight injury on his arm.
Qinquan lamented and punched a tree next to him in frustration. Börland and another mercenary expressed their regrets.
Tang Zhiaga consoled them briefly and then went to check on Agula.
一直走到队伍末尾，唐之噶看到剑齿虎虎尸搁在一匹马上面，一位医疗佣兵给阿古拉手臂治疗伤口，阿古拉精神亢奋，口沫横飞的给围着他的人说他的打虎经历：
"As soon as the tiger saw me coming, it arched its back and roared at me. I shot an arrow to test its depth, but it quickly dodged it and continued to roar at me. The ground in front of it started to churn and it came charging towards me. Being an earth mage myself, I quickly summoned an earth shield to block its attack. However, it managed to hide behind a pile of sand and stones and charged at me again. I drew my sword and swiftly slashed at its belly. To my surprise, the tiger also knew a spell of the metal element and activated its diamond armor. My sword struck it but felt like hitting a solid iron plate, creating sparks everywhere. It leaped over my head and roared loudly before charging towards me once more, this time directly at me. With quick reflexes, I dodged its attack and it crashed into a tree, snapping it in half. Since I also knew fire magic, I immediately launched a fireball at it. Fire defeats metal, and it writhed in pain as the fire extinguished on its body. Taking advantage of its weakened state, I shot another arrow, hitting it right in the eye. It howled in pain and tried to escape. I pursued it relentlessly and unleashed several fireballs in succession. Eventually, I wore it down and defeated it."
Tang Zhiga approached, and the crowd made way for him when they saw him coming. Tang Zhiga greeted him and gave him a small porcelain bottle, which was the Tang family's golden wound medicine.
After raising the favorability rating, Tang Zhiga walked to the side of the tiger corpse and carefully observed. The back half of the saber-toothed tiger's body was charred by fireballs, but the front half was fine. Although it is called a tiger, it does not have the tiger's streaked patterns, but rather spotted patterns like a leopard. There were no prominent canine teeth, but the lower jaw was large, which probably covered the teeth. Its head was large, and the overall proportion seemed disproportionate.
Tang Zhiga recalled the information from the Tian Shu and said that the destruction in the northern desert was minimal, so plants and animals would regenerate. He wondered if there would still be saber-toothed tigers tomorrow.
At noon, the team stopped and the mercenaries dug a fire pit to cook while the scholars took out their machines to collect soil samples.
Goddess Ma Bullwhip scholar used the Luoyang spade, which was designed by the Golden Armor King. After five hundred years of development and improvement, there are larger and smaller styles, such as the brick-breaking spade, sand-digging spade, earth spade, mud and sand spade, and so on, to meet the needs of different soil layers.
The scholars of the Tang family originally used the Luoyang shovel, but after Tang Zhi's "awakening", as a representative of the academy, he redesigned a set of soil sampling devices, called the archaeological pole.
The first section of the archaeological pole has a hollow drill bit, with a length of one meter and threads at both ends that can be connected together, allowing for deep drilling. There is also a matching drilling equipment, which is a device that can be manually rotated with both hands and feet, driving the archaeological pole to rotate so that the drill bit can dig deep.
The archaeological rod is hollow, so it can bring out a lot of soil. Tang Zhigao doesn't like calling it an archaeological rod, so he renamed it "Tangjia shovel".
Ever since the Tang family scholar brought out the "Tangjia shovel", the goddess whip has also used the Luoyang shovel.
Tang's scholar and the goddess Ma Bian scholar chose two locations that were quite far apart and started digging for soil.
Ji Xiao followed the scholars from her team to the second soil sampling point. Although she is a liberal arts monk, she really enjoys watching people manipulate cool machines.
It was easy at first, but it became difficult later on.
As May arrives, the soil begins to thaw. The upper layer of soil here is humus, which is a mixture of decaying leaves and grass. Therefore, it is easy to drill down. However, when drilling deeper, the soil is frozen and becomes difficult to penetrate, especially when the water content is high.
Goddess whip scholar Su De (meaning outstanding) rocked for a while, her hands became sore, so Tang Jia scholar Tang Deji took over.
Su De said, "It's too hard! I guess there is another permafrost layer underneath, with a water content of around 80%."
Tang Deji shook his head and sighed, "I don't have enough strength. It's really too hard. Let's use magic."
Su De nodded. They pulled up the archaeological poles and attached a piece of paper to each pole to indicate the number. They went down a total of five poles, which is fifty meters.
Next is one person taking soil and one person recording.
The soil samples are basically the same as yesterday. The top layer is humus soil, followed by black calcareous soil with a water content of about 50%, then brown calcareous soil, and the bottom layer, which is 50 meters deep, is brown calcareous soil with a water content of 80%.
Tang Deji said, "The moisture content is too high. It's only May now. When we enter June, the land will melt even deeper. Will there be a swamp?"
Su De patted the soil in his hand and said to Ji Xiao, "Go and call Buerkete."
Ji Xiao nodded and asked the guide Urala, whose name means "eagle" in Mongolia, from the second team to go to the excavation site.
After listening to Su Xing and Tang Deji, Urala said, "There are indeed many swamps here, and the further north we go, the more there are. It's lucky that it's still frozen in May, so it's not difficult to walk. But in June and July, all the swamps will thaw, and with all the vegetation, the road will become more and more difficult to walk. However, everyone in the team are wizards, so there is no need to worry about getting stuck in the swamps."
Ji Xiaoyi was dumbfounded. She was the only one in the team who couldn't use spells. I don't know what she did to offend Manager Liu, but he just refused to give her the spell plugin.
Tang Deji is a scholar who followed along from the Shu Kingdom. He also lived in the Western Regions for ten years. He asked, "So, what's the precipitation like here?"
Burket looked confused: "What's precipitation?"
Sude turned his head, chuckled.
Tang Deji said apologetically, "It's the amount of rain that falls."
Burket glanced at Sude.
Immediately, Su Deli put on a serious face and said to him: "I'm not laughing at you, I'm laughing at that old man." He turned to look at Tang Deji and said, "He doesn't understand what it means to 'adapt to local customs'. The prince has repeatedly ordered to get close to the masses."
Ji Xiao walked between the two of them and tried to mediate: "Alright, alright," she said to Boulkertbai, "Does it rain a lot here?"
Boulkertbai replied, "We don't get much rain here. It snows in winter, and when the snow melts in spring, the ice on the river becomes thick and blocks the river. So the water overflows onto the ground and forms many ponds. The ponds then turn into swamps."
Tang Deji and Su De, two old men with bad tempers, stopped arguing and listened attentively to what Boult had to say. Then, they began an academic discussion:
Tang Deji, who had lived in the Western Regions for ten years, said, "The temperature here is low and the evaporation rate is weak."
Su De, who has been tortured by permafrost, said: "There is a thick layer of permafrost underground, and surface water is not easily absorbed."
Tang Deji, who has lived in the mountainous areas of Shu Kingdom, said: "The terrain here is low-lying, and drainage is not smooth."
Living by the lakeside court of Lake Belga, Sud, who has witnessed the flooding of the Angara River and Lena River, said, "The rivers here experience 'ice-jam' phenomenon, blocking the riverbed and leading to the formation of stagnant water. In severe cases, it can cause the flooding of the upper and middle reaches."
Both parties reached an agreement and concluded, "Therefore, the marshes here are widespread, with water ponds and ditches crisscrossing."
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The Urala people, referring to the Kazakhs, have Kazakh names according to Baidu. The goddess Whip is based on Mongolian people, and her name is also a Mongolian name.