King of the Wilderness

His gaze fell on a pile of deadwood collected earlier for firewood. He selected a dense hardwood branch roughly the thickness of an arm. He placed one end of the wood at the edge of the fire repeatedly to roast it.

"Fire is our best shaping tool," he explained while rotating the wood, "Through carbonization, we can easily remove excess moisture and make its structure more solid."

A few minutes later, when one end of the wood was charred, he took it out and easily scraped off the carbonized part with a stone, revealing the hard core inside.

Through repeated roasting and striking, a mallet with one end thick and the other slightly thin was born in his hands.

"Look," he said with satisfaction as he weighed the mallet in his hand, "Compared to using a stone directly, it is lighter and more resilient, allowing us to obtain thinner and more controllable stone flakes when striking the stone nucleus."

With this key processing tool, he officially began making the Stone Knife.

He stood the large flint stone nucleus on the ground, clamping it securely between his legs. Then, he did not directly strike with the mallet but picked up a sharp stone.

Using the sharp stone, he carefully chipped and rubbed away some of the brittle edges at the stone nucleus’s edge, forming a more suitable platform to take force.

"A good platform is the key to successfully chipping stone flakes."

After completing all this, he picked up the mallet he had just made, locked in on the platform he had just repaired, and with a sudden exertion of his wrist, struck down with the mallet precisely and sharply!

"Clang!"

A crisp sound far more penetrating than stones hitting each other rang out!

A palm-sized stone flake with edges sharp like glass peeled off the stone nucleus in response!

Then he continued to rotate the stone nucleus, looking for new platforms, and repeatedly struck accurately with the mallet.

"Clang!" "Clang!" "Clang!"

The crisp striking sounds echoed in the silent forest. Soon, in front of him lay a dozen stone flakes of varying sizes, all possessing deadly sharpness.

"These are our most basic knives." He picked up the sharpest among them and displayed it to the camera.

Then he casually picked up a damp twig and with a swipe of the stone flake’s edge, a neat cut appeared instantly, even more effectively than some blunted metal knives.

With these barely sharp stone flakes, he began creating more important weapons.

"For dinner, we can stave off hunger with Jin’er and banana stems. But tomorrow, we must find real protein, so I need a spear not only for protection but also for hunting."

"Snap! Snap! Snap!"

The crisp sounds continued to reverberate rhythmically. Under his precise control, chips constantly flaked off the stone flake edge, and a symmetrical, sharp-tipped, leaf-shaped spearhead gradually took shape in his hand.

With the spearhead ready, next comes the Spear Shaft.

He selected a roughly two-meter-long, straight and tough hardwood branch.

Again utilizing the power of fire, he repeatedly roasted the end of the branch where the spearhead would be installed above the flame.

"Roasting not only dries and hardens the wood but also makes it easier for us to shape it."

When the wood was charred, he used a relatively thick stone flake as a scraper to easily remove the carbonized surface layer.

Through repeated roasting and scraping, he precisely carved a groove at the end of the Spear Shaft, matching the dimensions of the Stone Spearhead’s base.

He carefully embedded the stone spearhead into the groove, fitting perfectly as if they were naturally one.

Lin Yu’an said to the camera, "Now, we need rope. The most reliable source of rope in the jungle comes from the phloem of certain specific plants."

He did not go far, focusing his gaze on an inconspicuous small tree near the shelter. The tree bark was grayish-brown and smooth.

"This is a paper mulberry." He made a small cut on the tree trunk with the edge of the Stone Knife to show the audience, "Common in southern China, its phloem fibers, or the inner layer of the bark, are extremely tough, an excellent natural material for making ropes and paper."

Following the principles of sustainable use, he only stripped a long piece of bark from the trunk.

Back at the firepit, he began processing this piece of bark.

"It can’t be used directly; we need to remove that outer rough, useless layer, leaving only the essence inside."

He laid the bark on a flat stone, repeatedly and patiently pounding it with a wooden stick. This process helped separate the inner and outer layers of the bark.

A few minutes later, he easily peeled off the tough, pale yellow inner phloem fibers entirely.

"This is not enough. To make it softer and easier to weave, I need to treat it with water."

He soaked the bundle of fibers in stream water, and after about ten minutes, he retrieved the bundle, which had turned soft like damp linen, and wrung out the excess water.

He divided the fibers into two strands, pinning one end under his toes, while his hands twisted the two strands in opposite directions, each forming tightly twisted single-strand ropes.

Lin Yu’an repeatedly repeated this process, and in his hands, a tree bark rope about half a meter long gradually extended.

"Alright, we have a new rope." He pulled the rope firmly in his hands, and it produced a tension sound, showing no sign of breaking at all.

He picked up the fresh rope and glanced at the Stone Spearhead and Spear Shaft already prepared beside him, then turned to the camera with an enigmatic smile on his face.

"Alright, folks, I know what you’re thinking now." His tone was slightly sly, "With all these materials ready, you must be thinking I went to all this trouble making this rope to bind my Stone Spear, right?"

He intentionally paused, gazing at the camera as if he could see the audience nodding in agreement.

"Using the most primitive rope to bind the most primitive weapon is, of course, cool and logical."

"However, for a spear that must endure enormous impact at crucial moments, the strength and durability of tree bark rope still pose risks. I need a more reliable solution."

With that, he made an unexpected move.

He took the newly made tree bark rope and skillfully threaded it back through the eyelets of his hiking boot, which was missing a shoelace, tying a secure knot at the end.

Standing up, he took a few steps, felt it, and nodded in satisfaction.

"See?" He pointed to his foot, "This is its true use, a proper shoelace. Now I have liberated a more important tool."

"This nylon shoelace is our ultimate weapon for securing the spearhead,"

He displayed the shoelace in front of the camera, "Its strength and resilience are unmatched by any natural fiber. Using it to bind the Stone Spearhead, I can be 100% sure that under the most intense impacts, the spearhead will not loosen or come off an inch."

"Using natural materials to solve basic needs and modern technology for core problems is the wisdom of survival."