In the massive elephant herd, only this one calf was a White Elephant.
And a White Elephant was an Auspicious Beast!
In Southeast Asia, the definition of a White Elephant isn’t limited to pure white. It also includes elephants with golden, silver, pale green, or light red skin. Elephants of these colors are all collectively known as White Elephants.
So say a White Elephant is just an elephant with albinism, but in reality, albino elephants have pink skin, not the snow-white color people typically imagine.
But this little White Elephant, Xiaobai, was pure white. It was covered in so filthy mud, but the flaws couldn’t hide its beauty. Moreover, its whiteness wasn’t the ghastly pale of people from Europe and Arica, but the jade-like white of the East.
This was an incredibly beautiful little elephant.
’Could this little one be the Tier Seventeen Moving Mountain White Jade Elephant?’ Li Xiang’s heart leaped.
He blinked, staring at Xiaobai for a few monts. Suddenly, his figure flickered. He appeared beside the little elephant, scooped it up into his arms, and instantly teleported twenty or thirty ters away.
He activated the Mutant Creature Identification Function again. Sure enough, this little White Elephant was the Tier Seventeen Moving Mountain White Jade Elephant.
When Xiaobai suddenly vanished, the herd was stunned. They quickly spotted the little elephant twenty or thirty ters away, held by a mysterious, black-armored biped. They imdiately charged in his direction.
TRUMPET~
The herd was furious. The female elephant at the front was especially frantic; she was likely Xiaobai’s mother.
With her calf stolen, the mother elephant was naturally the most desperate.
So Li Xiang set Xiaobai down.
TRUMPET~ The mother rescued her calf, stroking it lovingly with her trunk. Seeing Li Xiang still lingering nearby, the rest of the elephants ford a tight circle around the little one to prevent another surprise attack.
An elephant with exceptionally long tusks, standing a full four ters tall and weighing around seven or eight tons, began moving its mountain-like body. It let out a low roar and "charged" at Li Xiang.
Its enormous, pillar-like feet stomped the ground, creating a "BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!" sound. The display of power was astounding; even a tiger would have been frightened off.
Of course, Li Xiang didn’t run.
’Perfect. Saves the trouble of making the first move.’
He estimated the distance and retreated a little farther, hoping to create an opportunity to face this "elephant leader" alone.
He figured that since this elephant had the longest tusks and looked the most formidable, it must be the "Tier Sixteen Silver-tusked Mammoth."
Unfortunately, Li Xiang was wrong.
It wasn’t the one.
The elephant, of course, couldn’t harm him. With a slight flicker of his body, he dodged it and turned his attention to the rest of the herd.
’It must be that one!’ Li Xiang’s gaze fell on a male that seed quite young. It was only a little over two ters tall and weighed less than a ton, likely an adolescent male, and looked rather magnificent.
Like a black bolt of lightning, Li Xiang instantly appeared beside the adolescent male. He hoisted it onto his shoulder in one smooth motion. With tens of thousands of pounds of strength, lifting the elephant was effortless. With a single leap, he was thirty ters away.
The adolescent male was held upside down, its four feet flailing at the sky as it let out a terrified trumpet, but it couldn’t break free.
Holy crap. The herd was absolutely stunned. Even the "elephant leader" that had charged him earlier seed dumbfounded. It quickly roared again and charged at Li Xiang once more.
But its body was too massive, and it wasn’t fast.
Li Xiang couldn’t be bothered with it. He quickly used the Mutant Creature Identification Function to scan the elephant he was holding. Still not the one.
So, Li Xiang put the elephant down and targeted another adolescent male, this one also with long tusks, repeating the process.
The herd had a full twenty-eight mbers. Only six were "half-grown" adolescent males. The only fully adult male was the largest one that had attacked him earlier.
Unfortunately, none of them were the one.
’Holy crap, could it be a female? But none of these females have tusks!’
Li Xiang knew that female Asian Elephants either have no tusks, or their tusks are so short as to be negligible.
Unless they were African Elephants.
Female African Elephants have tusks. Among African Elephants, a bull’s tusks are thicker and longer, while a cow’s are comparatively smaller and more slender.
Li Xiang repeated the process, snatching up the female elephants one by one and carrying them far from the herd to identify them. His constant attacks scattered the once-cohesive herd, leaving them in disarray.
The large bull from before had attacked multiple tis, all to no avail; it hadn’t even managed to touch Li Xiang. By now, it truly couldn’t run anymore and was letting out deep, gasping breaths. "HUFF... HUFF... HUFF..."
In fact, Li Xiang had guessed wrong. This largest bull wasn’t the herd’s leader, but rather a middle-aged or elderly male.
In an elephant herd, the leader is the matriarch—the oldest, most experienced, and most respected female.
An elephant herd’s mbers mainly consist of the matriarch, young females, juvenile males, and several calves.
Once the adolescent males mature, they are driven out of the herd. Elephants are very intelligent animals, and driving out the adult males is a way to prevent inbreeding.
Studies have shown that an elephant’s brain is comparable in size to that of a nine-year-old human child, which already makes them one of the wisest in the animal kingdom.
An elephant’s mory is even more astounding. According to African legend, a sixty-year-old African Elephant can rember mbers of other herds it t when it was just three years old, recognizing and greeting them even after decades have passed.
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