The first month after Ubirajara's reincarnation passed in the blink of an eye.
The HIIT training he had applied to his athletic body yielded fruits that the tribe observed with a mixture of respect and fear. He was not the strongest in terms of raw power, but his endurance was superhuman.
While other warriors took minutes to catch their breath after a dash through the woods, Ubirajara returned to a resting state in seconds. His lungs felt like forge bellows, and his legs, once mere tools of locomotion, were now springs of pure functional muscle.
Thirty days had passed. Writing, which had begun as a curiosity under the tree, spread through the village like fire through dry straw.
Elderly people, whose eyesight was no longer working so well, pored over sheets of mallow paper to memorize the initial 300 characters. Ubirajara knew he would need at least 3,000 for full administration, but what existed was enough for daily life.
Mathematics also took shape. He introduced the decimal system and units of measurement based on the body and the land.
A "Step" for distance, a "Palm" for width, and the "Bow" for height. He began sketching the first map of the region, fixing onto paper what had previously been only a volatile memory of trails.
However, prestige exacted its price. Guaraci, the Morubixaba, watched with suspicion the way the warriors now looked to Ubirajara before making decisions. The tension between traditional authority and the new was palpable during communal meals.
To calm spirits and consolidate the foundations of society, Ubirajara presented the Lunar Calendar to Arandu.
To calm spirits and consolidate the foundations of society, Ubirajara presented the Lunar Calendar to Arandu.
"Time doesn't just turn, Shaman. It repeats itself in cycles that we can count," explained Ubirajara.
He divided the solar cycle into 360 days, organized into 12 months of 30 days, with 5 extra days dedicated to festivities. Each month reflected a facet of life: the New Earth Moon for the beginning, followed by the Fish Moon, the Agriculture Moon, the Heat Moon, the Drought Moon, and so on.
With math, maps, and a calendar, Ubirajara created the foundations of the first institutions. It was possible to plan planting, predict floods, and, above all, organize expeditions and military logistics. The resource surplus also grew: the female peccaries in the pen, well-fed with manioc scraps, began to give birth to healthy litters. The "living stock" of protein now numbered over forty heads.
It was time to expand. "We need to propagate the Tupi characters," Ubirajara announced at the council. "I believe it would be beneficial if people could spread knowledge through the writing of books; it would strengthen our diplomatic ties. I suggest an expedition to the village of Chief Cauã."
If he could alphabetize the elites of neighboring villages, he would have an educated elite ready to be assimilated and put to bureaucratic work.
The expedition was announced. Ubirajara's plan was ambitious: conduct a cultural exchange, teach the logogram system to the allied shaman, and participate in a joint hunt to show his improved physical endurance.
The journey lasted two days of intense trekking through dense forest. Ubirajara led the group, his conditioning allowing him to maintain a pace that left the young hunters drenched in sweat.
Tainá walked by his side, observing him with silent pride.
However, as the expedition finally approached Cauã's territory, the mood of optimism evaporated. Ubirajara stopped abruptly, sniffing the air. It wasn't the sweet smell of fermented fruit or the controlled smoke of a cooking fire. It was an acrid, heavy scent.
"Look," Guaraci pointed, the tone of rivalry replaced by pure warrior instinct. On the horizon, above the treetops where Cauã's village should have been, a thick column of black smoke rose, staining the blue sky.
"The Tapuias," whispered one of the warriors, gripping his bow. Ubirajara felt his heart race, but not with fear. His lungs, trained by HIIT, expanded to their maximum. "Run!" shouted Ubirajara, bolting ahead of the group with a speed no one could match. His original plans would have to wait. War had arrived.
The smell of burning flesh and the sound of distant screams assaulted Ubirajara's senses as he ran. The vegetation passed by as a blur. Behind him, Guaraci and the others struggled to keep pace. Ubirajara's interval training was not just for aesthetics; it was for moments like this.
When they reached the edge of Cauã's village, the scene was devastating. Half of the longhouses were in flames. The Tapuias, in a band of two hundred warriors, surrounded the survivors in the center of the plaza. Cauã had fallen, and the Shaman of that village was no longer breathing.
"There are too many," panted Guaraci, arriving just behind, sweat washing away the war paint on his face. "We are only seventy, and not all here are warriors. If we attack head-on, we will die before we hit the ground."
Ubirajara did not answer immediately. His eyes scanned the terrain like a drone. He saw the bottleneck between two burning longhouses and the slope of the terrain toward the river.
"We are not going to attack head-on, Morubixaba," Ubirajara said, his voice cold and calculating.
"War is not just about numbers; it involves various factors like morale and intimidation."
Guaraci, who would normally ignore Ubirajara, felt strangely compelled to follow his instructions, perhaps the string of feats he had achieved in a short time, as well as his physical prowess during the march, had conditioned him to it.
Ubirajara traced lines in the dirt with the tip of his spear. "We are forty," he said, without raising his voice. "And we are going to look like hundreds."
He pointed to the dense woods to the north. "Ten of you stay there. Not to fight. To scream, break branches, and beat trunks against each other. I want them to think the whole forest is moving. I want fear before the first arrow is fired."
The men nodded. That, they knew how to do. Ubirajara then drew a small, isolated circle. "Another ten come with me. We are not going after the warriors. We are going after the Tapuia chiefs. When they fall, the rest lose their way."
A heavy silence followed. Everyone understood. Finally, Ubirajara drew a wide line on the drawn field. "Guaraci leads the remaining twenty. When the noise begins and their leaders fall, you advance. Quickly. No long chases. Precise blows. Try to recruit those who surrendered to the Tapuias so that we can reach the number we need."
Guaraci crossed his arms, evaluating the drawing like one measuring a wound before opening it. "If it goes wrong?" he asked.
Ubirajara looked up. "If it goes wrong, we fight as we always have. But if it goes right… the war ends before it begins. When I give the signal, panic will do the work of a thousand arrows."
The execution was precise. The deafening noise coming from the woods made the Tapuias hesitate. In the moment they looked back, arrows took down their commanders with precision.
Chaos ensued. The Tapuias, believing they were surrounded by an entire nation, began to retreat toward the river exactly where Ubirajara wanted them.
Guaraci advanced like a force of nature.
Seeing Ubirajara, the "foreigner," orchestrate that victory with such coldness changed something within the chief.
It was an engineering of death in a way he had never seen.
The battle was short but brutal. In the end, the remaining 200 Tapuias were surrendered, cornered against the riverbanks, disarmed by fear and tactics. The 200 survivors of Cauã's village wept among the ashes. Guaraci approached Ubirajara, his spear stained with blood.
He looked at the prisoners and then at Ubirajara, staring; the balance of power had shifted. Although he was still the chief, Ubirajara now held more weight in decisions.
"What do we do, Ubirajara? We cannot sustain so many people, let alone feed two hundred enemy mouths."
Ubirajara looked at the Tapuias and then at the ruins of the village. "They are not food, Guaraci. And they are not just enemies. They are the man power that will help build the village."
Guaraci hesitated, but the overwhelming victory spoke louder than tradition. "So be it. But if they rebel, the blood is on you."
Ubirajara nodded. He now had 400 new people under his influence: 200 grateful allies and 200 war slaves. The demographic jump was immense. Logistics would be tested to the limit: he would need housing, sanitation, and above all, to convert all this into productivity.
He looked at the rustic paper in his bag, stained with ash. It was time to start thinking, at least initially, about a Legislative system.
Basically, all societies were based on customary law, basing law on tradition, but Ubirajara did not want to apply Tupi traditions to found the legislative system, simply because he had no knowledge of them.
It was more convenient to base it on the law he already knew; it would be gradual, not all at once.
However, he would insist on the creation of these institutions to prevent the destabilization of society.
The central plaza of Cauã's village still smelled of smoke and blood when Abaeté approached Ubirajara, holding an object that seemed out of place among the spoils of war.
It was a pouch made of peccary leather, sewn with firm tendons, much more resistant than the woven straw baskets of the Tupi.
"Look at what their leader was carrying, Ubirajara," Abaeté said, pouring the contents into his palm. "It is not corn, nor any grass seed we know. It is hard as stone and dark as damp earth."
Ubirajara took a handful of the grains. His fingers recognized the texture even before his brain processed the technical information. It was a long grain, with a slightly awned husk.
"Oryza glumaepatula," whispered Ubirajara, his eyes shining with a spark of recognition that Abaeté did not understand.
"What did you say?" the warrior asked, frowning.
"Wild rice, Abaeté. But not just any kind. Look at the size of these grains and how they don't easily drop from the stalk."
Ubirajara bit a grain with his tooth, testing the hardness. "This grain was selected. In my... i know that peoples of the north tried to domesticate this plant. They said they failed, that the plant was too stubborn to bow to man, but these Tapuias achieved the impossible."
Ubirajara walked toward the group of prisoners crouching under Guaraci's guard. He observed them with the coldness of an anthropologist.
Their appearance was distinct: they had wider chests, less prominent cheekbones than the Tupi, and most strikingly, earlobes enlarged by wooden discs. On their cheeks, deep vertical line tattoos told of a lineage that did not echo the Guarani tradition.
"They are not Tupi," Ubirajara concluded to Guaraci, who was approaching. "By the body structure and the markings, they are speakers of an Arawak language. Their customs, their speech, and their technology are strange to us."
Upon returning to the village, the news of the victory and the prisoners spread like fire. That night, Ubirajara sat with the Shaman Arandu, spreading the rice grains over the mallow paper.
"Shaman, now we are one thousand four hundred people," Ubirajara began, his voice heavy with urgency.
"If we continue depending only on manioc and the chance of the hunt, hunger will destroy us before the Tapuias do. We need a surplus that does not rot. We need to plant this rice on a large scale and increase our peccary pens."
Arandu looked at Ubirajara's hands, soiled with dirt and ink. "And how will we do this? My youths already work to exhaustion in security."
Ubirajara faced the shaman with a seriousness that bordered on heresy.
"That is the point, Karai. For the nation to grow, the prestige of the hunt cannot be the only path. Some warriors will have to lower the bow and raise the hoe. Field work can no longer be just for women or captives. If we want an army that is fed, everyone will have to become producers."
Ubirajara knew that was his riskiest political maneuver. He was proposing a break in the social division of labor that had sustained Tupi identity for millennia.
"I will organize the two hundred captives," he continued, ignoring the shock on Arandu's face. "They will drain the swamp for the rice field. But I will need men to supervise and learn the technique."
Arandu kept silent, realizing that Ubirajara was not just asking permission; he was presenting the only viable survival plan.
And the hunger threat was the only force capable of bending a warrior's pride.