The Zhongyi Hall.
This time, there was only Qin Shujian and Zheng Fang in the hall.
"Advisor, you have been in the Liangshan Stronghold for some time now. I wonder, what are your views about the Liangshan Stronghold?" Qin Shujian asked.
Zheng Fang's expression became serious. He brought his hands together and replied, "Stronghold Chieftain, your abilities are extraordinarily strong. With your leadership, the Liangshan Stronghold will become stronger than it ever was before."
"Now that you mentioned it, advisor, the techniques you learned seem to have a unique style. I wonder if they are techniques that have been passed down in your family?"
"To tell you the truth, I was once an outer disciple of a sect when I was young. Unfortunately, because of my poor potential, as well as the fact that I was getting older, I decided to leave the sect and ultimately settled down in Linchuan Town."
"I thought that I would spend the rest of my life that way."
"I've never expected there to be famine and war." Zheng Fang shook his head in frustration at the end of his story.
"A sect?" Qin Shujian captured one word from the other party's story.
As though he had sensed Qin Shujian's confusion, Zheng Fang gathered his thoughts and explained, "There are several factions and organizations within the borders of the Dazhao Country."
"Sects are a faction that had been formed by a group of insular experts."
"Every sect contained several terrifyingly powerful individuals."
"Martial Entry-Level Four or Five fighters like myself are the weakest members within a sect."
"Then, do you know what stage comes after the Martial Entry Stage?"
"No," Zheng Fang shook his head and said, "With my potential, I didn't have the right even to touch the stage that comes after the Martial Entry Stage. However, rumor has it that a terrifying transformation would happen after someone breaks through the limit of Martial Entry-Level Ten."
"However, I don't know exactly what would happen," Zheng Fang let out a self-deprecating laugh after he said that. "Unfortunately, I only managed to learn the most common Eternal Youth Technique in the sect. The limit of this technique is Marital Entry-Level Five. If nothing changes, I should have no chance of catching a glimpse of the mysteries after the Martial Entry Stage."
"On the other hand, Stronghold Chieftain, you have already reached such a level at such a young age. There's a chance for you to break through that limit."
Hearing this, Qin Shujian did not give an immediate reply.
He obtained several pieces of information from his brief conversation with Zheng Fang.
In the beginning, he thought that NPCs only needed to kill players to level up. However, he now realized that they needed to kill players who were at most three levels lower than them to level up.
Now that he heard Zheng Fang's words, Qin Shujian realized another hurdle that NPCs faced if they wanted to level up.
The techniques!
Qin Shujian noticed this problem on his own.
If an individual wanted to level up their stage, they had to first enhance the primary technique they cultivated before pushing their stage up a level.
However, NPCs didn't have the ability to utilize Life Value.
That meant to say, techniques like the Bodyforge Manual and Eternal Youth Technique that had their limits at Level Five.
Individuals who cultivated these techniques would ultimately only be able to reach the corresponding level.
They had to obtain techniques that were of a higher grade if they wanted to cross this hurdle.
Even though Qin Shujian had not asked Zheng Fang these questions and instead deduced it from what Zheng Fang had said, he was sure that his guess wasn't wrong.
If that was the case, Qin Shujian once again felt how powerful his ability to level up techniques with Life Value was.
As long as he had enough points of Life Value, hurdles didn't exist for him.
The period after Martial Entry-Level Five or even any period after the Martial Entry Stage wouldn't stop him because he would always possess enough life Value.
"Advisor, I wonder how much about the situation of the current world you know? Also, what did you mean by the famine that you spoke of just now?"
"It had not rained for three months. The farmers couldn't harvest anything. I heard that all 13 territories within the Dazhao Country were affected. Dukes from various lands have launched uprisings. It is hard for commoners to survive," Zheng Fang let out a bitter smile, then shook his head and sighed.
"On one hand, the drought made it such that there was no harvest. On the other hand, taxes had not been reduced. Coupled with the uprisings and the occasional war and escaping soldiers brutally killing others for rations, these conditions ultimately created the famine."
"Fortunately, the Liangshan territory is rather far away and desolate. Otherwise, you might also have been implicated."
Qin Shujian asked a few more questions when he heard the explanation.
Zheng Fang answered them one by one.
Finally, Qin Shujian gained another preliminary understanding of this world.
The land under his feet belonged to the Dazhao Country.
The Dazhao Country had 13 states and occupied an area of millions of miles.
Linchuan Town, where Zheng Fang was from, and the Liangshan territory, are technically a part of one of the 13 states of the Dazhao Country. It was part of the Beiyun State.
As for the uprising of the dukes, Qin Shujian had a vague understanding of that even if he didn't ask Zheng Fang about it.
After all, during the ancient times of the previous world that he had been in, there would always be a few evil-minded individuals during times of drought and famine who wanted to seize the opportunity and topple the existing rulers.
"It looks like these kinds of people exist no matter which world " Qin Shujian secretly shook his head.
Then, the two of them chatted for a long time before Zheng Fang stood up to leave.
In the next few days, Qin Shujian consolidated the Bodyforge Manual that he had learned, then wrote down the contents of everything that concerned the Bodyforge Manual before Level Eight.
Then, he passed on the content of the first eight levels of the Bodyforge Manual to Zheng Fang.
He then imparted the content of the first six levels of the Bodyforge Manual to leaders like Zhao Shanlin.
He didn't teach the rest of the ordinary Mountain Bandits.
That was because the people who could become leaders were at least Martial Entry-Level Four experts. They most likely had to advance through all five levels of the Bodyforge Manual anyway. Thus, Qin Shujian used this as a standard to impart each level of the technique.
This way, he could also motivate the rest of the Mountain Bandits to improve their ability to obtain an even higher level of the Bodyforge Manual.
As for Zheng Fang, when he received the first eight levels of the Bodyforge Manual.
This elderly man who had once been in a sect and had seen many large occasions couldn't help but feel shocked.
No one understood more than him.
How valuable a technique that surpassed the hurdle of Martial Entry-Level Five was.
Qin Shujian did this because he wanted to improve the overall strength of the Liangshan Stronghold as best as possible.
Through his conversation with Zheng Fang and his understanding of this world, he knew that his individual strength was not enough for him to gain a standing in this world.
However, Qin Shujian also held something back.
He had learned the Bodyforge Manual up to Level Nine but had only imparted the first eight levels.
He will only impart the levels after Level Eight when he learned Level Ten or reached an even higher level.
This way, he would be able to prevent a few unnecessary problems that should never be allowed to happen.
Sometime later, Zhang Tieniu and Wang Tiezhu led a few Mountain Bandits back to finish their mission.
Qin Shujian also immediately imparted the first eight levels of the Bodyforge Manual to the two of them. At the same time, he received the information that he had hoped for from them.
A piece of information regarding the Messy Stone Forest.