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Late at night, the moon shone bright amid sparse stars. All was quiet.

Xu Yang stood alone in the courtyard, bow in hand.

On the earthen wall ahead, a charcoal-drawn target was studded thick with arrows.

The result of another night of practice.

"Bang!"

Xu Yang drew his bamboo bow and loosed the final arrow. The bamboo shaft, carrying tremendous force, punched into the wall and pierced through the yellow earth at the target's center. The impact shook the arrows embedded in the target loose, sending them scattering across the ground.

Its power was formidable!

Xu Yang was quite satisfied. He opened the Attribute Panel.

Xu Yang (Li Qingshan)

Cultivation: None

Lifespan: 19/88

Skills:

Eating (Chewing, Digestion, Essence, Body Strengthening, Smooth Flow, Dietary Therapy)

Sleep (Deep Sleep, Calming, Health Preservation, Body Strengthening)

Breathing (Turtle's Breath, Robustness, Rouse, Nurture Origin)

Butchery (Baleful Aura, Blade Mastery, Preservation)

Hunting (Mountain Household, Wind Chaser, Keen)

Craftsman (Bow Making, Leatherwork, Toughness, Durability, Bamboo Masterpiece)

Archery (Pierce Willow at a Hundred Paces, Three Stars in a Row, Running Shot)

Walking (Swift as Flying, Traverse Mountains and Rivers)

Hiding (Concealment, Breath Concealment)

Theft (Night Travel, Lockpicking)

Reading (Night Reading, Decipher, Eidetic Memory)

Sharpening Knife (Unstoppable Sharpness)

Hacking (Overwhelming Force)

...

Xu Yang had noticed something: skills were much easier to train in this world than in the real world. In merely three years, he had gained nearly as many skills as he had through most of twenty-seven years of hard work in reality. He had even unlocked many high-quality four-character traits.

After all, he had trained painstakingly for twenty-seven years in the real world. Among all those skills and traits, he had gained only two four-character traits: Like a Fish in Water from Swimming, and Zhuang Zhou's Dream Butterfly from Dreaming.

Yet in this world, he had gained six or seven four-character traits in just three years. None compared to Zhuang Zhou's Dream Butterfly, which came with its own special effect, but they surpassed Like a Fish in Water.

Why was that?

Xu Yang did not know, nor did he dwell on it.

Without solid evidence, no amount of speculation meant anything. Better to consider practical matters.

What practical matters?

Naturally, the uses of his new traits.

As the sole skill supporting his main body, Eating had gained only one new trait—Dietary Therapy.

As its name implied, Dietary Therapy allowed him to heal his body through eating. Internal injuries, external wounds, severe illnesses, even deadly poisons—so long as he ate enough and ate well enough, he could eventually recover completely. It was an exceptional tool for healing.

Skills such as Breathing and Sleep had remained largely unchanged. Their traits were mostly related to strengthening foundations, fortifying the body, and invigorating the blood and qi. Combined with Eating, they had nourished and trained Xu Yang's once-scrawny adolescent body into one of striking vigor in just three short years.

Meanwhile, newly developed skills such as Butchery, Hunting, Bow Making, and Archery had also produced excellent results. They had helped Xu Yang establish himself in the village and win the Lu Family's favor, sending his standard of living soaring.

With a firm foothold secured, it was time to seek further development and grow stronger.

After finishing tonight's practice, Xu Yang returned to his room, hung the bow and arrows back on the wall, then pulled a large chest out from beneath his bed.

The chest was full of clothes. Xu Yang rummaged straight to the bottom and took out a set of black night-travel clothes.

He changed into them, then took out a dagger and tucked it at his waist. Once fully equipped, he silently pushed open the door and slipped out of the house.

Walking (Swift as Flying, Traverse Mountains and Rivers)

Hiding (Concealment, Breath Concealment)

Theft (Night Travel, Lockpicking)

Over the past three years, Xu Yang had developed another three skills through playing with his younger siblings and going about his daily life.

The combined effects of these three skills gave him a tremendous advantage at night.

Beneath the waterlike night sky, darkness blanketed all. Xu Yang, clad in black from head to toe, was like a fish in water. His form, footsteps, and breath were completely concealed. Forget the villagers, most of whom suffered from night blindness—even Martial Artists with somewhat developed skills and keen senses would find it difficult to detect his presence or movements.

This was the combined effect of Concealment, Breath Concealment, and Night Travel.

An immensely powerful ability to remain hidden!

Under cover of darkness, Xu Yang moved at a swift walking pace that was nearly a run. In the blink of an eye, he arrived outside the Lu Family residence.

It was deep into the night. The Lu Family's gates were shut tight, and servants patrolled within with dogs. Though the defenses were hardly impregnable, ordinary thieves would never dream of sneaking inside to steal.

Xu Yang, however, was not hindered in the slightest. Reaching a corner of the wall, he leaped up and stepped on the bricks to vault onto the top.

Lightness skill?

No. Xu Yang knew no lightness skill. This was entirely the effect of traits from the Walking skill.

Swift as Flying greatly increased his walking speed, while Traverse Mountains and Rivers allowed him to cross all manner of obstructed terrain. Forget the courtyard wall of some wealthy household—even sheer cliffs and towering mountain ranges would be as level ground beneath Xu Yang's feet.

After climbing into the courtyard, Xu Yang headed straight for the Study without another word.

As the saying went: no matter how tightly one guarded against outsiders, one could never guard against a thief from within!

After spending so many years around the Lu Family, Xu Yang knew the terrain, layout, and distribution of rooms like the back of his hand.

Before long, he reached the Study. Using the Lockpicking trait of Theft, he silently opened the door and slipped inside. Not long after, he emerged carrying a bundle on his back.

Xu Yang did not linger. Carrying the bundle, he swiftly left the Lu Family residence.

A short while later, Xu Yang returned home. He set down the bundle, removed his night-travel clothes, and lit a candle.

In the dim yellow candlelight, Xu Yang opened the bundle. Inside were not gold, silver, or valuables, but thread-bound books.

He picked up a copy of Dream Talks and began flipping through it with practiced ease, as though this were not his first time doing such a thing.

It was not.

Ever since he had gained abilities such as Hiding and Theft through games like hide-and-seek more than a year ago, Xu Yang had begun visiting the Lu Family's Study.

Books were the ladder of human progress, and they were even more important for Xu Yang's understanding of this world.

But Reading had one problem: one had to be literate.

Xu Yang was illiterate—or rather, he could not read this world's writing. Whether it was Xu Yang, who had come through Zhuang Zhou's Dream Butterfly, or Li Qingshan, a village boy, both were complete illiterates.

Fortunately, Xu Yang had the Attribute Panel and the informational foundation of a transmigrator. By making guesses from context, he was able to decipher the text bit by bit. In the end, he developed the Reading skill directly, along with the three traits Night Reading, Decipher, and Eidetic Memory. Whether faced with unfamiliar writing or cryptic wordplay, he could read through it all with ease.

Thus, Xu Yang had visited the Lu Family's Study more than ten times, stealing its books out in batches to read. Like a sponge, he absorbed the knowledge and information they contained.

Though the Lu Family were merely wealthy countryfolk, their ancestors had once taken the Imperial Examination and produced a provincial graduate. Their book collection was therefore passably abundant. Besides the Four Books, Five Classics, and other basic works, there were miscellaneous volumes of strange tales and anecdotes. There were even the martial arts Xu Yang had long been yearning for.

Through these books, Xu Yang finally gained a rough understanding of this world.

First, he could confirm that this was a "normal" world.

Why call it normal?

Because the real world where Xu Yang's main body resided was somewhat abnormal.

Take its ruling dynasty, for instance.

Under normal circumstances, in an ancient feudal system, a dynasty could last at most two to three hundred years before historical cycles such as land annexation and official corruption led to turmoil and collapse.

One dynasty rose, another fell. A new order brought temporary clarity, only for the cycle to repeat two or three hundred years later. This was the normal law of historical cycles, without exception from ancient times to the present.

But the real world where Xu Yang's main body currently resided was an exception. That dynasty called the Great Liang Dynasty had somehow maintained its rule for over a thousand years, weathering every storm without falling.

That was abnormal—absolutely abnormal. Historical cycles were an inevitability born of human nature. Once a dynasty ruled for two to three hundred years, all manner of interest groups would inevitably grow too powerful to control, becoming parasites that gnawed away at the state for their own benefit until the entire edifice of the realm collapsed. This was an almost unchangeable course of development.

Only two possibilities could explain a dynasty maintaining its ruling framework after a thousand years of storms.

First, the era had advanced and technology had progressed enough to guarantee the necessities of life for the lower classes while protecting the interests of the upper classes. In the absence of foreign enemies, war, and Natural Disasters, this might sustain a thousand-year rule.

The second possibility was simpler: absolute suppression by force. Possessing absolute power, no matter how the lower classes stirred or how secretly the various factions plotted, they would be unable to resist that overwhelming strength. Only then could a dynasty stand for a thousand years without falling.

Which was the Great Liang Dynasty?

Naturally, the second. Xu Yang had fished on Dongting Lake for decades, and he had never seen any improvement in Great Liang's technology. On the contrary, symptoms of a dynasty in decline—land annexation, the separatist power of Influential Families, and more—had been evident for years. For Great Liang to maintain its rule under such circumstances, anyone who claimed there was nothing unusual going on was a fool.

That was why Xu Yang had always kept a low profile in the real world. He would rather be a fisherman on Dongting Lake whom anyone could bully than use the Attribute Panel, his skill traits, and the advantages of a transmigrator to rouse himself, struggle for power, and dominate one region.

He had a premonition, an instinct, that there was something extraordinary behind Great Liang. If his own strangeness were exposed, it would surely bring endless trouble. It was best to lie low, accumulate strength, and wait until his accumulated potential unleashed itself to turn the tide.

That was the real world Xu Yang inhabited: a world where transcendent power existed, where he could not act rashly.

By comparison, this dream world of Zhuang Zhou's Dream Butterfly was far more normal. Its historical development adhered completely to cyclical laws. From ancient times until now, no dynasty had ruled for more than two to three hundred years. There was neither technological advancement beyond its era nor power surpassing the mortal realm.

This was a normal world—or rather, one with a relatively low level of power.

This world also possessed martial arts, but according to the various Martial Arts Manuals in the Lu Family's collection, as well as Xu Yang's own experiences and what he had heard over recent years, this world's martial arts were extremely weak.

Martial Dao cultivation mainly involved tempering the body and refining one's blood and qi. Though Inner Force and even True Qi were spoken of, their effects were ordinary. One person could not form an army, nor could they charge in and out of enemy ranks seven times. Even grandmasters who had cultivated True Qi could not withstand powerful bows and heavy crossbows; a single battalion could easily surround and kill them.

Moreover, grandmasters who had cultivated True Qi were rare in the world. They were generally living fossils among the Pillars of the Martial World or renowned masters who led major sects.

First-rate experts of the martial world had merely cultivated Inner Force, and even its usefulness was quite limited. It could basically only make the body more robust. Releasing Inner Force outward or plucking leaves to strike like flying flowers was nothing but a fool's dream.

This was also why Xu Yang had grown increasingly bold in his actions over recent years.

With his Archery of Pierce Willow at a Hundred Paces and Three Stars in a Row, his combat power was already far from weak in this world. So long as he had a bow in hand, the guards and retainers of the Li and Lu Families were no different from living targets to him. One came, one died.

The only people who posed any threat were the few Martial Masters and instructors, but even that threat was limited. They only knew some fist and foot techniques and had not even cultivated Inner Force. They too were the sort who could be dropped with a single arrow.

With this Archery, even if Xu Yang took a few extra bones while butchering pigs—or openly pocketed a portion of the meat to sell for money—the Lu Family would not say a word. Not only would they say nothing, they would even offer him benefits to win him over.

Recently, the Lu Family's chief steward, Zhang Fu, had even intended to arrange a marriage for him. He wanted to marry a woman of the Lu Clan to Xu Yang in order to draw him completely onto the Lu Family's ship, but Xu Yang had refused.

If things continued this way, growing stronger and stronger in the future—even becoming a king or hegemon—would not be a problem.

But that was not Xu Yang's pursuit. Zhuang Zhou's Dream Butterfly was ultimately only Zhuang Zhou's Dream Butterfly. His main body's world was his true foundation. He had to use this world's resources to strengthen his main body and escape his increasingly difficult circumstances.

How could he make use of them?

Xu Yang set down the miscellaneous books of strange tales and turned his attention to the Martial Arts Manuals he had stolen this time.

They were called Martial Arts Manuals, but they were really just several rudimentary fist-and-foot techniques and weapon arts: Black Tiger Fist, Ground-Treading Saber, Bagua Staff. None of them were worth mentioning, and there was not a single Internal Cultivation Method that could cultivate Inner Force or True Qi.

That was understandable. The Lu Family were merely wealthy countryfolk, not a major martial sect. Where would they get any profound Martial Arts Manuals?

Of course, their low quality was not a problem for Xu Yang. With the Attribute Panel and his ability to develop skills, even a basic art like Archery could produce such powerful traits as Pierce Willow at a Hundred Paces and Three Stars in a Row. These rudimentary martial arts could naturally be turned from the rotten into the miraculous as well.

In fact, Xu Yang had already begun practicing them. He simply had not practiced long enough or built up enough proficiency to develop the skills and generate traits. Once the skills were formed and the traits appeared, his strength would rise once again.

Then he could begin planning for profound martial arts.

Though the profound martial arts of this world might be no more than common rubbish in the real world, where transcendent power existed, having them was still better than having nothing. Xu Yang, who desperately lacked a sense of security, did not reject any method that could increase his strength.

Of course, that was a plan for the future. For now, his primary task was to develop martial arts skills and their corresponding trait entries, further increasing his strength.