Talent Fusion, Martial Dao Holy Fetus

A long spear thrust toward Lin Xuan, its force fierce and unyielding.

Lin Xuan could even spot hidden arrows, let alone such a large target trying to assassinate him.

He'd been able to spot hidden arrows, so of course he noticed a target this large trying to kill him.

He casually grabbed the spear and pulled with all his strength, dragging it toward his own ranks so his soldiers could take the opportunity to kill the enemy.

His opponent was also a Breath-Connecting Realm expert, with a solid stance. He struggled against Lin Xuan, but after taking only two small steps forward, he stopped.

When Lin Xuan realized he couldn't pull the man over, he planted his right foot on the shaft and stomped down hard. The spear wasn't as well-made as Qin Sheng's. Under five hundred catties of force, it snapped in two.

Using the broken shaft as a short spear, he thrust at his opponent. In an instant, offense and defense had traded places.

Soon, the martial artists on Lin Xuan's side surrounded him, shielding him from behind.

Seeing the scene before him, he could only laugh helplessly. He'd wanted to settle things with this man himself.

The martial artists around Lin Xuan all charged at the Breath-Connecting bandit leader. He'd already struggled to deal with Lin Xuan, who was only at the Bone Binding Realm; now, facing several Breath-Connecting opponents at once, he was even less able to hold his ground.

Before long, the man was defeated and killed through the combined efforts of several garrison soldiers.

A few large characters floated above the man, but Lin Xuan had no time to make them out. Even with people protecting him, the battlefield was full of unpredictable turns. What if the enemy realized everyone was guarding him and their chief came straight for his life?

The battle had reached a stalemate.

"Thousand-Household Commander Su, Liu Zhidong's troops are here!" Commander Zhang exclaimed, thrilled. He looked behind him at the mass of garrison soldiers, some three or four hundred strong.

Liu Zhidong's troops formed the left wing of the Wuqu Allied Army. They'd advanced a little more slowly and fallen behind Thousand-Household Commander Su's Liangcheng Guard, but they'd caught up quickly.

The Righteous Army had already lost dozens of men. Most lay on the ground, unable to move, their fate unknown.

Others were covered in blood, lying on the ground and moaning or twitching.

Seeing their heavy casualties and the garrison troops' reinforcements arrive, the Righteous Army's morale faltered at once.

Fear and panic spread through the crowd. The courage hatred had given them moments ago shriveled away in an instant.

"It's over! The government troops have reinforcements!"

"They outnumber us now. Can we even win?"

"So many brothers have died already. Why don't we retreat? I don't want to die here!"

Seeing this, Wang Shuofang realized that the Righteous Army's fighting spirit was now extremely weak. He immediately ordered, "Retreat! Hurry! Don't get bogged down fighting the government troops!"

The Righteous Army scattered in retreat, running fast. Those who were too slow were killed by the garrison soldiers.

"Should we pursue?" Qin Lie turned to Thousand-Household Commander Su and asked for his opinion.

Thousand-Household Commander Su considered this for a moment, then addressed the Liangcheng garrison troops:

"Don't pursue! We don't know where the bandit army is. Chasing them recklessly could lead us into an ambush. Rest where you are and await orders. Count the heads and report the military merits! I'll send scouts to assess the situation."

When Liu Zhidong's troops arrived and saw corpses strewn everywhere, they couldn't help sighing. Their unit had fallen behind by only a moment, yet they'd missed out on the military merits entirely.

The Thousand-Household Office had lost more than thirty men and suffered over forty wounded.

A tenth of their force had died. Though the Roaming Bandits had all retreated, the garrison troops' morale wasn't much better, so they first needed to steady the ranks.

The bandits' equipment was inferior to the garrison's, but hatred could truly change the way they fought. The rank-and-file garrison soldiers were afraid of dying and held no deep grudges, so their fighting spirit was weak.

Most of the bandits who died had been killed by garrison officers.

Most of the garrison soldiers who died were rank-and-file men. Two officers had also been wounded, but neither had suffered life-threatening injuries, and both could be saved. The situation wasn't too serious.

The Liangcheng Thousand-Household Office had killed a total of seventy-four bandits. Lin Xuan accounted for six.

Lin Xuan carefully wiped the blood from his Goose-Quill Saber with a small box of wild boar fat and a scrap of hemp cloth.

Rubbing animal fat on a blade could prevent it from rusting. It was also a fairly common way to maintain swords and sabers.

He'd killed six enemies, and the Goose-Quill Saber at his waist had grown somewhat dull. There was even a chip in the blade. He'd have to ask the army's blacksmith to repair it later.

Six kills wasn't an especially high number, but they still counted as military merit.

Great Jin's official regulations stated that killing a bandit from Zhao Chengde's forces earned a reward of five taels of silver. That meant thirty taels in all.

The ten taels Lin Xuan had received not long ago had come out of Thousand-Household Commander Su's own pocket. The matter had been on such a small scale that it couldn't count as a military achievement.

For an ordinary soldier, killing six enemies would be enough to advance straight to Squad Leader or even Flag Commander.

But for someone already a Flag Commander, it wasn't enough to earn promotion to Probationary Hundred-Household Commander. He hadn't killed a bandit chief.

The Breath-Connecting leader hadn't been killed by Lin Xuan, so the kill couldn't be credited to him.

To be promoted to Probationary Hundred-Household Commander, he'd need to earn several more achievements like this in the battles ahead—or accomplish one of the Four Great Feats.

Those were being first over the wall, breaking the enemy's formation, killing a commander, and capturing a banner.

If he could achieve one of those, forget about becoming a Hundred-Household Commander—he'd soar through the ranks in no time. After all, this world was nothing like the ancient world of his previous life.

These four great feats were much harder to accomplish!

He still had far too little time. He was only at the middle stage of the Bone Binding Realm. If he had time to reach the Breath-Connecting Realm, he could cut through the entire enemy formation.

The strongest people here were the leaders of the two sides, who were both around the Breath-Connecting Realm. With thirty percent more strength than others at the same level, he'd be invincible as long as he didn't run into a top expert of the Breath-Connecting Realm.

"Flag Commander Lin, the laborers can handle this. You killed so many enemies on the battlefield. You should get some rest," Liu Jiye reminded him when he saw Lin Xuan moving corpses himself.

"With one more person, we'll finish sooner." Lin Xuan rejected Liu Jiye's offer and took the lead in handling the corpses himself.

What excited Lin Xuan wasn't the military merit, but the talents. Among the more than a hundred dead, he'd found three.

[Qi Infusion]: The quality of condensed qi increases by fifty percent.

This talent had come from the bandit leader who'd been surrounded by several garrison soldiers. It was very meaningful to Lin Xuan's martial arts. After all, qi quality also determined how long a person could keep fighting. He already had Endurance, and now with Qi Infusion, his abilities on the battlefield would improve yet again.

Even if he ran away, he could run farther and faster than anyone else!

[Musical Mastery]: A heightened sensitivity to music and rhythm.

He'd obtained this talent from a bandit who'd been carrying an old xun, made of black pottery. It must have held great significance for the man.

But the man was dead, and the pottery flute had lost all meaning.

[Libidinous Skill]: Increased sexual prowess.

He'd obtained this from a fallen garrison soldier. It didn't seem useful to Lin Xuan. A body at the Bone Binding Realm was already so strong that he could achieve a satisfying result without it.

Of the three talents, only [Qi Infusion] seemed to offer Lin Xuan a substantial improvement. [Musical Mastery] and [Libidinous Skill] were merely embellishments, of no real use.

Without hesitation, Lin Xuan seized all the talents.

His talents were getting rather muddled. When he opened the Book of Fate to check, even he found them dazzling.

Talent Pool: Martial Prodigy, Sharp Eyes, Endurance, Super Strength, Eidetic Memory, Bad Luck, Qi Infusion, Musical Mastery, Libidinous Skill.

Earlier, Lin Xuan had given the Silent Step talent to Lin An and hadn't taken it back. At his current level, Silent Step was useless in a military formation. He could imitate that soundless way of walking on his own. He wasn't sure if the talent had affected him directly from being with him for so long.

Suddenly, some of the talents in the Talent Pool glowed white, standing out from the rest.

"Martial Prodigy, Sharp Eyes, Endurance, Super Strength, Eidetic Memory, and Qi Infusion are available to combine into the talent Martial Dao Holy Fetus."

[Spend ten Dao Rhyme points to combine?]

"Ten Dao Rhyme points? Where am I supposed to get that many?" Lin Xuan sighed, but soon made up his mind.

He would sacrifice [Bad Luck], [Musical Mastery], and [Libidinous Skill] to gain Dao Rhyme points. They were no use to him anyway, so he might as well offer them up in exchange for resources that could make him stronger.

After choosing yes, he had three Dao Rhyme points. He was still a full seven points short of combining [Martial Dao Holy Fetus].

Lin Xuan was full of anticipation. These ordinary talents had already let him accomplish more in two months than other people could with years of hard training, putting him far beyond the ordinary. He wondered just how heaven-defying his martial talent would become after he combined them into Martial Dao Holy Fetus.

Commander Zhang was now Lin Xuan's direct superior. After seeing Lin Xuan's performance today, he couldn't help feeling a chill run down his spine.

Lin Xuan seemed to have grown stronger since his fight with Zhang Quan a few days ago. Zhang Quan could just about fight against a Breath-Connecting expert, but it was difficult for him to avoid falling behind.

Lin Xuan, however, had killed six men and fought a Breath-Connecting bandit without losing ground. Commander Zhang could have managed the same, but he was already over forty and had reached the end of the road.

Lin Xuan wasn't even sixteen yet. His future was boundless.

The more Commander Zhang thought about it, the more uneasy he felt. He wondered, Does he know that I was the one who sent Xiao Chongyang after him?

He was glad he hadn't openly fallen out with Lin Xuan back then.

While everyone was resting, Thousand-Household Commander Su's orders arrived.

"Pursue them. There's no ambush ahead. Follow the main road."

The soldiers who were still fit sat on the ground, quietly chewing their rations. Others simply lay down where they were to rest.

When they heard the order, they all stood up at once, forming ranks as they always did, ready to resume the pursuit.

The army doctors first gave the wounded simple bandages and treatment. Then able-bodied men carried them on stretchers to nearby towns, where they would receive further care before returning to the garrison.

Thus, the garrison troops pursuing Liu Zuolong's forces still retained their fighting strength. Some had already earned military merit, and the other soldiers were filled with hope. They had no wounded among them, so their morale was high.

The garrison troops marched briskly along the official road, pursuing them toward Linshui and Xihuai.

They didn't pursue for long before they reached the battlefield where Sun Chengdong's troops had fought Liu Zuolong.

Some of Sun Chengdong's Qu Prefecture garrison troops were still at the battlefield, along with two Flag Commanders, waiting to rendezvous with the other units in the allied army.

Sun Chengdong had ambushed Liu Zuolong and sent his forces fleeing in disarray. The bandits' scouts had already been killed by the government troops. When Liu Zuolong learned that the government forces were traveling light and intended to ambush him, he'd wanted to abandon his supplies and flee, but it was already too late.

Four hundred of the bandits under Liu Zuolong had been killed. The rest fled southwest, while Sun Chengdong pursued them, intent on wiping out Liu Zuolong's entire force.

After all, the nature of Roaming Bandits was like wildfire: burn the grass but leave the roots, and the spring breeze would bring it back. So long as the turbulent conditions of the age remained unchanged, the bandits could return at any time.

They had to root them out completely.

Liu Zuolong's army had lost its former swagger. Sun Chengdong had beaten them into a disorderly retreat.

"The Commander-in-Chief pursued them for half a day before he left. He ordered us that if other forces came here to join up, we should set aside the matter of pursuing Sun Chengdong.

"We won't catch up with him anyway. We should first lay out the bandits' corpses and reassure the people."

Although Liu Zuolong's forces had been defeated, the bandits in Linshui and Xihuai County had already withdrawn safely with their supplies.

It couldn't be helped. Sun Chengdong's soldiers were fierce, but they weren't gods. It was already impressive that they'd cut off the two counties' connection to Liu Zuolong.

Those two counties were simply beyond their reach.

"Great! Collecting corpses is my favorite thing to do." Lin Xuan was delighted when he heard the order.

He was seven Dao Rhyme points short. These more than four hundred corpses should be enough to fill the gap.

Thousand-Household Commander Su and Centurion Qin were puzzled when they saw the smile on Lin Xuan's face as he collected the corpses.

After all, this kind of work was normally left to the lowest-ranking servants. Why did a Flag Commander enjoy doing it?

Lin Xuan looked at the golden characters floating above the corpses.

[Medicine Identification] [Master Painter] [Clear Mind] [Calculation] [Beast Taming] [Literary Talent] [Master Craftsman] [Silver Tongue]

There were eight talents in all, spanning a range of trades. This showed that before joining the so-called Righteous Army, these people might have been among the best in their respective fields.

Lin Xuan carefully examined the details of each talent, then decided to keep [Clear Mind].

Clear Mind could improve his thinking to a certain degree, free from the influence of his emotions.

He sacrificed all the other talents for Dao Rhyme, gaining seven points. Added to his original three, that brought him to ten.

Lin Xuan opened the Book of Fate and selected the talent combination.

Several talents instantly fused, condensing into four golden characters: [Martial Dao Holy Fetus].

Lin Xuan eagerly checked the talent's details.

[Martial Dao Holy Fetus]: Qi condenses seven times faster; any move can be mastered at a glance and perfected through practice; strength increases by fifty percent; qi quality doubles; weaknesses are easier to discern and moves easier to see through; breakthrough bottlenecks are ignored.

Seeing the effect, Lin Xuan couldn't help feeling delighted. It didn't merely combine all those talents into one; it strengthened them across the board. The ten Dao Rhyme points had been well spent.

Of all the talents he'd held before, only two remained: [Martial Dao Holy Fetus] and [Clear Mind]. The Book of Fate looked much tidier now.

Lin Xuan secretly rejoiced. Even if he hadn't been promoted this time, the martial potential he'd gained was already a hundred times more valuable than an official position!