027 (Thanks to Jie Wuneng for the alliance leader support, and thanks to everyone for the support that kept coming)

"These two places..." Lin Sheng didn't think he was strong enough to fear nothing.

Generally speaking, terrain like a plaza was likely to attract large numbers of monsters.

And Black Feather City Hall? Who would believe the most important place in a city didn't have high-level monsters?

"We can't go in either of those directions." Lin Sheng decisively ruled them both out, then looked toward the other three.

The signs pointing in those directions had all been ruined. Only a little color remained, and the writing was impossible to make out.

"."

Lin Sheng stood at the city gate, hesitating for a moment.

"Forget it. I'll go hunt some Rotten Swordsmen out in the wild first."

He felt that he was still too weak. Since killing Rotten Swordsmen could grant him fragments of their memories, perhaps killing more of them and obtaining more of their combat skills would provide him with more clues.

"That's better than wandering around like a headless fly."

Having made up his mind, Lin Sheng turned and strode back out.

He was still too weak. He'd kill more Rotten Swordsmen nearby and strengthen himself first.

He went back out through the gate tunnel.

Lin Sheng began searching slowly along the city wall. Before long, he found a Rotten Swordsman behind a fence to the right of the city entrance.

This Rotten Swordsman was much weaker than the previous two.

Lin Sheng needed only a few exchanges to finish him off with ease, gaining a small fragment of memory.

Unfortunately, this one had merely been a soldier assigned to guard the city. Other than a few basic sword moves, he hadn't known anything else.

Still, Lin Sheng did get some information about the layout of Black Feather City.

Even if it couldn't improve his swordsmanship, the other information was useful to him too.

As he continued searching, he soon found two more Rotten Swordsmen near the city gate.

He took one down with ease, but the other counterattacked before dying and slashed his arm.

"Damn it, I got careless and was injured in the counterattack!"

Following some unknown method he'd found among the jumbled memories, Lin Sheng hid in a corner by the city wall. He stuffed the corner of his pajamas into his mouth and pulled hard.

Rrrip.

The fabric didn't tear. It slipped out of his mouth, and Lin Sheng's gums throbbed with pain.

"TV dramas are all lies!" he cursed, pressing his hand over the wound. But as time passed, more and more blood flowed out.

A wound as long as his palm could be fatal if he couldn't stop the bleeding.

With no other choice, he took off his outer garment and wrapped it tightly around the artery just above the wound.

The pressure from the tightly bound cloth gradually slowed the bleeding.

But Lin Sheng now felt listless, as if he might wake up at any moment.

"Looks like injuries, exhaustion, and other draining actions also shorten the time I can stay in the dream."

He reached a few conclusions.

Soon, an inexplicable feeling welled up inside him.

Lin Sheng slowly closed his eyes, and his consciousness sank into a haze.

Not long afterward, he opened his eyes again. He was back in his bedroom.

Beep beep beep beep.

The alarm clock beside him kept ringing sharply.

Lin Sheng let out a breath, reached over to turn it off, and checked the time.

It was already past six in the morning.

He'd just absorbed quite a lot of memories, and his head felt swollen.

It was late, and there wasn't time to sort through them. He hurriedly washed up at home, changed into his school uniform, then rushed out and boarded the bus to Huian High School.

After absorbing the memories of three Rotten Swordsmen in a row last night, Lin Sheng had gained a much clearer picture of Black Feather City's layout, aside from all the useless information.

After all, they had all been gate guards, which gave them quite an advantage when it came to knowing the terrain.

Something else left Lin Sheng at a loss for words.

The memories of these gate guards often contradicted one another.

For example, what should you do if your sword got caught by an opponent's flexible weapon?

Lin Sheng could immediately think of three different solutions. There was nothing wrong with them in themselves; there were just too many. Two of them even contradicted each other.

The large influx of memories in such a short time left Lin Sheng in a daze all morning.

He hurriedly ate lunch, then rested his head on his desk for a while.

The first class in the afternoon was another math test, given by his homeroom teacher.

Lin Sheng dazedly filled in the whole test paper. He didn't even know when he'd handed it in.

Who knew how well he'd do on a test taken purely by instinct?

Fortunately, this state lasted only until a little after eight that evening. By then, he had finally returned to normal.

The first thing Lin Sheng did after recovering was find the location of that Small Temple.

He'd been hunting Rotten Swordsmen continuously to fill in the map of Black Feather City, and he had two goals in mind.

First, find the Small Temple and see if he could learn anything about the Transcendent.

Second, find LS Bell and see if he could get some protective gear.

"According to Ravel's memories, LS Bell and Valen Temple should both be in Black Feather City."

After thinking it over, Lin Sheng carefully pieced together the route nodes he'd need to reach both places.

"The most effective way to avoid getting lost is to use landmarks as reference points. According to the memories, there should be a dark red clock tower at this place, this place, here, and here."

Lin Sheng noted how many turns he needed to make.

Before long, the two routes to the different destinations had become clearer and clearer.

"Got it. Next, I'll organize the miscellaneous information."

With the memory fragments of several people piled together, he might forget some important details if he didn't sort them out. Their memories could also become confused over time.

Lin Sheng opened to a fresh page in his notebook and wrote down three headings: martial arts, terrain, and the Transcendent.

"I'll only look for information related to these three things. I'll ignore everything else."

He settled on his priorities.

Soon, Lin Sheng uncovered another useful piece of information from the memories of the city guards.

"Limit Breaking Method?"

"The key method for breaking through from Level 2 and entering Level 3 Transcendent?"

As he sorted through the memories, Lin Sheng was surprised to discover that these city gate guards, despite their low status and meager strength, had seen and experienced far more than ordinary people.

They were well-informed. Even without trying, they learned all kinds of rumors from the surrounding area every day.

People came and went, and all sorts of stories and rumors spread everywhere. Many of them passed through the guards.

Important notices posted around the city were also put up here first, since the city gate was where the most people passed through.

The guards inspected merchants and peddlers coming and going. They were responsible for driving away beggars and refugees. They were also the most likely to hear about major events in the city.

Lin Sheng found information about the Limit Breaking Method in the memories of a guard named Yide.

Unlike the other soldiers, Yide was the one who had injured Lin Sheng with a counterattack just before he died.

He had been a disabled veteran who'd retired from the battlefield. Before his injury, he'd also had the potential to train at the Warrior level.

That period of his life had always been his proudest. He'd never stopped thinking about it, repeating those memories over and over for years.

That was what had made it convenient for Lin Sheng to learn about this subject.

Before long, Lin Sheng dug out some specific information about Warrior levels from Yide's distant memories.

"A Level 1 Warrior only needs to specialize in one weapon, master offense and defense, and fight a few real battles. You can train a batch in a year."

"A Level 2 Warrior is a veteran among soldiers, or a wandering swordsman with a family martial arts tradition. Anyone who excels in one area, hones their skills through endless practice, and trains to the limits of the human body may be rated Level 2."

"A Level 3 Warrior is someone who has broken through their limits. They possess destructive power in one area that exceeds the limits of ordinary people. It's a level that ordinary people can't reach through training and practice alone."

That was all.

Those were all the details Lin Sheng had managed to sort out, but they were already far more comprehensive than the disjointed fragments from before.

Most importantly, he'd also heard a name in those memories: the Level 12 Shield Warrior and commander of the Black Feather City Guard Corps, Austen Rein.

"Level 3 already means breaking through the limits and entering the Transcendent realm. It's hard to imagine what a Level 12 Warrior is like!" Lin Sheng was stunned.