(Thanks to Jie Wuneng for being an Alliance Leader, thanks to everyone for your continued support)

"These two places." Lin Sheng didn't feel he was powerful enough to be fearless.

Generally speaking, terrain like a plaza was a place that easily attracted large numbers of monsters.

And the Black Feather City government office? A place as important as that in a city—who would believe there weren't high-level monsters there?

"Neither of these directions can be taken." Lin Sheng decisively cut off these two directions, then turned his gaze toward the other three.

The signposts for the three directions were already ruined, with only a few traces of color remaining; it was impossible to make out any writing.

"..."

Lin Sheng stood at the city gate and hesitated for a moment.

"Forget it, I'd better just farm some Rotten Swordsmen in the wilderness first."

He felt he was still too weak. Since killing Rotten Swordsmen could grant residual memories, perhaps if he killed more and gained more of their martial arts memories, he might obtain more clues.

"It's better than running around like a headless chicken."

Having made his decision, Lin Sheng turned and walked away decisively.

He was still too weak right now; he needed to kill more Rotten Swordsmen on the outskirts to strengthen himself first.

He retreated through the gate archway he had come from.

Lin Sheng began to slowly search around the city wall, and soon, behind a hedge to the right of the city entrance, he encountered a Rotten Swordsman.

The strength of this Rotten Swordsman was much weaker than the previous two.

Lin Sheng only exchanged a few moves before easily finishing it off, gaining a fragment of memory.

However, to his regret, this guy was just an original city guard; other than some basic sword moves, he knew nothing else.

He did, however, gain some information regarding the layout of Black Feather City.

Although he couldn't strengthen his swordsmanship, the other information was also what Lin Sheng needed.

He continued his search and soon found two more Rotten Swordsmen near the city gate.

He dealt with one easily, but the other counterattacked before dying, slashing his arm.

"Damn it, I actually got careless and got wounded!"

Following a method from the chaotic memories—he didn't know whose it was—Lin Sheng hid in a corner of the city wall, stuffed a corner of his pajamas into his mouth, and tore hard.

Rip.

The fabric didn't tear; it slipped out of his mouth, and Lin Sheng felt a sharp pain in his gums.

"TV shows are all lies!" He pressed his hand against the wound in frustration. But as time passed, the bleeding only grew worse.

A palm-length wound, without any way to stop the bleeding, was effectively a fatal injury.

With no other choice, he had to take off his jacket entirely and wrap it tightly around the artery just above the wound.

The pressure from the tightly bound clothing gradually caused the bleeding to slow.

However, Lin Sheng also felt his spirit flagging, as if he were about to wake up at any moment.

It seems that injuries, fatigue, and other depleting actions also reduce the time I can stay in the dream.

He formed a judgment in his mind.

Soon, an inexplicable sensation welled up in his heart.

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

Not long after, he opened his eyes again to find he had returned to his bedroom.

Beep, beep, beep, beep.

The alarm clock on the side was ringing incessantly.

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

It was already past six in the morning.

He had absorbed quite a lot of memories just now, and his head felt a bit swollen.

It was getting late, and there was no time to sort through them. He hurriedly washed up at home, put on his school uniform, and then rushed out the door to catch the bus to Huian High School.

Having absorbed the memories of three Rotten Swordsmen in a row last night, aside from the junk information, a rough map of Black Feather City's layout had filled out in Lin Sheng's mind.

After all, they were all gate guards, so he had gained quite a bit of advantage regarding the terrain.

Additionally, what left Lin Sheng somewhat speechless was that many of the memories from these gate guards were contradictory.

For instance, what should one do if their sword was hooked by an opponent's soft weapon?

Lin Sheng could instantly come up with three solutions in his head. These methods were fine on their own, but they were too messy. Two of them were even mutually exclusive.

The massive influx of memories in such a short time left Lin Sheng feeling dizzy for the entire morning.

He finished his lunch in a rush and slumped over his desk in the classroom for a while.

The first class in the afternoon happened to be a math quiz held by his homeroom teacher.

Lin Sheng had filled out the entire exam paper in a daze, not even knowing when he had handed it in.

Heaven knows what kind of score one could get by taking an exam purely on intuition.

Fortunately, this state lasted until after eight in the evening, when he finally returned to normal.

The first thing Lin Sheng did upon recovering was to locate the small temple from before.

His continuous hunting of the Rotten Swordsman and his efforts to complete the map of Black Feather City were for two purposes.

First, to find the small temple and see if there was any way to come into contact with transcendent knowledge.

Second, to find LS Bell and see if he could acquire some protective equipment.

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

After some thought, Lin Sheng carefully organized the path nodes needed to reach these two locations in his mind.

"The most effective way to deal with getting lost is to look for landmarks as nodes. According to the memories, there should be a dark red clock tower at this place, this place, here, and here."

Lin Sheng used his notebook to jot down how many turns to take.

Soon, the two paths leading to different locations became increasingly clear.

"Confirmed. Next is organizing the miscellaneous information."

With the memory fragments of several people piled together, if he didn't organize them, he might forget key information, and the memories could become confused over time.

Lin Sheng took his pen and wrote on a new page of his notebook: Martial Arts, Terrain, Transcendent.

"Only look for content related to these three points; discard everything else."

He set his focus.

Soon, from the memories of a pile of city guards, Lin Sheng dug up something else useful.

"Limit Breaking Method?"

"The key method to break through the limit from Level 2 and step into Level 3 transcendence?"

While organizing the memories, Lin Sheng was surprised to discover this.

Although these city gate guards had low status and weak strength, their knowledge and experience were truly not something an ordinary person could compare to.

They were well-informed; even unintentionally, they could learn many bits of gossip every day.

With people coming and going, various rumors and hearsay drifted everywhere, and much of it had to pass through them.

Important announcements and notices posted by the city were also posted here first, as the city gate was the place with the highest foot traffic.

They had to inspect the peddlers and merchants entering and exiting. They were responsible for driving away beggars and refugees. If there was any major movement in the city, they were the most likely to know.

Lin Sheng unearthed the content regarding the Limit Breaking Method from the memories of a guard named Yide.

Yide was different from the other soldiers; he was the one who had dealt a counter-injury to Lin Sheng right before he died.

He was originally a disabled veteran retired from the battlefield. When he was still whole, he had the potential and had been exposed to warrior-level training.

That period was the moment of pride he had always been most boastful about, so for many years, he had never forgotten it, repeating the memory over and over.

In the end, this made it convenient for Lin Sheng to understand information in this regard.

Soon, he dug out specific details about warrior levels from Yide's long-held memories.

"A Level 1 warrior only needs to specialize in one weapon, be proficient in attack and defense, and have a few real-world combat experiences; a batch can be trained in a year."

"A Level 2 warrior is a veteran among soldiers or a wandering swordsman with family martial arts. Anyone who can excel in one direction, through a thousand hammerings, and train to the limit of the human body, has the potential to be rated as Level 2."

"A Level 3 warrior is one who breaks the limit. They possess lethality in a certain aspect that surpasses the limits of ordinary people—a realm that mortals cannot reach by relying solely on training and practice."

There was nothing after that.

This was all the information Lin Sheng had organized, but compared to the previous intermittent fragments, it was already much more comprehensive.

And most crucially, he also heard a name from these memories—Level 12 Shield Warrior, Commander of the Black Feather City Guard, Austen Rein.

"Level 3 is already transcendent and limit-breaking; it's hard to imagine what a Level 12 warrior's concept is!" Lin Sheng was shocked.