One Surprise After Another

When Zhou Ye returned to Little Homestead in high spirits, two days had already passed. Since he was familiar with the route now, the journey had been shortened by a full day.

Still, this path was truly difficult to travel. No wonder he had encountered hardly anyone, and no one used this route to enter the mountains.

After setting down his shoulder pole, Zhou Ye could not be bothered to sort things out for the moment. After steaming a pot of rice, he grabbed a rooster, killed a Bamboo Green Snake, added plenty of dried potato slices and dried lettuce slices, and made a huge pot of mixed chicken-and-snake stew in an iron pot...

After eating and drinking his fill, Zhou Ye sipped a bowl of wild tea he had just bought while digesting the information he had learned from Shopkeeper Ding.

This trip's gains had truly been considerable. Aside from replenishing a great many supplies, he somehow had more than seven taels of silver left by his side?

Moreover, that small town was near the prefectural city. It only took a little over two hours to reach the city from there.

It was just that the timing this time had not been ideal. The town only held its grand market on days ending in eight, when there would be many passing farmers and merchants. It would not be as deserted as it had been this time. The next market day should be eight days away, then?

At that moment, Zhou Ye could not help but ponder it.

His original plan would not change. Only after getting through this winter, once his martial skills had reached a higher level and he had better means of protecting himself, would he consider leaving the mountains to settle elsewhere.

But if he wanted to settle outside, he definitely needed money. So he would need to continue this kind of trade several more times.

Especially when things that were not worth much in the mountains could be sold for money outside? Was that not like picking up money for free?

Of course, perhaps there were too many uncontrollable factors in the prefectural city. Although prices in the small town would certainly be lower, safety came first. He would trade in the town—better familiar than unfamiliar!

After thinking it through, Zhou Ye sorted out his things. He first looked over the map and found that this map... was truly simple.

However, judging by the map, the route he had taken out of the mountains was fairly direct, without too many needless detours. It also showed the distribution of nearby towns and roads, and marked several dangerous areas within the mountains. So... at least it was somewhat useful!

After putting away the map, Zhou Ye began flipping through that illustrated guide.

Because Zhou Ye's Spirit Essence attribute was so high, he could not quite be said to possess perfect recall, but he was close. Thus, as he read the illustrations and explanations of those wild beasts and medicinal herbs, he felt a vast amount of knowledge pouring into his mind.

After reading for a while, Zhou Ye felt slightly regretful. In the areas where he had been active before, had he not seen quite a few of the medicinal herbs listed inside? If he had known, he should have gathered them along the way. Could they not also be sold for money?

Yet at this moment, Zhou Ye also felt rather fortunate. It seemed he had bought this illustrated guide right after all... Huh?

All of a sudden, Zhou Ye discovered in surprise that his panel had changed. The experience for Basic Poison Technique was rapidly rising: +1, +2...

This left Zhou Ye both startled and delighted.

During his previous training, the experience gain for Basic Poison Technique had been exceedingly, exceedingly slow. After collecting so much snake venom, it had risen by only 2 points? He had not even managed to get started, nearly losing all confidence. He had already half-given up on it for the time being.

Yet in this short time spent reading, it had risen by a full 4 points? Furthermore, Zhou Ye felt that the training of poison techniques—or rather, the training of cultivation methods—was not affected by the time limit on martial skill training. In other words, it was not restricted by those two hours. As long as he kept reading, understanding, and absorbing that... knowledge of using poison! The experience for Basic Poison Arts would continue to rise?

Perhaps it was because every medicine carried some poison, and medicine and poison came from the same family. A good physician was generally also a master of poison.

This illustrated guide also briefly introduced the medicinal properties and basic knowledge of certain herbs. Although it was mainly for gathering medicinal herbs, there were also many taboos for using medicine, were there not? And if one drew inferences from those taboos, would that not be using poison?

Who would have thought that planting willows without intent would bring shade?

Zhou Ye was invigorated. He immediately began reading carefully, reading and pondering until late into the night. He successfully entered the beginner stage overnight—

Basic Poison Technique (Mortal): Beginner (11/50)

As expected, his free attribute point also increased by 1.

After considering it, Zhou Ye chose to add the point to Health this time—

Health (90/90)

It was time to start making up for his shortcomings. He was still far too fragile. Even a slightly serious injury or illness might put his life in danger.

Since he had already added points to Constitution before, he would add them to Health this time!

But with such an unexpected gain, he still could not stop grinding himself to the bone.

During his morning training the next day, Zhou Ye stood on a large reef by the river, holding the fishing net in his hands as he flung it out with all his strength...

If the autumn fishing season had only begun before, then it had now entered its explosive peak.

Even casting nets from the shore like this would yield a net brimming with fish. There were salmon, eels, trout, and more, mixed with plenty of shrimp and crabs. A single netful was enough to fill an entire wicker basket.

After only four or five casts, he had already filled four wicker baskets. Zhou Ye carried the four baskets of fish home, then eagerly returned to the river.

However, when he cast the net again, the panel gave him another surprise—

Basic Throwing (Unranked): Not Started (0/10)

Good heavens! Who would have thought that catching a few fish could trigger such an obscure basic martial skill?

But on second thought, it made sense. Throwing a fishing net or throwing a lasso—could that not be used in battle? Tell him, was that not a martial skill?

Though he was still happy, this obscure martial skill was not particularly useful. In any case, he could not continue farming points for it at the moment.

After finishing today's morning training, there were already more than twenty baskets of fish in Little Homestead's yard.

He busied himself for the entire morning, salting all the fish into salted fish. He removed the fish bladders and boiled them into a jar of fish glue. As for the selected shrimp and crabs? Zhou Ye set aside a large bowl of each, intending to cook them into dishes today. The extra shrimp were dried into dried shrimp. The extra crabs were made into several jars of drunken crab using that jar of white liquor...

He had originally planned to use the fishing-net materials he bought to weave several fish traps. But seeing that he had caught far too many fish, he decided to put it off for now!

Afterward came the training of Basic Chopping, which smoothly gained 8 experience points. Seeing that—

Basic Chopping (Unranked): Mastery (487/500)

Zhou Ye thought for a moment, then simply fetched a cage containing a Bamboo Green Snake and trained Basic Chopping in one go until—

Basic Chopping (Unranked): Perfection (0/1000)

Feeling that he had grasped many more subtle insights into Basic Chopping and that his strength had greatly increased, he reckoned he should be able to handle five or six ordinary people at once now?

By evening, he had sharpened a bamboo arrow and used fish glue to stick feathers onto its tail. Beside Zhou Ye, more than a dozen bamboo arrows had already been made...