Tongzhou City

A dozen or so days later, beside a river not far from the main road.

Wang Yu watched the departing boat gradually shrink into a dark speck on the river, his mind involuntarily returning to what Yin Linglong had said before leaving.

"My dear Wang, I need to deal with the Hundred Treasures Pavilion's covert guards first, and there are also some pressing matters at the Yin Household. It isn't convenient for you to return there with me yet. Stay in Tongzhou City and focus on your cultivation. Once you reach the third level of Qi Refining and condense your spirit root, you can go to Guangyuan Market, three hundred li northeast of Tongzhou City, and find someone called 'Blacksmith Wu.' He is an old servant of the Yin Household and will take you there.

"The Four Symbols Sect stands behind Guangyuan Market. Only Immortal Cultivators at the third level of Qi Refining or higher are allowed inside, so don't go before you have condensed your spirit root.

"Also, I no longer have any use for these bottles of low-grade Spirit-Gathering Liquid, so I'm giving them to you for your daily cultivation. There are a few protective talismans as well..."

Wang Yu felt the bulging little bundle tucked against his chest, and the corners of his mouth curled upward.

Having a beautiful, wealthy fiancée with fair skin really did feel good.

Living off her tasted pretty sweet!

Going to see Tongzhou City, which supposedly housed a million mortals, wouldn't be bad either.

After all, during the exchange gathering aboard the Iron Arrow, Yu Bintian had mentioned in casual conversation that this city was one of the four prefectural cities under the Great Ming Prefecture of the Wu Kingdom. Aside from mortals, low-level Immortal Cultivators occasionally appeared there as well.

This time, I finally have a chance to gather detailed information about this world.

With that thought, Wang Yu stopped hesitating, turned, and strode toward the main road.

Half a year later.

Inside an antiquated bookshop on a clean, tidy street in Tongzhou City, a tall young man who appeared to be seventeen or eighteen was engrossed in a thick book.

"Brother Wang, if you keep reading, you'll finish that entire Compendium of Common Medicinal Herbs." Another young man in blue was wiping down the surrounding bookshelves with a rag. After finishing the last shelf, he could not help calling out.

"Why make such a fuss, Brother An? Do you think I won't pay for the book? You know that whenever I find something I like, I'll buy it and take it home to read properly." Wang Yu lowered the book and addressed the young man in blue with a smile, then pulled a small string of copper coins from his robe and tossed it to him.

"You really are a bookworm, Brother Wang. You can lose yourself in any kind of book. You've bought nearly all the miscellaneous books in my shop." The young man in blue took the coins, his face blossoming into a delighted smile.

"Indeed. So starting tomorrow, I may have to consider other bookshops instead of coming here, Brother An." Wang Yu tucked the Compendium of Common Medicinal Herbs into his robe and replied with a smile.

"Don't do that, Brother Wang! You're the biggest customer at my Bookish Retreat now. A new batch of miscellaneous books will arrive in a few days. You must come back and browse!" The young man surnamed An hurriedly urged him to stay.

"Heh, we'll see in a few days. If I have time, I might come take another look." Wang Yu gave an evasive chuckle, then left the bookshop under the young man's reluctant gaze.

An incense stick's worth of time later, Wang Yu arrived at the gate of a residence on a secluded street. He took out a key, unlocked the gate, and pushed his way inside.

Beyond the gate lay a simple courtyard enclosed by three tiled-roof rooms. The courtyard was small, but two enormous stone locks, each half a person's height, stood in its center. A simple weapon rack stood outside one of the rooms, holding only a few wooden sabers and swords.

Ignoring the stone locks and the other things in the courtyard, Wang Yu walked straight into one of the rooms. Inside stood row upon row of bookshelves, all crammed with books of varying thicknesses.

Wang Yu pulled the Compendium of Common Medicinal Herbs from his robe and called out, "Overclocking!" A crystalline gleam surfaced deep in his eyes, and he began rapidly flipping through it.

After a flurry of rustling pages, Wang Yu snapped the book shut and closed his eyes.

Only after a quiet moment did he open them again. By then, the crystalline gleam had vanished, and he casually slipped the book onto a nearby shelf.

"Three major bookshops, a hundred and fifty-seven books. That's all the useful miscellaneous reading I can gather in a short time. If I keep collecting from other bookshops, I'm afraid I'll draw too much attention." Wang Yu walked out of the room, looked up at the fiery red sun hanging high overhead, identical to the one on Blue Star, and murmured to himself.

Through these books, he had now gained a comprehensive understanding of some of this world's basic facts. Using the photographic memory granted by Overclocking, he had firmly committed all their information to his mind.

For instance, he finally knew that besides the Wu and Yu Kingdoms, this other world also had a more powerful Feng Kingdom. The combined area of the Wu and Yu Kingdoms was not even half that of the Feng Kingdom.

Yet the Wu Kingdom alone spanned ten million li and was divided into twelve prefectures and forty-eight prefectural cities. Tongzhou City fell under the jurisdiction of the Great Ming Prefecture in the far west.

The territory governed by Tongzhou City was five or six times larger than the Yellowstone City region.

Tongzhou City's local customs were much like those of Yellowstone City.

But its residents enjoyed a far higher standard of living. At the very least, households did not have to rely on "bean porridge" as their staple food and could eat ordinary rice and flour-based dishes. Even on the streets, people wearing patched, ragged clothes were rarely seen.

The Wu Kingdom was nominally ruled by the imperial Shi Clan, but in reality, apart from the two or three prefectural seats personally administered by the Shi Clan, most other prefectures and cities obeyed military dispatches but ignored imperial summons.

What puzzled Wang Yu was that, according to the books, all three kingdoms' historical records began ten thousand years ago. Dynasties had changed frequently since then, and their imperial families and courts had been replaced time and again, yet the kingdoms' names and territorial sizes had never changed much. Nor had there been any technological progression from primitive civilization, as though human civilization in this world had sprung into existence overnight ten thousand years ago.

Moreover, the books spoke of two vast regions beyond the three kingdoms: the Eastern Wasteland and the Northern Sea. Every book described them as boundless, and no one had ever traveled beyond either.

Some books specifically mentioned that the Eastern Wasteland consisted of endless mountains and seas of forest, teeming with countless savage beasts and monstrous creatures.

Deep in the Northern Sea, hurricanes raged year-round. Ships often met destruction, with everyone aboard perishing, before they had traveled even ten thousand li from shore. Some people had even witnessed sky-piercing beasts a hundred zhang tall along the coast, along with great numbers of strange beings with human heads and fish bodies.

Had Immortal Cultivators not existed in this world, Wang Yu would certainly have found these things impossible to understand.

Yet very few books recorded anything about Immortal Cultivators. Even the handful that mentioned them generally lumped them together with myths and legendary biographies, referred to them uniformly as "Immortal Masters," and glossed over them in a few brief strokes.

This gave Wang Yu the feeling that some force was deliberately preventing mortals from learning too much about Immortal Cultivators.

Beyond that, these miscellaneous books had further convinced him that this world must have some connection to Blue Star. Some of the historical anecdotes, poetry, calendar systems, and other things they recorded felt uncannily familiar.

Even many of the illustrations and names of plants and animals in the books overlapped with or resembled those on Blue Star.

If he had not been unable to return to Blue Star, the information in these books would have been enough to win him fame and success once he got back.

At that thought, Wang Yu sighed.

He seemed to miss Blue Star's delicious food and the wonderful life of surfing the internet even more.

A moment later, however, he still stepped out of the room and approached the two stone locks in the courtyard.

He bent down and seized the two three-hundred-jin stone locks, one in each hand. With a slight exertion of his arms, he tossed both into the air, and they came plunging back down.

Thump! Thump!

Wang Yu swept both hands upward and caught the stone locks with ease, but the tremendous impact drove both feet into the ground, burying more than half his calves in the soil.