The "Popularity Little Figure" above his head revealed a trace of disdain, thinking Tang Wen was a complete novice who knew nothing.
"Wasn't it?" Tang Wen deliberately looked at him with a bewildered expression.
"Of course not. Even at the fastest, it would take a year or two. For those who are slower, three or four years, or even five or six years without making an inch of progress." Wan Hansong shook his head, and his Popularity Little Figure seemed somewhat sorrowful.
Could this fellow's martial cultivation have been stuck at some minor stage for years? Otherwise, why would he be so sorrowful?
In the Chu Kingdom's assessment of officials, whether civil or military, martial arts were always one of the criteria.
Martial arts accounted for a smaller share of the score for civil officials than for military officials, but still made up thirty percent. Even civil officials naturally wanted strong martial skills.
After all, if you were highly skilled in martial arts, you could switch to being a military official at any time when progress along the civil service path slowed or became impossible, adding another weight to the scales of promotion.
It was like certain officials in modern society whose official careers stalled: they would move to a central state-owned enterprise, become a general manager or something, then switch back, and their rank would have risen.
"It's that difficult?" Tang Wen nodded as though he understood.
"Of course it's difficult. The higher your cultivation, the harder it is to advance. Take Qi Condensation Pills, for example. A martial artist below the third grade has a fifty percent chance of breaking through a minor stage after taking a High-Grade Qi Condensation Pill.
"But at the third grade, that drops to ten percent. By the Second-Grade Realm, Qi Condensation Pills