Longevity Martial Arts: Grinding Experience in the Chaotic World novel Chapter 28

Chapter 28: Chapter 28 Silver Fox

But Gu Sheng was just thinking about it—his body was fragile, with no margin for error. A single punch from someone else might kill him on the spot.

To put it bluntly, Gu Sheng right now was like a glass cannon—high attack, low defense.

Back when his Chopping Wood skill reached Great Success, he could already cleave through wild wolves. Now that it had reached a level beyond Perfect, with a "tearing" special effect, he was confident he could split apart tiger bones and bear hides!

However.

Gu Sheng also noticed that after reaching this point, no new progress bar appeared for his Chopping Wood skill.

"Has it already hit its ceiling...? Is the tearing effect beyond Perfect the absolute limit of Martial Arts proficiency grinding? Or is it simply because Chopping Wood counts as the lowest tier of Martial Arts?"

Gu Sheng couldn't be sure which it was.

However, the tearing effect of Chopping Wood was only First-level tearing, which made Gu Sheng develop a few hypotheses in his mind.

"If there's First-level tearing, then perhaps there's Second-level tearing, Third-level tearing... And if I learn stronger Martial Arts in the future, perhaps I'll be able to grind out even more powerful special effects!"

"I just wonder what kind of effect I'd unlock if I max out my proficiency in Archery..."

A flicker of anticipation surged through Gu Sheng's heart.

His Archery skill was already at 61% of Great Success, not too far from Perfect. Beyond that point would be the special effects.

The tearing effect brought by Chopping Wood's First-level tearing was already this formidable—what about Archery?

Perhaps it would be even more powerful!

...

In the days that followed,

Gu Sheng's life became even simpler and more routine. With no need to spend time on Chopping Wood anymore, he dedicated all his energy to practicing Archery.

The progress in Archery was very encouraging.

It was steadily approaching the Perfect realm.

He maintained a rhythm of going into the mountains to hunt about once every three days.

The rest of the time, he practiced his shooting and worked on his literacy.

Gu Sheng also learned more and more about the state of the Da Liang Dynasty, particularly gaining some clarity about the conditions in Red Cloud Prefecture.

Among the eight prefectures of Qing Province, Red Cloud Prefecture was neither the worst nor the best, ranking somewhere in the middle. It was located in the southern part of Qing Province and governed eleven counties, along with more than a hundred villages, towns, and manors. Its population was not small.

From a rough calculation, Gu Sheng realized the population of the Da Liang Dynasty was in the hundreds of millions—much more than the ancient dynasties of his past life.

During this time, Gu Sheng and Gu Erniu exchanged some grain again and heard that the war in Yun Province had already ended. The rebel forces had been defeated; most had been annihilated, while a small number scattered and fled.

The price of grain had increased by about 10%, but it wasn't terribly outrageous.

Though Gu Sheng knew this was only because Canghe County was far from the conflict and the harvest this year had been relatively decent. Otherwise, the situation would have been much worse.

Even though the war in Yun Province was over,

as Gu Sheng learned more about the surrounding circumstances, he could tell things weren't looking optimistic.

Bandits were rampant, officials colluded with criminals, and gang factions acted with impunity.

These problems had long gone unsolved.

And that could only mean one thing.

The Da Liang imperial court had completely lost control over the lower levels of governance—or at the very least, orders from above did not reach below, and the officials only gave the appearance of obedience.

Gu Sheng was well aware of what it meant for a dynasty to reach this point. Without some extraordinary change, collapse was only a matter of time.

He needed to continue working hard to become stronger.

Otherwise, when the day came that disaster struck, he would have only himself to blame.

Fortunately, everything seemed to be developing in a positive direction.

"Next spring, I'll begin formally training in Martial Arts!"

...

That day,

a group of hunters from Gu's Manor gathered to drink and feast on meat together.

Whoever could catch a silver fox wouldn't need to hunt for a whole year! _{ƒrēewebnoѵёl.cσm}