Chapter 89 - 87: Warrior
The tip of the saber flicked, and the cloth tore open layer by layer.
A small piece of beast skin, unknown from which wild beast, fell out.
This beast skin wasn’t very thick, folded twice, when spread out, was about the size of a pancake.
Song Changming leaned in for a closer look, the backside of the beast skin had a short layer of bristles, yellow and white intermingled, soft and comfortable to the touch.
The other side was key, with intricate carved lines and various strange symbols.
The linear patterns were predominant, with fewer peculiar symbols.
Just looking like this gave no clues at all, not knowing what was carved into the beast skin, or the meaning of the patterns and symbols.
Combining the irregular tear marks along the edges of the beast skin, it wasn’t hard to conclude.
This was indeed the small half-piece of treasure map that people were competing for.
Although the Golden Pavilion Sect members always said the treasure map was carved from a strange stone slab, broken into three parts.
But now it seems, it’s just a lie from the Golden Pavilion Sect members to mislead others.
The treasure map was drawn on beast skin, carried with him personally.
He was clever enough to know that even if he handed over the real treasure map, as someone who knew the secret yet lost his greatest asset, he wouldn’t escape death.
Instead, he bet on Song Changming’s desire for martial techniques, hoping Song would spare him in exchange for the treasure map.
But regretfully, he bet wrong.
No matter if he spoke or not, from the moment he provoked Song Changming, the outcome destined he wouldn’t survive the day.
"Those people in the past, seemed to prefer using beast skin as writing material..." Song Changming muttered to himself.
Compared to fragile paper, indeed beast skin, especially exotic beast skins are more suitable for record and storage, less prone to damage.
The treasure map before him was the same, as were the Great Strength Bull Demon Skill and Soul-breaking Saber martial arts he acquired before.
Putting away the beast skin, Song Changming turned back to look outside the alley, at the members of the Dinghai Water Gang still wailing on the ground, his eyes filled with murderous intent.
He was not a hesitant person, decisive when necessary, avoiding future troubles as much as possible!
So, when the patrol guard arrived upon seeing the signal smoke, they saw corpses all over the ground, not a single survivor.
"Lord Song!" The patrol guard that arrived was from a district of Yulin Street.
Upon seeing Song Changming, they immediately recognized the identity of the Chief Patrol Guard.
Currently, not only was Song Changming well-known within the General Department, but also renowned in various City Patrol Defense Bureaus.
Unless they were new patrol guards, almost everyone knew of this rising figure in the General Department.
"These members of the Dinghai Water Gang attempted to harm the Xiao Family’s fourth lady, unforgivable crime, handle these corpses cleanly."
Song Changming simply instructed, leaving the cleanup to them.
The assassination attempt on the Xiao Family’s fourth lady was already no small matter.
Especially with her father being the leader of a prefecture.
After this incident, it was believed that the Governor’s efforts to drive away the Dinghai Water Gang would be more resolute.
Afterwards, Song Changming found Xiao Shuyun and her companions who had retreated to a distance, and escorted them back to the Governor’s Mansion.
"Captain Song, today we owe much to you." Xiao Shuyun said before entering the mansion, turning around to look.
"Just doing my duty." Song Changming replied with a hand gesture.
Upon hearing, Xiao Shuyun slightly frowned, as if softly muttering.
"I don’t like this reason..."
Song Changming remained composed, seemingly unaffected by Xiao Shuyun’s final mutter.
Returning home, Song Changming once again took out the acquired treasure map, carefully examining it.
Gaining nothing, he had to put it away again.
Tonight, he dealt with all possible insiders, but that didn’t mean trouble wouldn’t follow later.
Holding a piece of treasure map alone was enough to draw all kinds of infamous characters towards him, no matter how well he concealed it.
If it were a few years ago, he wouldn’t have had confidence to compete with those formidable Jianghu Guests for this treasure.
But now, after two years of accumulated rigorous training, his strength had significantly improved.
He wanted to see if this treasure map indeed had any connection to the legendary martial techniques.
Currently, his Great Strength Bull Demon Skill was trained up to the Fifth Realm, and also the Spiritual Monkey Skill of Purifying Marrow and Forging Tendons reached the Third Realm.
Not only that, in body refining aspects, through the Xiao Family’s connections, he gathered two more complete Body Refining Skills over the past two years.
The Silverback Barbaric Bear Technique for refining flesh, and the Copper Skin Rhinoceros Horn Skill for refining skin.
These two Body Refining Skills, like the Spiritual Monkey Skill, could be trained up to the Sixth Realm, that’s the limit.
The highest quality Body Refining Skills available outside reached about this level.
Body Refining Skills that could reach the Ninth Realm were all treasures, either unshared secrets of Jianghu Sects or important legacies of Martial Arts Families lasting generations.
Such highly-regarded superior Body Refining Skills basically had no chance of being transmitted outside.
If one wants to learn, there’s no need to even hope from those Martial Arts Families.
To outsiders, the only way is to join these Jianghu sects, contribute year after year, earn trust, and eventually be accepted as a personal disciple before having the chance to practice the sect’s Ninth Realm Body Refining Skills.
But for Song Changming, who already holds an official position, this is impossible.
He is not a man of the Jianghu, nor can he enter those Jianghu sects.
Therefore, the body refinement skills he can currently find are indeed among the best, thanks to the connections of the Xiao family.
Otherwise, even if he had money and silver, it would be difficult to buy reliable body refinement skills on the market.
Rumor has it that there are many martial arts secret records collected from the Jianghu in the imperial armory, including some superior body refining skills.
However, now that he is confined to a single county as a small Patrol Captain of Donglai County City, he truly cannot reach that central imperial armory.
Fortunately, the body refining skills he has collected at present are sufficient, so there is no need to be overly hasty in achieving quick success.
Currently, his Barbarian Bear Skill for muscle training has reached the Second Realm, while the Rhino Horn Skill for skin refining, obtained not long ago, has only been fully trained to the First Realm.
He is still quite far from his goal of becoming a quadrilateral omnipotent superhuman.
But no matter what, he has already started on the most difficult path of body refinement and has set himself on the right track.
All that is needed next is to leave it to time.
As for martial arts, ever since the unexpected major expansion last time, the past two years have been more about seeking stable progress, primarily digesting the results after potential activation.
In the last two years, he has accumulated two thousand five hundred experience points in Light Body Skill.
For the Flying Swallow Knife Skill, due to the relevant traits of the ’Knife Practitioner’, combined with the Soul-breaking Saber as a foundation at the Perfection Realm, plus the daily timed training state bonus, he has accumulated as many as seven thousand three hundred experience points over two years.
However, due to the high experience point requirement for breakthroughs in both martial skills, both remain at a standstill without qualitative transformation.
Especially for the Flying Swallow Knife Skill, achieving great perfection to the Perfection Realm is truly challenging.
If it weren’t for various bonuses and he were just an ordinary martial artist with some talent, it might not be possible to fully master this skill even after twenty years of sword practice!
It has to be said that the top-level martial arts he defined himself are indeed much harder to practice than high level martial arts.
By contrast, his Soul-breaking Saber has once again maxed out its experience value, leaving it unable to ascend further.
Even though it bears the name of a low level martial art, it possesses the true power of high level martial arts!
Additionally, the annual evaluations over the last two years weren’t very high, with no surprising reward options appearing.
Therefore, he chose attribute points for both years.
In the first year, due to his involvement in the major event of eliminating bandits in Donglai Prefecture and direct confrontation with the Dongcang Three Dragons, the evaluation was slightly higher, resulting in two attribute points, which he allocated to Root Bone.
The second year was more ordinary, without experiencing major events, and neither in martial arts cultivation nor official connections did he see any notable rise or expansion.
As a result, the final reward was only one attribute point, which he invested in Spirit Attribute.
Thus, his Spirit Attribute talent reached eight points, and his Root Attribute talent increased to sixteen points.
Indeed, it was the continuous improvement of his Root Attribute that made his progress in body refining increasingly smooth.
He could feel that his body refinement efficiency improved with his Root Bone talent enhancement.
Were it not for this, he would not have been able to break through to the Fifth Realm of Bone Forging in just two years.
Finally, as for his life span, due to not consuming a large amount of life span for better annual rewards over these two years,
his life span has finally surpassed the forty thousand mark.
Sometimes in his eyes, his life span is also an important asset he can utilize, and now this financial aspect is being well-managed.
The next day, the Governor’s Mansion acted faster than expected regarding the attack on the Fourth Young Miss.
The Lord Governor seemed to have finally found an opportunity, directly deploying the military to not only round up all the Dinghai Water Gang members but also confiscate all their merchant ships for public use.
The port was no longer a foothold for them.
As a result, maritime transportation in the Donglai Prefecture area was entirely under the control of the Governor.
Each year, this would inevitably fill the Treasury with a significant amount of capital silver.
The Governor achieved his goals and was so pleased that he rewarded Song Changming for his contributions to protection.
Just like when he saved Xiao Shuyun from Luo Haolin’s hands, he was rewarded with a significant amount of money and grain.
In fact, over the past two years, Xiao Shuyun has always wanted to support Song Changming to join the Governor’s Mansion and work under the Governor.
But Song Changming always used the excuse of having too little experience, insisting on staying at the Public Security Bureau to hone himself.
Since Song Changming himself was unwilling to advance in rank, Xiao Shuyun had no choice but to give up, temporarily ceasing any efforts to advance Song Changming’s career path.
Otherwise, Song Changming would probably have long since entered the inner council of the Governor.
Later, the Dinghai Water Gang retreated in disgrace, and the Governor forcefully took over, stirring up no small storm in the Jianghu around Donglai Prefecture.
After all, this was the government stepping in, forcibly intervening in Jianghu affairs, and taking away the livelihoods of many Jianghu people who lived by water transportation.
For a time, many harbored resentment towards the Governor, believing he had overstepped, being greedy, and unwilling to even share the scraps.
However, the Governor seemed indifferent to the popular resentment, as his focus in recent years had always been on actively amassing wealth, seeming to prepare for significant matters.
In this process, the treasure map that Song Changming acquired went unnoticed.
Perhaps due to the broken trail, no one knew the real whereabouts of this treasure map at present.
No one came to Song Changming because of it.