"If things keep going like this, at Martial Entry Fifth Stage, I probably could take on a hundred men by myself!" Qin Shujian guessed inwardly.
That would be sixteen times the power of the Martial Entry First Stage.
Only—
These were just assumptions and couldn't be taken entirely seriously.
Knowing that improving the Body Forging Scripture had no so-called cooldown time, only a requirement for Life Source, gave Qin Shujian some psychological comfort.
It was just Life Source!
With so many bandits in Liangshan Stronghold, he didn't need to worry about this problem for the time being before wiping them all out. After all, he was currently only at Martial Entry Third Stage and didn't need to consider Martial Entry Fifth Stage yet.
To be a man, one had to keep one's feet on the ground.
One step at a time, growing larger and stronger.
This was the hard truth.
With his strength raised to Martial Entry Third Stage, Qin Shujian felt that he could be considered an expert of some standing within Liangshan Stronghold.
At the very least, those rank-and-file NPC bandits at Martial Entry First Stage could hardly pose any threat to him anymore.
As for obtaining more Life Source, waiting passively for prey to stumble into a trap was no longer realistic.
Moreover, if too many bandits died, there was no guarantee it wouldn't attract the attention of the Liangshan Stronghold Master.
A stronghold naturally had a stronghold master.
And the stronghold master was also the most powerful NPC within the stronghold.
Although Qin Shujian had never seen the Liangshan Stronghold Master with his own eyes, he knew that the other party was definitely incomparable to these rank-and-file Martial Entry First Stage NPC bandits.
"I must raise my strength as much as possible before the Liangshan Stronghold Master discovers this."
"That way, even if I am discovered, if I can't beat him, I can at least guarantee I'll be able to escape."
Having made up his mind, Qin Shujian decided to take the initiative.
Picking off isolated NPCs one by one was simply too inefficient.
With just a little over two days left before the Players' descent, dragging things out any longer might spell certain death.
Soon—
Qin Shujian hadn't walked far when he spotted three bandits.
Two of them were patrol bandits, and one was a sentry bandit.
Approaching at a brisk pace, Qin Shujian did not hesitate at all. The broken saber in his hand, wrapped in a fierce gale of wind, chopped directly toward the neck of one of the patrol bandits.
With four times the strength of an ordinary bandit, the crude, broken saber felt weightless in his hands, and the speed of his strike was immeasurably faster than before.
That patrol bandit didn't even have time to react before his neck was struck squarely by the blade.
Bang!
A head as big as a peck flew into the air, accompanied by a spray of fresh blood.
The sudden turn of events caught the other patrol bandit and the sentry bandit completely off guard.
But immediately afterward, a fierce glare flashed in the eyes of both bandits. Even with their low intelligence, they could clearly understand what was happening before them.
Just as they were preparing to strike, Qin Shujian had already taken the initiative.
With a sudden forward lunge, he reversed his grip on the saber and delivered a swift, diagonal slash that bit directly into the shoulder of the remaining patrol bandit.
The blade sliced inward along the shoulder, cutting straight down three inches below the throat.
"Ah!"
With a brief scream, the patrol bandit collapsed to the ground and died instantly.
At this moment, the other sentry bandit's saber was already coming down in a chop. Qin Shujian immediately withdrew his blade and met the attack head-on.
Clang! Clang!
The two sabers collided, kicking up a burst of sparks, and the saber in the sentry bandit's hand was knocked flying straight out of his grip.
Following that, Qin Shujian slashed out once more, directly cleaving this sentry bandit to death as well.
With that.
In the span of about five seconds, all three bandits were dead.
The realm and strength of Martial Entry Third Stage unilaterally crushed these bandits who were only at Martial Entry First Stage.
Qin Shujian panted slightly. Killing three bandits in one breath meant he wasn't completely without consumption.
However, this brief skirmish also gave him a clear understanding of his own strength once again.
Watching the fallen bandits vanish and harvesting three points of Life Source, Qin Shujian was in high spirits. Gripping his saber, he continued to search for his next target.
Before long, another bandit appeared in his line of sight.
Qin Shujian didn't hesitate in the slightest, immediately hoisting his saber to go hack people—no, NPCs.
Name: Qin Shujian
Identity: Ordinary Bandit
Affiliation: Liangshan Stronghold
Realm: Martial Entry Fourth Stage
Cultivation Method: Body Forging Scripture Stage 4 (Total 5 Stages) (Mortal Grade Low-Tier)
Life Source: 2
Equipment: Broken Saber, Tatters Top, Tatters Pants, Tattered Straw Sandals
After his Life Source reached 25 points, Qin Shujian successfully advanced his realm to Martial Entry Fourth Stage.
However, he discovered that this time his strength did not double again, only increasing by roughly thirty to forty percent.
His previous hypothesis that strength would double with every breakthrough in stage was undoubtedly proven false.
"As expected, strength cannot keep doubling indefinitely. Otherwise, it wouldn't take long before I grew to a terrifying degree.
Judging by how things are now, the magnitude of the increase should be influenced by one's own baseline strength."
The reason it doubled before was simply because he had been too weak.
After his strength improved, when he killed two more bandits, he found himself forced to stop.
It wasn't that Qin Shujian had a sudden surge of conscience.
Ever since he stopped viewing the bandits of Liangshan Stronghold as human beings, killing them in large numbers no longer evoked any emotional response.
Of course, it wasn't because the bandits of Liangshan Stronghold had been wiped out either.
In fact, considering the total number of bandits in the stronghold, he had at most killed only half of them so far.
The real reason Qin Shujian stopped.
Was because when he killed the thirty-third bandit, a prompt appeared in his mind.
"Because you have been slaughtering the bandits of Liangshan Stronghold on a large scale, you have attracted the attention of Liangshan Stronghold Master Wu Sheng. The entire stronghold is now under strict martial law, and a massive manhunt is underway for the killer."
"Note: Once you kill another Liangshan Stronghold bandit, your identity will be completely exposed."
"After your identity is exposed, you will be expelled from Liangshan Stronghold, become a wandering NPC, and be hunted down by the Liangshan Stronghold Master!"
"The Liangshan Stronghold Master possesses strength far exceeding that of ordinary stronghold bandits. Please exercise caution!"
Receiving these four system messages forced Qin Shujian to temporarily halt his actions.
The system had specifically warned him twice about the Liangshan Stronghold Master, making it clear that the other party's strength was definitely not to be underestimated.
Before figuring out the bottom line of Liangshan Stronghold Master Wu Sheng, Qin Shujian was not prepared to take action against any more bandits.
He wasn't entirely clear on what consequences would follow from being expelled from Liangshan Stronghold and becoming a wandering NPC.
Yet according to Qin Shujian's conjecture, it likely wouldn't be a good outcome.
At the very least—
Before figuring it out, he was not willing to take unnecessary risks.
"Next, I'll go check out this stronghold master!" Qin Shujian pondered for a moment and immediately made his decision.
Know yourself and know your enemy, and you will never be defeated in a hundred battles.
If he kept going down this path, there was a high probability he would end up clashing with the stronghold master anyway.
He might as well go probe the other party's bottom line.
If the enemy truly proved invincible, he would make other plans.
If the stronghold master's strength was mediocre, then he couldn't be blamed for turning hostile and discarding all cordiality.
Liangshan Stronghold was not large.
Surrounded entirely by steep, unscalable cliffs, there was only a single path leading up the mountain.
The mountain was strewn with bizarre rocks, and the only area genuinely suitable for building a stronghold was a small plot near the peak.
Though called a stronghold, Liangshan Stronghold actually consisted of just over a dozen wooden houses clustered together, enclosing this patch of land.
At the very center of Liangshan Stronghold stood a somewhat crude and simple grand hall.
Three crooked characters were scrawled across a brown plaque hanging above the entrance.
Loyalty and Righteousness Hall!
Seeing these three characters, Qin Shujian couldn't help but pause in a daze.
For no other reason than that these characters looked far too familiar.
Perhaps all bandits and outlaws fancied themselves men of loyalty and righteousness.
There were no guards stationed outside the Loyalty and Righteousness Hall.
Perhaps because Qin Shujian himself was a member of the bandits, no one stepped forward to block his way.
Stepping inside the Loyalty and Righteousness Hall, the interior space was not large.
A few tables and chairs were arranged symmetrically on the left and right, while in the exact center sat a wooden desk and chair draped with an unidentified animal skin. A robust, towering man was seated right there.
Unlike the tattered clothes worn by ordinary bandits, this burly man was dressed in intact silk robes, with a tiger-head saber standing half a person tall beside him, its blade gleaming with a faint, chilling light.
Even just sitting there motionless, he seemed to radiate a fierce and intimidating aura.
The Stronghold Master!
Qin Shujian recognized the man's identity at a glance, and his attributes simultaneously appeared in his mind.
Name: Wu Sheng
Identity: Liangshan Stronghold Master
Affiliation: Liangshan Stronghold
Cultivation: Martial Entry Fourth Stage
"Huh?"
Seeing this, Qin Shujian felt a surge of doubt and surprise in his heart.
When looking at ordinary bandits previously, their attributes were displayed in full. But now, looking at Wu Sheng, only half the attributes were shown, and everything below the cultivation method section was completely blank.
Yet upon laying eyes on Wu Sheng, the anxiety in his heart gradually settled.
Martial Entry Fourth Stage.
To be honest, it was somewhat beyond his expectations.
Not because it was too high.
Rather, it was too low.
In Qin Shujian's original conjecture, Wu Sheng had a high probability of being at the Martial Entry Fifth Stage realm, or perhaps even higher.
But now, being on par with him at Martial Entry Fourth Stage was clearly good news.
"What are you doing here?" Wu Sheng also noticed Qin Shujian's arrival, his tiger-like eyes glaring angrily as his tone turned hostile.
He recognized the newcomer as one of the bandits, technically one of his own people.
What left a deeper impression on him, however, was the other man's name.
It seemed to be Qin... Qin Shujian.
To Wu Sheng, this name was somewhat difficult to remember and didn't sound very pleasant, far inferior to the nice-sounding and easy-to-remember names of other bandits like Zhang Ergou, Li Gouwa, or Wang Goudan.
Coupled with the fact that Liangshan Stronghold seemed to have run into trouble today—with quite a few bandits disappearing without a trace and no apparent reason found—
This matter had left Wu Sheng burning with suppressed anger.
Seeing Qin Shujian now, his mood naturally couldn't be good.
"Stronghold Master, I know the reason why the other brothers disappeared," Qin Shujian gave a dry cough and said with a hint of mystery.
Wu Sheng's expression froze, and then he urgently demanded, "Speak!"
Wu Sheng's reaction caught Qin Shujian slightly off guard.
Judging by the reactions of the other bandits in the stronghold, he had assumed Wu Sheng would be similar to them—just another NPC lacking any real intelligence.
Yet after exchanging a couple of sentences with the man and witnessing his rich facial expressions,
Wu Sheng seemed different from those bandit NPCs; in a sense, he acted much more like a real person.
"Today while patrolling the mountain, I happened to see—"
As he spoke, Qin Shujian took step after step toward Wu Sheng.
Wu Sheng didn't react defensively, his attention entirely hooked by what Qin Shujian was saying.
"Saw what?"
"Eat—this!"
The heavy saber in Qin Shujian's hand fiercely slashed down toward the top of Wu Sheng's head.
By the time Wu Sheng snapped out of his shock, he was just in time to see a ferocious blade-light slashing toward him.
"Audacious!"
Wu Sheng was terrified. Without thinking, he grabbed the tiger-head saber beside him with one hand and thrust it upward to parry.
Qin Shujian gripped the saber with both hands, the muscles in his arms bulging high as he channeled his Martial Entry Fourth Stage strength to its absolute limit, pouring every ounce of it into the blade.
Wu Sheng was likewise at Martial Entry Fourth Stage, but his block was a panicked, split-second reaction, completely unable to mobilize his full strength.
Clang!
The two sabers collided, erupting into a sharp, violent crash.
Wu Sheng's arm trembled, the webbing between his thumb and forefinger instantly split open, and the tiger-head saber slipped from his grip, clattering to the floor.
Just as Qin Shujian wanted to press his advantage and execute Wu Sheng, his saber abruptly snapped right down the middle, leaving only the upper half of the blade in his grasp.
The sudden twist startled him for a fraction of a second.
Following that, he reacted instantly.
He thrust the broken blade fiercely forward, while Wu Sheng threw his entire weight to the side, tumbling off his chair in desperation.
Splat—
The broken blade pierced flesh, driving straight into Wu Sheng's shoulder.
"Ah!"
Wu Sheng cried out in agony, beads of sweat the size of soybeans popping up on his forehead.
Die!
Qin Shujian's gaze turned ruthless. Instead of wasting time pulling the blade back, he let go of the hilt, clenched his fists, and threw punch after punch at Wu Sheng with all his might.
A full-strength strike from the Martial Entry Fourth Stage realm meant even a bare fist carried a force of nearly four to five hundred pounds.
Though it looked like a simple punch, it landed with the devastating impact of a heavy hammer.
Void of any fancy martial arts forms or routines.
Qin Shujian's fists rained down like a dense storm, directly pummeling Wu Sheng's head and face.
At first, Wu Sheng managed to put up a meager resistance.
As time dragged on, however, he was gradually reduced to taking a passive beating, letting out miserable screams as he endured Qin Shujian's brutal assault.
Until finally—
The sounds of his screams gradually faded.
When there was not a single breath of sound left from the man, Qin Shujian finally stopped his hands, taking heavy, ragged breaths.
***
Inside the grand hall.
Tables and chairs lay shattered, and the floor was in complete disarray.
Wu Sheng lay sprawled flat on the ground, drenched in blood, his eyes still wide and furious, his chest completely motionless.
Dead!
The master of Liangshan Stronghold was dead!
Qin Shujian took several deep breaths to steady himself.
Being able to strike down Wu Sheng so easily relied entirely on the fact that the man hadn't been heavily guarded against him.
Moreover, Wu Sheng clearly hadn't anticipated that an ordinary, insignificant bandit would possess strength rivalling his own.
Having lost the initiative from the very beginning, his defeat and death were only natural outcomes.
Abruptly.
Once Qin Shujian caught his breath, it was as if he had just snapped back to reality.
He immediately picked up the tiger-head saber Wu Sheng had dropped on the ground.
The moment it touched his hand, a heavy weight settled into his palm.
The system message chimed timely in his mind.
"Acquired Grade 9 Mortal Weapon 'Tiger-Head Saber'!"
"As expected..."
When the system notification appeared, Qin Shujian murmured inwardly.
Since this was a game, slaying bosses and dropping loot was the correct routine.
When he killed those ordinary bandits earlier, firstly, they didn't have anything valuable on them, and secondly, the thought hadn't crossed his mind in the heat of the moment.
Yet the tiger-head saber dropped by Wu Sheng was obviously incomparable to the broken sabers carried by ordinary bandits.
Setting the tiger-head saber aside, Qin Shujian turned his gaze toward Wu Sheng's corpse, his eyes instantly lighting up.
***
After a brief search.
Wu Sheng's corpse vanished abruptly, as if it had never existed in the first place.
And the bloodstains on the floor disappeared without a trace as well.
Only the shattered tables and chairs remained in their wrecked state.
In Qin Shujian's hands now rested two creased booklets and a dark, iron token.
One booklet was the Mortal Grade Low-Tier *Body Forging Scripture*.
The other was the Mortal Grade Mid-Tier *Black Tiger Saber Technique*.
Aside from these, two simple characters were carved onto the iron token.
Liangshan!
Through the system's prompt, Qin Shujian knew this was the stronghold master's token.
If he used it, he could replace Wu Sheng's position and become the new master of Liangshan Stronghold.
However, Qin Shujian's attention wasn't on the token for the moment; instead, it fell upon the two secret manuals in his hands.
As he prepared to open the *Body Forging Scripture*, a timely prompt sounded in his mind.
"Do you wish to use *Body Forging Scripture*?"
Qin Shujian ignored it and directly opened the cover of the manual.
Immediately afterward.
He watched as the *Body Forging Scripture* manual turned into white light and vanished, while a wave of familiar memories flooded into his mind once again.
These memories were everything recorded within the *Body Forging Scripture*.
They were completely identical to the *Body Forging Scripture* he had already learned.
This meant the manual had been completely wasted.
Even with the scripture consumed, Qin Shujian felt no regret, instead shifting his focus to the other manual, the *Black Tiger Saber Technique*.
Similarly, the moment he placed his palm over the cover, the system prompt popped up directly.
This time, Qin Shujian didn't open it; he silently chose to use it.
The *Black Tiger Saber Technique* turned into a beam of white light, slightly denser than the previous one, and vanished.
Simultaneously, Qin Shujian absorbed everything related to the *Black Tiger Saber Technique*.
Mortal Grade Mid-Tier *Black Tiger Saber Technique*.
It contained a total of three stances and eighteen forms.
The three stances were namely: Fierce Tiger Descends the Mountain, Shocking a Hundred Miles, and Fierce Tiger Looks Back.
Within each stance were six subtle variations. Once he fully digested the *Black Tiger Saber Technique*, Qin Shujian understood just how formidable this martial art truly was, and realized what a stroke of sheer luck it was that he had managed to kill Wu Sheng.
Because—
From start to finish, the other man hadn't even been given the chance to unleash this Black Tiger Saber Technique.
For no particular reason, he checked his personal attributes once more:
Name: Qin Shujian
Identity: Ordinary Bandit
Affiliation: Liangshan Stronghold
Realm: Martial Entry Fourth Stage
Cultivation Method: Body Forging Scripture Stage 4 (Total 5 Stages) (Mortal Grade Low-Tier), Black Tiger Saber Technique (+) (Initial Mastery) Mortal Grade Mid-Tier
Life Source: 18
Equipment: Grade 9 Mortal Weapon Tiger-Head Saber, Broken Saber, Tatters Top, Tatters Pants, Tattered Straw Sandals
Under the cultivation methods column, the *Black Tiger Saber Technique* had been added.
His Life Source had jumped from the previous 2 points to 18 points now, with the extra 16 points clearly contributed by Wu Sheng.
"An ordinary bandit contributes one point of Life Source, while Wu Sheng contributed sixteen. It seems Life Source isn't contributed equally by everyone, but scales with their strength.
The stronger the monster, the more Life Source it can contribute."
Qin Shujian now had a preliminary understanding of how Life Source worked.
The *Black Tiger Saber Technique* differed slightly from the *Body Forging Scripture*.
There were no stage restrictions listed at the end; instead, it displayed "Initial Mastery."
Seeing the plus sign next to the *Black Tiger Saber Technique*, Qin Shujian knew that, just like the *Body Forging Scripture*, it could be upgraded using Life Source.
However, he didn't immediately upgrade the saber technique; instead, his gaze finally dropped onto the token.
The Liangshan Stronghold Master Token.
This was no ordinary item.
He knew that using this token would allow him to directly become the master of Liangshan Stronghold, usurping Wu Sheng's former position.
And that meant he would likely take direct command over all the bandits remaining under Liangshan Stronghold.