Data-Driven Daoist

A brown box without any decorations or characters. It had no hinges; it was the type where the lid and the body could be completely separated.

Yu Han picked it up.

It’s heavy.

The box was palm-sized, but weighed nearly a kilogram.

He opened it. Inside, on a cushioned bed, was a hexagonal wooden token. It had a strange character on it.

That can’t be it.

Yu Han noticed a piece of paper stuck on the lid. The handwriting belonged to Dong Chou.

“Exchange at the Treasure Hall or the Sea of Gold Commerce Branch.” Was it something like a credit note? Bond?

Nothing to it. I’ll have to trust him. If it wasn’t a scam, then this was preferable. Lugging around a thousand hexagonal crystals in a pouch… Just the jingling sound would attract evildoers.

Yu Han carefully closed the lid, then put the wooden box into the bag again.These new robes have sewn pockets.

He quickly changed. The old robes stank and had strange stains and a few tears here and there. The new ones felt refreshing, as if newly washed and ironed. He wished he had a mirror so he could see his face and getup.

He carefully placed the box into a pocket with a string to tie the opening closed. Next, he looked at the cloth-covered stick. It was the halberd.

He gently unwrapped it from the bottom, not wanting to injure himself accidentally.

This is high-quality cloth! It was coarse to the touch, so probably not well suited for clothing. But it was coloured like hemp, probably good against rain and heat.

The handle of the halberd was polished wood. Not shiny like lacquer; it had the texture of dry plank. At the top was the blade, covered by a leather mask of sorts.

Is this something like a halberd sheath?

The leather mask was tied closed with thick threads. Yu Han untied it, then removed the mask.

A greyish-black edge, dark on coarse metal. It wasn’t steel, more like cast iron sharpened to a thin blade. One prong pierced straight—the main head of the halberd.

There was a dagger-axe on one side, probably meant for chopping and crushing. On the other side was an inward-facing hook. It was shaped like a sickle, but smaller.

Wow…

This was the first time in both his lives that Yu Han held an actual weapon meant for killing. Knives didn’t count. Neither did the dagger he had now, nor the swords he had used during role-playing.

This was… real.

It had a weight to it.

Yu Han lifted the halberd up by the handle. The small hut was so small it nearly nicked the roof and the walls.

It was heavy.

I can hold it like this for maybe a minute. It was like lifting a barbell, but all the weight was concentrated on one end.

In total, the halberd was probably eight feet long. Yu Han didn’t have a scale, but maybe it was around eight or ten kilograms?

He wanted to swing it, see what would happen.

Better not. He had a weapon! He couldn’t use it. People might steal it. But this… It was his.

He couldn’t help but grin.

The manual. Yu Han covered the halberd blade with the leather sheath, and then wrapped it back in the cloth. There was a cloth strap too, probably to strap it across his back.

He opened the Ox Tail 72 Sweeping Forms. He had read it once, but now, after touching the halberd, the feeling was completely different.

This form looks easiest. That one, probably not. I should try to focus on using inertia.

It had a total of seventy-two forms, as the name implied. But there eight variations on how he could combine the seventy-two forms together to make a complete Martial Arts movement. Five were focused on training various aspects of the body. One was for offence, one for defence, and the other a mix of both.

Satisfied, Yu Han put the book down. He then placed the ten other books on his bed.

Not bad, Dong Chou. Not bad at all.

The Scribe had mentioned that he knew what Yu Han’s “ilk” desired the most. Actions proved words true.

Stolen novel; please report.

Yu Han read the names of the books.

“Young Ji’s Cultivation Contemplations: From Body Tempering to Building my Foundation.”

“A Thousand and Thirteen Deadly Herbs of the Sunken Mountains - Sima Clan’s Visual Guide for Future Juniors.”

“Sunken Mountains Forager’s Guide, Fifth Edition.”

“Ocean Gu, River Gu, Lake Gu.”

“Creatures Compendium: Demons, Spirits, Monsters, and Beasts.”

“Most Valuable Parts (Give to Junior Wang).”

“Checklist of Common Resources and Their Locations (Give to Junior Wang).”

“Blue Strategies Part 3: Groupings.”

“Four Meditations on the Hundred Thousand Waterways.”

“Rookie Cheat Sheet - Sure Ways of Getting Noticed in the Rookie Tournament.”

These aren’t in Dong Chou’s handwriting. Yu Han guessed they might be miscellaneous journals and books in the scribe’s collection.

The first book was a journal written by a cultivator of the Story Reef Sect called Ji. Yu Han flipped through it. It listed the practitioner’s journey and insights through the Body Tempering Realm.

So the first realm is Body Tempering, from level 1 to 10. Why not 0?

That was the lion’s share of the book. The last two pages were dedicated to the next two realms.

From Levels 11 to 20 is Qi Gathering, and from 21 to 30 is Foundation Building. This Ji broke through to Qi Gathering, but he didn’t share his contemplations here.

There was some basic information about the Qi Gathering Realm. As for the Foundation Building realm, there was merely one line: “The mind completes.”

Yu Han put the book down. He would read it in detail later.

The next two books, one on poisonous herbs and mushrooms, the other on medicinal ones, listed how to identify them, with diagrams and common locations.

So this place is called the Sunken Mountains. A fitting name. Mountains half sunk in water, creating mystical islands. Is fifth the latest edition? Yu Han hoped it didn’t have outdated knowledge. At least not by too much.

“Ocean Gu, River Gu, Lake Gu” was an interesting book. It listed common creatures called “Gu” that lived in water. It had bugs, small snakes and other reptiles, and also—

“A jellyfish?”

The last seventy percent of the book was focused on strange undersea creatures. If going by Earth’s animal kingdoms, there were creatures from Cnidaria, Porifera, Chordata, and Arthropoda. Only the small ones, though. And there were also fungi, algae, moss, and protozoa.

The hell is a Gu? Perhaps they weren’t categorized by biological features, but something more mystical?

Yu Han scratched his head and put the book down, not sure how it would help him.

The “Creatures Compendium” was similar, but listed larger creatures. There was a distinction between Spirit Beasts, Demonic Beasts, Monstrous Beasts—commonly called just Monsters—and Primal Beasts, called just Beasts. Spirits and Demons were somehow different from Spirit Beasts and Demonic Beasts. Same with true Monsters and Monstrous Beasts, as with Primals and Primal Beasts.

Yu Han resisted the urge to read through the whole thing. Maybe there was something on the Deep Writhing Clam? Or the dog that had attacked him?

The next two books were compiled by a Sect Senior for a Junior called Wang.

Isn’t Wang the most common Chinese surname? Or one of them? He hadn’t met any Wangs yet.

“Most Valuable Parts” taught how to harvest parts from hunted Beasts and Monsters. It listed the common Beasts and Monsters around the oceans of the Sunken Mountains, and in the many lakes and rivers.

And some place called a Hidden Realm. But it merely alluded to it and didn’t go into detail.

Cockblocker. Come to think of it, didn’t that Verdant Blade Elder mention something about a Hidden Realm? What was it called again?

Yu Han couldn’t remember right away. The answer would be revealed to him during Deep Sleep, so he put the issue out of his mind.

The “Checklist of Common Resources” was the one Yu Han was most excited about.

This is money! Pure money! Yu Han had a belief that in any world, money made you powerful. And if you were powerful, you could make more money, and that money would make you even more powerful. It was a virtuous cycle. Again, it mentions specific locations in the Hidden Realm.

And the checklist had information on what the Sects valued most. There was the Mission Hall where he could exchange loot for money, but the Sect apparently had various other sub-organizations, from large Clans to small Groups.

That was the subject of the next book, “Blue Strategies Part 3: Groupings.”

Members of the Sect could team up and form specialized units. The author, who apparently commanded over a thousand people and was at the Mid Foundation Building Realm, discussed the best way to go about it. Starting with Courtyards, going up to a Pavilion, and finally a Palace.

The next book, the “Four Meditations,” was a collection of poems and short stories about the local area and the Hidden Realm. It had poems on small settlements, respected Land Gods and Wandering Spirit Beasts, and what the poet thought about them. There were poems on fallen heroes, brave heroines, and wretched traitors, too.

One short story, about an unthinking crab that the poet had befriended, spanned three pages. The crab lived near earthworms, making its home by an isthmus. They met first in a dream. The author would visit the crab once a year and talk about what strangeness he had seen. The first anecdote spoke of a pool of boiling blood in a hidden cenote, where herbivore snake-headed birds dropped corpses of hunted creatures. The blood would remain in the pool, but the flesh and bones would dissolve and act as fertiliser for their staple food, a blood-red species of fern.

It was weird.

The poet had never broken through to the Qi Gathering Realm.

Probably the only useless book out of the ten. Still, one miss out of ten was acceptable.

Yu Han put it down and picked up the last one. It was a cheat sheet. Yu Han loved cheat sheets.

“One year after the orientation of the rookies, there shall be held a grand tournament,” Yu Han read aloud. “It will serve as a welcome to the next batch of rookies, and a prelude to the yearly ranking tournaments of the Outer Sects.”

The author suggested strategies on how to best attract the attention of Sect higher-ups and other distinguished personages. It guaranteed that if the reader followed the steps, they would definitely be taken by an Outer Sect Elder as a disciple.

Too many guarantees! Yu Han scoffed. But still, the strategies could be enlightening. And if he used the information correctly, he could exchange some favours.

That’s assuming this information is not widespread. We’ll have to verify.

Yu Han felt restless. Despite the late hour, didn’t feel like sleeping at all. He checked the pocket. The wooden box was tightly secured. The pouch with the twenty-five spirit stones that Duan Xiaolong had given him was tied to his waistbelt. He covered the stack of books with the cloth, leaving only the Cheat Sheet and Ji’s Contemplations out. The halberd was too big, and these beds were melded to the floor for heating, so there was no way to put anything under them.

It was then that Yu Han heard some shouts.

“Slow, don’t hurry!” Li Yao shouted. “Go to my hut! I have the medicine.”

Yu Han peeked out of the window.

Li Yao and a few others were carrying a boy on a stretcher. The boy was bruised, with deep, bleeding lines across his body. It was Xiao Zhuzi, the former beggar, that was to be flogged!