The Water Was Too Deep

It was another evening with afterglow; The joyous mood in the territory finally started to recover.

Thanks to the Feudal Lord's emergency order, the farmers and lumberjacks completed their job easily today. When they were relaxed, their mood turned better too. Especially because—other than meat broth today—every person had a slice of extra roast meat the size of a little finger.

Earth Thorns·Sacred Sun Assassin·Master Lu had once said that when happiness came, there wouldn't be any roast meat that would be innocent.

Therefore, the haze of death and disease finally dispersed.

Of course, the lowly farmers and lumberjacks weren't qualified to sit by the fire and chat with the Feudal Lord. Even if they slightly moved close to the fire, the militia would shout at them and chase those poor farmers away. They could only hide in a dark corner like rats, enjoying to their utmost the most sumptuous meal in their lives.

Such was the case for Li Siwen, too.

The only difference was that he noticed the knitted forehead of the Feudal Lord under the light of the fire. It couldn't be that he was going bankrupt, right? Or did he feel his heart ache for the roast meat that had entered the stomachs of the farmers?

Li Siwen didn't think too deeply about it and also didn't sneak a peek at the Feudal Lord anymore. There was no point in worrying after all. Li Siwen had already predicted that the Feudal Lord must have made a tough decision concerning the fate of the territory.

"The result will definitely unveil in around three days' time," he thought to himself.

Li Siwen entered the wooden house and lay down on the spot that belonged to him, entering dreamland in just a few minutes. He was 80% full, coupled with a good night's sleep. This should ensure that his stamina would fully recover by morning.

The night wasn't as peaceful as he hoped, with the noises of ferocious beasts repeatedly breaking the tranquility. It was likely a few wild wolves were creeping near the territory, but were quickly slain. From this standpoint, having a Feudal Lord with high martial power was extremely important for the entire territory.

Without the endless patrols and killing of the wild beasts, the surrounding territory wouldn't be so safe in the day.

Once the sky brightened up, Li Siwen had woken up. As he expected, his 14 points of stamina had been fully restored. However, the sounds of the territory differed from usual.

Still, Li Siwen didn't move or open his eyes until the other farmers started waking and mumbling. Like them, he mumbled and got up, rubbing his eyes and taking a glance outside. To his surprise, five armed men that looked very fearsome seemed to have appeared out of nowhere.

As for why they were just armed men and not armed soldiers, it was definitely because of their temperament.

After that, Li Siwen didn't look at them anymore.

"They aren't Hero units, nor are they high-level soldiers. So maybe a mercenary? Is the Feudal Lord going to fight a BOSS monster? The cost of hiring mercenaries should be quite high. Also, their martial power and equipment are definitely weaker than regular high-level soldiers. Ha, this is really a Feudal Lord that likes to fight things head on." Thinking of this in his heart, Li Siwen collected his dry food and water, then started his job as usual. As for when the Feudal Lord would set off and where, that really wasn't something he should care about.

"Today, let's increase Stamina to 15 first. From tomorrow onwards, I shall start adding Agility. Also, if everything goes smoothly, two days later, the yellow orb will light up."

Around 8 AM, Li Siwen saw the Feudal Lord set off. This time, the Feudal Lord was going all out.

Other than the Feudal Lord, there was the supervisor Sun Tieshi, the five mercenaries, eight militiamen, and the four hunters. The territory was practically empty after they left. If they couldn't make it back—then so be it!

"Ah, spat, spat, sorry, sorry, this wasn't what I was thinking. It's just that this phrase appeared too frequently and it sounded so smooth to say it."

Li Siwen secretly bared his teeth. He really didn't want to be a crow's mouth. At this current stage, even if he was the one being exploited, he also wished for the territory to expand, and for the Feudal Lord to live a long life. After all, it was easier to rest under a big tree than a small one. Most importantly, he hadn't accumulated his base capital yet. Going solo at this stage would be akin to seeking death!

For the entire morning, Li Siwen was working seriously. That small thought previously didn't cause him to feel too guilty. He wasn't that type of person. The life and death of the Feudal Lord was already decided when he decided to attack the BOSS, the result had nothing to do with him.

Yet, around 6 PM, when Li Siwen just obtained a Vitality Point and added it to his stamina, he saw the 'army' returning victoriously.

Only two militiamen and one mercenary died. But this wasn't the important thing. What's important was that the four hunters, six militiamen, and two mercenaries, a total of 12 people, were carrying a huge black bear!

Li Siwen was certain that it was a black bear. It was like a small hill. If it stood up, it would probably be at least four meters tall. Even from 100 meters away, though the bear was dead, the fearsome intent emitting from the bear still caused the farmers, including Li Siwen, to feel dizzy and scared. He believed that at this moment, the morale of the territory was rising rapidly.

In actual fact, he was right. Every day at this moment, the farmers would slow their speed, their bodies exhausted from the days' work, only waiting to return home for dinner. Yet, upon being stimulated by the black bear, it was like they recovered their youth. The farmers raised their hoes and worked ferociously. That kind of pride that came from the bottom of their heart was something that Li Siwen couldn't understand.

Basically, regardless of whether Li Siwen admitted it or not, the Feudal Lord did resolve a problem that the farmers weren't aware of or could understand. The fate of the territory seemed brighter already.

Evening, the welfare of having meat broth without the meat was gone. The food was reverted back to a bowl of wild vegetable soup and a portion of black dry food. However, this didn't seem to affect the enthusiasm of the farmers. They chatted and discussed with one another about the feat of the Feudal Lord in hunting a Dire Bear.

Yup, that was right, Li Siwen learned from the farmers' words that the black bear was actually called a Dire Bear. Of course, this was all the info that he could obtain.

At night, the sounds of wild beasts increased but quickly disappeared again.

Burning torches lit up the territory. The four hunters worked all night to dissect the Dire Bear. The Feudal Lord stood there like a javelin, holding something in his hand that was as large as a football. Even though he couldn't see it clearly, Li Siwen knew that it was a statue of a god.

That's right, a God's Statue, not a village building order/city building order/country building order. It was this thing that summoned Li Siwen and the other nine farmers into this world. Thus, it wouldn't be wrong to say that it was a village building order too. Yet this wasn't the important thing. What was important were two facts:

First, considering for now that this statue was a village building order, the core of its power was centered on and controlled by the Feudal Lord completely.

What did this mean?

It was just like soldiers killing a bear, lumberjacks cutting enough logs, farmers weeding enough weeds. By doing certain tasks, they would satisfy the condition to level up. This meant that soldiers, lumberjacks, farmers, and all other civilians could level up in controllable, understandable, and achievable methods.

This way, Li Siwen's secret wouldn't be able to be kept because the Feudal Lord would definitely check the attributes of the civilians regularly to know who could level up and make arrangements for it.

Secondly, the dominant power of the statue wasn't controlled by the Feudal Lord.

Again, what did this mean?

This meant that the soldiers could never level up by killing wild beasts or whatsoever. They must kill the wild beasts, mine minerals, or so on, to obtain resources and then sacrifice the resources to the statue for the statue to bestow them with power and level up.

The condition for this type of leveling was uncontrollable, not understandable, and the power that was bestowed upon might be able to be taken away too. The Feudal Lord was nothing but a high-level puppet.

If this was the case, Li Siwen's secret had a high probability of being kept. At least, if he didn't perform well, the Feudal Lord wouldn't waste deplete resources to level him up. The first to level up would forever be the Feudal Lord himself, then the soldiers, and the other important professions, like hunters, cooks, carpenters, blacksmiths, and such.

Farmers were too lowly, not worth wasting resources on.

Of course, there was still another possibility. Which was even if the Feudal Lord was a high-level puppet, he could use the statue to check the attributes of his people. However, as long as Li Siwen didn't do anything too suspicious, with how busy the Feudal Lord was, the Feudal Lord wouldn't purposely suspect a lowly farmer.

As for being able to check their attributes and talent with just a thought or by locking his eyes on someone. If the Feudal Lord had such a convenient management method, the territory wouldn't have ended up in such an awful state! Li Siwen's high performance in weeding for five days in a row wouldn't have been ignored too!

Speaking of which, he had already acted like a talent would, right? Even if he was just talented at farming, that was still a type of talent. Also, the lumberjack who ate wild fruit and unboiled water would have been discovered beforehand too. And those two farmers with heatstroke, they could have been allowed to rest when the symptoms started showing and wouldn't have ended up dying.

Therefore, keeping these points in mind, the chances of the Feudal Lord finding his secret were at most 10%.

After analyzing this quickly in his heart, Li Siwen closed his eyes and dropped asleep. He didn't plan to peek on what the Feudal Lord would be doing today, because curiosity not only killed the cat, it could also kill a curious farmer.

Whatever the case, he would be able to know the result tomorrow morning.

Next, he had a good nights' sleep and didn't even hear any sound.

The sky lighted up, Li Siwen rubbed his eyes and checked that he was still alive first. First, he checked that he didn't transmigrate again. He also checked that there wasn't anything weird with his brain. Only then did he climb out of bed.

At the empty spot of the territory, the corpse of the Dire Bear had already disappeared, including the skin, meat, bones, and so on.

Even the smell of blood had turned incredibly faint.

There wasn't a need to consider where that meat that weighed almost a ton went. He just needed to know that there were an extra four warriors in the territory with half-body armor. The fearsome intent emitting from them was even on par to that of Sun Tieshi, and much more than the four mercenaries.

Other than that, their biggest feature was their indifference and steel-will, without any hint of unruly behavior. These men weren't directly summoned here but leveled up from militias.

Therefore, the answer was obvious.

The reason that they leveled-up wasn't that they killed the Dire Bear, but because the Feudal Lord sacrificed the Dire Bear to the statue and obtained this power.

In other words, the Feudal Lord was only a high-level puppet.

Like a quail, Li Siwen lined up to collect his food. Not looking, not seeing, not thinking, and not asking.

The water was too deep; He couldn't afford to raise any suspicion to himself!