Chapter 12: Critical Chop_1

The pet he was raising was eagerly evolving, and naturally, as its owner, he wouldn't idle away his time.

He began to swing his arms and chop wood.

After so many days of practice, his proficiency in the Blade Technique was about to advance to the next grade.

He now consciously challenged himself by cutting down medium-sized trees.

The forests near the village all had owners, mostly landlords and officials. As for the deep mountains, the land under heaven belonged to the emperor, but by default, the government equally presumed ownership.

However, no one came to manage them.

At most, when the government needed to undertake major construction, such as building official residences, they would send people into the deep mountains to cut timber.

Therefore, it was common for ordinary people to chop wood in the deep mountains.

It essentially fell under the category of if the people do not raise the issue, the officials do not investigate.

That's how everybody did it.

Though the trees in the deep mountains could be cut down for free, the mountains were full of fierce beasts, poisonous snakes, and insects, making them extremely dangerous.

The deeper one went, the more dangerous it became.

Landowners marked their territories with the default effective range being one mountain or a depth of one kilometer.

Take, for example, the local landlord Yan Ruohai from the neighboring village, who had nearly one hundred plots of fertile farmland and almost one hundred mountains. In the nearly ten miles around here, most of the fields and mountains were his private land.

Even the mountains behind Qin Niu's village all belonged to the Yan Family's forests.

One plot is approximately equal to 15 acres.

What does it mean to have one hundred plots of fertile land? It's equivalent to owning one thousand five hundred acres of good farmland.

The number of such large landlords wasn't great; several villages, or even more than a dozen villages might have just one.

The Yan Family employed over a hundred slaves.

They had their own Protector team.

Last year, it was said that when the Yan Family recruited Protectors, the minimum requirement was to lift a two-hundred-pound Bronze Cauldron and they demanded that applicants be under forty-five years of age.

There's a rough formula for estimating the cultivation level within the Mortal Realm.

The weight one can lift divided by 2 equals the approximate level of cultivation.

For instance, Qin Niu is now at Onefold 37.6/100 in the Mortal Realm; his strength is quite strong among adult men. He can lift an object of around 75 pounds with both hands.

It must be clarified that lifting means raising the object above the head, which is far more difficult than simply picking it up.

Being able to lift a hundred-pound object basically implies lifting a hundred-and-fifty-pound object is not a problem.

Qin Niu can currently lift objects weighing around a hundred and twenty pounds.

The Protectors recruited by the Yan Family could all lift a two-hundred-pound Bronze Cauldron with both hands, meaning those people had to be at least at the Twofold level in the Mortal Realm.

This was simply terrifying.

A person at Twofold in the Mortal Realm can defeat ten people at Onefold.

Who among the ordinary people would dare to provoke a massive entity like the Yan Family, rich and powerful with many underlings?

Even though Wang Furen is considered one of the wealthiest in the village, he's nothing in front of the Yan Family.

Of course, Wang Furen knew how to get along with people; during the Yan Family matriarch's birthday celebrations, weddings, and funerals, he would always personally go to congratulate or mourn and present a gift of money.

Having mutual personal connections, the Yan Family would also take care of him to some extent out of consideration for these social ties.

As for Wang Haikun, the local bully that not even Wang Furen dared to offend, let alone provoke the Yan Family.

Should he dare to run riot on the Yan Family's land, they would guarantee a beating that would make him unrecognizable even to his own parents.

If he angered the old master Yan, it was even possible to be directly chopped up and fed to the fierce beasts kept by the Yan Family.

It was no joke.

Within these ten miles, apart from the government, the Yan Family was akin to a Local Emperor.

Moreover, to have reached such status, there must have been someone from the family serving in an official position. The Yan Family would also present gifts to influential figures in the government and pay tributes annually based on a certain ratio.

Thus, the Yan Family was practically considered the secondary government on a local level.

Qin Niu would naturally not encroach on the Yan Family's forests.

At the moment, he was located on the outskirts of the deep mountains, at least three to four hundred meters away from the Yan Family's forests.

This also meant that after felling the trees, he would need to carry the wood an extra few hundred meters.

Whether it was him or the other villagers cutting down trees, they would always leave a distance of at least three hundred meters as a form of reverence towards the Yan Family.

If one were adamant about felling trees next to the Yan Family's land, there would be no issue if the Yan Family didn't care. However, should they feel that their dignity was being disrespected and decide to kill a chicken to warn the monkeys, then that person could be in big trouble.

Out of profit-seeking and danger-avoidance, people would rather walk the extra few hundred meters to avoid trouble.

A Chinese red pine with a trunk as thick as an adult's thigh was chosen by him.

He swung his saber to find the right spot and chopped down hard.

Slash skill proficiency +0.01.

One chop, two chops, three chops...

Each chop accurately struck the intended spot.

On the eleventh chop, the Chinese red pine thunderously fell to the ground.

"My blade technique still needs improvement!"

Qin Niu was not very satisfied with the efficiency.

If it were an ordinary woodcutter, chopping down such a thick pine would require no less than a hundred swings without fail.

He only needed eleven, which was already quite astounding.

The pine's wood is hard and rich in resin.

It makes for excellent firewood.

The only drawback is that it's hard to chop, comparable to tough woods like camellia or hornbeam trees.

Bringing it down was only the first step.

Next, he had to chop it into sections and then carry it back home.

Qin Niu started by trimming the branches, and then he began to chop it into two-meter-long logs before carrying them back home.

Thump, thump, thump...

The sound of his diligent wood-chopping echoed through the silent mountains.

He didn't count how many swings it took.

After felling the fifth pine and when he was cutting it into logs, one swing seemed to bring about a significant change.

It was hard to describe, but that swing felt more effortless and effective.

It also had greater power.

It seemed he had a deeper understanding of how to leverage strength.

He swung his blade for another chop.

Thwack!

The trunk, as thick as an adult's thigh, was penetrated by half with a single swing.

The blade was embedded in the tree, and it took a great effort to pull it out.

"This... is too fierce! That swing I just made had a different sensation, and the power increased several-fold."

Qin Niu realized that his Slash Martial Skill proficiency must have leveled up.

He checked his attributes.

Martial Skill: Slash Technique, slightly accomplished at 100.02/1000 (10% chance of Critical Chop).

So that strike was called a Critical Chop.

The power was truly terrifying.

If it struck a person, even a burly man like Wang Haikun, it would probably only take one swing.

To kill an enemy with one blow, what's that called?

It seems like it's called an instant kill.

Everything else was good; it's just that the chance of Critical Chop was a bit too low.

One in ten swings might execute a Critical Chop.

After leveling up his Slash Martial Skill, Qin Niu felt even more motivated.

Before, he needed eleven or twelve swings to chop down such a thick tree. Now, if a Critical Chop occurs, it would only take about three swings. Even without a Critical Chop, a consistent performance would take only about six to seven swings to chop it down.

The increase in strength was visible.

"I should be capable of hunting wolves now, shouldn't I?"

Qin Niu licked his lips.

It had been a while since he last tasted wolf meat. More than missing the taste of meat, he preferred the sensation of his cultivation rapidly improving after consuming wolf meat.

During these six days, without wolf meat, his cultivation only increased by a tiny bit each day.

That's the downside of not practicing a cultivation technique.

Natural growth in cultivation is extremely slow, even halting completely after reaching adulthood.

After bundling the chopped wood, he could carry two logs at a time.

Any more weight and he wouldn't be able to move.

A log of fresh wood weighed around one hundred pounds, so two logs were two hundred pounds. With the load on his back, he couldn't even lift his head.

Finally getting the two logs home, he cooked some corn mixed with wild vegetables, then took the piece of pork Wang Wanyan had given him from the well and cut off a bit to boil in the pot.

He couldn't help it; the work he did now was more than before, and with the growth in his cultivation, his appetite had substantially increased.

With only so much grain at home, he had to mix in a lot of the unpalatable wild vegetables to stave off hunger.

Luckily, these hard days of suffering should end in no more than two more months.

The corn in the fields should be ready to harvest in less than two months.

Given this year's yield, there would be no problem for him to eat his fill all by himself.

"Now that my Slash Martial Skill has reached slight accomplishment, and my cultivation level has reached Mortal Realm Onefold 37.6, I should be able to afford some game," he thought to himself.

While eating his meager meal, he contemplated quietly.