Chapter 38 - The Longsword Team

Translator: Tuiwen Editor: Tuiwen

As soon as the prefecture overseer left, Shen Ling returned to his room and sat down slowly.

As far as he was concerned, developing the sharecroppers’ village was far more important to him than developing the Qi Hua City which hadn’t developed much.

Truth be told, he didn’t want to be stabbed in the back this time.

It was better to hold Qi Hua City in his hands.

After a while, the old village chief walked towards Shen Ling and placed a thick book beside him. He said softly, “Young Master Shen, this is the list of names you asked for.”

“Ahem!”

The old village chief coughed a few times.

Shen Ling raised his head in amazement and asked, “Have you been feeling unwell recently?”

The old village chief shook his head and smiled. “It’s an old problem, Young Master Shen. You don’t have to worry about me.”

Shen Ling smiled back. “It’s nothing. I happen to know some medical skills. Let me take a look at you.”

As he said this, Shen Ling held the old man’s arm.

In all honesty, Shen Ling didn’t know any medical skills.

However, he had the inner strength of Longevity, so he used it to rotate around the old village chief’s body. Soon enough, he found the problem.

He also used his inner strength to examine his body and as Shen Ling did this, he discovered something else…

The old village chief was dying. He didn’t have so long to live anymore.

Actually, it was not an incurable disease. Instead, it was something beyond the physical. Shen Ling felt that the old man’s life was coming to a natural end.

After Shen Ling treated him, the old village chief exclaimed, “Young Master Shen is truly amazing!”

Shen Ling concealed his worry and said slowly, “It’s just a little trick. Remember to always take good care of your body, don’t tire yourself out too much.”

The old village chief shook his head. “I’m already old and I don’t know how much longer I can live. I’ll take the opportunity to do something when I can help. It can be considered to be my last rendition before I die.”

Shen Ling kept mute and didn’t say a word in reply.

However, he realized that the old village chief seemed to have sensed something.

Before he died?

These three words weighed heavily on Shen Ling’s heart. However, he changed the topic immediately and opened the register. “Why has the population of the village increased so much recently?”

The chief smiled and said, “The war is very chaotic now and no place is peaceful. Although our village is not so famous, in the eyes of the surrounding villages, it is the safest place.”

“Following all you said, we have kept these people and recorded their details in the register. Currently, there are a total of 3,200 villagers in the register…”

The old village chief felt relieved.

Just a few months ago, this small sharecroppers’ village only had no less than 100 households and more than 200 people.

In a short period, following Shen Ling’s arrival, the village had increased to more than 1000 households with more than 3,000 people.

Houses were being built each day and the camp wall was expanding.

If it weren’t for Shen Ling saying that they needed to relax their hands and feet, the village would have been unable to continue construction.

To put it bluntly, the area within the sharecroppers’ village’s camp wall was even twice that of the small Qi Hua City.

The same was true for the population.

After closing the register, Shen Ling looked at the sketch in front of him and frowned. “The population of the village is increasing so much, the length of the camp wall is also increasing. It will be a little difficult to manage with the current number of people. It seems that we should recruit more members for the Longsword Team.”

“Let’s put up the recruitment notice for the Longsword Team all around the village. It will be based on the principle of voluntary participation. We won’t force anyone to participate if they don’t want to.”

Shen Ling spoke softly.

There won’t be any preferential treatment as a member of the Longsword Team for now.

On the contrary, being a member of the Longsword Team was even more difficult than being a normal villager.

Due to the current situation as well as some complicated relations among different parties, there was a very high possibility that there would be more casualties.

For this reason, Shen Ling did not want to force the villagers to do what they didn’t want.

“I understand.”

The old village chief said with a gentle nod.

After thinking for a while, Shen Ling said again, “How about this, we can build another commercial street here and give some space to those people who are interested in doing business.”

“Okay.”

The old village chief noted down the place.

Shen Ling smiled and said softly, “That’s all for now.”

“Okay.”

With that, the old village chief left Shen Ling’s house.

When the notice came out, the villagers’ enthusiasm exceeded Shen Ling’s expectation.

In less than a day, the number of villagers who wanted to join the Longsword Team had already exceeded a thousand.

Shen Ling looked at these people and decided to accept them all. He simply waved his hand to that effect.

With that came the high-intensity training.

Unlike when he was training the soldiers, Shen Ling had higher requirements for these people.

He didn’t want the Longsword Team to have people who were as lazy as those soldiers. It happened that apart from building houses, they didn’t have much farm work. For this reason, they used their spare time for training.

“No!”

“No!”

As Shen Ling shook his head as people were being disqualified from the Longsword Team.

After three days of intense training, the number of villagers who had persevered till the end was more than 600.

“Da Zhuang!”

Shen Ling called out softly.

“I’m here, Young Master.”

Da Zhuang answered as he held his longsword upside down.

Shen Ling looked at Da Zhuang and said softly, “From today onwards, you will be the leader of the Longsword Team. You’ll be in charge of getting them to practice while I check on them later.”

“Be rest assured, Young Master. I’ll do my best,” Da Zhuang said in a deep voice.

When Shen Ling heard this, he nodded.

Da Zhuang was one of the young sharecroppers who in the beginning was not very talented.

With time, Shen Ling found out that those who had low talent could keep up with the first tier as long as they relied on continuous hard work.

All of a sudden, he became interested in talents!

As far as Shen Ling was concerned, hard work was also a type of talent.

For example, he was a very hardworking person.

Right now, Da Zhuang could take charge of affairs alone, even though his Iron Short was yet to move to the next level.

However, he was able to quickly learn the Mountain-splitting Saber Technique and was already on the third level!

When the Longsword Team’s training started, Shen Ling didn’t sit idly.

Since the Iron Body Technique was currently stuck at the sixth level, the attacks of the sharecroppers have been unable to increase his proficiency.

So, Shen Ling decided to change his cultivation technique and focus on offense!

This was the Longevity Technique.

Currently, the Longevity Technique was on the fifth level, and his proficiency was at 17,000/100,000.

Shen Ling began to cultivate!

‘You have completed one perfect circulation of the Longevity Technique, proficiency + 10.’

‘You have completed one perfect circulation of the Longevity Technique, proficiency + 10.’

Longevity, Longevity…

Immortality…

A day after!

‘You have comprehended of the essence of longevity, proficiency of the Longevity Technique + 100,000.’

He had a breakthrough!

Shen Ling opened his eyes slowly and looked at the crystal clear green liquid in his hand.

Although it looked very little, this little drop contained an extremely abundant power of longevity.

How abundant could it be?

Shen Ling suspected that if this was injected into a healthy person’s body, he could be stuffed to death by the power of longevity.

As the saying went, when the energy of life exceeded the limits of the body, it would inflate like a balloon.

“Bang!”

There was a short pause.

Shen Ling flipped his fingers, and the droplet-like power of longevity disappeared without any trace.

He did the same thing again and the droplet appeared again.

“Go forth!”