The 【Nest of the Clearsand General】 dungeon offered Zhou Yuan a line of thought.
The village elder's warnings and the fate of Cuiniang's late husband proved that game monsters and dungeons hadn't appeared only with Zhou Yuan's crossing over — they were a phenomenon woven into history.
This made him think at once of cities, forts, temples, and Daoist abbeys.
In a normal world, a city would most likely be built where transport was convenient or the terrain strategic.
Temples and abbeys, too, would favor famous rivers and great mountains, scenic spots.
But this world had game monsters and game dungeons, so a building's location carried one more layer of consideration.
"If I were a local, after finding a dungeon I'd have only two choices: one, keep it secret; two, guard it.
But the secrecy option isn't reliable — leave it untended and someone will always wander in by accident.
Guarding it, though costly in time and effort, means that with a certain strength of your own, no one will force their way into your manor, ancestral hall, bunker, or library."
When Zhou Yuan folded game dungeons into the plane of history, he reached a conclusion both good and bad.
The good: he needn't search the world for dungeons like a headless fly. Across long history, the easily-found game dungeons very likely already had their owners or guardians.
The bad: the powers that inherited game dungeons would very likely treat them as their family's most important wealth. They'd not only contrive to hide them but fight with all their might to protect them.
"The nation of Great Wei, and the dynasties before it — these ever-changing dynasties, each inheriting the last's legacy — must have accumulated no small number of game dungeons."
Zhou Yuan found his reasons for serving in the army had grown by one.
Originally he'd thought only of gaining the camp's resources; now he had another — a reason to slip into the court's ranks and investigate game dungeons.
To him, game dungeons concerned not only the source of experience but the swift strengthening of himself — and even a chance to brush against the fabled immortality, the deathless life.
Since arriving in this world, he'd badly lacked any sense of security or social standing; given the choice, he wouldn't let himself sink into want and ruin.
"I really wonder how the people of this world make use of game dungeons, and what sort of peculiar society they've developed."
Zhou Yuan had once asked the village elder about things like the "imperial examinations," but the elder said he'd never heard of studying books and then becoming an official by passing a test.
Great Wei practiced a "recommendation system," much like the "recommending the filial and incorrupt" of Blue Star's Han era.
Here, kings, lords, generals, and ministers truly were of a fixed stock; without some power behind your family, there was no chance of holding office.
Zhou Yuan had assumed such a system existed because productivity was low and the means of spreading knowledge limited.
Now the phenomenon of game dungeons told him it was very likely because the great clans, with dungeons as their inheritance, simply couldn't be killed off. With dynastic change unable to sever their roots, driving them from history's stage would be far too hard.
Wringing out his soaked clothes, picking up the clay pot, and tucking the six pearls into his belt, Zhou Yuan rose and headed home.
Seeing a dark figure push open the yard gate, Zhao Dahuang, on watch, stuck out his head and called.
"Shitou, practicing a while more?"
"No more tonight. My body's worn out — I'll get a good restorative sleep."
"That's grand. With you sleeping I can set my mind at ease. Come daybreak I'll fix you a chicken egg to coax your belly."
"Good. Flatcake alone doesn't keep off the hunger."
Zhou Yuan knew Zhao Dahuang was still mindful of their shared meat, feeling he'd taken advantage of a junior, and meant to bring back something solid in return.
He didn't refuse Zhao Dahuang's kindness; he answered with an easy word and toppled straight onto the bed.
Perhaps because he'd understood the way forward, this sleep was deep and sound.
In his dream, he cleared dungeons from level one to level a hundred, became not only the strongest of humankind but broke through the boundary between mortal and immortal.
Yet just as he roamed the cosmos and the starry sky, a deep-blue planet suddenly appeared and erupted with a mighty gravity that yanked him down from the heavens.
"No — that's a real low blow......"
Zhou Yuan flipped up with a carp's leap and successfully tumbled off the wooden bed.
Sunlight slanted through the window into the damp, dim room; on the wooden stump that served as a stool sat a coarse clay bowl, a tiny chicken egg lying within.
"Uncle Dahuang's a man of his word — said a chicken egg, and it's a chicken egg."
Zhou Yuan rose, splashed his face, bit open a willow twig to clean his mouth, then sat on the stump peeling the egg with one hand while checking his attribute panel with the other.
The three attributes — Essence, Qi, Spirit — showed no change, still a perfectly harmonious 1.
His Health had shifted again. After eating meat last night, his health bar had recovered to 97%. But after the dungeon's icy cold ravaged him several times over, his bar had dropped again to 92%.
Round it off, and last night's chicken was as good as eaten for nothing.
Mm — chicken eaten for nothing meant as good as no chicken eaten, which meant the chicken missing from the village head's house had nothing to do with him.
Beyond that, the biggest change on the attribute panel was one extra new skill.
【You have comprehended "Recuperation" and mastered a life skill.】
【Recuperation, Lv1 (1/10)】
【Effect: Recover from fatigue, nourish the spirit, ease negative states — the root of stillness, the start of motion.】
The glaring skill description made plain to Zhou Yuan how powerful the new skill was.
"No wonder I woke with my body at ease and my spirit refreshed, not a trace of having caught a chill — turns out sleeping's been turned into a skill."
Sleeping and eating were the two life skills Zhou Yuan valued most.
These were the two recovery-type skills he had the best hope of mining, and luckily both worked well, giving him a certain capital for trial and error.
Now aching muscles and a dropping health bar could no longer stop him from training skills.
"I rely on Food Replenishment and Recuperation to recover my condition.
Ergou has nothing. After his health drops, how does he recover his bar?"
Looking at his attribute panel, Zhou Yuan suddenly thought of Ergou.
That boy must have gone to 【Nest of the Clearsand General】 the night of his wedding — otherwise his health bar wouldn't have suddenly plunged to 89%.
"Thinking about it now, when the boy came to me with soft legs and a pale face, it was very likely a chill and fever, not any 'seven-times-a-night stud' business at all."
Zhou Yuan had heard Ergou speaking in the yard last night, so he wasn't worried the boy would die of illness. What he wanted more to know was how an ordinary person's health bar recovered, and whether overspending it would lower the bar's ceiling.
The thought left him unable to sit still — a brave self-experimenter like Ergou simply had to have an observer to gather data.
"Shitou, off for a run?"
"Mm. You two hurry and keep up, or you'll be in for a scolding from Uncle Dahuang."
"Shitou, let me put something to you — you woke late today, so let's skip the run.
These past days the idlers in the village have been mocking us, calling us a pack of cowards who don't train strength or spear, only how to run away."
"Then what are we waiting for? Fetch the sticks. Once we're chasing them down and beating them, they'll learn the good of running fast."
"Aha — coming, that's just the word we've been waiting for. Without you to lead, we couldn't well make the first move."