How Bold Can a Person Be

After mastering the Destroyer's language, Liu Xuan looked at the Wilderness Soul before him.

Unlike the Fortune Treasure Tree, this fellow did not vanish the moment it handed something over.

Still, after this encounter, seeing it again would certainly not be easy.

It had fulfilled the promise it made to that cursecraft apprentice back then. From now on, it might not necessarily remain by the roadside.

This forest was vast beyond measure. It could possess any tree or blade of grass.

He had to take advantage of this opportunity and learn as much as he could.

Of course, from here on, he would have to exchange his own knowledge for it.

First, he needed to ask what the exact rules were.

“Can I upload knowledge too, and exchange it for something else?”

The Wilderness Soul nodded. “Yes. As long as you place your hand on my tree, you can choose to impart knowledge to me. However, once you impart that knowledge, you will forget it yourself. If you wish to recover it, you can only relearn it.”

As expected, there was a restriction on uploading knowledge. Once he gave it away, it would be gone from his own mind.

Leaving aside what he could upload, Liu Xuan was more interested in another question. “Then what can I learn from you?”

“Everything.”

The Wilderness Soul said the most pretentious thing imaginable in the calmest possible tone. “I have existed for far longer than you humans can imagine, and the knowledge I possess far exceeds the storage capacity of the human brain. When you choose to impart a particular field of knowledge to me, I will repay you with one random field of knowledge that I deem equivalent. But remember: you only have one chance to make an exchange.”

“Everything...”

After hearing that, Liu Xuan found himself even more troubled.

He had only one chance, and the knowledge the Wilderness Soul gave him would be something it considered equivalent. What, then, should he exchange?

Or rather, did he possess any knowledge of extremely high value that would not affect him much if he lost it?

Why did it feel like he had nothing?

He couldn’t possibly sell it some knowledge about video games, could he?

For instance, he knew a hundred ways to defeat a certain boss. What could he possibly get in return for knowledge like that?

No, that couldn’t be right. He couldn’t possibly be this useless!

There had to be room to work with.

Liu Xuan sank into thought. Whenever he played games, he had always believed that as a player, you had to dare to think outside the box.

If you didn’t dare to imagine the possibilities, then your ceiling in that game would forever remain the one set by its designers.

That didn’t necessarily mean exploiting bugs. Rather, there were some game mechanics that even the designers themselves might not have anticipated when they created them.

In any game, with so many characters, pieces of equipment, items, and skills, it was impossible for the designers to calculate every possible interaction and combination.

Take card games, for example. The strength produced by certain combinations of cards was something the developers absolutely could not have predicted beforehand.

That was why there were so many cases where, after players invented a certain strategy, it was immediately nerfed into uselessness—or even removed from the game entirely.

Liu Xuan’s heart suddenly stirred. He secretly glanced at the Wilderness Soul before him.

So far, this fellow seemed to have an especially good temperament and was extremely easy to talk to.

If he couldn’t make the decision himself, he could simply trick it... No, that wasn’t right. He could have a friendly discussion with it.

With that thought, Liu Xuan placed his hand against the tree trunk. In an instant, he felt his mind connect with some kind of existence.

However, he did not rush to make the exchange.

“Before we exchange anything, I have a few questions I’d like to ask.”

“Go ahead.”

“There should be a field of knowledge in my mind called ‘English.’ Can you see it? Well, it definitely isn’t complete, but it should still count as a field of knowledge, right?”

“Yes, I can see it. Although it is incomplete, its system is clear enough for it to count as knowledge.”

Just as he had thought, the Wilderness Soul answered practically every question. Apart from directly revealing the knowledge itself, it responded to each question in a straightforward, by-the-book manner.

So Liu Xuan continued asking, “Suppose—I mean, just suppose—that I impart English to you. What level of knowledge could I roughly exchange it for?”

Now that he was on the battlefield, English really wasn’t all that useful anymore, if he was being honest.

Ever since leaving school, the only English he regularly used consisted of a few gaming terms.

Of course, Liu Xuan could occasionally recognize English when he encountered it in everyday life. That counted as some degree of usefulness. But when he thought about it carefully, he would be fine even if he didn’t know it in those situations.

And besides, he was on a battlefield now. Who knew whether other countries would even still exist if the battlefield continued like this?

At most, he would have to replace words like boss, bug, and DoT with their equivalents in his own language—leader, exploit, damage over time, and the like.

They were only a few simple terms. Even if he forgot them, he could always learn them again later.

That was why this “useless” knowledge was the first thing that came to mind.

Still, whether he should exchange it depended on how the Wilderness Soul answered.

After all, knowledge was extremely difficult to quantify.

The Wilderness Soul barely had to think before giving him an answer. “I would probably randomly select a field of knowledge from among other incomplete languages, or perhaps an ordinary handicraft, and impart it to you.”

Liu Xuan nodded. He more or less understood what it meant by “equivalent.”

In that case, English had no value as a trade.

He would receive a random language, which would probably be useless.

There were so many languages in the world and throughout history. How lucky would he have to be to randomly obtain one that he could actually use?

As for an ordinary handicraft, that probably wouldn’t be useful either.

What if he ended up learning how to weave mats and sell straw sandals? Was he supposed to become the next Imperial Uncle?

So Liu Xuan asked another question. “I’ve also studied a little advanced mathematics and theoretical mechanics. Could I exchange those?”

Those subjects were extremely difficult by the standards of the real world. Surely they should be worth something good in return, right?

The Wilderness Soul replied, “You have essentially forgotten all of those subjects already. What little remains is fragmentary and lacks a complete system, so it cannot be exchanged.”

Liu Xuan: ...

Did it really have to expose him to his face?

“Then I also know the history of several countries. That history should count as a field of knowledge, right?”

The Wilderness Soul answered, “A few of the more detailed ones would count—those that include major events from each period. But histories with too many gaps would not.”

That made sense.

He had never specialized in the subject. Apart from a few major countries, Liu Xuan only knew bits and pieces of the histories of many others.

Those definitely wouldn’t qualify for an exchange.

But that was exactly the answer he had been waiting for. Since a relatively detailed history counted, then this would be easy.

It was time to put his plan into action.

Liu Xuan looked at the Wilderness Soul. “I have some historical knowledge here, but it includes a country’s political systems and policies, culture and art, geography and society, famous figures, major scientific developments, and a great deal more. I think it can be regarded as a single, unified whole. If you split it apart, that country’s history would be far too incomplete. So if I impart it to you, I’ll have to give it to you as a package.”

This time, Wilderness Soul pondered for a moment before nodding. “If you ‘package’ a body of knowledge like that for me, I’ll randomly ‘package’ a body of historical knowledge of equivalent scope for you as well.”

It worked!

Liu Xuan couldn’t help smiling triumphantly. This “tree” was simply too straightforward.

Then again, it might have been because the other party had lived for far too long and possessed far too much knowledge to care about Liu Xuan’s little trick.

But what the other party thought was unimportant. What mattered was that his plan had succeeded.

Liu Xuan immediately said, “I want to exchange the historical knowledge about Daiying in my mind with you!”