Ita Era

Chapter 148 Escort (Part 2)
Ding Shi stepped forward with a mule, clasped his hands in greeting, and said, "Excuse me, esteemed heroes, please produce your evidence."

"evidence?"

"Clear the road, and plant the trees as evidence." Ding Shi took out his official seal: "I am the Chief Justice, in charge of adjudicating cases. If you have evidence, then you will naturally have to pay a fee. If you don't have evidence, then you will be fined."

Ding Shi dismounted from the mule, took two steps forward, and the dozen or so people retreated together. Ding Shi smiled and said, "Give me the money, ten taels each."

The leader shouted, "Charge!"

The two sides clashed, and the one-armed Ding Mian easily handled the situation, soon taking down half of the men. The others retreated one after another. Ding Shi shouted, "I'll give you 20 minutes to go home and get money to ransom yourselves." He then began searching the people on the ground, punching anyone who resisted.

This group had quite a few items on them, clearly having succeeded several times; Ding Shi didn't even let a single copper coin go. Su Su, watching with envy, also joined in the search. Money wasn't really important; the key was that it was fun.

Ding Shi opened a cloth bag containing a dozen or so seeds. He picked one up and read the system description: they were seeds of various fruit trees. Ding Shi put the bag away.

Behind him came Su Su's ghostly scream: "Playing cards, King of Hearts, may you never die together."

Ding Shi curiously moved closer to Su Su. It was a regular skill card. "Unbreakable Bond," it flew a heart towards the target. If it hit the target within five minutes, all external damage received by the user would be absorbed by the target, until the skill's duration ended or the target died. The cooldown was 24 hours, and it could only be used once a day.

The condition of external injury indicates that suicide cannot trigger the "unbreakable bond".

After Ding Shi finished reading, he caught a glimpse of the sneaky-looking Su Su out of the corner of his eye. Su Su jumped back five meters, and a pink heart floated towards Ding Shi at the speed of an ordinary person walking. No matter how Ding Shi changed position, it always followed him.

Ding Shi drew his sword and cleaved the red heart in two with a single stroke.

Su Su cried out in pain, clutching her chest with one hand. Ding Shi walked over and asked curiously, "What's wrong?"

Su Su stared at the data panel for a while: "Heartache, like being stabbed with a knife, three minutes left in the countdown." Two minutes had passed for Hearts, making a total of five minutes.

Ding Shi was speechless. What kind of weird skills are these? Can't this damn system learn something?
Ding Shi pinched the skill card, which was useless due to its lack of power, between two fingers and asked the people on the ground, "Has anyone ever seen something like this before?"

The people on the ground all shook their heads.

Ding Shi asked, "Are there any other strange things?"

They all shook their heads.

Ding Shi noticed an old man on the ground wearing a felt hat with shifty eyes. He reached out and pulled off the old man's hat, only to find that the old man had a headband with strange symbols engraved on his forehead.

Ding Shi stomped on the old man's stomach, saying, "You're not behaving yourself," and then reached out to remove his headband, which turned into a card.

Card Description: Lightning Ninja Headband, exclusive to the Ninja class. Add it to Lightning Ninja Village quest items to unlock the personal trial dungeon.

This is a good thing. The newspaper says that all ninjas are trash right now. If you want to improve your abilities, you must join a ninja village and start as an apprentice, gradually rising through the ranks to become a genin, chunin, chunin, chunjonin, jonin, jojonin, and finally a shaman.

Ding Shi shoved his headband into his pocket and sighed. Wang Meng, that penniless bastard, was really no good to be taken advantage of and still owed him a lot of money.

Besides pure primal force and demonic force, each profession has a personal trial dungeon. By passing the trial dungeon, you can join a designated village, sect, family, or faction, starting as a lowly apprentice, completing tasks, learning skills, and eventually reaching the pinnacle of life.

Twenty minutes later, no one came to deliver the ransom, so Ding Shi ordered the men to take off their clothes, leaving only their underwear, and burned all their clothes. Then he directed the cavalry to pass through.

Removing clothes is a search tactic; there might be other treasures hidden inside. Burning clothes is a way of expressing concern that if you don't find anything, someone else might get it.

after an hour……

"I opened this road, I planted these trees..."

This time, professional bandits came, carrying various weapons such as axes, broadswords, and spiked clubs.

Ding Shi drew his official sword, and Su Su drew a water pipe. Ding Shi glanced at it, thinking he was mistaken, but when he looked again, it was indeed a metal water pipe, two meters long. He had found it strange last time that this item was on the purchase order.

Su Su hasn't even started learning the Nine Swords of Dugu yet; she's still using the Arhat Staff Technique.

The Arhat Staff Technique is a highly representative skill. It consists of two moves. The first move, "Universal Salvation," allows the staff to fly out and strike anywhere within a 10-meter radius. This move exhausts all internal energy, and the stronger the internal energy, the stronger the attack. The second move, "Arhat Staff Technique," has no set form, but after use, internal energy is amplified to the staff and the user's body. How to execute the move is up to the user.

"Arhat Staff Technique!" Su Su shouted, grabbed one end of the staff and swung it around, sweeping across the battlefield and splitting Mount Hua with force.

Coincidentally, Ding Shi, who also wields a knife, also favors these two moves. However, he has a wide variety of knife techniques, as he has actually cut people before and is very adept at using small, powerful strokes.

Two minutes later, the twelve bandits were either slashed or knocked down. Ding Shi was about to touch their bodies when Su Su pushed him aside to touch the corpses instead. Su Su preferred touching the living.

During this body search, we only obtained a pair of amber earrings. These earrings belong to a young lady surnamed Qian in the capital. If we take the amber earrings back to the young lady's parents, we can receive a reward.

Because of this mission, the six bandits who should have survived were all killed by Ding Shi with a single stroke.

The last one left was the bandit who had found the earring. Ding Shi handed the knife to Su Su. Su Su didn't take the knife. Her left hand, which was holding the earring, trembled with anger. Her right hand picked up the water pipe: "Arhat Staff Technique." With the skill enhanced, she stabbed the bandit 18 times.

Because of the earring story, Su Su was in a bad mood and rode her bike in silence. Ding Shi rode alongside her, took off his shoes, and stepped on her shoulder with his bare foot. Su Su was furious and yelled, flooring the accelerator, with the hose on the handlebars, and chased after Ding Shi all the way.

It takes 5 hours to get from Yong'an County to the prefectural capital, and 1 hour to get to Beimian Village, a total of 4 hours on the road. The system has scheduled an attack every hour.

The first wave was farmers. The second wave was bandits. The third wave was outlaws.

Compared to the previous two waves, the bandit raids are now more professional and systematic.

There's a wooden sign by the roadside with the words: "One tael per person." Next to the sign is a hollow tree stump; you can throw money into it.

Ding Shi and Su Su exchanged a glance, took out a rope, tied Ding Shi up, and lowered him down from the tree stump. Five minutes later, Ding Shi returned with only two taels of loose silver in his hand.

Giving money is out of the question, not because of the money itself, but because of the props. The bandits want money, we want props, it's a win-win situation.

However, the attack came very suddenly.

This was a road about 1.8 meters wide, lined with trees on both sides, with a sharp turn 20 meters ahead. Suddenly, five people sat up in the grass at this turn, each holding a bow, and five arrows shot straight at them. Ding Shi and Su Su each took one, while three more flew between them, heading towards the carriage.

The attack came very suddenly. Su Su and Ding Shi had been on a leisurely stroll and hadn't been on high alert. Furthermore, the proximity made avoidance virtually impossible.

Ding Shi struck the flying arrow with his palm, changing its trajectory and sending it piercing through Ding Shi's non-existent left arm. Su Su fell to the ground along with the carriage. Ding Shi looked down and saw that the arrow had struck the muscle below her left collarbone. But she had no time to cry out in pain; she broke the arrow, summoned a shield, and charged towards the archers.

Seven masked men jumped from the treetops onto the roof of the carriage. Ding Shi leaped away with both feet, then pounced on the horse's back, attacking the masked men in the first carriage.

The masked man brought his sword down, striking the blank book in Ding Shi's hand with a clanging sound of metal striking metal. Taking advantage of the moment, Ding Shi knocked the masked man down, clamped his legs around the man's neck, and executed a death roll, breaking the masked man's neck.

Ding Shi jumped off the first car, and the masked man from the second car also jumped off, raising his knife to strike Ding Shi. Ding Shi, holding the wordless book in his hand, parried both blows and then delivered a high kick to the masked man's chin. The masked man staggered backward, and Ding Shi seized the opportunity to rush forward, delivering a right hook with a fist powerful enough to smash through a coffee table. The fist struck the masked man's temple, causing him to stagger to the right before finally collapsing and dying.

Another masked man arrived in the second car. He wielded a sword, and his swordsmanship was agile. Ding Shi was unable to find an opportunity to attack and was instead injured in two places.

This was the first time Ding Shi had truly experienced the power of swordsmanship. In comparison, saber techniques were simple and brutal, and Ding Shi's brute force approach was effective against many weapons. Swordsmanship, on the other hand, was agile and unpredictable, leaving Ding Shi feeling restricted.

The woman in red also uses a sword, but she follows the sword energy path. The sword is just a brush; the sword energy drawn with a brush is the most powerful. The two are completely different paths.

Ding Shi turned and ran. The masked swordsman didn't chase him, but instead used his sword to lift the curtain and shouted, "Come out, all of you!" Ding Shi ran ten meters away, then turned around, and the stone in his hand flew towards the masked swordsman like a discus. The masked swordsman didn't turn back. With a sound like a watermelon bursting, the masked man's head was split open, and he died on the spot.

At this moment, the remaining four masked men abandoned the carriage, two on the left and two on the right, and slowly walked towards Ding Shi.

The blank book can only be thrown two meters; it cannot be used as a hidden weapon.

Ding Shixue, like a cuckoo, flicked his toes to hook a stone into his hand, weighed it in his hand, pointed it at one of the masked men, and then made a throwing motion.

The masked men all stopped. The masked man who had been called upon was fully alert and on guard. A stone flew out, and the masked man dodged to the right in advance, the stone flying past his ear.

Dante had two stones in his hands.

Ding Shi broke the long stone in half and hid one piece in his palm. When the masked man dodged, the stone in his palm, without using any throwing force, was launched like a hidden weapon using the strength of his wrist.

A sharp stone pierced the masked man's left eye, causing him to collapse, convulse, and die. Although the small stone was not as powerful as the large one, its accuracy was extremely high; it pierced through his eye and entered his brain.

"The wind is strong, pull it out."

At a command, three archers slid down in unison, while three masked men flew into the woods to the left and right, disappearing without a trace in the blink of an eye.

Three people in the convoy were injured; none were seriously injured or killed.

Ding Shi cruelly pulled an arrow from a student's body, applied wound medicine, and the bleeding quickly stopped. However, this was only a miraculous medicine, treating the symptoms but not the root cause; a fully healed patient required a "bugged" doctor to administer the medicine.

Seeing Ding Shi walking towards her, Su Su jumped up in surprise: "Don't come any closer!" She had heard how miserable the NPC had been.

"What should we do then?" It was a barbed arrow that went in through the muscles above the chest and deep into the back.

Ding Shi studied it for a while and said, "The arrow is about two centimeters away from the back. We can either dig it out or push the arrow all the way in and let it come out from the back."

Su Su wanted to cry: "Are you still my friend?"

Ding Shi said, "If we weren't friends, I would have bad news for you. Your arrow-breaking technique is excellent; the shaft isn't sticking out at all. Now you need to use a screwdriver to break the arrow so the broken piece can come out from your back. You could also use your fingers."

Su Su burst into tears: "What do you think?"

Ding Shi first found an arrow, broke off its head and tail, and then found a stone. Ding Shi used the arrow shaft to press against the broken arrow and said, "If I smash it with this stone, it might come out, or it might not."

Su Su: "Use your fingers."

Ding Shi nodded, placed his right index finger on the broken arrow, and asked, "Are you ready?"

Su Su gritted her teeth and nodded.

Ding Shi exerted force, but things didn't go as planned. In his imagination, if he stuck his finger into the wound, the broken arrowhead would immediately emerge from his back due to the force. In reality, his finger encountered significant resistance from muscle contraction, and he could only push the broken arrow forward little by little.

Su Su bit Ding Shi's arm, and Ding Shi, enduring the pain, pushed forward with all his might. Only when two finger joints were embedded in the wound did the arrow emerge from his back.

Ding Shi glanced at Su Su's back and then froze.

Su Su had a bad feeling and asked tremblingly, "What's wrong?" They can't just bully her alone.

Ding Shi said, "Not many came out; we don't have tweezers or pliers."

Su Su decisively said, "Use your mouth to bite it."

The thought of Su Su's blood flowing into his mouth made Ding Shi feel nauseous and he gagged.

Su Su angrily pointed at Ding Shi: "You discriminate against me? I'm breaking off all ties with you."

"I'll bite, I'll bite, okay?" Making friends is so hard.

Ding Shi held Su Su's shoulder with his right hand, bit down on the exposed arrowhead and pulled it outwards. Amid Su Su's screams, he finally got the broken arrow out, applied wound medicine, and quickly stopped the bleeding.

Ding Shi spat, spat, spat, rinsed his mouth with water, rinsed his mouth, rinsed his mouth, spat...

Su Su, unable to bear it any longer, kicked Ding Shi, finally stopping his antics. Damn it, is my blood that hard to drink? I've practically forced a good boy into becoming a boss.

Looting the corpse. Silver notes, an iron sword, bow and arrows, etc., all junk.

An hour later, they arrived at the fourth level.

The fourth challenge was with only one person, an exceptionally handsome man with flowing long hair, carrying a Jiao Wei Qin (a type of Chinese zither) on his back. He was polite and spoke in a gentle and refined manner. He cupped his hands in a fist and said, "You two officials have worked hard. If you can keep Liu Guangzong here, I will give you a thousand taels of silver."

Ding Shi likes the NPCs' straightforwardness, which saves time and allows him to get more things done.

Su Su turned her head and whispered, "I think he wants to kill him."

Ding Shi said, "In the world of martial arts, the less you know, the better."

Su Su whispered, "You think we can't beat him?"

Ding Shi said, "He has six fingers on his left hand."

Su Su said, "Together, we have nine more than him."

Ding Shi said, "Haven't you heard of the Six-Fingered Demon of the Qin?"

Su Su thought for a moment: "It sounds familiar."

Ding Shi extended a fist, and Su Su reached out and grasped it, their hands forming a fist salute. Ding Shi said, "Brother, I'm just trying to make a living in this world, I have no interest in gold or silver. Do you have anything else? Skill books, playing cards? Or something that can save your life?" Even if I can't beat you, can't I ask you for something?

The man smiled warmly and replied, "I'm sorry, sir, I only have gold and silver on me."

Ding Shi said regretfully, "Then I'm sorry, but we are, after all, officials appointed by the imperial court, and it is our duty to protect the people." He then drew his official sword.

Su Su asked, "Knowing you can't win, why fight?"

Ding Shi whispered, "We're 15 meters away from him. He heard us talking quietly just now. This guy is definitely the BOSS."

Su Su: "I'm asking why we had to hit them?"

Ding Shi said, "What's the difference between encountering a BOSS and not fighting it, and entering a treasure mountain and returning empty-handed?"

Su Su thought about it and felt that there was some truth to it, but she couldn't quite put her finger on what was wrong with it.

(End of this chapter)