Chapter 49 Four Years of Development

Before he knew it, four hurried years had passed, and Li Xiang was now sixteen years old.

The current Li Xiang had long since shed the youthful immaturity of a few years prior. His pupils were as dark as ink, and even a casual glance sweeping to the side revealed an aura of peerless, proud sharpness.

Every casual movement he made appeared utterly ordinary, yet the overbearing and commanding presence that occasionally emanated from him seemed as though it could eclipse the heavens and the earth.

These past four years had been far from peaceful.

First, the father and son, Li Yang and Li Xiang, had successfully achieved complete control over Bingzhou. Of Bingzhou's nine commanderies, aside from Dingxiang, Yunzhong, and Jiuyuan, which were controlled by the Southern Xiongnu, the remaining six had all been brought under their banner. Trusted aides had been dispatched to crucial positions in each of these six commanderies to tighten control over the entire province.

Following this, Bingzhou vigorously reclaimed wasteland over the past few years, using this to attract refugees to settle down.

Although the Yellow Turban Rebellion had not yet erupted, there were still no small number of starving people and refugees across the Central Plains who could not secure a single meal. Otherwise, the Yellow Turban teachings of the three Zhang brothers would not have expanded and flourished in such a short period of time, nearly allowing Zhang Jue to sweep across the entire realm with his Yellow Turban army.

During these four years, Li Xiang initiated another summoning. However, this time, the summon did not focus primarily on martial prowess or intelligence as before; instead, he chose to summon a grand talent in statecraft.

After all, desolate though Bingzhou might be, it was still one of the thirteen provinces of the Han Empire, dealing with myriad affairs. Moreover, Bingzhou was the future foundation territory that Li Xiang had plotted for himself, and it could not be neglected in the slightest. Naturally, Li Xiang needed to find someone with sufficient capability to help him govern this place properly.

It was precisely with these considerations in mind that Li Xiang utilized the peerless talent summoning card he had obtained as a reward from the previous task of exterminating the northern nomads. The figure summoned this time was Di Renjie, the prime minister of the Martial Tang Dynasty, also known as Lord Di—a peerless dual-attribute talent with an intelligence rating of 96 and a political rating of 98.

Di Renjie's implanted background was that of the head of the Taiyuan Di clan and a close friend of Li Yang. After Li Yang was promoted to Inspector of Bingzhou, he accepted Li Yang's invitation to become the Assistant Inspector of Bingzhou, assisting Li Yang in governing the province.

Although Di Renjie was implanted into the faction of his father, Li Yang, Li Xiang was more than happy to see this outcome. After all, a supreme talent like Di Renjie would be wasted if he were placed directly under Li Xiang's own command right now. Given his current situation, there were simply no suitable positions available that would allow Di Renjie to fully display his abilities. Placing him under his father Li Yang's command, conversely, would allow Di Renjie's talents to be utilized faster and better. Even so, the mere position of provincial assistant inspector was still underutilizing Di Renjie's vast capabilities.

After summoning Di Renjie, Li Xiang also thoroughly organized the resources currently in his possession. At present, Li Xiang still had one random summoning card, one top-tier talent summoning card, one historical beauty summoning card, and 306 summoning points. These were already enough for him to perform a total of six summons.

As for the excess summoning points, Li Xiang had acquired them from native talents of the Three Kingdoms era. After all, as mentioned previously, there was no shortage of talents in this world whose four-dimensional stats exceeded 80 in at least one category. They might be obscure and unknown in history, but they truly existed in reality.

The arrival of Di Renjie, however, brought Li Yang a pleasant surprise. After Di Renjie was summoned, Li Xiang suddenly gained an extra set of memories, from which he learned that several other individuals had arrived along with Di Renjie. They were Li Yuanfang, Hu Jinghui, Zeng Tai, Di Ruyan, Zhang Huan, and Li Lang.

Zeng Tai, Hu Jinghui, Di Ruyan, and Zhang Huan were, as before, either Di Renjie's students, sworn sons, niece, or personal bodyguards. Meanwhile, Li Yuanfang and Li Lang were even implanted as collateral branch members of the Li clan.

Li Xiang clearly remembered the system stating that only divine-level talent summons could bring along other individuals upon their advent, yet Di Renjie was clearly just a peerless talent. While he was by no means inferior, he was ultimately not a divine-level talent, and a slight gap still existed between them.

Filled with endless doubts, Li Xiang questioned the system and learned that the system had already undergone another upgrade after the balance adjustments and the summoning of a full 200 people. The last time it happened, the sudden emergency surrounding Yu Ji had caused the system to forget to inform Li Xiang.

After further inquiries, Li Xiang finally understood the changes following the system's upgrade. In fact, compared to before the upgrade, only two points had been added: first, from then on, summoning peerless talent could also bring along certain figures who shared deep bonds with them, and the host still had a high probability of subduing these accompanying individuals.

The second point was that if the summoned individual had a connection to Li Xiang himself, Li Xiang would also receive a set of implanted memories.

Furthermore, Li Xiang learned from the system that if the system continued to upgrade in the future, it might eventually become possible for even top-tier or ordinary first-tier talents to bring certain figures into the world upon being summoned.

Hearing this, Li Xiang finally felt things made sense.

After all, the system was supposed to assist him, but the situation up to that point was that he had only summoned ten people, yet nearly 150 people had been generated through the balancing mechanism. This situation was clearly abnormal.

Now, if his summoned characters could bring a portion of their entourage into the world as the system continuously upgraded, he would possess greater strength and a more sufficient foundation to sweep across the world.

Take Di Renjie's accompanying lineup, for example. Although the number of people was not large, the quality of the talent was not lacking. Figures like Li Yuanfang, Hu Jinghui, Zeng Tai, and Di Ruyan had all reached the top-tier level in their respective fields of expertise. Unlike Zeng Tai and Di Ruyan, who had only just stepped into the top-tier threshold, the martial prowess of Li Yuanfang and Hu Jinghui was quite formidable even among top-tier experts. As for the other two, Zhang Huan and Li Lang, they had also reached the first-tier level. Such a lineup of talents was immensely important to Li Xiang during his early entrepreneurial phase.

Compared to the development of his sphere of influence, the growth of Li Xiang's personal abilities was also strikingly fruitful.

Perhaps because these past few years constituted the final period of peace, Li Xiang seized almost every single fraction of time to study.

In the mornings, he went to the military camp to learn martial arts from the various generals; in the afternoons, he had Wang Meng and Wei Xiaokuan guide him in handling state affairs and studying military strategy. Consequently, Li Xiang's five-dimensional attributes had soared rapidly over the past four years.

Although Li Xiang's five-dimensional attributes still could not compare with historical standouts like Wang Meng and Xue Rengui, they were already far from shabby.

Through four years of continuous study, Li Xiang's current five-dimensional stats had become: Command 85, Martial Prowess 85, Intelligence 90, Politics 88, and Charisma 89—all five dimensions having reached the first-tier level.

The reason Li Xiang was able to make such massive progress, aside from his own personal efforts, was partly because he had been younger a few years ago with lower stats, leaving ample room for growth. On the other hand, it was because this period happened to be the golden age for learning.

However, despite the tremendous progress made over these past four years, making such dramatic leaps in the future would prove difficult. The higher the five-dimensional attributes became, the harder it was to advance further.

For instance, while Li Xiang's command and martial prowess had increased by dozens of points over the past few years, his intelligence attribute had only gone up by a mere few points; the disparity between them was easy to imagine.