Professions Part One

That night Sheng Hao didn't go seek the moon, he didn't find any difficulty in falling asleep. His sleep was deep and helped him recover from the day of hard work.

He didn't even notice when, in the middle of the night, small specks of light shone brightly around his body. The surface of his skin shining softly as his body absorbed the moonlight based spiritual energy.

As his age advanced and approached the awakening of his spiritual soul, the speed at which his body naturally absorbed spiritual energy would augment in order to nurture the spiritualist's soul. Usually an awakening would occur around the age of seven when the spiritual energy accumulation reached its completion.

However, although the light-blue spiritual energy seemed to nourish his body. The majority of the energy still went straight to Sheng Hao's soul and helped his mind recover his overworked psyche. Helping his grandfather control the furnace's fire strained his weak body but shouldn't have overworked his mind to this degree. But trying to understand Sheng Wang when he smelted the burning ore with his technique fully emptied his mental endurance.

Upon finishing the session, he ate some left over food from their lunch meal and went straight up to his bed. The moment his head hit the mattress, his head was still full with images of his grandfather's Singing Hammer technique. His brain flashing images and stances of specific frame and sequences of the technique as he entered a deep sleep that relieved his spirit.

Strangely, even though his mind had fallen asleep. A region of his brain continued greedily processing the memory of the Singing Hammer technique, over and over in an unconscious manner.

After seeing his grandfather's technique, Sheng Hao's developed soul started affecting his young body in an unprecedented manner. Even the intake of moonlight energy he usually absorbed every night increased drastically and attained a new peak.

At the same time, inside Flamelle's house the old witch was sitting on her couch petting a docile black cat that purred in rhythm with the soft caress he was receiving. Suddenly, her head slowly tilted and moved in the direction of the Sheng pair's cottage. She gazed at the direction for a long time, her eye shining in a bright light, the crooked mouth that usually hung in a fear-inducing grin turned into an even more hideous smile and the hand that petted Little Black moved with more vigor.

"What a special child."

For the following weeks, Sheng Hao's body continued absorbing moonlight based spiritual elements through the night. His days were spent between the courtyard that was turned into a blacksmith workstation, the small forest and the old witch's house where he soon started learning how to read and speak the main language used in the Portalia Continent.

Although some place still used spoken dialects, specifically in recluse areas near the wilderness. The written language in the Portalia Continent, on the contrary, was commonly used by everyone. Everywhere and throughout ever single empires and kingdoms were using the same writing which simplified that process.

Although that factor made the task easier for the reincarnated man, he still found it difficulty as the characters used in the written language of the Portalia Continent were numerous and shared complex calligraphic shapes. In his Earthling view, the characters resembled a mixture of Hieroglyphs, Chinese scripture, with some shapes resembling Arabic letters. The fact that it was also written right from left made the task mentally troubling.

The learning was difficult, but his mental capacities backed his progress and made the rate of his learning steady and constant. On top of not being something he didn't feel like rushing, he genuinely enjoyed learning more about this world through the books owned by the old witch. Sometime, he felt suspicious when he asked Flamelle if she was in possession of other books due to the strange intonations of her answers.

His schedule was filled to the brim the day he started accompanying Buckethead through his hunts in the areas close to the Toe Village. The beasts they encountered were mostly wild game that didn't develop their spiritual nature yet and other weak ten-year-old spiritual creatures. Wolf, rabbits and other plant-based creatures that awakened their spirituality entered the young boy's eyes. All were in no position be capable of posing any threat to the strong combat-type spiritualist that accompanied him.

The trips were akin to bus tours, albeit with a hint of nature's fresh breath. There, he enjoyed recognizing plants, herbs and some strange spiritual mushrooms he had seen in the books he received from the old witch.

Every day might have been somewhat repetitive, but the reincarnated man found joy in learning different things. He felt that this world was vast and offered him thousands of opportunities, even at his young age, he felt pressed and stressed himself over missing any of them.

Sadly, he still felt that the four other elders that lived inside the village were keeping their distance from him. Apart from having learned their name through discussion with the Flamelle and Buckethead, he had never spoken to them nor have met them for more than a few seconds.

He felt a strange distance from the other elders. It wasn't the same kind of distance like he felt with Vitenka due to the shared history with Sheng Wang. Their past made any interaction with here somewhat difficult to go through for the reincarnated man.

However he still sensed that they were vowed to interact at some point. Even if the group of seniors were reclusive and asocial spiritualists, he still felt a hunch that he was going to spend some time with them if he continued living in this eccentric village. A place where nobody questioned his precocious mental capacities nor bothered him despite his curious nature.

Sometime between the breaks and through the few rest times during his journey's with the tribal spiritualist he felt a slight itch on his fingertips, an old sensation he had lost when he started basking himself in liquor back on Earth.

The day of his fifth birthday, Buckethead proudly delivered large objects to his backyard with a large smile plastered all over his callous face. His face clearly showed the happiness he was feeling as he genuinely enjoyed spending time with the developing toddler that he sweetly called Little Hao.

"What are you doing here Uncle Buckethead?"

"I'm dropping your birthday gift before going on a trip that might take me a few months or even years to finish."

"I made this by modifying what I used to train with back in my village." The large man omitted the fact that what he used as tools during his childhood were particularly large ores that possessed disproportionate weight compared to their size. Materials like these were difficult to shape into anything, and were usually kept in the shape of boulders.

"Enjoy your gift and make sure not to hurt yourself!" Buckethead shortly finished his explanation as his two thick arms dropped four large box near the wooden house.

"Grow into a strong man and stay healthy!" A strange emotional tinge could be heard in the sentence but Sheng Hao didn't say anything and only looked at the ridiculously wide back disappear in the distance.

"Have a safe trip Uncle Bucket." Answered Hao with a mindless smile on his round face. "I bet he is able to go everywhere with his current strength…" he thought as he couldn't help but imagine what kind of creature would be capable of posing any threat to the mountain-shaped man.

The meeting was short. It even seemed like the old spiritualist was affected by the separation as he had grown attached to the young toddler. Sheng Hao couldn't help but wonder about the reasons behind Buckethead's actions.

It would only be in a later date that Sheng Wang would reveal him that his tribe had been slain overnight by a vicious ancient beast. The only survivor of that massacre was a young Buckethead that had been hunting in the valley surrounding his tribe's village.

However the day of his birthday, the thoughts about the tribal spiritualist ended the moment he laid eyes on the cases that contained his gift. The curiosity in his eyes was apparent and wouldn't escape the notice of anyone if he wasn't alone inside the courtyard.

After looking at the boxes from a distance for a few seconds, he couldn't stop himself from approaching to look closer at the large wooden cases. The smell coming from the case was slightly scented. He didn't know if the pleasant odor came from its inside or was due to the material used when making the cases.

After looking at the boxes from all the available directions, he sensed their surface and opened the lid that was loosely sealed. His eyes shone with a stronger glint when he noticed small bars and large disks sitting deep inside the boxes.

"Oh!?" he exclaimed loudly as his eyes shone brightly for a split second before dying down right after the sudden reaction.

"He remembered that gibberish I spoke about…" he fell in deep pondering, thinking about that time where he had spoken with Buckethead about concepts related to developing one's physical strength.

He was surprised when he found himself recognizing the items that were stored inside the large wooden cases.

"How am I going to lift dumbbells with a body like mine?" he said with a strange grin that mocked his current condition.

He wondered slightly as he couldn't help but push his body upward, nearly standing on his toe, and grabbed one of the disks that sat on the side of the wooden cases. As soon as his finger touched the circular disk, his mouth opened in shock and the young boy incoherently mumbled a few words before lifting the disk taking it out of their cases.

"What a thoughtful man…" he repeated for a few times while lifting the weighted disk high toward the sun.

"Made out of some dense type of wood. This can definitely be used to train my current weak body!"

"More than perfect!" he added as his eyes couldn't help but focus on the natural wooden lines that danced along the weighted disk. The rough craftsmanship that was used to make the disk didn't hide the time that Buckethead had spent on the construction of the training tool.

"With this, the chances of injuring myself are definitely reduced as long as I keep a large focus on my form!"

"Working with Grandfather can already count as a decent workout for this weak body of mine, but I can start seeking a better physique with these tools!"

He placed the circular disk on a dry spot of the courtyard and started taking out the other tools that were lying inside the cases. It took him a little less than five minutes to assess every single disk and wooden bar with his small arms, his face moved with satisfied nods that shouldn't appear on the face of a chubby toddler.

In front of him laid dozens of circular disk with several arm-sized wooden bars where the disk could be inserted. Although the shape was rough and screamed of grassroot philosophy when it came to their appearance. He couldn't help but imagine scene of tribal people training with these weight and that thought further pushed his head forward during his nods.

Although the dumbbells crafted by Buckethead weren't made of rocks or metal, their current form perfectly suited his needs. On top of that, the furnace could always be used to upgrade his training tools with heavier sets when he needed to raise the difficulty.

"The craftsmanship really isn't half bad. And the weights are quite well made with a more than decent balance in their shape. This is definitely going to help me develop the skills needed for mastering Grandpa Wang's techniques."

A genuine smile flashed on his face, he couldn't help but truly enjoy the gift he had received from Buckethead. His mind couldn't help but feel that he had acquired the necessary tool to develop his weak physique. It was a problematic that has been bothering him for a few years now.

Although nobody in the village made him feel that he was lacking something in any way, the reincarnated man couldn't help but feel that it could bother his future progress. Especially when taking into account the dog-eat-dog nature of this world where his soul had arrived.

He knew that the world where the Portalia Continent existed was one that relied on personal strength and the skills one developed through their own profession. Just the simple fact than dozens of old spiritualist could create a recluse village that managed to maintain its autonomy was already proof of that.

One thing was sure about the Toe Village, he might feel bored in it but he had always felt safe and never had the thought that bandits or beasts could take on the defense of the weak-looking village.

Part of his mind knew that his Grandpa Wang had big expectation related to his future. The old man from the Sheng Clan had never spoken that thought out loud but Sheng Hao had always felt that something troubled the mind of the old man named Sheng Wang. The more he showed talent and wits, the further that expectation grew but the reincarnated man didn't mind feeling that stress.

After five years in this world, he didn't feel one single speck of unfamiliarity when interacting with Sheng Wang. Treating him as if he was his own grandfather, even without taking into account the Sheng bloodline that they both shared. Over the years, he not only grew accustomed to living with the old man, he had also come to appreciate the little amount of conversation they needed to share the small house where they lived.