Soon after dinner, everyone retired to their respective rooms. It had been a long day for the Chens and was an even longer day for Max. He had woken up before first light and kept a light jog almost the entire day. The last two days of travel had really tired him out. He didn’t even have the chance to luxuriate in the fact that there was a bed. As soon as his head hit the pillow, he was out cold.
Max’s sleep was plagued by nightmares. He relived the moments when he killed the bandit. Somehow not seeing his actions and only seeing the results had made the whole fair even worse. His mind kept changing the expression the bandit made when it got stabbed, it was unsettling, to say the least.
After his mind finished torturing him with the bandit, it changed topics to his family. He saw the look of utter disgust on his parent’s faces when they found out what he had done. A tiny voice told him that even if he made it back to his world, he would no longer be accepted. He would have morphed into another person that his family wouldn’t recognize. His newfound powers might also land him in hot waters with the authorities. And what if the authorities made trouble for his loved ones to get to him?
It was early morning when his nightmares finally left him to his sleep. Finally, he enjoyed a few hours of uninterrupted rest.
When Max woke up, the sun was already high in the sky. He did a quick check of his character sheet and saw that he still had 354 hours left on his Greater Enhance Regeneration. Other than that and the experience he gained from killing the bandit, nothing else had changed. He needed 56 more experience points to level up and 330 cultivation points to get to the 8th Stage of Body Tempering.
Looking out the window next to his bed, he saw the father-son duo had already started working the fields. From outside his door, he could hear Chen Hua and what sounded like kids chatting. Max got out of his bed and put on his robe and shoes and walked out of the room.
When he appeared, all eyes turned to look at him. Aside from Chen Hua, there were also five kids of varying ages. The youngest looked to be four and the oldest maybe ten or eleven.
“Everyone say Good morning Big Brother Ma.”
There was a scattered chorus of greetings, it would have been cringe if it didn’t come from a bunch of kids. But since it was, it was pretty nice and dispelled some of his earlier gloom.
“Umm, good morning, everyone.” Max said with a smile.
“Ah, I was wondering when you would wake up. Come over here.” As she said that, she led Max to a smaller table off to the side. The dining table that they had used last night was taken up by the kids. On the smaller table, there was a bowl of porridge, some pickled radish, some fruits, and a small portion of meat.
After settling Max down, Chen Hua went back to the kids. Apparently, not only was she the best cook in the village, but also the village teacher. She was currently teaching the kids some basic characters. While he ate, he listened intently so as not to miss a thing. Thanks to his high Intelligence stat, he was able to commit everything to memory after a few repetitions. As he ate his breakfast, he learned a bit more about this world.
The lesson went on for another two hours. It was too slow for his pace, but it still imparted some very important information. Today’s lesson was on money. The currency used in this world had three denominations. Copper, silver, and Gold. As a rule of thumb, five copper coins were roughly enough for a basic meal like the one he just had.
He learned that this world was on a 400-day cycle, broken into four-100 day segments. One for each season. They were currently at the end of the third segment, which is when the crops are harvested.
Doing some rough calculations in his head, Max figured out that the average food cost per person per year was about 6,000 copper coins. The copper coins were similar to the pennies he had in his world. It was 1,000 copper coins to one silver bar. Each silver bar was the size of his finger. And lastly, it is 100 silver bars to one gold bar of the same size. That meant one gold bar was enough to cover a person’s food expenses for over 16 years.
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For the next two hours, he learned the characters for a day, month, year, the money denominations, and a few numbers.
‘This is great, finally learning how to read and write. But this is going way too slow for my liking.’
The lessons were done for the day and the children were playing among themselves. Chen Hua came up to him and asked “How did you like the food?”
“Oh, it was amazing! My father isn’t much of a cook so this was great. Are you also the village teacher?”
“Hahaha, you flatter me. The moms take turns looking after the children so everyone can have some time to themselves. It was only recently that Hu’er started to go hunting and helping out on the farm. So I still occasionally help out with the kids.”
“Oh, I see.”
“Aunty Chen, can you do me a favor?”
“Of course, just name it! You have done so much for my family. I will do anything I can to help!”
“It’s nothing big, my father was quite eccentric and never taught me anything about the outside world. That includes the money system you taught today and the characters you use. Can you spend some time each day teaching me some of that?”
“That is no problem at all! We can start as soon as the children leave.”
One by one the children were picked up by their parents. A few of the moms gave Max a quick nod and while the others seemed to be wary of him. Before Chen Hua could start the lessons, another knock came from the door. This time it was Wang Wu, the person that had asked Max to halt when he was approaching the villagers after the bandit fight. He was also the strongest person on the villager's side during that fight at the 4th Stage of Body Tempering.
Wang Wu had come to collect the horse that Chen Ying had borrowed the day before and to invite Max to the village center so he could have a conversation with Li Kung.
Before leaving, Max excused himself to the room where he was staying with Chen Hu. He told Wang Wu that he had to bring out some of the berries that were still left in his pack, which was true. However, the real reason was to pick up his dagger. He had taken it off before going to sleep. This time instead of tying it to the right side of his waist, he fastened it to the backside. The robe that he was wearing now covered the dagger.
‘You can never be too careful.’
“Brother Wu, wait for me!”
Just before the two of them were going to set off, Chen Ying saw this and caught up to them.
“Brother Ying, I am glad to see you are on your feet. I was surprised when I saw you in the field. You look a lot better than yesterday.”
“Ahh yes, this is thanks to Little brother Ma. He shared some very potent medicine last night.”
Chen Ying made a face that signaled them to get going. Seeing this Wang Wu knew something was amiss but decided not to push the subject.
The walk to the village center took about 25 minutes. Along the way, he had learned that Lu Kung’s house also served as the town hall.
There wasn’t much to the village center; it was just one big space. Chen Ying had said that this was where people usually gather when there were events. Usually once a year, they would have a huge celebration once all the crops had been successfully harvested. Sometimes visiting merchants would also set up shop here, but Bai Si Zun was a pretty poor village so the merchants don’t usually come often. Most times it would be when they were passing by and needed a place to stay for the night.
Directly in front of the trio was a large building. It was still one story tall, but compared to Chen Ying’s house, it was at least four to five times larger. On one side of the house was also the stable for the horse. Max had noticed that it looked pretty full and that this might be the last horses to be returned.
‘Chen Ying’s place wasn’t that far from here. For this one to be the last horse, they might have purposely waited. Maybe they were discussing how to deal with me. Or maybe I am just overthinking things…’
“Ah Brother Wu, if I remember correctly I think the bandit that little brother Ma had killed was using a saber. Do you know if it’s in the armory?”
“It is, I was there in the morning. Why do you ask?”
“Well, look at little brother Ma here. Doesn’t he look so heroic? But he’s missing a weapon. I was thinking we should give him that saber since it was from the bandit that he took care of. I’ll go ahead and grab it.”
Before Wang Wu could answer, Cheng Yi had already sprinted away in the direction of Li Kung’s house.
Max saw all of this and secretly nodded to himself. He was hoping for this to happen. He didn’t think anyone would actually believe him if he told people his father was a mysterious and strong cultivator that lives in the forest. Instead, if other people were to tell his story and they have some “proof” it would make it a lot more credible. Chen Ying was likely going in first so he could give Li Kung the information.
Max could see the act had been somewhat forced. But since this would serve his end, he didn’t call it out, and instead, he just nodded at the suggestion. Wang Wu had clearly seen something was off with Chen Ying’s behavior now and also before, but he had left so quickly he couldn’t ask him.
A couple of minutes later, the horse was placed into the stable and the two of them walked into Li Kung’s house.
It was a nice house, there was a lot of open space. Even though it was one story, it had high ceilings. Max wasn’t sure what to expect. He had guessed that this being the house of the village chief there would be a bit more decorations. However, aside from a banner that was placed on the back wall, everything else prioritized function over fashion. He did notice a fireplace that was to the right side of the house that led up to a chimney.
‘That must be where one of the smoke columns that I saw when I was at the cave. Hmm, I wonder how Ma Erk is doing. With that Hawk, he might catch up to me soon.’