Chao Wei threw his pickaxe, letting it bounce off. He attempted to catch it, only to fail several times. As the night went on, he began to get better, his idea was slowly and passively training his body and mind. Eventually, he got better, his movements sharpened, not like a cultivator, but more like a runner taking bases, he caught the pickaxe more and more. He was able to predict and remember the trajectory of where the pickaxe would fly and where the handle would fly due to the uneven weighting of the pickaxe. Where to duck and dodge, where to catch the handle. By the next morning, he had some breakfast and something to drink to keep up his energy. He would keep up this routine for the next few weeks, as Chao had gotten his pay for his mining.
The day came when he isolated himself deeper in the cave, and the foreman in the cave walked in deeper, where he would stumble upon Chao Wei, locked in throwing the pickaxe, running, catching, striking the node, letting it bounce off the node, tightening his bandage around his hands, catching the pickaxe and striking again, repeating the same motion over and over, shocking the foreman looking over the miners, he silently slipped away to alert others to watch the boy throwing the pickaxe, catching it and mining as fast if not faster than some of their normal miners, as six more men ran to Chao Wei's location where he was still at it, throwing the pickaxe, catching it, running, using the pickaxe like a blade more than a tool.
"Everyone, look, the kid's...He's something, he's making a pickaxe look like more than it is, come!" The foreman said, as the men followed, eventually stopping, Chao Wei kept striking the rocks, unearthing the spirit stones in the mines as he caught the pickaxe, sweating. He turned around to report his findings, only to see the foreman and several other workers staring at him, genuinely surprised.
"Oh...Sir..." Chao Yun had an awkward look, but attempted to deflect. "Ummm...I found some spirit stones..."
"Boy...Don't bullshit me, what the hell was that!?" The foreman pointed at him.
"What was what?" Chao Wei asked, feigning confusion, the reincarnated soul, Nakama Hiroshi, thoughts differentiated from the body's childlike confusion.
"Fake it till you make it, Nakama. Just take the bait..." The reincarnated soul was hoping the foreman would take the bait of how he got so good.
"Don't lie to my face, boy!" The man said. "I have six men as witnesses! We may have been born in a day, but it wasn't yesterday! You were throwing a pickaxe, boy... and catching it, who or what are you, because that's not normal."
"I'm the kid who survived long enough against mountain spirits who wanted my life." Chao Wei confidently said. "If I survived that, what can't I do?"
"I get that much, you were found at the town gates damn near bleeding out, but you don't exactly do that!" One of the other men exclaimed, much to his annoyance.
Chao Wei sighed and shrugged as if he were defeated. "Fine. I was practicing this for weeks. I remember accidentally losing my pickaxe before someone caught it for me, and I realized I can do the same. Even with these small hands." He clenched his fist and pushed it toward the foreman and his witnesses. Some looked touched by his courage, others flabbergasted, the Foreman sighed in exasperation, holding his head in one hand.
"You know what...? Carry on...you'll get paid for the spirit crystals you found..." The man said. "Plus, this is a story I might tell to my wife and kids about," the man said softly, smiling a bit at the absurdity of what he witnessed. "Some kid was throwing a pickaxe at an ore deposit like a ball..." he chuckled to himself.
After all that work, the spirit crystals were excavated, and Chao Wei was paid for his services to the mines. He decided to go back to the old woman who helped him. It was time to pay back his debts in full, the bag of money on his side. People whispered around him in this village, for a village it was quite large. He entered the apothecary and heard a customer refer to the old woman as "Granny Lan" before he stepped into the room.
"Benefactor Lan." Chao Wei called for her, peeking into the room.
"Boy, I'm busy!" The old woman said, glaring at him
Chao Wei walked up to her and placed the cloth bag of gold into her hand. "Four days' worth of medicine, hospitality, food, and refuge." He stated blankly before just walking away casually, leaving the old woman sputtering, lost for words.
After that, he unwraps the bandages from his wrist, looking at the black tree on his arm, which started linear but branched off into multiple paths across his arm. He remembered that the kid had taught himself how to cultivate and decided to use the sloppy cultivation the kid had cobbled together; he had barely unclogged his first Meridian. He ran to the cave and sat down to cultivate. It was slow, like using a small toothpick to dig a hole. That's how he felt, using the cobbled-together breathing method the boy had tried to use, but then tried to use breathing from his previous life, when he was a baseball player, the cultivation halted for a second, then resumed, it was now like using a spoon to gather dirt, but he wouldn't complain.
A horn blares, forcing Chao Wei to open his eyes as a voice cuts through after the horn.
"HURRY! THE PHANTOM MOUNTAIN BANDITS! PHANTOM MOUNTAIN BANDITS ARE COMING!! HIDE!!" A single voice yelled out as the people obeyed, but the bandits did not care. They smirked, walking through the village. Chao Wei wasn't going to interfere. He hid in the Blacksmith and locked the door, then looked out the window, a single arrowhead with a broken shaft sat outside. The Bandits grimaced, then started destroying the place.
"GIVE UP THE VALUABLES AND NOBODY GETS HURT!!" The Bandit yelled at the top of his lungs.
Hunters with bows and arrows decided to confront the bandits, The Hunters were dressed like him, or rather the other way around. He was dressed like the hunters, the clothes Granny Lan had given him, which were small versions of the hunters' garments. He watched the Hunters; they didn't want to fight and made that clear, but they wouldn't be stolen from. One Bandit smirked and raised his blade, the hunters dodged, one knocked an arrow, Chao Wei burst out of the blacksmith and runs for the broken arrow. The Bandits notice and decide to stride toward him. One of the larger bandits goes right for his throat, trying to cut him with his blade, but Chao Wei slides under it, picking up the broken arrow.
"You will not hurt this town...I...We will not allow it!!" He palmed the arrow in his hand.