Uncle Kai looked at Jun Wu without any change in his expression, but inwardly, he chuckled. The hammer was one of the heaviest in his forge.
He didn't believe Jun Wu could lift it above his head. He waited patiently for the boy to drop it.
Unaware of Uncle Kai's thoughts, Jun Wu's gaze lingered on the mysterious panel hovering in his vision.
'What is this?!'
'Am I going crazy because I lost my family?' he wondered, his confusion deepening.
He blinked twice, but the floating panel stayed glued to his retina.
"Kid, just give up. You can't lift it," Uncle Kai said patiently. "You should learn to go for things of your size."
Jun Wu snapped out of his trance at the sound of his voice, pushing the thought of madness to the back of his mind.
He took a deep breath and gripped the hammer tightly. If I can't even lift an ordinary hammer, how can I face those who destroyed my family?
Slowly, he raised the hammer. His arms and legs trembled. His breath quickened. Every muscle screamed, begging him to stop.
But he refused.
Then he remembered a paragraph from his Confucianism class:
Patience flowing like water. Virtue's strength in stillness. Endure with humility. Find harmony within.
He recited the words silently, letting them calm his racing thoughts.
Steadying his body, he focused all his strength into his arms. The hammer rose—slowly but surely. Sweat streamed down his face.
Uncle Kai's eyes widened in disbelief.
This! How can such a frail boy lift that hammer? he cried inwardly.
He stared, mouth agape, as Jun Wu finally lifted the heavy hammer above his head.
Jun Wu glanced at Uncle Kai before letting the hammer drop with a heavy thud. Then, his body gave in, collapsing to the floor, drenched in sweat.
As he caught his breath, a new notification flashed on the panel.
┏━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━┓
┃ New Stat Unlocked: Endurance +1
┗━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━┛
He was stunned—but too exhausted to dwell on it. He lay sprawled on the ground, trying to recover.
"That was impressive. But still weak!" Uncle Kai said, keeping his expression neutral. "When I was your age, I could lift that hammer with ease."
"Even kids in the village could probably do better. You've got a long way to go."
"Drink some water. To begin your training, you need to wield that hammer with one hand."
With that, he turned to the furnace to start his work. But inside, he wasn't calm.
Back then, I couldn't even move that hammer until I was in my twenties, he thought, shaking his head. I don't know how he did it, but he just made my job easier.
When Jun Wu recovered, he drank water and resumed his so-called training with firm resolve.
Throughout the day, Uncle Kai watched him push his body to its limits, just to lift the hammer.
He had expected the boy to give up after a few tries—but Jun Wu proved him wrong.
Curious now, Uncle Kai wondered just how far the boy would go.
By evening, Jun Wu lay flat on the ground.
"Kid, you need to relax. Let's go home. You can continue tomorrow."
"Uncle Kai, let me try once more. Please go ahead. I'll join you soon," Jun Wu replied with a shaky voice.
Uncle Kai was about to insist, but when he saw the unwavering fire in Jun Wu's eyes, he knew there was no convincing him.
"Fine. Do whatever you like," he said with a shrug and left the workshop.
Once alone, Jun Wu sat up, wiped sweat from his face, and stared at the floating panel.
┏━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━┓
┃ 🛠️ Innate Weapon: Hammer
┃ Level: 0 (0 / 100 EXP)
┗━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━┛
┏━━━━━━━━ Stat ━━━━━━━━┓
┃ 🧱 Endurance : 2
┗━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━┛
'What does this level mean?' he wondered, brows furrowed.
'I got that endurance stat when I first raised the hammer... Can this thing track my progress?'
'And did I just awaken an innate talent?'
After thinking for a while without answers, he decided to stop overthinking.
As long as it wasn't hurting him, it could stay.
He stood up and stretched. "Before I leave this workshop, I'll lift this hammer easily—even if it's with both hands."
Eyes burning with determination, he gripped the hammer again and resumed training.
He poured his heart and soul into every attempt. Whenever he got tired, he rested briefly and drank water before continuing.
By midnight, the workshop was dark, but the glowing furnace cast just enough light to see.
Jun Wu raised the hammer once more. His arms shook. His legs trembled. Sweat poured like rain.
But he didn't back down.
He held the stance for a full minute. Then, a soft chime echoed in his mind. A new notification appeared.
┏━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━┓
┃ New Stat Unlocked: Stamina +1
┗━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━┛
He barely registered the message before his body gave out.
The hammer crashed to the floor with a deep thud, and Jun Wu collapsed beside it.
His strength spent, he fainted.
******