The daily life of a runaway Young Master

Deep in the forests bordering the frontier town of Taizhou, the noise of a pickaxe striking stone resounded across the forest. Just like it did every other day.

The source of the noise was a young man who was 16 years old, striking away deep within a cave inside the cliff that separated the forest into two, coincidentally also acting as the border of the human kingdom and the adjacent Eternal Forests, the home of the Elves and the Fae.

His green eyes shining in the light of the lantern he was using while his short black hair sticking to his head due to sweat.

His clothing, despite being made of leather, had a strange sheen to it.

As the man continued striking away at the exposed iron vein in the cave, a chime that only he could hear rang out.

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MINING LEVEL UP

NEW ORES AVAILABLE FOR MINING

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With this notification, the man operated a screen that was visible to no one else but him and navigated to the information that he was searching for.

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NAME: Hengxing Haizi

HP: 2000/2000

MP:500/500

QI: 4000/4000

CULTIVATION RANK: Bronze (3RD STAGE)

LEVEL: 37

STR : 40

AGI :25

INT : 15

CON :40

DEX :95

FOC :30

MINING : 50

WEAPONSMITHING :45

CRAFTING : 75

ENGINEERING :88

ARMORING :52

WOODCRAFTING :28

JEWELCRAFT :15

ARCANE ARTS :50

SMELTING :49

COOKING :95

TAILORING :58

STONECUTTING :125

BREWING :15

ALCHEMY :10

GATHERING: 58

FISHING: 20

SKILLS:

Celestial blade arts: Lvl 22

Star Chaser arts: Lvl 58

Wuxing arts (Incomplete): Lvl 31

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"This should be enough for today"

The man muttered to himself and started packing up his things, intending to get back to his home.

As the man made his way through the forest through the route that he had gotten familiar with, he came across a middle-aged man chopping the trees at the edges of the town.

"Hm? Uncle Li? You are still out here? It is going to be dark soon"

"Ah? If it isn't little Haizi. I will be going back soon after I am done with gathering a little more wood. Winter is coming soon and I need to stock up on enough wood to get the family through without the children falling ill like last time"

"Then, let me help"

"You don't have to-"

Before Uncle Li could complete his words, Haizi already took out a steel axe from his inventory but pretended to pull it out of his basket.

Then, with a swift strike, he brought down the tree in one fell swoop and got to work.

Within a matter of minutes, they already had a huge bundle of wood ready to be brought to town.

"Hah, you overdid things again. With so much wood, I will have enough for the winter and I can also sell them in the market. Seriously, you need to control your kindness Haizi, some people will not hesitate to take advantage of it"

"When that time comes I will be relying on Uncle Li to back me up"

"Hahaha, then leave it to me"

Soon, the two people began to make their way to the town. By the time they got back, it was already dark, prompting Uncle Li to bid farewell to Haizi and invite him for drinks on the next day. With his companion departing to his home, Haizi also headed towards his own house located near the market.

It was a simple house made of wood and stone. A massive room with multiple racks and a counter serving as a store, three bedrooms, one huge shed connected to it serving as the crafting space and forge, and a large kitchen. All in all, it was on the higher side of house quality in this frontier town of the Empire.

Thanks to the fact that his current body no longer needed things like sleep, Haizi got to work on smelting the Iron that he mined for the whole day.

As the charcoal-powered smelter started melting the Iron ore, he operated the device to separate the various materials from the ore. The slag was diverted to another container which poured the slag into a nifty tool that is used by every blacksmith in the kingdom. The tool turned the slag into the various elements that made it up using the Qi core of an Iron rank Demonic beast.

Soon, Haizi had many chunks of iron ingots thanks to the massive amount of ore he had mined throughout the day.

With the first part of the process done, he swapped out the charcoal in the smelter with a much more powerful variant of coal that the locals call refined coal or as it was called in his home world, Coke.

With the new fuel source placed in the smelter, he dumped the iron ingots into the smelter, causing the carbon in the Coke to bellow up at tremendous speeds like in a blast furnace and bond with the iron, resulting in a molten liquid that cooled down to produce steel.

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SMELTING LEVEL UP

NEW ORE SMELTING AVAILABLE

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Once again, as the chime rang out, knowledge poured into Haizi's mind, giving him all the knowledge and muscle memory required to process the new ores that he could now process.

Ignoring the phenomenon he had gotten used to in the last two years he had spent in this world, he picked up the steel ingots and got to work.

As he hammered away at the metal and used the various tools on the workbench to shape the object, it slowly took the form of a plow. After more than an hour of working on shaping, tempering, polishing, and sharpening the farming tool, it was finally done.

"This should be enough. I'll call over Uncle Zhang tomorrow morning to take it"

With his job done, profit made and excess materials left, Haizi retreated to another corner of his house where he stored his brewing equipment.

Checking up on his brew, or rather, another disastrous attempt at replicating the honey mead from his home world, he went back out of the room and headed to the kitchen.

But what Haizi did not know was that he was being plotted against by two shadowy figures who were watching him from upstairs.

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(POV Haizi)

If it was in my past life, preparing a meal in low light such as now where my kitchen is only illuminated by candles made of beeswax would be a very difficult task. But thanks to the fact that cultivation exists in this world, not to mention the system giving me access to all the augmentations that my IAS had previously, it is a piece of cake.

While I was preparing this world's equivalent of potatoes to make some salads, I mentally opened the system to see the time, finding it to be nearly time for my guests to show up.

Truthfully speaking, the past year I spent in this place has been the most peaceful I have ever felt since the war started back in my world. This is proof enough to validate my escape from the Hengxing family two years ago.

Of course, I heard all about their efforts in locating me for the past years and I did feel a little anguished since I did end up inheriting the memories and emotions of their son, making me their son in every way that matters. But for me, the thing that matters to me the most is my life and I refuse to be killed as some nameless villain or be the target of political assassination because of my status as the only viable heir to the family.

The only time that I would ever be willing to even consider going back is if something serious happens to the family. No matter what, as the one responsible for robbing them of their son even if involuntarily, I at least need to protect them in times of crisis to repay them in some way for giving me this peaceful life I have found for myself.

And indeed, it was quite a peaceful life for me.

Waking up in the morning, going to the cliffs in the forest to mine materials, chopping down trees, gathering herbs, hunting animals, leveling up for all the above actions, talking to the town folk who accepted me into their little community without any hesitation, gather their requests as the towns only blacksmith, receive all the freshest and locally grown stuff in payment for the requests, stargaze and try to cultivate until I feel bored, then sleep for an hour or two before sunrise, then repeat.

A beautiful and fulfilling life that I would not mind continuing for the rest of my life.

Unfortunately, I know the nature of this world. So, I have no choice but to continue trying to increase my personal strength.

I sensed them approaching a moment before they attacked.

Thankfully, I had already put down the bowl containing the mashed potatoes that I was going to use for the simple chicken curry that I was preparing, making sure that I did not spill the contents to the floor.

"Big Brother! We got you for sure this time, right?"

"Yes! We definitely hid well this time!"

Looking at the excited children at my feet, I couldn't help but smile fondly. I picked up the two troublemakers and set them down on the table.

The Twins, one boy, and one girl, stared at me with their blue eyes shining with mischief and glee and finally winning their bet against me that they made over 6 months ago.

"Hmm, you almost got me, but you two failed to hide your presence at the last moment due to the excitement and exposed yourselves"

"What? No way! You are lying"

"Yeah! We hid perfectly, you have got to be lying"

I ruffled their blue hair and simply grinned at their pouting expressions when another voice rang out with exasperation.

"Causing trouble for Haizi again? How many times did I tell you two to not startle him when he is doing something?"

At their elder sister's stern questioning, the twins tried to act pitiful, only for their cheeks to be pulled by the girl with the same blue eyes as the twins and a darker shade of blue hair.

I smiled at their interaction and walked behind the girl to take the basket filled with foodstuff from her.

"Ho? It seems you had quite the luck today, Yanmei"

"Yes. Uncle Wu gave me a lot of the carrots from his farm and told me to thank you for the new rake you made for him last week. I also met Aunt Wei who gave me the Leek, Garlic, and Cabbage and asked me to thank you for helping Uncle Wei with catching fish yesterday. I also found some good quality mushrooms on my way back so I brought them as well"

"Haha, looks like we will have quite the feast today"

"Big brother, what are you making today?"

"I got some Chicken meat today so we will be having some chicken soup and rice"

"Yay!"

Looking at the celebrating children, I looked to Yanmei and we both shook our heads.

It only seems like yesterday when these three siblings arrived in this town shortly after I settled down, looking for a stable place to live after being orphaned in a demonic beast attack.

Back then, the children, Xu Qian and Xu Yulan , had no spark in their eyes, just like I was used to seeing in the eyes of the survivors of an attacked city from the war of my old world.

Their elder sister, Xu Yanmei, was also just as traumatized, but much more guarded. Focused on making sure that her younger siblings survived.

Initially, the townspeople were not particularly thrilled about having someone in their town who could not pull their weight. A mindset that developed thanks to being one of the few towns to continue surviving despite being located just a few miles from the Eternal Forest which is brimming with Demonic Beasts and the hostile Elven clans.

Fortunately, Yanmei proved herself to be an adept healer, quickly winning the acceptance of the people and making a place for herself.

Of course, as the only other cultivator in this small town, we ended up trading information and slowly became good friends, enough that the siblings ended up spending the night in my house or I ended up spending the night in their home.

As I started preparing the food, I caught the look of anguish and hatred on Yanmei's face which soon went back to normal when she caught me looking.

As a peak Bronze rank cultivator like myself, she had a rather easy time locating and gathering herbs in the forest that would be very useful to treat the ordinary folk of this town. Once in a while, she would also head to the nearby city to trade the herbs for rare ingredients, making her my best way to obtain things that I could not find in this place. I also knew that her visits to the city were not just for trading herbs since I would always find her to be emotionally unstable every time she returned, but I never asked too deeply about it.

Her secrets were hers to tell. Besides, it's not like I am not keeping secrets from her either.

As we had dinner, I simply drowned myself in the noise of the children's laughter and Yanmei's exasperated scolding at the twin's mischief.

Yes, I really wouldn't mind spending the rest of my life like this.