novelraw Chapter 247: Destiny Title
Chapter 247: Destiny Title
Li Wei sent the two somewhat puzzled and faintly disappointed aunties on their way, locked the storage room door, and was about to head downstairs — when he heard a flapping sound from inside. What the — it was Adai.
The bird had snuck in to steal salted fish again. This storage room was apparently wide open to it.
"Adai. Don't push it."
Li Wei gave a warning. That should be enough.
"Caw!"
Adai actually called back. Huh? What was going on?
Li Wei blinked — and the next second, several images surfaced in his mind.
Image one: Liang Yuzhi jumping quickly off the bus this morning. Nothing unusual.
Image two: Liang Yuzhi entering the third-floor storage room and retrieving some materials. Also nothing unusual.
Image three: Liang Yuzhi pulling her damaged tower shield from her Resource Card, reaching behind it to extract a black limb segment about thirty centimeters long, then hiding it in the deepest corner of the storage room and carefully covering it with various supplies.What the —
Why hadn't that black limb dissolved into black smoke?
Why hadn't it been counted as loot?
What was Liang Yuzhi doing?
Li Wei hurried back into the storage room. Adai was already strutting around with the black limb in its beak, showing it off.
Well, well. You're practically the secret-keeper of this whole building at this point. Nothing gets past you, does it.
Big Bro Dummy, you're something else.
But — had Liang Yuzhi not noticed you watching?
The thought flashed through his mind. Li Wei stepped forward and took the black limb from Adai — and found no system information attached to it. It was like holding an ordinary stick. Strange.
He thought for a moment, then placed it into his Resource Card. Still no information.
Fine. He'd use this to squeeze Liang Yuzhi later.
Not particularly concerned, Li Wei continued downstairs.
Passing the second floor, a Freeman named Javier greeted him with a bow.
Li Wei gave a mild nod and walked on. Who are you again? Trying to trigger a new quest? Dream on. You haven't even put in the effort to raise my affection meter. Don't you know the rules? Every player knows you have to unconditionally please the old village chief in the starter village.
With that, Li Wei headed straight to the blacksmith shop and continued helping Zhao Xuanxuan at the forge. He wasn't even in a hurry to upgrade his Farmer Card — if he didn't handle the Freeman situation in one decisive push, it would cause headaches later.
It was like a dynasty: if the founding emperor didn't fix the borders and establish the core operating principles of the realm — the ancestral code — then later emperors would struggle to accomplish anything, because the class structure would have already calcified.
In fact, Li Wei had only been at the blacksmith shop a short while when another cook auntie happened to wander by, bringing Li Wei and Zhao Xuanxuan something called coffee for afternoon tea. Quite good, actually. Truly a kind auntie.
"Jenny — is that your name?" When she turned to leave, Li Wei called out to this auntie — still attractive despite her years — who had once even considered trying to seduce him. She immediately looked flustered, eyes soft with emotion.
"Esteemed lord, yes — I'm Jenny. Is there something I can help you with?"
Exactly right. That was how it should be. That was the rule. That was the ritual.
Li Wei smiled at precisely the right moment, but let a hint of worry show on his face.
"Yes, Jenny. I've run into a bit of a difficult situation. You saw how heavy that rainstorm was five days ago. Our castle has been neglected for years — many windows are in poor repair. Many children were startled awake in their sleep, and their crying broke my heart. You're a lively, cheerful, worldly young woman. Could you gather a few nimble craftspeople and seal the castle's windows with wooden boards and sturdy iron bars?"
"If you complete this task, I'll select a few sharp weapons from my warehouse as your reward."
Li Wei delivered the lines in full NPC mode, then returned to his expression of thoughtful contemplation and lay back down on the temporary cot in the blacksmith shop. Zhao Xuanxuan, working nearby, nearly broke character — what was this?
But she wasn't stupid. She said nothing, immediately becoming a background wall.
Jenny, after a moment of bafflement, blinked and sidled up to Zhao Xuanxuan to chat. But no matter what she said, Zhao Xuanxuan just kept repeating the same few lines on loop.
Who hadn't played a game before? Being a top-tier player was hard — playing a brain-dead NPC was easy.
She also took the moment to reflect carefully on whether she'd said anything wrong over the past month that might have disrupted Li Wei's plans.
Fortunately — truly, she hadn't.
Over the past month, she'd been up before dawn and working sixteen-hour days, brain reduced to mush. Even when Freemen came to order weapons, she'd just exchanged a few polite words and nothing more.
So there was absolutely no problem there.
Same with Thomas. That man was even more extreme — eighteen-hour days, always eating leftovers, eyes glazed with exhaustion but never stopping, completely relentless.
Not the boldest warrior, not someone who could hold his own independently — but genuinely reliable when it came to work. Some names were wrong, but no titles were wrong. City Builder — ha!
In that moment, Zhao Xuanxuan's mind suddenly flashed with a spark of insight. She felt as though she'd touched something extraordinary.
She'd always wondered: why did titles matter so much?
Were they really that important?
Many people spoke vaguely about it, but in this moment, Zhao Xuanxuan suddenly understood. She had a breakthrough.
She stopped paying attention to the still-persistent Jenny, turned back to the forge, and began a new round of work. Something like a fire had ignited inside her — resonating with the very flames of the furnace before her.
Memories flooded in — not just from her time in the All-Heavens Lord Alliance, but from her entire life.
Was a title just a simple label?
No. It was the truest reflection of each player's core self.
So Thomas the City Builder — seemingly fierce, but actually a man without great boldness, someone deeply patient, good at enduring hardship, someone who valued steady, methodical action. His title aligned almost perfectly with his true nature. Maximum power only when backed into a corner, only when forced.
And the Venomous Scorpion? Vicious at heart, ruthless in action, endlessly scheming?
And the Widow Yang? Stingy and petty? Or strange and reclusive?
And the Executioner?
She understood. She understood now.
That was it.
Zhao Xuanxuan slipped into her strange state. From the outside she still looked like she was working normally — but Li Wei, standing nearby, could clearly sense the difference.
In this moment, Zhao Xuanxuan burned with boundless fighting spirit. She was like a small cannon, like a female executive who had lost everything in a bad investment — she seemed to have returned to that moment when she'd had no choice but to jump.
Face your fate: be destroyed, or survive.
She had awakened.
Of course, Jenny didn't understand any of this. She left quickly, carrying the task Li Wei had given her, utterly baffled — convinced it was all some elaborate scheme. The building's windows had been boarded up and fitted with iron bars last month. Was he blind?
But as bizarre as it seemed, she had no choice but to do it. And in that moment she even recalled an old saying from the distant East — "pointing at a deer and calling it a horse."
Was this old man gaslighting them?
Never mind Jenny going back to put on a show of gathering workers and pretending to be busy — Zhao Xuanxuan's state was something truly unprecedented. Every movement flowed like water, like wind. Even her expression and gaze were filled with a quiet wisdom —
"Li Wei. Help me."
Zhao Xuanxuan said it without even blinking. Li Wei stepped forward to assist. Good thing he'd built up experience as her assistant — otherwise he might not have been able to keep up with her pace.
The two of them worked in silence, from two in the afternoon until the sun dipped below the horizon. The rough form of a two-handed greatsword had been successfully forged.
After the final rounds of carburizing, quenching, and folding were complete, Zhao Xuanxuan looked up at Li Wei with a satisfied smile. Her face was flushed red from the furnace heat, sweat streaming like a river, but her eyes were bright.
"Li Wei. Mission accomplished."
The words were barely out before she collapsed — Spiritual Power depleted. Li Wei had experienced something similar when he'd carved his first two-star wooden spear.
He grabbed her before she hit the ground and tossed her onto the cot.
Simultaneously, several lines of text surfaced without a sound.
["Family Member Zhao Xuanxuan has successfully forged a three-star weapon. She has completed this month's Monthly Main Task and earned an additional 100 Family Contribution points. Current cumulative total: 687."]
["She has earned the corresponding Destiny Title — Sword Caster. While this title is equipped: Family Contribution automatically +50, Strength +3, Stamina +50, damage dealt with hammer-type weapons +50%, with knockback, interrupt, and stun effects. This title can be upgraded to a Code Name."]
A Destiny Title. What did that mean?
["You witnessed and participated in the full process of three-star Blacksmith Zhao Xuanxuan earning her Destiny Title. You have received 100 Forging experience points. Current cumulative total: 500. You have received one One-Star Blacksmith Card."]
The notification itself wasn't particularly useful — but Li Wei fell into thought. He'd accumulated the Dog Butcher, Tracker, and Bear Hunter titles, and while they were all quite good, none of them counted as Destiny Titles. So there was a hidden condition: a title had to correspond to a specific profession?
That was tough. Was he really less perceptive than Zhao Xuanxuan?
Well. Probably yes, honestly. Back home, he'd been just a small cog in the machine. Zhao Xuanxuan had been a senior executive at a major company — even if she'd eventually lost thirty million on a bad investment, her raw capability was in a completely different league.
No rush. There was no need to rush this.
Li Wei stepped forward and picked up the still-scalding greatsword. It felt right in his hands — roughly twelve kilograms, and with additional components installed later, probably around twelve and a half. At that weight, the striking power would be formidable.
And it hadn't even been sharpened yet. It looked more like a blunt iron rod — thick and heavy, perfectly suited as a blunt weapon for breaking through armor.
The moment Li Wei gripped it, it felt like it had been made for him.
Right. Over the past month, Zhao Xuanxuan had worked alongside him every day. Li Wei had been helping and guiding her — but she'd also been quietly learning more about him. If that didn't count as custom-made, what did?
A thought, and the sword's information surfaced.
["Name: Two-Handed Heavy Sword"]
["Quality: Three-Star"]
["Note 1: This is a specialized weapon of modest quality — barely adequate overall, and technically a beginner's work in terms of craft. But its strength lies in this: it was custom-made for a specific person. In anyone else's hands, it may only perform at 60%. But in that person's hands, it is very likely to perform at 90% or above."]
["Note 2: The intended user is tall, perceptive, agile — a tiger in the forest, wind across the open sky. Remarkably, his strength is explosive and his stamina is deep. His mastery of spatial distance and timing is exceptional. Therefore, the added 10 centimeters of length and the added weight are not burdens — they amplify his most lethal strikes. Can be wielded one-handed or two-handed. One-handed: kills in an instant, fast as lightning, no slower than a spear thrust. Two-handed: uses weight and momentum to achieve a crushing, overwhelming impact."]
["Special Trait: Useless to others."]
["Trait Description: Perhaps this is the Sword Caster's obsession. She likes to take the extreme path — leaping into the void, even if it means shattering, even if it means burning alive, she will always choose the most extreme road."]
["Encumbrance +4"]
["Friendly reminder: This remains family property. However, based on your current status and authority, you may claim this item as your own and carry it out of this world. Doing so will deduct 50 Camp Prestige points."]