Dawn broke, and the golden-red morning sun pierced the clouds, spilling across the entire Spirit Transferring Pagoda and gilding its white exterior with a warm golden halo.
Clad in a fiery red dress, Leng Yaoyu stood quietly at the front of the classroom, her bearing upright and cool as she waited for the boy and girl before her to make their choices.
In Leng Yaoyu's plans, as long as the two chose suitable secondary professions and devoted several years to diligent training, they would surely join the ranks of the continent's foremost Battle Armor Masters, becoming pillars of the Spirit Transferring Pagoda and even the entire Douluo Continent.
At that moment, Na'er understood none of these intricacies. Her little figure stood in the great hall, her clear, translucent silver eyes blinking incessantly. Oh no, my little brain can't keep up.
She looked at the dignified Leng Yaoyu before her, then turned toward the composed Xiao Chen beside her, her face utterly blank.
She understood neither the differences between the four major professions nor their future prospects.
In her simple, pure little world, she did not need to ponder complicated choices. She just had to pick whatever Xiao Chen picked. How clever she was.
She stood rooted to the spot, her gaze fixed firmly on Xiao Chen's profile as she waited for his choice.
After a brief silence, Xiao Chen slowly raised his eyes. His dark gaze was calm and unruffled, his tone certain and firm, without the slightest hesitation. "Teacher, I choose forging as my secondary profession."
Leng Yaoyu's expression abruptly stiffened, and deep astonishment flooded her eyes as she froze on the spot.
She carefully studied the boy before her, her heart full of puzzlement.
Xiao Chen was slender and tall, with a gentle, otherworldly air. Every gesture was refined and steady. No matter how she looked at him, he bore no resemblance to a blacksmith who spent years hammering metal.
Among the four major secondary professions for battle armor, forging was widely acknowledged as the hardest, most grueling, and most physically demanding.
To achieve mastery, one had to hammer metal day after day, year after year, purifying it through Thousand Refinement and shaping its soul through Spiritual Refinement. It required not only tremendous arm strength, endurance, and physical resilience, but also enduring a dull, monotonous life at the forge for years. Only Soul Masters with powerful physiques and resolute dispositions had ever been able to persevere.
From what she had observed, Xiao Chen's talents lay entirely in his heaven-defying martial soul and cultivation. No matter how she looked at it, he should not choose forging, the most difficult path.
"Xiao Chen, have you really thought this through?" Leng Yaoyu frowned slightly, unable to stop herself from asking again for confirmation, her voice full of helplessness and persuasion.
"Training in forging is extremely arduous. Swinging a hammer day after day consumes immense physical and mental energy. You're exceptionally gifted. You could easily choose a less strenuous, more delicate profession that suits you better. There's no need to seek out suffering."
Faced with Leng Yaoyu's well-intentioned advice, Xiao Chen merely nodded slightly, his expression as firm as ever, without the slightest wavering. "I've already thought it through. I choose forging."
He had his own considerations for choosing it.
Within the Douluo Continent's battle armor system, forging seemed the hardest and most exhausting profession, but in reality, it was the absolute core, the pinnacle of the four major professions.
The foundations of all battle armor, soul tools, and high-grade equipment lay in quality forged materials and top-tier forging techniques.
No matter how exquisite the design or perfect the assembly, without metal components refined through top-level forging, it was all empty talk.
Seeing that he had made up his mind and would not waver no matter how much she advised him, Leng Yaoyu could only sigh helplessly and abandon her efforts to persuade him.
"Very well. You're still young and exceptionally talented. Even if you choose the wrong path for now, you'll still have ample means to change it in the future."
"Since you insist, I'll agree."
In her view, Xiao Chen was still young. Even if he took a detour, he could force his way back onto the right track through his own abilities.
But the instant she finished speaking, Na'er, who had been standing obediently to one side, shot her fair little hand high into the air. Her childish voice rang out clearly, brimming with confidence.
"Me, me, me! I choose forging too! I want to choose the same thing as Brother Xiao Chen!"
At that moment, Leng Yaoyu was utterly speechless, faint black lines appearing on her forehead.
Fine, Xiao Chen chose forging. What if he really has a talent for it? What if Wither, that detached martial soul, can possess his body? But Na'er, what are you choosing it for?
"Na'er, no fooling around." Leng Yaoyu shot her an exasperated glare, her tone carrying a measure of sternness.
"Forging is tedious, arduous training. Swinging a hammer every day wears out your arms. It doesn't suit a little girl your age at all. No following the crowd. You must choose another profession."
At her teacher's stern admonition, Na'er immediately pursed her soft pink lips and puffed out her cheeks, looking thoroughly aggrieved as she mumbled quietly:
"But I don't understand those professions, and I don't know which one to choose..."
As she spoke, she raised her watery silver eyes toward Xiao Chen, her face pleading for help, and asked softly, "Brother Xiao Chen, which of the four professions is the simplest and easiest, without any hard work?"
Looking at her adorably clueless, innocent expression, Xiao Chen answered casually, "Mecha repair, I suppose. I really can't think of what makes that profession important."
He paused, deliberately making a joke. "Most powerful battle armor can repair itself. If battle armor isn't damaged, it doesn't need repairs; if weak battle armor gets damaged, it isn't worth repairing."
"By that reckoning, mecha repairers have the most leisurely job. There's basically nothing for them to do."
Xiao Chen had originally wanted to call it a profession for freeloaders, but upon hearing this, the simple-minded Na'er's eyes instantly shone.
A dazzling light lit up her eyes, as though she had discovered the perfect shortcut to lazing around. She immediately turned toward Leng Yaoyu, her voice loud and decisive. "Teacher! I'm not choosing forging anymore! I choose mecha repair!"
Xiao Chen froze on the spot, a flicker of astonishment crossing his eyes. He had never said a freeloader's profession was easy. How had Na'er gone and chosen it?
Leng Yaoyu looked even more helpless.
The spacious classroom instantly fell into dead silence, the atmosphere both awkward and comical.
Looking at the two absurd little fellows before her, Leng Yaoyu felt her head beginning to throb. Being their "parent" really was a worry.
"You two..." Leng Yaoyu shook her head, unsure whether to laugh or cry. In the end, she could only compromise helplessly.
"Very well. Since these are the paths you chose yourselves, no matter how difficult or arduous they are, you'll have to persevere to the end."
Their professional choices were thus settled and would not change in the short term.
Leng Yaoyu immediately raised a hand and sent a message to the pagoda's stewards. Soon, two staff members arrived carrying thick books and set two stacks of professional textbooks, each as tall as a child, heavily onto the desks before them.
Xiao Chen's forging books covered the full range of basic forging knowledge, including metal identification, Hundred Refinement fundamentals, Thousand Refinement methods, Spiritual Refinement principles, and the properties of rare metals.
The pile of books left Xiao Chen dumbfounded. Th-this isn't right, is it? Tang Wulin didn't have all this stuff when he learned forging.
The books before Na'er were even more densely packed and immensely thick, encompassing countless obscure subjects such as formation studies, mechanical structures, energy circuit layouts, and material ratios. Their pages were filled with intricate, complicated line drawings and obscure theoretical text.
Only a moment earlier, Na'er had been delighted, believing she had chosen an easy profession. Now, staring at the little mountain of books before her, she instantly went completely blank.
She reached out her tender white hand and carefully opened a book. It was all incomprehensible writing, baffling diagrams, and tangled formation patterns. There was not a single thing she recognized anywhere on the pages.
In an instant, the little girl's large, round silver eyes began spinning wildly, strings of question marks floating above her head. She was utterly bewildered, her face devoid of any will to live.
"So many words... so many lines... I can't understand any of it, boo-hoo..." Na'er muttered quietly, her little face drooping, full of grievance.
Looking at her adorable, wilted appearance as she hung her head in dejection, Xiao Chen could only offer a moment of silence.
Then a thought stirred in his mind. He looked up at Leng Yaoyu before him and voiced his question. "Aunt Leng, we won't have to trouble you to teach the forging lessons yourself, will we?"
Leng Yaoyu rolled her eyes at him in exasperation and replied irritably, "You wish. Does your big sister here look like someone who studied forging?"
She adjusted her sleeves slightly and explained patiently, "For the four major secondary professions, I can only provide introductory explanations, helping you understand the systems and distinguish their directions. The actual professional training and advanced lessons are all handled by the Spirit Transferring Pagoda's dedicated top instructors."
"Since you've settled on forging, I'll personally write a recommendation letter and find you a teacher."
At this point, Leng Yaoyu's expression grew a little more solemn. "But that will have to wait a few years. In a few years, it will all depend on your own talent and fortune. There won't be much more I can do to help."
Hearing this, a faint light instantly kindled in Xiao Chen's dark eyes, and everything became perfectly clear to him.
Here he comes, the only Divine Blacksmith of this era, Zhen Hua!
Practically the obligatory long-suffering teacher for anyone who transmigrates to the Douluo Continent.
Xiao Chen tucked away his expression of "just as expected" and asked in puzzlement, "Who is it?"
Leng Yaoyu smiled mysteriously. "There's no rush. Once you've shown talent in this field, Xiao Chen, I'll recommend you to him."
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