Adam Thompson had no choice but to continue the previous topic. “What other martial arts have I practiced?”

　　“You’ve practiced a lot, and it’s all quite mixed. You never stick with anything for long before giving up. I’m not blaming you—your mother didn’t have much patience either. But there’s one practice you’ve kept up since you were four years old.”

　　“What is it?”

　　“When you were two, your mother taught you to toss rings. She’d place a few little wooden dolls on the ground, and you’d stand a few feet away and throw bamboo rings. If you got one on, your mother would reward you with a little snack.”

　　Adam Thompson was speechless. Was this dog training? Or was she preparing him to run a street stall when he grew up?

　　Mary Wood smiled and continued, “When you were four, your mother took you to watch a polo match. Suddenly, you became very interested in polo. You made a clay ball yourself and used a stick to hit it. After a few days, you could actually hit the clay ball into a small hole in the wall ten feet away with a single stroke. Your mother said you had talent and started training you in polo. She trained you for three months, but she lost patience. You, however, kept at it on your own.”

　　“I’ve kept at it until now?” Adam Thompson was surprised. He’d persisted in practicing polo for ten years—how did he manage that?

　　Mary Wood put down the clothes and gave a mysterious smile. “Let me show you something!”

　　She bent down and dragged out an old, battered wooden chest from under the bed, covered in dust.

　　Mary Wood blew off the dust and said with a smile, “I collected all of these for you.”

　　“What are they?” Adam Thompson’s curiosity was piqued.

　　Mary Wood opened the chest. Inside were more than twenty sticks of various lengths, many of them broken.

　　“This is the stick you used the first time you played with a clay ball!”

　　Mary Wood picked up a short stick and smiled. “You were just a little thing then, holding this tiny stick and playing ball in the courtyard.”

　　“All of them?”

　　“Every single one you’ve used, not a single one missing. I saved them all for you.”

　　Looking at the chest full of sticks, more than twenty in all, Adam Thompson’s eyes grew moist. These weren’t just sticks—they were the embodiment of an old woman’s deep love for him.

　　……

　　The math, science, literature, history, and geography from his previous life were of no use to him now. Even memorizing a few Tang or Song poems wouldn’t cause a stir in Chang’an.

　　A poor kid from the slums, who’d only studied for a year, writing earth-shattering literary works? Who would believe that?

　　On the contrary, recklessly showing off would only put him in danger, making him prey for the powerful.

　　Pragmatism was the only way to survive. He had to blend into the Tang Dynasty, adapt to this era, not expect this era to adapt to him.

　　For several days in a row, Adam Thompson practiced various skills and tried to understand himself. He found that his martial arts were actually quite ordinary—maybe just a few basic moves—but he did have an unusually strong natural talent, mainly in strength, speed, and sharpness.

　　He could easily lift nearly two hundred jin, something even a strong adult might not manage. It was precisely because his strength far exceeded his peers, and his skin and flesh were tough and resilient—he could really take a beating—that he became the king of street fights among the neighborhood boys.

　　He also had extremely sharp reflexes and was very fast. He discovered this in the latrine: he could use his index finger and thumb to instantly pinch a fly darting past his eyes, never missing, though it was a bit disgusting.

　　Of course, this was absolutely related to his ten years of hard polo practice, and also to the herbal baths he’d soaked in since childhood, which perhaps really had some unexpected effects.

　　That night, Adam Thompson lit a stick of incense on the courtyard wall. He stood at the opposite corner of the yard, about twenty feet away, holding a polo stick. The Tang Dynasty polo stick looked very much like a modern hockey stick.

　　But on the ground wasn’t a polo ball, but a stone pellet the size of a sparrow’s egg. Adam Thompson’s mind was calm as still water, his thoughts empty. He swung the stick—‘pa!’—and struck the stone pellet precisely. The pellet shot out like lightning, and the burning tip of the incense on the wall suddenly disappeared.

　　“Amazing!” he couldn’t help but praise himself inwardly.

　　Adam Thompson fetched another stone pellet. This time, he changed his target and swung at the trunk of a small tree nearby, but the pellet flew past the trunk, missing by a full thirty centimeters.

　　Adam Thompson was stunned. He could hit the tip of the incense, but not a tree trunk dozens of times larger—why?

　　Adam Thompson closed his eyes and recalled the moment he hit the incense tip. He remembered that, in that instant, he had a very subtle feeling—he could control his strength and aim.

　　But when hitting the tree trunk, that sense of control was gone.

　　He gathered some more stones and tried again. Out of ten attempts at the incense tip, he found that feeling three times and hit the target; the other seven times, he missed.

　　He knew he couldn’t rush it—it would take time to master.

　　……

　　Another ten days passed in a flash. Adam Thompson practiced hard every day, hundreds of times a day.

　　As time went on, that sense of control over strength and aim became more and more distinct, and he could summon it more and more often. Sometimes, he could even find it without practicing.

　　He knew he was about to succeed.

　　“Fatty, throw it a little higher!”

　　Little Michael Bolton tossed two lumps of dry clay into the air, one after the other. Adam Thompson swung his stick and struck the stones. This time, that feeling came to him on its own—he didn’t even have to look for it.