Samuel Bennett never could have imagined that his own The Old Man would encounter such an opportunity; his heart was filled with both joy and worry.

　　It was certainly a happy thing that The Old Man had a ‘stroke of fortune’, but that cliff seemed extremely high, with nothing else atop the sheer precipice—no water, no food. He feared it must be very difficult right now.

　　“Let’s hope The Old Man can turn misfortune into blessing and find safety in danger…”

　　After standing there in a daze for quite a while, Samuel Bennett finally let out a sigh.

　　Heishan City was quite far from Qingzhou; a round trip would take more than a year, with ever-changing roads and a maze of mountains and paths.

　　Even if he wanted to go look for The Old Man, he was powerless to do so for the time being.

　　Not to mention, Heishan City was rather unsettled at the moment. If he left, with Grandma alone here, it would be even more dangerous.

　　“But how should I explain this to Grandma?”

　　Samuel Bennett rubbed his temples, flipped out of the vat, and reached for the edge—grasping the broken blade in his hand.

　　After thoroughly refining it, he noticed a difference.

　　Now, holding the blade, he felt a seamless connection, as if the knife was not just a knife, but had become an extension of his own arm.

　　“Completely refined, it really does feel different?”

　　Samuel Bennett’s spirits lifted, and he looked at the small cauldron on his chest.

　　After days of diligent ‘charging’, even after the broken blade was fully refined, only a small part of the gluttonous cauldron remained green.

　　This meant that, at the fastest, in three to five days, or at the slowest, eight or nine days, he would be able to refine a second ingredient.

　　The speed depended on himself.

　　Splash～

　　Shaking off the water droplets from his body, Samuel Bennett gripped the blade and began to swing and turn in the courtyard.

　　He held the knife in his right hand, left hand open, eyes on the blade’s edge, body following the knife’s movement. As his technique shifted, sometimes he supported the blade to add force,

　　sometimes pressed the back of the blade to roll it left and right, sometimes bent his elbow to block horizontally, sometimes slashed diagonally downward…

　　After moving around for a while, Samuel Bennett felt the broken blade move as if it were his own arm, responding to his will, indescribably smooth and comfortable.

　　It was as if he had truly practiced for thirty or fifty years.

　　Whoosh～

　　But before long, Samuel Bennett sheathed the blade and stepped back, slightly out of breath:

　　“In my memory, The Old Man could swing the blade with full force eight hundred times in one go… Is my physique really inferior to The Old Man?”

　　Samuel Bennett thought about it, and it was true.

　　He had only been in this world for a year; the first half was spent recuperating from weakness, and the latter half he hadn’t worked that hard either.

　　He’d only been truly diligent these past few days.

　　In such a short time, even with medicinal baths, he couldn’t compare to the physique The Old Man had built up over half a lifetime.

　　“My technique may not be worse than The Old Man’s, but my strength and speed are far behind. If we really fought, The Old Man could probably kill me in just a few strikes…”

　　“I bet The Old Man has also soaked in medicinal baths, but I wonder if he succeeded in changing his blood?”

　　As he wiped himself off, Samuel Bennett muttered inwardly.

　　“I need to make money…”

　　……

　　“How can I make money quickly?”

　　At dawn, Samuel Bennett leaned over the table, writing and sketching.

　　It was really hard!

　　In the year since he transmigrated, Samuel Bennett had thought about making money more than once.

　　But for various reasons, all his plans had died before they began. Even with the help of memories from his previous life, he couldn’t overcome the constraints and entanglements of this world.

　　“Business, selling salt and iron, brothels, gambling dens, smuggling, grain, land annexation, becoming an official…”

　　On the paper, Samuel Bennett listed what he thought were the most profitable trades, from lowest to highest.

　　Comparing them to his own abilities, he crossed them out one by one.

　　The first to go was becoming an official.

　　Being an official was certainly the most lucrative profession, bar none.

　　‘A clean magistrate in three years can amass a hundred thousand taels of silver’—that saying was no exaggeration.

　　The richest person in Heishan City wasn’t the ‘Chen, Wang, Li’ families who had cultivated the city for decades, nor the Heishan Army stationed outside.

　　It was the county magistrate, ‘Three-foot Cooper’.

　　He’d only been magistrate for about ten years, but was already much wealthier than those gentry.

　　The sky is high, and so is Three-foot Andrew Cooper; even in other counties, he was a famously wealthy figure.

　　Next was grain.

　　People can go a day without meat, but not without grain. Still, this one had to be crossed out.

　　Grain was the exclusive domain of Three-foot Cooper; no one else could touch it.

　　Similarly, land annexation was simply impossible.

　　After that, smuggling was out of the question, and as for brothels and gambling dens, what was left before him was only salt and iron, and business.

　　“Salt and iron, business…”

　　He circled these two options, biting his pen, deep in thought.

　　The Ming Dynasty didn’t prohibit private salt and iron, and many were involved, but the business was complicated, jointly controlled by several major local gentry and a few gangs outside the city.

　　And business was the same.

　　Whether inside or outside the city, to do business—even just setting up a stall to sell calligraphy and paintings—one had to pay a tenth to the yamen, and another two tenths to the gangs and gentry.

　　Only what was left belonged to oneself.

　　Without connections, no matter how good the business, you’d be squeezed dry.

　　What’s more, he didn’t have that much time to manage a business, let alone go out to buy goods.

　　As for salt and iron, although he had a more efficient method of refining them, where would he get the capital?

　　Even Old Man Walker’s many disciples—only David Miller and a few others lived well; the rest were all struggling.

　　“It’s hard, really hard!”