A month and a half passed in the blink of an eye.
Zhang Heng finally set up his new home, including a two-story building, a cowshed, and a horse pen. Initially, he wanted to start a vegetable garden, but the land wasn’t suitable for crops. Even if he were given the seeds and took good care of them, he wouldn’t obtain a good yield. In the end, Zhang Heng gave up.
He was not an expert in building stuff or had very high requirements for the quality of life. Mainly because Matthew gave him a large piece of land, but there was nothing on it but grass. He had no choice but to build everything himself.
Fortunately, he had not wholly forgotten the building techniques he learned from the short man in the novice dungeon he entered. After getting paid for killing Cook, he hired two more helpers and a mason.
Most houses in the town were made of brick and wood. The advantage of building a house like that was that it could be completed relatively fast; the cost of building could be controlled easily. However, after Zhang Heng asked the drunk sheriff about the bounty, he decided to build it with his own money. He decided to replace all the wood with metal, meaning his house would be sturdier and had a lower chance of catching fire. As for its shortcomings… it was expensive.
The iron and construction materials were produced in factories on the east coast and transported to the town by train. By the time they reached him, their prices would be hiked up several times. Since Zhang Heng had not received the bounty reward yet, he could only borrow the money from Matthew first.
Fortunately, the outcome looked pretty good. The design of his house closely resembled his house in Black Sail. He even took some reference from the design of other houses in the town. With a total area estimated to be about 200 square meters, it really wasn’t that large. It was, however, more than enough for him since he would be living alone. Hence, after construction was completed, Zhang Heng also received an Lv.o construction skill and 20 game points, which was an unexpected gain.
Zhang Heng took two steps back and admired the house he would be staying in for the next few years.
Although there were still several hours before sunset, he paid the helpers and masons a day’s worth of wages and let them off early. Zhang Heng then found his Radish leisurely munching on the grass beside the house. Grabbing his steed, he rode to Matthew’s house next door. Wendy was in front of the door, already waiting for him to come.
“What do you think? Do you want to try it today?” When Wendy saw him, she got up and patted the dust off her skirt.
Zhang Heng nodded.
“Then I’ll call my father.” Wendy briskly rushed into the room.
Two minutes later, the three of them were standing in front of the stable. “Are you ready?” Matthew asked.
“Hmm, let’s start.” Zhang Heng took a deep breath, pushed open the stable’s gate, stepped in, then lowered the wooden latch.
There was only one horse in the stable. It was jet black with dark and shiny fur. According to Matthew, it was initially the leader of a large herd of wild horses on the grasslands. It was the most grumpy and difficult horse to be domesticated, getting into serious trouble less than a week after it got here. The stubborn horse destroyed the stable’s door and escaped with other horses.
After that, Matthew had to spend several days to get it back. He subsequently built a personal stable for it, and Wendy named it Bad Boy. According to Wendy’s promise, Bad Boy now belonged to Zhang Heng. However, after a month and a half later, he still couldn’t ride it.
Zhang Heng had suffered a lot from the Bad Boy’s temper. Thanks to the impossible horse, he was dragged five-meters on the ground like a ragdoll. The scratches on his arm were still visible.
But before he even got better, Zhang Heng had come to rechallenge Bad Boy. After a month and a half of Matthew’s intensive training, Zhang Heng was no longer the man who could not even control Radish. His horseback riding had now officially reached Lv.1.
However, in the repeated fighting of wits and courage with Bad Boy, Zhang Heng realized that Lv.1 horse-riding skill was nowhere good enough to tame this wild dark horse. Despite the odds, he did not give up. After experiencing so many quests, he had mastered skill after skill. Zhang Heng came to realize that the most valuable skill a human possessed was the ability to learn. Gathering experience from past failures and continually finding solutions to problems was a skill many creatures possessed. However, only humans could fully utilize this ability.
When first playing “Sekiro,” the player would be defeated by various bosses again and again. Just like attending classes, after all the teacher’s knowledge had been gathered, it was time for the graduation exam.
Zhang Heng took off his hat, grabbed the noose thrown by Matthew, and swung it over his head.
On the other side, Bad Boy seemed to know that his old nemesis was coming to get him. Immediately, it stopped strolling around and began to scratch the ground with its hooves. And at the same time, its ears turned down, and it was showing his teeth.
Before Zhang Heng could even make a move, it rushed toward Zhang Heng with full force. If Zhang Heng failed to dodge it, it meant everything that he learned during his umpteen years of piracy was just a waste. When Bad Boy approached him, he swiftly dodged aside, avoiding the brutal attack easily.
Bad Boy, however, was not going to stop there. It turned its head around and tried to bite Zhang Heng. Zhang Heng hesitated for a split second, then hurriedly squatted to avoid the bite.
This time, Bad Boy’s attack revealed its weakness. The last time Zhang Heng caught its fault, he got dragged on the ground for five meters after throwing the lasso around its neck.
This trick was extremely effective against the ordinary horses, but it wasn’t about to trick Bad Boy into submission. The ill-tempered black horse had an incredible will. After such a long time of training, Zhang Heng’s strength had improved, but he was nowhere nearly as strong as a horse. Each time, he got dragged and thrown around by the creature’s brute strength.
So this time, Zhang Heng did not make any rash moves. Instead, he let the horse think that it had gained the upper hand in this battle. Meanwhile, he would keep looking out for the golden opportunity to control it.
The black horse’s attacks were limited. Zhang Heng had been having fun taming it, even naming those skills by drawing references to the games he played. There was Brutal Ramming, Death Trampling, Diving Dragon Swipe, Ultimate Kick, and even the Furious Bite.
Other than that, Bad Horses would step on your feet while you were not paying attention. If that happened, it would pretend to enjoy the beautiful scenery around it and take a deep breath of the fresh air. And the person had to suffer 400 to 500 pounds of weight being crushed on the feet.
Although Bad Boy was born of a violent nature, its attack methods would always repeat.
After performing a set of (Brutal Ramming) + [Divine Dragon Swipe) + (Furious Bite] + [Ultimate Kick), it would enter cool-down period. It then turned around and looked at Zhang Heng triumphantly. If it could speak, it would have gone along the lines of “Stupid humans, you are not worthy of riding me yet!”
