A year later, in Hejian Prefecture.
The weather was favorable; although it was winter, it wasn't as cold as in previous years. Today, the sun shone brightly, bringing considerable warmth, and the marketplace opened accordingly, restoring much vitality to the prefecture city.
"Sugar-coated haws for sale, sugar-coated haws!"
"Buns, freshly steamed buns!"
"Pancakes, thin-skinned stuffed pancakes!"
"Ointment, good ointment..."
In the marketplace, the cries of vendors rose one after another, continuously, while people came and went, and the streets were bustling with activity.
"Kind sirs, please have mercy!"
"Have pity on me!"
In such a bustling market, there were inevitably people begging for alms, roaming the street corners, pleading for mercy. Those with talents even performed songs for some food and loose change.
After all, it wasn't a year of great disaster, and the citizens living in the prefecture city were quite affluent. As long as one's luck wasn't too bad, a beggar could mostly find enough to eat and wear. If lucky enough to encounter some benevolent and kind-hearted officials, merchants, or wealthy gentry, they might even come into a small fortune.
In such a scene, at the entrance of a small alley facing the street, Shen Hex, with disheveled hair and a hunched body, held a broken bowl and leaned on a bamboo stick, also begging from passersby.
A year had passed, and as winter came again, he donned the linen robe that blended with the muddy color. His entire person appeared filthy and dirty, even looking somewhat shabby among the beggars.
With such an appearance, those who passed and gave alms weren't very disdainful. In just half a day's work, he had collected a hundred copper coins, along with two small pieces of silver, making the two nearby beggars watching them green-eyed with envy.
Shen Hex didn't pay attention to them, mechanically soliciting passersby while opening his professional status panel.
Gouwa (Shen Hex)
Profession: Beggar.
Professional Rank: Tier One Level Seven.
Professional Talent: Begging for mercy.
Professional Skills: Stone Throwing, Flying Sand.
Professional Items: Stone Throwing, Flying Sand.
General Skills: Yuan-Devouring Skill, Xingyi Fist.
...
It had been a year since he transmigrated to this world, and he still hadn't rid himself of the beggar's identity, remaining under the control and oppression of the Beggar Lord Zhou San and his gang.
But this won't last much longer!
In this year, besides his primary job of begging, he had done many other things.
First was the change in his body; under the filthy linen robe, his body had become more robust, no longer as skinny and weak as before. Even while feigning a hunched posture, he was sturdier than the average beggar.
All this was thanks to his professional ability and the dietary enhancement of the Yuan-Devouring Skill.
Being a beggar, in the real world, would undoubtedly be a job even dogs look down upon, but in this world, it provided essential support for Shen Hex in his initial stage.
In a year, relying on his professional effect, his begging ability grew stronger, sometimes even obtaining some small silver fragments.
This allowed his status among the beggars to rise constantly, even managing to get enough food under Zhou San's gang.
This gang of Beggar Lords had already made him a cash cow, not wanting to see him encounter any mishaps, so they were not so harsh about food and drink. They even held him up as an example for other beggars, offering him occasional rewards.
This barely allowed him to have enough to eat. Combined with the dietary enhancement of the Yuan-Devouring Skill, and the physique enhancement from professional upgrades, in a year, he nourished his body to a robust state, no longer the skinny, starving orphan that the wind could blow over.
That's about his body; besides that, he's developed parts of his professional ability.
Through the panel, it was visible that professionals, apart from professional talent, also possess two columns: professional skills and professional items.
Professional skills, as the name suggests, are skills that align with a profession. A professional can consume experience to transform suitable general skills into professional skills, endowing them with professional traits.
The profession only enhances your ability in a specific field without imposing any restrictions, so professionals can learn all skills and record them into the panel.
Take martial arts as an example. Martial Arts Professionals certainly have great advantages in practicing martial arts, but this doesn't mean non-Martial Arts Professionals can't practice martial arts; they just don't receive the various boosts of the Martial Arts Profession.
Theoretically, as long as you can learn, you can practice martial arts and generate various general category skills, regardless of your profession.
This is the source of general skills!
On the other hand, professional skills are those that transform general skills by endowing them with professional effects.
Take Shen Hex, for example; presently, he has two professional skills: Stone Throwing and Flying Sand.
The generation of these two professional skills is straightforward, akin to practicing martial arts. Practicing Stone Throwing and Flying Sand techniques to a certain level will generate them as general skills. Then, by converting professional experience, they become professional skills.
Stone Throwing (General)
Skill Tier: Tier One Level One.
Skill Introduction: Use a unique technique to throw stones or stone blocks at the target.
Stone Throwing (Professional)
Professional Skill: Beggar.
Skill Tier: Tier One Level One.
Skill Effect: Skilled Throwing (Stone Throwing is an important combat skill for beggars. Beggars have become proficient with it, enhancing speed, precision, force, range, and finding suitable stones, consuming professional experience to transform them into Professional Items Stone Throwing.)
Skill Introduction: Throwing stones is also an art!
...
This is the difference between generic skills and professional skills.
Generic skills, they're like a blank slate; although they appear on the professional panel, they don't have any augmenting effects.
Professional skills are different; they can receive the enhancement of professional power. Depending on the profession, the enhancement effects vary. For example, Shen Hex's Beggar profession can enhance all aspects of Stone Throwing and can consume professional experience to create professional items like "Stone Throwing".
Stone Throwing
Artifact Profession: Beggar.
Item Tier: Tier One Level One.
Item Effect: Suitable for throwing (reduces the difficulty of throwing, improves accuracy, speed, and range)
Item Introduction: This is a carefully selected stone, suitable for hitting people or birds.
...
Besides Stone Throwing, Shen Hex also mastered a professional skill called "Flying Sand" and crafted related professional items.
Therefore, don't judge him just as a beggar, he's now armed to the teeth; the bamboo stick in his hand and the sand and stones in his cloth bag are all weapons.
Originally, he hoped to convert "Yuan-Devouring Skill" and "Xingyi Fist" into professional skills as well, but found that these two skills weren't compatible with the Beggar profession. Although they can be forcibly converted, it would consume a massive amount of professional experience, which he simply couldn't afford.
Don't be fooled by the fact that within a year, he has raised the Beggar profession to Level 7, seemingly with ease, but that's a characteristic of the "trash profession": the lower the professional intensity, the easier it is to gain experience.
The intensity of the Beggar profession doesn't require much explanation; if its professional rank hadn't started at Tier One, it would definitely fall into the category of "Tier Zero Profession".
Thus, the difficulty in gaining experience is extremely low, and raising the level is relatively simple.
Even so, one year to Level 7, Shen Hex has put quite the effort, even taking some risks.
The Beggar profession, besides begging, can gain experience through bullying the innocent, fighting, and even territory struggle with other beggars.
Yes, even beggars have to fight for territory!
Though there's leadership from the Beggar Gang, just like the whole empire can't act as one heart, how much more so a small gang; thus even with the Beggar Gang, the order among bottom-tier beggars remains chaotic, with fights over territories happening frequently.
This past year, Shen Hex experienced it a few times; Zhou San and his Beggar Lord gang led them to fight other beggars for territory, once even causing a fatal incident.
Shen Hex wasn't among those risking their lives but contributed a considerable effort, thus managing within a short year to raise the professional level of Beggar to Tier One Level Seven. Just three more levels and he can attempt advancement.
Unfortunately…
"Time is running out!"
Shen Hex's eyes narrowed as he finally made a decision, turning and walking into the alley behind.
In a year's time, although he has gained some favor with Zhou San and other Beggar Lords with the effect of "begging for mercy" and continually improving business skills, this hasn't changed his plight; he remains like fish on the chopping board, at the mercy of others.
This life of fear and uncertainty is hard to bear.
Though Shen Hex has endured the hardships of society in his two lifetimes, as time passes, the changes in his body are becoming hard to hide, Zhou San and the others will eventually notice the anomaly.
A long-time hungry, malnourished little beggar, after only months of full meals merely to survive with no real nutritional meat supplement, still able to recover deficits and even strengthen his physique—if there wasn't something fishy, then nobody would believe it.
Once Zhou San and the others notice this, Shen Hex will face the threat of death.
Thus, he must strike first!
Though he can continue hiding, develop for a while longer, get the professional level to full and possibly breakthrough, then crush the situation forcefully, but the risks are too high and inherently unstable.
If taking risks anyway, he might as well seize the initiative, holding control himself!
This is one reason; additionally, as his begging skills grow, Zhou San and others' "favor" towards him increases, some matters have already touched his moral lower limit.
For instance—proof of allegiance!
Zhou San already intends to absorb him as one of the Beggar Lord's gang members, but first, he must provide proof of allegiance.
What kind of proof?
The three ironclad things among men, none other than those.
Shen Hex doesn't claim to be morally upright, but he has his limits and adherence; some things he will not do.
Additionally, his profession is already at Level 7, just three levels shy of full level; he must plan for future advancement.
After years of development and research, the empire already owns a mature theory about professional creation and advancement.
On a superficial level, the way of professional creation is simple: persistently doing one thing, thus generating a relevant profession with probability.
But that's just the surface; many scholars in the empire believe that the core principle of professional creation is actually an individual's influence on the world, thus closely related to the professional's actions.
To seek employment, advancement, breakthrough, one requires not only quantity accumulation but also quality enhancement.
Meaning simply doing is not enough, but doing well, doing large—the larger the better, the better the larger; this way raises the success rate of advancement, producing high-quality professions. Otherwise, the probability of advancement, the quality of profession will be low.
If Shen Hex remains dormant, begging until full level, given his actions in this period, the success rate of advancement is dreadfully low.
Even if he fortuitously succeeds at the end, the advanced profession may not be anything powerful, nothing beyond Beggar Lord, Beggar Chief, or Beggar's Gang Disciple nonsense.
That's not what he wants, though the Beggar profession helped him through the tough initial phase, he doesn't want to remain a beggar, being a beggar's overlord.
He seeks change!
Therefore, some people must die!