《Under The Heavens》


 1 A New World?

    Today was supposed to be just like any other day for our mc Edward. He was going to go to school as usual, hang out with his friends as usual and then go to sleep as usual. But unfortunately for Edward, the gods had other things in store for him, things he could never even imagine to be possible. He had started the day out as usual, putting on some clothes, brushing his teeth after having some breakfast, and then reading a little before heading off to school.


    In school everything also proceeded as usual at first, he had math, biology, and art, before it was time for lunch. That''s where it all went wrong. The menu for today consisted of fish and chips as the main dish, and then some other vegetarian option, Edward didn''t know what it was though, and he didn''t care either. He was a big fan of meat, so he never really cared for vegetarian or vegan food, he could understand their point of view, but he still disagreed with them. He believed in the law of the jungle, the strong survived, while the weak were preyed upon.


    But he still thought that animals should be respected and cared for to a certain degree, some of the things people did to animals were far too cruel, and Edward hated people like this. People who abused their powers and bullied the weak, just because they were too afraid to mess with those stronger than them, both literally and figuratively. Normal people wouldn''t think about stuff like that too much, but Edward was different, he hated people like these with a burning passion, and this was because of his past.


    Edward actually used to have a lovely family when he was younger, both of his parents loved both each other and Edward deeply, but one day, his father got cancer. Because of the medical advancements at the time, as well as the fact that they found out too late, Edwards dad quickly passed away. Edward was three at the time, and he didn''t really understand what had happened until a bit later, but that wasn''t the end of it. You might wonder why he started to hate people who abused their power to bully the weak because of that, but it was all really simple. Because they bullied a weak person, namely his mom.


    His mom was devastated when her husband had suddenly left her behind, but she still tried her best to provide her young son with the best life and future possibilities. It didn''t go all that well though, she was being pressured in her job almost every day, and this wasn''t some form of pressure stemming from stress or anything, this was pressure from her higher-ups. Edwards mom had always been a natural beauty, she didn''t have to put much effort into looking good every day, and therefore there were people who sought to use her husband''s death to their advantage.


    They usually tried to blackmail her with her son, and therefore she made a decision, one which would change Edwards life drastically, she left him behind, and ran away. But even though it sounds harsh, she did it out of love, because Edward quickly got adopted by a very caring family, in which he would spend the remainder of his youth. The only downside to this plan was that Edward didn''t know why he had been left behind by his mother, it wasn''t like she left behind a letter or a message, containing any sort of reason for her to do this.


    But Edward was a strong kid, he didn''t get depressed, he didn''t feel like he wasn''t needed, he didn''t feel like he was a waste. Or well, to be exact, he got over it in a single week, then he got it all together, even though he was just a little kid. And now he had turned into a youth of about 14 years of age. He was a bit taller than most of his classmates at about 1,78 meters tall. Since he liked to do some light strength exercising pretty often, his body was well-built and robust. You could also see how he had clearly managed to inherit some of his mother''s looks, turning him into someone who would make the girls turn their heads when he walked past.


    He himself had never been that interested in girls though, simply because almost none of those he had met seemed to arouse his interest. But Edward didn''t see that as a problem at all, it was actually quite the opposite, from what he had heard from his friends, relationships seemed to be a hassle.


    Once he had entered the schools dining area, Edward had a weird feeling, he didn''t quite understand it at first, but after seeing his friends, he figured something was off. First, he decided to wave at them, yielding no reaction at all, seeing this, Edward''s heart rate sped up. He then decided to go up to them and exchange a few words, but when he started talking to them, he froze, they didn''t react at all! It was like they didn''t even notice him at all.


    Seeing how things were developing, Edward started to hyperventilate, it was like he was in a different dimension. The air was stale and heavy, weighing down on his lungs, and constricting his respiratory system. Since Edward was hyperventilating, he quickly became light-headed under the circumstances of the heavy air, and therefore he also passed out. And while this was all happening, an old man was standing by and watching it all, it was weird how Edward had not noticed such an old man standing right in front of him, but of course, nothing in this world is ever that easy.


    ....


    Suddenly waking up, Edward sprung into a sitting position, his face was clearly a bit fear-stricken, but he quickly tried to calm himself down to analyze the situation he was in, and when he did, his mind went blank, about as blank as his surroundings. That''s right, he seemed to be in some sort of enclosed space, of about 20 meters square, but the scary part about his surroundings was the fact that Edward couldn''t ascertain which colors were which. Everything looked the same to him, but he didn''t know what it was, which freaked him out. The space felt so surreal, he didn''t know which direction was which either, and everything in this enclosed space seemed to be shrouded in complete mystery.


    "Now, hello there Edward."


    Hearing a voice in his head all of a sudden, Edward''s face quickly contorted. And when he looked around, all he could find was an old man, sitting in the corner of this enclosed space, watching him. The old man had no face, or it was more like, the more you looked at it, the less you would remember. From Edwards point of view, he just looked like a regular old man, a long grey beard, shoulder-length white hair in a ponytail, and clad in white robes. But when Edward thought a little more about it, there was another fact that was very scary, this old man knew his name.


    Edward didn''t get enough time to process anything that was thrown at him right now, and so the old man opened his mouth to speak once more.


    "Now I know you are confused and all that, but hear me out for a little while."


    "You, as a human, probably know me as God, but remember Edward, everything happens for a reason, and you, my friend, is special."


    "To be completely honest with you, you were chosen, even though it might be a little selfish on my part."


    Speaking up to this point, the old man suddenly stopped to let Edward process what was going on. Which was the correct thing to do, as Edward looked like a big question mark right now. [God? Really? I''m not dreaming am-]


    "No, you are in fact awake right now."


    "You can read my thoughts?"


    "Yes indeed"


    "So let me get this straight, I''m not dreaming, you are God, and I was chosen because I''m special?"


    "Yes"


    Hearing this, Edward''s soul shook a little bit, he wasn''t really sure where to proceed from here on out. Apparently, he was chosen by a God, but to do what? Since pondering on it would bring him nothing in this situation, he decided to ask him directly, he also wanted to know if he could go back where he came from, to his friends, and go about life as usual.


    "So, what was I chosen for, and why?"


    "You were chosen to defend a certain world from calamity, and why, you ask? Simply because you have the talent to do so. As I said, you''re special."


    Having confirmed what he was chosen for, Edward''s head was spinning in circles, this situation was too weird! He didn''t really know what to say in response either since he had no idea what the so-called "God" meant. What type of calamity? Talented in what exactly? He still wasn''t entirely sure if this was a dream or not, but whatever the case may be, he would take it seriously, just in case.


    "What type of calamity?"


    "Unfortunately I can''t tell you that."


    "Why not?"


    "I can''t interfere too much with the world I''m sending you to, sending you has already almost crossed the line."


    Hearing this Edward pondered for about a second before he continued to question God.


    "What do I have the talent to do, exactly?"


    "Cultivate!"


    This response shocked Edward yet again, as cultivation was something out of fantasy, and not something real, at least in this world. But then again, he was now talking to God, so who knew what was real or not anymore. Using this mindset, Edward managed to calm himself down, he was about to ask another question, when God started talking again.


    "Unfortunately we don''t have any more time to speak, I must send you on your way now."


    "Wait for a second! I still have questions to ask!"


    "No can do, the power holding up this space is running out, and I can''t sustain it anymore."


    When he heard this Edward was a bit surprised, wasn''t God supposed to be some kind of omnipotent being?


    "I might be omnipotent in this universe, but the one you are going to is governed by another God, and therefore it cost me a lot of energy to be able to send you there. So don''t waste the opportunity I have given you!"


    This was the last thing Edward heard before everything around him suddenly disappeared, all was black. All Edward could feel was cold, and a weird pain in his stomach, as if it was being twisted from the inside, but weirdly, it didn''t hurt that much. This feeling, fortunately, didn''t last long, being over in but a fleeting moment. But then he suddenly felt a bang in his consciousness, bringing with it a soul-tearing pain.


    This woke him up from his sleep, which once again shocked him, but he didn''t have the time to think about that though, as his mind was currently being invaded by unfamiliar memories, and an indescribable pain, Edward couldn''t process anything during this period, he was just constantly trying to cling onto his consciousness. After about ten minutes of pain and profuse sweating, it finally stopped, and it left behind both memories, as well as emotions.


    But right now Edward didn''t think about these memories for a couple of seconds, because he had arrived in another world!

 2 Edward Stone

    Looking around for a little bit, Edward noticed he was laying down in a bed, it was a pretty normal bed if you would measure it from his old worlds standards. He also noticed that said bed, was inside of a room, a pretty decently sized room actually, it was about 10 meters square, the walls inside of the room seemed to be made out of wood, but it seemed to be in pretty good shape. One thing he did notice, however, was the fact that this room he was in seemed pretty behind, so to speak. Or more like, not very up to date compared to most rooms in the country he was from, but then again, that country was pretty well-developed.


    But then again, God had told Edward that this was a world where cultivation was a thing, so he didn''t really expect the society here to be technologically advanced. He was just about to take a step out of the bed, when something suddenly hit him, that he had somehow already forgotten. This body wasn''t his! He had a lot of new memories that he hadn''t digested and accepted yet, just putting them in the back of his head. But after willing the memories to appear, they suddenly started streaming straight into his mind.


    Edward learned a lot of things almost instantly, and the pain he had experienced earlier almost started to reappear, but fortunately, the pain this time was a lot less intense, compared to before. One of the things that Edward learned was his new name in this world, Edward Stone. It was actually the same as his first life if you don''t take the surname into account. The Stone family was one of the 3 major families of the city Idirie, along with the Silvercreek family and the Eaglestone family. All of these 3 families were more like clans that one was born into, and they all cultivated. But even if these 3 families were the tyrants of Idirie, they were still just branches of their bigger counterparts, so the Stone family of Idirie was just one of the branches of the main Stone family.


    Idirie was situated very close to the border between Esmea and Oshar, but it was a part of Esmea. Therefore this place wasn''t really the best place to settle down since there were regular skirmishes between the 2 countries, and they were always at odds with each other. There had also been multiple occasions were war was brewing, and Idirie took the biggest hit of them all before it all calmed down. Inside of the Stone family, there were strict hierarchies between the main descendants and the regular family members. The punishment would be much worse for the regular family member if one of the main descendants fought with them since they were favored by all of the elders and higher-ups of the family.


    Edward was considered a regular member in the family, but one with more backing than the others. This was because of Edwards uncle. Edward Stone didn''t have any parents, as they passed away while he was still a little kid, but he did have an uncle, and that uncle was an outer elder of the family, and what does the "outer" stand for? Well, it''s quite simple, the younger generation of the family was not just divided into regular and main descendants. They were also divided into outer, inner and core members, this was all decided by strength and cultivation level.


    And to Edwards surprise, cultivation in this world was apparently not as simple as he had thought. To cultivate meant to absorb the essence of heaven and earth, and strengthen yourself, at least in the most general and simple explanation. But to absorb this essence, one needed to have a martial spirit. Martial spirits could be just about anything, and they were divided into tiers and ranks from low to high: Human - Profound - Earth - Heaven. Each of these tiers was further divided into 10 ranks, with tenth rank heaven tier being the highest. But not all humans had martial spirits, and even if they did, they needed to have one that was good enough to get accepted into sects and such, as they all had strict requirements. And this was because the rank of the martial spirit could roughly decide your future. The higher the rank, the faster you would absorb essence, and the further you would be able to go on the path of cultivation.


    When Edward was about to try and find out what his martial spirit was, he was hit with another memory, he had not awakened one yet! Even though the Edward Stone of this world was 14 years old, he hadn''t awakened his martial spirit yet, which indicated that his aptitude was below average in his family, as the average was between 12 and 13 years old. But Edward wasn''t discouraged! God had sent him here for a reason, and how would he save a world from calamity if he didn''t even have a martial spirit? God had also told him he had talent, so when he actually awakened his martial spirit, it would probably be good.


    Thinking of this, some more memories streamed into Edward''s head, that was right! The yearly ceremony for the members of the Stone family to awaken their martial spirits was just around the corner! There were only 3 weeks left. And since Edward was sent here right now, he was feeling confident that he would awaken one this time, he felt that it would be very unreasonable for there to be such a coincidence otherwise. But then again, the world works in mysterious ways sometimes, and no possibilities should be entirely ruled out.


    After a little while, the memories from the old Edward of this world had completely sunk in and settled, making Edward feel whole, but he didn''t actually know the reason why. The actual reason for this "whole" feeling would be that the merging of the two Edwards'' souls was now complete, the really painful part would be when the two souls first started merging, as they were rejecting each other.But Edward didn''t know any of this, even if he did, he would probably not understand what it would mean anyways, but it was actually a great thing! As his comprehension, as well as other abilities, were sure to rise due to the merging of the souls.


    But Edward finally started to realize something after thinking and digging up all of the memories of the original owner of this body, there was once an original owner, and that meant that the original owner was now gone, this made Edward a bit uneasy, as he wondered how the original owner of this body had died. So he investigated his memories a bit deeper this time, and he managed to find some more fragmented memories hidden deep inside of his brain, and luckily, the original owner had died in an accident. It would be really troublesome if he had been killed since that would mean that Edward had someone who wanted him dead in this world. But then he thought some more about it, and realized he had worried for nothing, the old Edward didn''t socialize or interact with anyone, since he wasn''t even mediocre, so there was no way he could make any enemies.


    But Edward didn''t get sad at the fact that he didn''t have any friends right now, it was actually the exact opposite, this made this new life a lot easier, as he had fewer people to interact with, which would mean he could get more accustomed to this world before he spoke with people, if you didn''t count his uncle of course. As Edward was thinking about all of this, the door was suddenly opened, and in through the door came a maid.


    When the maid concentrated her gaze on her young master, who sat up in his bed, she gasped as she hurriedly left again in a hurry. This, of course, didn''t escape Edward''s eye, and he was a little puzzled when faced with the current situation, why did a maid enter his room? And why did she leave as soon as she saw him? There existed 2 possibilities inside of Edward''s head, the first one was that she had entered the wrong room, and the other one was that the maid had been hired by his uncle, who had sent her here to keep watch over him.


    Edward couldn''t really come up with an answer, so he decided to stop thinking about it, and think about something else, but he didn''t get the time to...


    BANG!


    "Edward!"


    A loud bang and a shout could be heard as a middle-aged man suddenly smashed his way through the door into Edwards room. The middle-aged man wore a blue robe that seemed to hang too close to his body, almost like it was a bit too small. His face was well groomed, and he kept his facial hair neatly trimmed. His eyes were crystal blue in color, and his eyebrows were straight and they looked sharp as they slanted downwards. His hair was a dark shade of brown, and also very disheveled at the moment. Edward also noticed how this man had a sword hanging around his waist, it wasn''t really hard to guess who this person was, it was Edward''s uncle! Pierre!

 3 Foundation

    After seeing his own nephew sitting up on his bed, Pierre was overjoyed. He had almost given up hope completely when he found out that this nephew of his had been attacked by a demonic beast when he was out in the woods. Demonic beasts were like cultivators, they could absorb the essence of heaven and earth to strengthen themselves, and therefore Edward wasn''t their match. Since he hadn''t started his cultivation yet. Of course, demonic beasts also had their own realms of cultivation, corresponding to the humans, but the beasts cultivation realms didn''t have any names, which the humans did. The beasts were only categorized into ranks named after numbers, so the weakest demonic beasts were rank 1. But the difference between rank 1 and 2 was immense, and therefore they were also divided into low-tier, mid-tier, high-tier and then peak-tier. With low being the weakest.


    Edward didn''t know what the highest ranked demonic beast was, the highest he had heard of was only rank 3, and that was a terrifying existence that the old Edward would never cross paths with. If his luck wasn''t that bad of course. Edward similarly only knew of the existence of three cultivation realms, but he only knew the name of the first two. The first realm was called the body-tempering stage, this was because you used the essence of heaven and earth, more commonly referred to as qi, to temper your body. This stage was further divided into ten stages, with the tenth being the highest of them all. After that came the second realm, this realm was known as the qi gathering realm. Edward wasn''t entirely sure, but from what the old Edward had gathered, you tempered your dantian at this stage.


    The dantian needed to be established in the body for the cultivator to be considered to have entered the qi gathering realm. The dantian was a place where you could store qi, and when the cultivator reached the realm of qi gathering, he could use qi to enhance his attacks, even pushing it to the surface of the cultivator''s body, but not beyond that. Of course one could use qi in the body-tempering realm, but that was only internally. When the qi was released to the surface of the body, it would be a completely different kind of power. The qi gathering realm was also said to be further divided into ten stages, but there only existed a few elites in the qi gathering realm in the city of Idirie.


    Since Edward hadn''t started cultivating yet, a rank 1 beast was a terrifying existence for him at the moment, since he was still just a regular mortal. And Pierre had been devastated when he heard the news of his nephew running into a rank 1 demonic beast. Pierre had always felt guilty because of his brother''s death, and when he left a son behind, Pierre decided to raise him into a fine young man himself. He was a bit disappointed when he understood that his nephew''s talent was subpar, but he still loved him nonetheless, and he didn''t give up yet. As long as Edward managed to find happiness in life, Pierre would feel satisfied.


    "Edward! You''re alive!"


    "Yes, uncle."


    "How are you feeling?"


    "I''m feeling very exhausted, but apart from that, I feel fine."


    "To think the Gods would favor you this much, you will have to thank them later!"


    Hearing this Pierre felt wonderful, his nephew, who he had been presuming was dead, was now alive, and even feeling well at that! Looking at his nephew''s apathetic face, Pierre was full of emotions. This nephew of his had always been like this, never showing his emotions to anyone, at this point he wasn''t even sure if his nephew still had them left. But that wasn''t important right now, what was important was his nephew''s health, but when he checked him once more, he was totally astonished. The wounds on Edwards body had healed perfectly! Before today, his wounds didn''t really want to heal, and they kept reopening themselves, Edwards body had been totally eviscerated! But now, it was all gone!


    Pierre didn''t even know what to say, he was too astonished to even comprehend how this could have happened, so he decided to not dwell on it, his own nephew was fine after all! And since Edward seemed to be thoroughly exhausted, Pierre decided to let him rest up for a while before bothering him. They exchanged some small talk before Pierre left him to his own devices, presuming Edward was going to sleep. But Edward wanted to make use of the time that had been given to him because he had learned a very concerning fact from the memories of the old Edward. This world was ruled by the strong! The strong preyed on the weak, and the weak could only watch while they were murdered or robbed, lest they had the strength to protect themselves and their loved ones.


    Therefore the first thing Edward decided to do in this new body of his, was to lay down a solid foundation for the martial spirit awakening. He wanted to do this since is future cultivation would be smoother if he had a solid foundation. Edward saw cultivating like building a skyscraper, the stronger the foundation, the more support it could give the floors that would go on top, and the more stable it would be as well. Up until this point, the Edward of the past had trained in a couple of different martial arts. Martial arts were divided into the same tiers as martial spirits, human - profound - earth - heaven. They were then further divided into low-tier, mid-tier, top-tier and peak-tier. But the lowest of them all were core-ranked martial arts. The core rank of martial arts only existed in the human rank though, and it was essentially only for people who couldn''t absorb qi since every martial art ranked higher than that required qi.


    The martial arts that Edward had trained were all core-ranked foundation arts. So the foundation of the sword, the foundation of movement, the foundation of fists as well as the foundation of legs. These foundation techniques were used all around the continent to train martial artists, almost everyone started out with the same techniques, and then moved on to more advanced ones when they had awakened their martial spirits. Since they could incorporate some use of qi in their moves and practice harder ones, to attain more power.


    The old Edward of this world didn''t have particularly good comprehension or insight, so his achievements in all of these were very bad, only reaching the low-grade achievement in all of them, except for the foundation of the sword, in which he had achieved the mid-grade. This was how people ranked their understandings of martial arts, they ranked from beginner-grade to low-grade, to mid-grade to high-grade to peak-grade to max-grade. His achievement in the foundation of the sword was the only one that was passable, the other ones were pretty bad.


    Therefore Edward decided to start training immediately to further his achievements in these martial arts since that would make him a lot stronger than he currently was. He started out by training his fist arts, this was because the body was the foundation of everything, and the fist arts trained the body more than all of the others. Therefore Edward lowered his body into a horse stance. This was an essential part of the fist arts as this would strengthen both your legs and back, help you with your balance, and it was also the stance from which you practiced your punches. After going into the horse stance, Edward started to punch out at the air in front of him.


    This seemed just like normal at first, but after a little while, Edward''s face lit up in excitement, this was because he had already managed to get some insights into his fist arts! Seeing as he was on the breaking point of breaking through to the mid-grade, he kept practicing for another half a day until he finally let out a low pitched grunt, finally breaking through into the mid-grade! His fists brought more power with each punch now, and he didn''t need to use as much energy as before, of course, there were also fewer flaws to take advantage of in his technique, but that was a given.


    Edward felt elated at this moment, this feeling was amazing! Now Edward could understand how people were able to put so much time into practicing, because the feeling of breaking through was awesome, and he got stronger as well, which would give him a higher position in the future! Edward had also noticed something from this session, his comprehension was a lot better compared to before! Now, he could even be considered a genius! If he could keep up the pace of course. And since his comprehension was a lot better now, Edward figured it had something to do with the fact that he was in control of this body now.


    And seeing such obvious results, Edward decided to train even harder, so that he could catch up to his generation as quickly as possible! Therefore he decided to move onto his other martial arts as well, only devoting his time to training, resting and eating, sometimes he would even ponder further on his martial arts while he rested his body, and sometimes he would just sleep to rest his mind. This went on until the day before the martial spirit awakening ceremony...

 4 Martial Spirit Awakening Ceremony

    On top of a wall made out of stone, stood a middle-aged man clad in a robe that seemed to be a size too small. This man was silently watching a youth practicing his swordsmanship inside of a small yard, this youth was Edward, and the man was Pierre. Pierre had never felt this proud in his entire life before, maybe this near-death experience his nephew had was a blessing in disguise. Right now the wind was fierce and the rain was pouring, but weirdly enough, this didn''t seem to stop the youth in the slightest as he stood and refined his swordsmanship.


    Ever since Edward had experienced a near-death experience, his talent in martial arts seemed to have become a lot better. Pierre had heard about normal people suddenly turning into geniuses before, and this seemed to be one of those cases, maybe the feeling of almost dying had brought him enlightenment, or maybe the Gods had pitied him, but ever since that day, he wasn''t the same. His once normal martial arts had transformed into something only the geniuses would achieve before awakening their martial spirits, but he was still far behind because of his age. But when you considered the fact that this transformation only took a little less than 3 weeks, it was almost a tiny bit monstrous, but not overly so.


    His martial arts had all advanced from the low-rank to the high-rank of achievement, this was actually considered quite decent. But through training for a period of almost 3 weeks, Edward noticed something crucial, his talent with the sword seemed to be superb, as he had somehow managed to attain the max-grade achievement in the foundation of the sword! This was very good, as max-grade was something only extraordinary geniuses achieved in their martial arts before advancing to the more advanced ones. Edward also knew this would be crucial when he started practicing more advanced techniques after he had awakened his martial spirit, as his foundation would be as solid as it could be when it concerned the sword, which would make him improve by leaps and bounds.


    When he had finished his normal routine, he paused to take a breather, and at this moment, his uncle Pierre suddenly appeared in front of him. Edward was astonished by his uncle''s speed, he wasn''t even able to see where his uncle had come from. But then again, it would be weird if he could, Edward''s uncle was an elder after all, and that meant that he was in the qi gathering realm. While Edward hadn''t even started cultivating yet.


    Since Edward had been training non-stop for almost 3 weeks, with the only breaks being for food and rest, his uncle advised him to rest for the martial spirit awakening. Edward agreed to this since he wanted to be in his best condition tomorrow, he didn''t want to risk anything when it came to awakening his martial spirit since it would be very crucial to his life in this new world. Edward hadn''t noticed it yet, but with the merging of both Edwards'' souls, his personality had slowly changed, he had become a lot more ambitious and hardworking. But this wasn''t anything negative, it was quite the opposite since it didn''t matter if you were talented if you didn''t even want to become an expert.


    After seeing his nephew agree with him, Pierre''s face was beaming, as he left his nephew to his own devices. He didn''t spend a lot of time with this nephew of his, even if he cared for him a lot, this was because the old Edward liked being alone, and he didn''t interact with anyone. Pierre also had his own daughter that he looked after. But his own daughter had always been more talented than his nephew, she was actually considered a genius within the family, albeit a normal one, since she awakened her 6th tier human-ranked martial spirit at the age of 12. Therefore she had already stepped into the 5th rank of body-tempering at the age of 14. But her comprehension was only a step better than average.


    Sending his uncle away with his eyes, Edward decided to go to sleep, it was already pretty late, and he looked forward to tomorrow a lot since it would change his destiny if he awakened a martial spirit, which he was sure he would do! When he entered his small wooden hut, he quickly threw off his clothes and went to sleep, even though the bed wasn''t exactly comfortable, Edward had already gotten used to it, so it only took him about half an hour to slowly drift off into the abyss.


    ...


    Waking up the next day, Edward was beaming! He quickly got dressed in the standard martial robes of the family, even though the clothes were a bit plain, they still looked elegant when they were worn by a martial artist, there was some kind of hidden charm to it. The martial robes of the Stone family were brown, this had something to do with their family name. Their family name was Stone for a reason, and that was because of the ancestor who founded the family, Walter Stone! This ancestor of theirs had managed to shock the country and establish his name with the help of his profound-ranked stone martial spirit, hence the name Stone, and since his martial spirit had been a stone, the descendants of the family usually awakened martial spirits of the earth element.


    After he had gotten dressed Edward made his way toward the location of the martial spirit awakening, the main hall of the family. On his way towards the main hall, Edward noticed that there was a lot of people who were heading in the same direction as him, and it was totally understandable, because even if someone had already awakened their martial spirit, they would come and watch the martial spirit awakening to see how the overall situation of this generation would look like, and if there were any unparalleled geniuses being born. Edward didn''t care about any of this though, all he was thinking about was the kind of martial spirit he would awaken, and what element it would be aligned with, there also existed a slight fear within his heart. The fear that he wouldn''t awaken a martial spirit, Edward was already 14 and the limit for awakening a martial spirit was 15, so this was his penultimate chance.


    When he was at the entrance of the main hall, Edward was just about to step inside, when he was shoved aside by a youth his age. This youth only glanced at Edwards identification badge with disdain before continuing inside. Edward didn''t get hot-blooded or mad at this though, his look was steady and solemn as he regained his balance, and then went inside.


    The youth who had brazenly pushed him aside was one of the main descendants, and therefore his position was a lot higher than Edward''s, and it would be stupid to start trouble over such an insignificant matter, but Edward still silently remembered the youth''s face, the youth had almond-colored eyes, his nose was sharp, almost a bit too sharp, it looked you could cut your finger on it if you tried, which made the youth look a little comical.


    And since he was thinking about looks, Edward noticed how he had completely forgotten about himself since arriving in this new world, he had no idea what he looked like! Therefore he decided to check himself out when he got the chance to later. Stepping inside of the main hall, Edward could see a huge crowd of youths, since almost everyone that was here was here to try and awaken their martial spirits, the older generation was in another hall, at least the majority of them, and spectated through a simple array.


    Edward had always been one to arrive on time, and almost instantly when he arrived, the ceremony started. The main hall had a circular shape, and it was elevated in the middle, almost like a small arena, even though this was called the main hall, it was mainly used as a stage for sparring, the only reason it was called the main hall, was because of the yearly martial spirit awakening ceremony, since it was crucial to the future of the family. And right now, there were two elders on this stage, standing on opposite sides, these were the elders dispatched to activate the array in the middle of the hall. This array helped a lot when it came to awakening martial spirits, almost everyone had the help of one of these arrays when awakening their martial spirits, but there always existed some exceptions to this rule.


    The only downside to one of these arrays was the cost of activating them, therefore they could only hold this ceremony once every year.


    "Quiet!"


    Everyone started to quiet down when one of the elders raised his voice to get the crowd to calm down. After that the elders started calling out names, these were all names of different family members who were participating in the ceremony. The elder called out five names at a time since it would both take too long and be too expensive to do the awakening individually.


    To Edwards surprise, he was actually a part of the second group whose names were called. This instantly filled him with excitement as he made his way to the stage. Once on top of the stage, he noticed how he was the oldest of the bunch, but he didn''t care in the slightest. The elders then activated the array when all of the family members stood in the center of the stage. And when the array was activated, Edward felt a blazing warmth coursing through his body, while he was starting to glow with a transparent light. Edward noticed that the feeling he felt this time was different to the one in his memory. This time he felt something wanting to escape out of his body, something that seemed to have been suppressed for a long time, that finally felt the opportunity to be able to stretch its legs.


    Edward was only focused on the changes within his body, and he didn''t notice the abnormality that was taking place on top of the stage. The original five glowing youths had turned into two normal ones, and two with something hovering behind their backs. One of the latter two had a snake hovering behind him, as well as three white rays, the other one had a green shortsword, this time with four white rays, representing the 4th tier human-rank. But one of the youths was still glowing, and this was Edward. But this abnormality didn''t last particularly long, as the audience suddenly heard a soul-shaking howl!


    When they heard this they all clamored as they saw a form slowly materialize behind Edward, the blood of all the youths here was burning as they looked at the form with excitement. Normally when there was a natural disturbance or phenomenon during awakening, the martial spirit would be strong!


    When the form had completely materialized behind him, Edward finally opened his eyes. The martial spirit that was behind him was a grey wolf. The body of the wolf was completely covered in green tattoos. And behind it, glowed five white rays.

 5 Martial Spirit Evolution, Breakthrough!

    Seeing these five white rays, everyone in the hall was dumbfounded, even the elders who activated the array were dumbfounded, and kind of disappointed as well. Everyone thought that this was the birth of an unparalleled genius, not a 5th tier human-ranked martial spirit. A 5th tier human-ranked martial spirit wasn''t bad, it was actually not that far from being considered a genius, but since there had been a natural phenomenon during the awakening, everyone assumed it would be a lot better than that, maybe even a profound-ranked martial spirit, even though that was unprecedented in the city of Idirie.


    Feeling his martial spirit behind him, Edward felt a little satisfied, even though the 5th tier wasn''t the best, it was still pretty good, and he felt like his martial spirit wasn''t what it looked like. Seeing how everyone was looking at him with a weird look, Edward felt a little uncomfortable. He didn''t know why everyone was looking at him weirdly, but he decided to leave this place as quickly as possible, and head toward his residence. And whilst traversing the crowd of family members, he actually didn''t need to squeeze through that much, most family members actually moved out of the way for him, since he had a bright future even if his martial spirit was just a normal 5th tier, but almost everyone in the main hall thought that something was up and that Edwards martial spirit was better than normal 5th tiers.


    Noticing this also made Edward a little puzzled, but he quickly shrugged it off as him getting respect for his 5th tier martial spirit. When he had just stepped out of the main hall, he suddenly heard a shout coming from right in front of him, and he quickly recognized the voice as his uncle. A couple of seconds later, Pierre was already in front of him. Pierre looked ecstatic at the moment, and he was filled with pride for his nephew, since he had just been looking from a simple array, he couldn''t hear the wolfs howl, but a 5th tier martial spirit was already enough to make him proud, and add on the fact that Edward''s comprehension seemed to be top-notch, his future was looking great at the moment.


    "Since you have successfully awakened your martial spirit, the family will give you 10 body tempering pills, but since I''m your uncle I''ll give you 10 extra as a celebration!"


    Hearing this Edward''s eyes lit up with excitement, he could finally cultivate! And he would even get some resources to help him on his way. Even though body tempering pills were quite normal, they were still something that Edward would have a hard time obtaining on his own. But since he got some for free, he would be able to cultivate for a while to build up his strength, then he could hunt some demonic beasts on his own to earn money, and maybe complete a task or two for the family.


    After handing over a small storage bag with 20 body-tempering pills in it, Pierre went on his way, since he still had things he had to do, the work of an outer elder was never finished, and he even had a disciple to look after, as well as a daughter. A storage bag was essentially a small bag that contained a small space inside of a different dimension. These spaces were stable and therefore you could put stuff inside of them, but the storage bag that Edward got only contained space of about 1 square meter. Therefore it wasn''t that expensive, but it was still very handy since everything you put into the storage bag wouldn''t age, and you could therefore also store food inside of them. All you had to do was send some of your will inside of the bag, and then you could take stuff out of it and put stuff in, but you could only do this while you were holding it, so you couldn''t just go around and steal peoples'' treasures.


    Sending away his uncle with his gaze Edward was excited, and when Pierre was out of sight, he hurried along his way into his own little hut. He wanted to quickly cultivate, as every second mattered right now. In about 10 months, there would be an inner member examination, and that was Edwards chance to become an inner member of the family, this was important since he would be able to gain more resources if he was an inner member, as well as a better residence, he had heard that the residences for the inner members were not only bigger, but the density in qi there was also a lot higher compared to the residences of the outer members, such as Edward.


    Normally you would need to have a certain amount of talent to get recruited as an outer disciple of a sect, but since this was a family, everyone who hadn''t awakened yet was counted as outer members.


    Edward quickly made his way to his little hut, and entered inside, when he had sat down on his bed in a lotus position, he quickly summoned his martial spirit. Behind him a grey wolf with green tattoos as well as 5 white rays manifested. When Edward had summoned his martial spirit, he noticed how he could now interact with the qi around him, which made him very excited as he quickly urged his martial spirit to absorb the qi around him. The qi around him seemed to have grown mad as it crazily surged towards his body. When it came in contact with his body, Edward quickly guided the qi to temper his skin. This was what you had to do to step into the 1st rank of the body-tempering realm, temper your skin.


    Edward sat solemnly on his bed as he continued to temper his skin over and over again with the qi around him, for every second that passed, Edward felt like he had gotten a little bit stronger. But he still felt that the progress wasn''t the quickest, and since he had 20 body tempering pills, he decided to take 1 now. Sending his will into the storage bag at his waist, Edward willed one of the pills to come out, and it instantly appeared in the middle of his palm. He then swiftly swallowed it, but something strange occurred when he did so. Normally when one swallowed a body tempering pill, it would dissolve in the stomach and then turn into qi which the body could absorb, but when Edward swallowed it, it instead got absorbed into his martial spirit.


    When the wolf had absorbed the body tempering pill, it slightly trembled before returning to its original state. Seeing this Edward decided to try again, as he felt like his martial spirit was benefitting from absorbing the body tempering pill. He quickly took out the rest of the pills and started to feed them to his martial spirit one at a time. After eating 9 more body tempering pills, the martial spirit behind him trembled heavily, revealing another white ray behind it. Seeing this Edward was instantly dumbfounded. His martial spirit had just leveled up with the help of body tempering pills! This was something that was totally unheard of, and Edward couldn''t help but grin when he thought about it, this was what God meant when he said that Edward was special!


    Since his martial spirit had leveled up, Edward decided to try cultivating again, and to his surprise, his cultivation speed was almost twice as fast compared to before! This made Edward very excited as he wanted to try something. He felt like he should be able to absorb the body tempering pills if he really tried to. Therefore he swallowed another body tempering pill, but this time when his martial spirit started to absorb it, he put his martial spirit away. Then he waited until the body tempering pill had completely dissolved until he brought it out again, and started to cultivate once more.


    It only took 5 hours before started to feel his skin trembling. Then it trembled one last time before Edward''s body exploded with a strong and domineering aura for a second, before it merged back into his body again. Even though the aura was supposedly strong, that was only compared to someone who hadn''t stepped onto the path of cultivation and compared to normal 1st ranks of the body-tempering realm.


    Feeling his body seething with power, Edward instantly wanted to try it out, therefore he quickly grabbed his sword and went out into the backyard to practice. He slowly started to go through the different motions of the foundation of the sword, His ferocity and power increasing for every stab, swing, and movement he made. Edward quickly evaluated his new power, and he found it to be at least twice of what it was before. Generally speaking, the power increase between every rank in the realms was usually 2 times that of the previous rank, so the power of a normal 2nd rank was equivalent to two 1st ranks. But this was only generally speaking, there was always geniuses that could fight opponents of higher realms, and you also had to count in martial arts, since that could make a massive difference.


    Since Edward had become an official cultivator and stepped into the 1st rank of the body-tempering realm, he could now go to the martial arts pavilion to get some real martial arts, that needed qi to be able to be used. But since he was just an outer member that had just stepped into the body-tempering realm, he was only allowed access into the first floor of the pavilion, where all of the low-ranked martial arts were stored, but this would still elevate Edwards powers a lot, so he didn''t complain at all. Instead, he only walked up to the elder in charge of the martial arts pavilion and spoke with him...

 6 Martial Pavilion

    The elder in charge of the martial arts pavilion was called Duane Stone, he was originally an inner elder, but was promoted to the elder in charge of the pavilion after his numerous merits. Even if it doesn''t sound like a high position, the elder in charge of the pavilion actually held a pretty lofty position, he had an abundance of resources and he got a lot of respect, and since he was in charge of the martial arts pavilion, no one wanted to offend him, since it could severely affect one''s future. When Edward came to the martial arts pavilion, he cupped his fist and bowed respectfully before Duane, earning him a gentle nod before he proceeded inside.


    "Since you are an outer member, you can only go into the first floor of the pavilion, and you can borrow one martial art of each type, so one fist art, one offensive art, one leg art, and one movement art, these will have to be returned within two months!"


    Hearing this Edward put it into the back of his head, as he wandered into the martial pavilion. In Edward''s eyes, the martial pavilion was like three story library, the first floor contained an abundance of different martial arts, but they were all low-grade, at the second floor, however, there was a lot less of them, but they were all of the mid-grade instead. All the high-grade martial arts were stored in the 3rd floor of the martial arts pavilion, but that was only something elders and core members of the family had access to.


    Edward was content with being able to pick some low-grade martial arts right now, he was confident that he would be able to progress to the other floors eventually. Therefore he first decided to check out a movement art. But after checking around for a little bit, Edward only found one single movement art which he thought was really suited for him. The movement art was called Gale Steps, and it was a simplified version of the mid-grade art Cyclone Steps. The reason why Edward thought that this movement art was suited to him was that of the fact that his martial spirit was of the wind element. This was something he had figured out when he had broken through to the 1st rank of the body-tempering realm.


    This was because of the green tattoos that were all over its body, they contained the element of wind, and therefore Edward had an affinity towards the element of wind. This was certainly a good thing as it would be easier to comprehend martial arts with the same element as the one you were aligned with, the martial art would also increase in power. After having chosen his movement art, Edward continued to the fist arts. There he spent a lot more time searching for a suitable fist art, as this one was a harder choice since there were more of them that fit him. But in the end, his eyes wandered onto a book with a dark blue cover. This fist art was called the dominating wolf fist, and Edward chose it based on the fact that his martial spirit was a wolf, as well as the fact that the fist art seemed to be one of the best low-grade martial arts this martial pavilion had, almost on par with a mid-grade martial art, but it was hard to comprehend, and was therefore often left alone in a corner somewhere.


    Even though Edward had only chosen two of his martial arts so far, he was still immensely satisfied with what he had right now. But he still had his leg arts and sword arts left. Since he had chosen a movement technique based on the element of wind, and because of his martial spirit, he wanted to find more martial arts that were aligned with the wind element, since it would enhance his strength a lot if he used the same power for most of his martial arts.And since he wanted to save the sword art for last, he decided to find a suiting leg art, even though he didn''t use kicks often in a fight, it was still a necessity to know leg arts, because there were always a place and time for everything, and leg arts could be immensely useful in some scenarios.


    Looking through the leg art section of the pavilion, Edward found a suitable leg art that was called the leg of the tempest, even though he felt that it was a bit exaggerated, he still picked it since he couldn''t find anything better that suited him here. And now he only had the sword arts left to pick.


    When he came to the sword art section, Edward noticed that it was a lot smaller compared to the other sections, but that was to be expected, as all the other martial arts were necessities, while sword arts was something you chose, some wanted to use blades instead of swords, or knives, or maybe even staffs, but there were still plenty of sword arts, compared to some of those other weapons, since it was still a very common choice of weapon.


    After scanning through all of them, Edward found 2 sword arts which he felt was worth picking, but he was a bit torn between which one to pick, one of them was called the sword of wind, which was fairly standard and not the most powerful, but that was only because it was one of the few high-grade arts of the family. On the other hand was one of the strongest low-grade sword arts this pavilion had, the shattering sword, but it was aligned with the earth element, so Edward decided to go with the sword of wind in the end, and so his day at the pavilion came to an end as he checked them out.


    When Duane saw the martial arts that Edward picked, he nodded his head as he noticed that this youth in front of him clearly knew what was best for him, and he wasn''t like most of the others, who only went for the most powerful martial arts they could find, whether they were aligned with the element or not. But this youth clearly had a martial spirit that was wind-based.


    After showing his respects to the elder once more, Edward decided to go back to the yard of his hut once more, to start his training again, but this time it was going to be more intense, as he needed to cultivate as well!


    When he arrived at his yard, he started to ponder a little, he wasn''t entirely sure what he was going to do first, try and cultivate normally, or enhance his martial spirit. He knew that he would cultivate faster with his martial spirit, but he could guess that it would need a lot of resources to get it to level up if he wanted to do it again, so, therefore, he decided to play it safe at first, then build some strength, and then use that strength to earn some money, so he could level up the martial spirit. If it was still possible to do so of course.


    He wanted to start with training up his martial arts since that would also train his body, which was what the body-tempering realm was all about, and he wanted to cultivate during the nights while resting inside of his hut. And so, his crazy training began once more. He started with training the dominating wolf fist, then the gale step, then the leg of the tempest, and then finishing it off with the sword of wind. He trained with this schedule over and over again until the evening came.


    Before going inside to cultivate, he had already managed to achieve the beginner achievement in all of the martial arts, the dominating wolf fist was lagging behind a little bit, as it had barely managed to get to the beginner-level, while the wind sword was a bit ahead, almost reaching the low-grade of understanding. After sitting down in the lotus position, he swallowed a body-tempering pill as he started to crazily absorb the qi around him, steadily improving his cultivation. After the night had ended, he had already made it to the middle of the first rank of the body-tempering realm, enhancing his strength even more.


    This schedule of his went on for 17 days straight, which is a little over 2 weeks. The reason for this was because Edward had run out of body-tempering pills to use. But his strength had evolved once more. His cultivation had managed to reach the middle of the 2nd rank of the body-tempering realm. While his achievement in his martial arts had reached an entirely new level. All of his martial arts except for the wind sword and dominating wolf fist had reached the high-grade. But most of them had just barely managed to reach it. Edward''s dominating wolf fist was at the peak of mid-grade achievement while his wind sword had reached the peak-grade. All Edward needed now was battle experience as well as cultivation resources.


    It was time to go out on an adventure!

 7 The Windertry Hills

    After deciding that he needed to get battle experience, Edward decided to go to the Windertry Hills. The Windertry Hills was a chain of small mountains that was situated a couple of miles away from Idirie. The Windertry Hills was full of different kind of demonic beasts and fortunate encounters that could help people with cultivation, such as resources and miracle plants, but all these opportunities came with an equal amount of danger, as nothing was truly free in the world. After making this decision, Edward hung his sword around his waist as he was ready to venture out immediately. He didn''t want to take any food with him, since his storage bag had limited space, and he could kill demonic beasts there to sustain himself.


    A thing that Edward had noticed when he was cultivating earlier, was that his comprehension seemed to have gone up another notch since he awakened his martial spirit. This was the reason behind his enormous growth in martial arts during this period, without this increase, he wasn''t confident he would be able to get to the high-grade of achievement in most of the martial arts, except for his sword, which he was confident in.


    After leaving his little courtyard, Edward headed to his uncle''s residence to let him know he was going to be gone for a while. He didn''t want his uncle to worry about him, which he was bound to do if Edward just suddenly disappeared like that. The Stone family residence was actually quite big, and it took a couple of minutes before Edward arrived at his uncle''s residence, which was situated further inwards compared to Edward''s hut, that was situated at the outer edges of the residency, but then again, an elder had a much more lofty position.


    When he arrived at his uncles home, he noticed that it was a pretty decent sized house if you were to compare it to his old worlds standards. But since he had no use for most rooms that one would use in a modern house, the rooms were bigger. His uncle also had a couple of guards who stood and kept watch by the door. When he greeted these guards, he told them his identity and his errands, and they sent a maid to inform Pierre.


    After about a minute had passed, Pierre stepped out of the door to his house, and next to him was a young lady, this lady seemed to be the same age as Edward, 14, and she had a beautiful face. Her eyes were a rare purple, and she would be considered a beauty by almost anyone you asked. Her eyebrows were fairly straight, taking after her uncle a little bit, and her complexion was rosy and healthy. Her hair was brown as well, draping over her shoulders. Her face did show a small hint of disdain when she first laid eyes on Edward, but she quickly hid it away, afraid her father would see. That''s right, this lady was Pierre''s one and only daughter, Cecilia Stone.


    "Hahahaha, you never cease to amaze me!"


    After seeing his nephews progress in cultivation, Pierre quickly laughed and gave Edward a pat on his shoulder.


    "It normally takes longer for a person with a 5th tier human-ranked martial spirit to advance to the middle of the second stage of the body-tempering realm, you were even a bit faster than Cecilia."


    "Uncle overpraises me, how could I compare to cousin Cecilia?"


    HEaring this praise, Cecilia slightly nodded her head and felt that this cousin of hers wasn''t that bad, she had originally felt a little disdain towards him since he was only at the second rank of the body-tempering realm at age 14, but hearing her uncle praise him, and even saying he was a bit faster than her, her disdain quickly went away. And adding on the fact that he was giving her face, Cecilia''s impression of Edward was pretty good.


    "Uncle, I have something to tell you!"


    Edward proceeded to tell his uncle about his trip to the Windertry Hills, which instantly made his uncle worried, but at the same time, Pierre knew this was what was best for him, and that he needed to get some real-life battle experience, lest he ends up a flower in a greenhouse, sheltered from all harm.


    "Fine, but make sure to come back in one piece!"


    After bidding farewell Edward headed to the stall of the family, where he had a horse that was being cared for. Normally outer members didn''t have access to a horse, but Edward''s parents had bought one when they were still alive, and so he inherited it after they passed away. After having gotten permission from the family to leave, as well as having taken out his horse, Edward set off for Windertry Hills.


    It didn''t take more than 2 hours for Edward to arrive at a small city at the foot of the mountain chain, this small city was called Croria and it was a popular stop for the people who ventured into the mountain chain as they could both sell their goods here, as well as buy supplies they needed for either cultivation or hunting. When Edward arrived, he quickly located a stall that could take care of his horse while he was in the mountains, this was because he didn''t want to risk taking it with him, as it would both slow him down when he entered areas that were hard to cross, as well as the risk of it dying to some demonic beast. It could also potentially risk his life if he needed to hide, so he decided it was best for it to stay behind after all.


    It didn''t really cost much for the stall to take good care of his horse for a while, just a couple of silvers, which was next to nothing for a cultivator, unfortunately, Edward was new to the road of cultivation, so this trivial sum wasn''t that trivial to him, but he still had some money saved up, so it didn''t pose any problems. After his steed was taken care of, he couldn''t wait much longer, as he was eager to both earn money and get a chance to fight for real, he wanted to become strong after all. And for that cause, he needed both money and combat experience.


    The Windertry Hills was surrounded by a huge forest, that encapsulated all of the mountains within it. And it was in this forest that Edward was seeking to temper himself, as it was filled with dangers and opportunities. And it didn''t take long for Edward to find what he was seeking for in this forest, as he could see a grey wolf a bit ahead of him. This made is blood boil, as he could feel his battle intent boiling, he proceeded forward. The wolf also seemed to catch the whiff of a human, and it turned around to face Edward, giving him a sinister grin, as it was ready for a feast.


    This grey wolf was called a stone wolf, and it was low-tier rank 1 demonic beast and its strength was usually around the 2nd or 3rd rank of the body-tempering realm, a bottom feeder in this forest. But fortunately, this one only had the strength of the 2nd rank of the body-tempering realm. Edward didn''t back off at all when he saw that it noticed him, as he thought that his training would be better this way, and he held absolute confidence in his victory.


    The wolf saw that he was confident, and looked around to see if this human in front of it had company, but seeing that he didn''t it suddenly charged forward! Seeing the wolf charge straight at him, Edward circulated some of the qi that he had accumulated inside of his body and started to execute Gale Step. As he rushed forward to meet the wolf''s charge he generated winds as he moved swiftly. The wolf had a hard time seeing him clearly, but it could see his silhouette, so it just kept charging at him.


    When he was just a little bit away from clashing with the wolf, Edward drew his sword from its sheath, generating even more winds in the process. In the next instant, the 2 clashed with one another, switching places with each other, standing with their back directed towards the other. The wolf suddenly let out a short yelp as it collapsed onto the ground. Edward stood calmly and replayed what had just happened inside of his head, trying to analyze what he could have done better. During the instant the two actually clashed with each other, Edward used the winds he generated to confuse the wolf''s senses, as he slid between its legs, using the wind to generate even more power as he cut as swiftly as he could into the wolfs underside, this was how the wolf had lost, it didn''t even manage to hurt Edward.


    But Edward managed to gain even more insight after this fight. But his battle intent only grew stronger as he wanted to face even harder foes, and get even stronger! Looking at the corpse that lay in front of him, Edward felt his martial spirit tremble, but he had no idea why, but since there was no one around, he released it. And when he did so, he could feel a strong suction force emerging from the wolf in front of him, as it stared greedily at the dead body in front of him. And when he got a little closer, he noticed that the suction force grew stronger, so he went and sat down next to the dead wolf, and when he did so, he could see his martial spirit absorb something from the corpse, as it slowly started to wither...

 8 Fierce Figh

    As he felt the energy being absorbed through his martial spirit, Edward was thoroughly confused. His martial spirit was absorbing the blood of the wolf, and transferring it into his body, so he could use it to cultivate, which would drastically improve his cultivation speed. But then again, he had heard that some martial spirits had a special ability, but his martial spirit seemed to be special. When his martial spirit had absorbed some of the blood of the wolf, it started to wither pretty quickly, and Edward''s cultivation was soaring at the moment. When the blood of the wolf had been completely absorbed, Edward had managed to reach the peak of the 2nd rank of the body-tempering realm.


    But he couldn''t just absorb the blood of demonic beasts and see his cultivation soar since the blood itself was incompatible with his body. And because of that he needed to make the strength his, and consolidate his cultivation, stabilizing it. But it would still be a great help, since it would be faster to consolidate his cultivation every now and then when he absorbed blood, instead of just cultivating normally, and the side effects wouldn''t really show that much if he didn''t go overboard, but of course Edward only noticed parts of this information.


    When he noticed how he had managed to advance so much in his cultivation doing something so simple, Edward was really happy. He looked towards his martial spirit in awe for a little bit, and he noticed that something had changed with the air it was giving off. But he didn''t know what it was, so he just stopped thinking about it. Sinc he had killed the demonic wolf and absorbed all of its blood, Edward decided to head off again. But this time he wanted to meet something that was more challenging.


    Now that his cultivation had advanced a bit once more, he was even stronger than he was when he killed the wolf. There was no use in trying to get a meal out of this wolf either as it had been withered completely. Heading off again, Edward decided to head deeper into the forest this time. He quickly started using his Gale Step as he traversed the forest. On the way, he managed to see some demonic beasts, but they were all at least at the mid-grade, which wasn''t something Edward could handle.


    But after a while, he managed to find some more prey, this time though, there were two demonic beasts, and they both had the strength of the 3rd rank of the body-tempering realm. But Edward still had confidence in his victory, even if it would prove to be tough. These two demonic beasts were called Mad Cows, and even though they sound lame, they were actually quite dangerous, and two of them would normally be something that you would run away from when you had the same cultivation as Edward, but he wasn''t scared at all.


    And even though he knew it was stupid, he let them sense his presence. This was because he wanted to test his limits, and he wanted to see if he could take them both on, and if he couldn''t he was very confident in his speed, so he didn''t think he had a real chance of dying. When the both of them noticed him, they both looked enraged as this puny human in front of them had trespassed on their territory, and he even had a weapon with him!


    Edward didn''t just let them attack him this time, as he needed to take this fight seriously, so he was the one to make the first move. When Edward performed his Gale Step, his legs kicked up winds as he went flying towards them, the two cows were a bit dumbfounded since they had assumed the human was going to run, but seeing him run up to them, one of them broke away from the other. It was trying to get behind Edward in an effort to surround him.


    When Edward saw this he just let it happen, he was going for an instant kill anyways! When he was only a bit away from the Mad Cow, it snorted as its eyes started to glow red. It kicked hard into the ground, making it tremble as it rushed ahead. This stomp managed to throw Edward off his course as he didn''t expect it, it was blatant how little battle experience he had. As he stumbled, the Cow saw its opportunity to strike and went straight for Edward''s ribs, the cow behind him, also started to charge at him.


    Edward almost lost his composure as he quickly made use of the wind around him to propel him to the side of the incoming cow, barely dodging its attack. And as he now had an advantageous position, Edward kicked out with his Leg of the Tempest as he didn''t have time to draw his sword. This kick hit the cow right in its side, making it crash right into its brethren in front of it. Edward used the rebound force to spin around and land gently on the ground. This had been way too close! And the battle wasn''t over yet, but seeing as how the cows were fumbling around on the ground, Edward quickly drew his sword and attacked, he made use of the wind to make his strike as fast and swift as possible, denying one of the cows the possibility to react before it was beheaded.


    The other cow wasn''t down yet though and seeing its brethren dying right in front of its eyes. It instantly went mad as it attacked fiercely, Edward was caught off guard, and received most of the blow right in his guts, he had managed to divert some of the force using his Gale Step, but he was still hit pretty badly. This attack sent Edward flying straight into one of the trees in the surroundings, injuring him severely. The cow that was still alive was the one who had received the kick to its side, and it had a little trouble moving properly, as the kick from earlier had injured it pretty badly.


    Edward stood up from underneath the tree, biting his lower lip as he withstood the immense pain radiating from his abdomen. He cursed himself silently as he had underestimated these cows. But not anymore, now he was going to go all out! He started to get into position as he readied himself to make the killing move of the wind sword. The cow, seeing his stance, got pissed off and started to charge at him yet again. But this time, it was going all out as well, suppressing its injuries to kill this human in front of it!


    As the cow got closer, the wind around Edward started to get unsettled as it slightly howled, readying itself for what was about to happen. When the cow was within five meters of him, Edward slashed out with his sword! Accompanying this sword was all of Edward''s strength, as well as the wind in the air around him, it condensed itself and coated Edward''s sword as the slash pierced through the air towards the cow. When the cow saw this move, its eyes were instantly filled with fear, it regretted disturbing this human in front of it! But it was too late to stop now!


    The cow didn''t even get the time to regret as it was slashed down the middle of its body, splitting it into two parts, this was only possible because of the force the cow had exerted itself, Edward didn''t have the strength to split the mad cow in half by himself.


    After having used this sword strike, Edward sat down as he felt really dizzy, this move was something that only people in the 4rth rank of the body-tempering realm was supposed to be able to do. But Edward had done it in the 2nd realm, and this was because of his talent. But due to this trike, as well as his injuries, Edward could barely move at the moment!


    The move that Edward had just executed was the killing move of the sword of wind, and it was called the air-piercing sword. This was because the main point of this sword wasn''t the fact that it became incredibly sharp, that was only a bonus, the real point of this sword was to reduce the air resistance to the minimum, and then slashing with absolute swiftness. This made the sword extremely fast and deadly, albeit simple. But simple wasn''t always a bad thing, and just because it was simple didn''t mean it was easy.


    Since he couldn''t really move his body at the moment, Edward quickly made his way towards the corpses of the mad cows. He needed to quickly absorb their blood with his martial spirit if it was possible, otherwise, he would be doomed out here, even if it meant that his cultivation needed to be unstable for a while, Edward didn''t dare risk his life for such a stupid reason. He needed to quickly heal his wounds so he could get out of here.


    Because right now, his life was in huge risk. If he didn''t get rid of the blood in the corpses bodies, other demonic beasts would get attracted to the scent of it, which would be catastrophic considering how he couldn''t even move right now, this was the second reason he needed to do this, because even if demonic beasts weren''t attracted to the scent of blood, they would find him sooner or later since he couldn''t move, and at that point, he wouldn''t be able to fight back at all.


    Therefore he released his martial spirit, as he slowly inched closer...

 9 Beast Core

    After crawling for a little while, Edward was right next to the corpses of the cows, and he started to absorb their blood into his body. When the blood got absorbed into his body, Edward quickly started to refine it as well as he could to heal his wounds, but this wasn''t an easy task, as he was hurting really badly, and he had a lot of trouble concentrating. After about 10 minutes, he needed to take a short break, as he was starting to get a bit dizzy from the pain, as well as absorbing so much blood. After a short 5 minute break, he quickly resumed, he didn''t dare stay here for too long.


    Whilst he was absorbing the blood into his body, his aura also started to raise involuntarily, making Edward a bit gloomy, this healing process was probably going to force him to break through into the third rank of the body-tempering realm, which would be euphoric for normal people, but in actuality, this was going to hinder Edward''s cultivation speed a little bit, but it wasn''t that bad. He was still upset though, as the time remaining until the annual family martial gathering was ticking, there was only a little over 9 months remaining.


    After healing for about 15 minutes uninterrupted, Edward''s aura suddenly surged, as he stepped over the threshold for the 3rd rank, but at this time, he heard some footsteps. And so he hurriedly got up from the ground and bolted off into the opposite direction, as he didn''t want to get caught up in any trouble. This proved to be the right choice as some youths clad in brown martial attires arrived at the scene. If Edward was still here, he would recognize these people as people from the Stone family. But at the same time, he would be doomed, as they would see what he was doing. Absorbing the blood of other creatures and people was something that evil practitioners usually did, so it would be impossible for him to explain it without revealing his martial spirits ability.


    After the youths arrived at the scene, they all gasped when they saw the two corpses on the ground, this was definitely an evil practitioner''s doing! Their eyes showed a glint of fierceness as they looked around them. They had come here because they had sensed a strange fluctuation in the qi, so they had believed it to be some kind of treasure, not something like this! While this was happening, Edward was already far away from his original spot, he had sprinted in the way of the city as soon as he sensed the presence of other people since he couldn''t explain himself.


    But he didn''t get to fully heal his wounds, which made him a little mad. But he calmed down as he reached inside of his bag and took out a shiny brown core. He had managed to snatch this from inside of one of the bodies of the mad cows. This was a beast core! Edward couldn''t really believe his own luck as he had managed to get something so precious, this could sell for more than a hundred gold! A beast core was something that some beasts were able to produce inside of their bodies, and it would improve the beasts cultivation speed tremendously, but it was something that only higher ranked demonic beasts had inside of them, as they were hard to condense.


    Because of the raw amount of energy contained inside of a beast core, they sold for very high prices, the higher the rank, the more money one needed to get one! Because of this, Edward could manage to acquire some cultivation resources for himself, which would help him both heal and stabilize his cultivation! Since he had this beast core with him, forcefully breaking into the 3rd rank wasn''t such a bad thing. It could almost be considered a good thing, but he didn''t think too much of it right now, as he still needed to get back to the city safely first.


    After traveling for a little while, avoiding beasts along the way, Edward could finally see Croria. But at this time, there were sounds of fighting up ahead, and they were quickly coming his way! Due to his lack of preparation, Edward only hid in the bushes next to him, hoping he wouldn''t be found out. But as the sound of fighting got closer, Edward was able to distinguish the sound of a beast, which meant that he wouldn''t be drawn into a conflict between families or anything if he was forced to fight.


    After a couple of seconds, Edward could finally see the fight quickly approaching his location. The ones who were fighting were two young boys and a girl, they were clashing with a mid-grade rank 1 beast that looked a bit like a flaming stag. But it wasn''t real flames though, that was only the aura that was surrounding the stag, which was weaker than a real burning flame, but it was a pain in the ass to fight against if you were weaker. The youths who were now running away were all at the peak of the 3rd rank of the body-tempering realm, but they couldn''t get a good opportunity to attack, and so they could only run away from the stag.


    Because of the chaos, Edward had almost missed out on a very important detail, these youths were from the Stone family! They were wearing the Stone family''s traditional brown martial attire, and they all had martial spirits related to stone. Seeing as how his own family members were being chased, Edward couldn''t just sit and watch the battle doing nothing. So he quickly accumulated the strength he had to do a sneak attack on the stag.


    The youth were starting to get tired, as they suddenly heard a whoosh sound coming from behind them, and when they looked back, they were stunned. A youth at the 3rd rank of the body-tempering realm, with a really unstable aura, suddenly jumped out of a bush and slashed at the hind legs of the stag! Since the stag had been totally focused on attacking the humans in front of it, it didn''t expect a sneak attack at all. The slash wasn''t very strong, but it was extremely sharp and swift, easily cutting into the hind legs of the stag, making it crash heavily into the ground.


    After seeing this chance present itself, the three of them combined all of their strongest attacks, finishing the stag off for good. They were really grateful to this stranger in front of them, and after noticing his brown martial attire, they were all going to split the parts of the stag with him, and give him their thanks, but before they could do so, he ran off. They were very confused as to why this guy had suddenly run off, but they were still grateful, and they silently memorized his face as they split the rewards from the fight amongst themselves.


    ...


    Edward was swiftly making his way to Croria as he was still filled with adrenaline. The reason he had run away was that of a couple of reasons, the most prominent one was that he didn''t trust those people at all, and when they had expensive material in front of them, who knows what they would be capable of doing. He also didn''t think he deserved any rewards as he barely did anything, even if the little he did was crucial to the overall situation, he wouldn''t feel good taking advantage of them like that.


    After a couple of minutes of traveling, Edward finally arrived at Croria once more, even though he had been gone for less than a day, it felt like a long time to Edward due to the struggles he had. And after arriving at the city Edward decided to start by selling the monster core he had gotten. For this, he went to the Storm Forge, which was an organization of blacksmiths that were situated all over the country. And when they crafted weapons that used energy to attack, they neede materials to craft them with, and because of this, they would but all sorts of materials from people, and for a pretty good price as well.


    When Edward entered the Storm Forge he could feel a wave of heat roll over him as he entered the lobby. He quickly walked up to the counter to sell the beast core, and when he told the clerk what he wanted to sell, he quickly inspected the beast core and gave Edward a price, 110 gold. Edward thought that the price was fair, and so he sold it to them. After having sold his beast core, Edward quickly went on his way. Now all he needed to buy was a healing pill, as well as some cultivation resources. But when he was just about to leave the store, Edward noticed a sword in the corner of his eye. This sword was giving off an extremely familiar aura to Edward, the aura of wind, therefore he quickly went over and inspected it.


    The sword was called the Wind-Chasing sword, and it was a low-grade human-ranked weapon. Weapons were categorized in the same way as martial arts. The sword was extremely attractive to Edward, but the price tag quickly dampened his mood, this sword actually cost 1800 gold! When the clerk saw him staring at the sword, he quickly explained:


    "That sword is the best low-grade sword we currently have in stock, and it isn''t that far from a mid-grade one, hence the high price!"


    Hearing this, Edward wanted the sword even more, but he had to save up some money first, then he would come back and take this sword as his own! After his declaration to no one but himself, Edward went on his way again. And this time, he was headed towards the medicine pavilion. He really needed to both heal and stabilize his foundation, so he could quickly adventure out and earn himself some money!

 1 Being reborn isnt always sunshine and rainbows.

    Somewhere in a remote little town in Sweden, a gloomy atmosphere weighed down on everyone''s spirits. The skies which were usually clear and limitless were filled with dark grey clouds that seemed to weigh on people''s souls, especially on this day. In the middle of the town''s only graveyard, people had gathered together, and not for a happy occasion. In a town where everyone knew each other, someone had passed away.


    Who was this person who had passed away you ask? It was only a young boy. A young boy, who which only a few weeks prior had his entire life to look forward to. Now what had happened you ask? The young boy had finally managed to muster up the little courage he had to jump off a diving tower, but alas, the gods didn''t seem to like this idea of his. At the very top of the nearly 8-meter high diving tower, the young boy had slipped, hit his head, and fallen into the dark water below.


    His friends only thought that it looked a little funny at first, but they quickly realised something wasn''t right. Unfortunately for the young boy, no one was quick enough to save him. A few seconds of neglect quickly turned into an entire lifetime of regret when they realised what had happened. While they were still joking around, the young boy was all alone, in the depths of the dark water. Conscious, yet his body wouldn''t listen, he had to suffer all alone in dark depths, with only his mind to haunt him.


    When the boy had passed away, all that was left of him was his soul. Quite a scary experience, but he quickly grew used to it. No matter what he tried to do, he couldn''t communicate with anyone, he could only wander. He could hear the screaming of his mother when she was told the news of his unfortunate passing. He could see the tears that streamed down the face of that cold and awkward father of his. His life had quickly turned into a nightmare. A nightmare which he would never wake up from.


    Even though weeks had passed and he had grown used to his existence, the boy still felt emotional upon witnessing his funeral. Even though he could still hear, he sat far away and just watched it from a distance, he knew he wouldn''t be able to control himself if he was able to hear what everyone was saying. A lot of people were present at this funeral of his. The granny that lived down the street, the clerk at the local shop, the young boy''s three best friends and even his childhood sweetheart, Hazel. People here were closer than you''d think, and a lot of people showed up to support the young boy''s family, even people he didn''t know turned up, it was a truly shocking matter after all.


    The boy himself could only watch as that brown casket which contained his one and only body was slowly put into the cold and dark ground. It seemed like the darkness was where he truly belonged after all. Now that the casket was beyond his sight, all he could see was his family and friends crying. The scene was quite heavy to take in, and as he thought about what would happen to him now, a tear couldn''t help but roll down his face.


    As this unassuming tear rolled down his face, it suddenly started to radiate with a golden light. The golden light was warm and comfortable, and the cold dark water which had been haunting his mind seemed to flow away, much like that of a river. His mind that had been aching for weeks was finally set free once and for all. All the pain he had been feeling was gone, and all that was left was a strange ethereal feeling throughout his existence.


    The boy that had been hoping for all of this to be a dream started floating slowly yet surely into the sky above, leaving his family and friends behind him. His mortal existence was no more, and as he floated up, the dark clouds parted for him, letting a few rays of sunlight through in the process. The gentle sunlight that suddenly graced the venue of the funeral brought about a great effect, and the people of this small little town all looked up into the sky together, hoping to spot something within all that darkness above.


    .....


    \"Urghh...\"


    In a dimly-lit room, the young boy had just woken up. His normal five senses felt as dull as they could be, and he could feel intense pain rampaging throughout his body. He had no idea what was going on right now, all he could remember was that comfortable warmth enveloping him, and then... then what? He had no idea! He tried to look around to see if he could figure anything out, but the pain he was feeling was too intense for him to try and move.


    As he tried to wrack his brains, he could feel another surge of intense pain, but this time it was on a completely different level, unlike anything he had ever felt before! This pain didn''t stem from his physical body, but rather from his soul. He had no idea about this though, and he just laid on the bed as still as he could, trying not to make the situation any worse. Like this, time passed quietly as the young boy just waited for the pain to ease.


    The dimly-lit room soon became brighter and brighter, until it seemed to reach a peak, whereafter the room became darker and darker again. Though the young boy was experiencing excruciating pain, he was abnormally calm about the whole situation, he just felt a weird sense of belonging, like this was his home, but he couldn''t really put his finger on it. After almost an entire day had passed, the soul-tearing pain he had been feeling was finally beginning to calm down, and the boy was able to think normally again.


    What came as a shock to him though was the influx of memories that had come when the pain had seemingly disappeared. As he organised and went through these memories, his originally calm expression contorted a little, what the hell was going on? The young boy who had originated from a backwater town somewhere in Sweden was all of a sudden in a different world, how believable was that?


    No matter how much the young boy thought, he couldn''t come up with a reasonable explanation as to what had happened. Not only was he in a different world, but it was also way too different compared to earth! Martial arts, something that was mostly seen in movies in his original world was actually a thing here, and not only that, but it was way too op! It wasn''t like taekwondo or karate, but rather something called cultivation.


    He wasn''t too sure what this cultivation thing was yet, and it seemed like he had to delve deeper into these memories of his if he wanted to find out. Before anything else, he managed to find out some information about himself. As he searched his memories, he managed to quite quickly find out his name, Gale!