《The Monkey God》


 Chapter 1 : A meeting with a goddess

    "Mr.Pope, we are ready to depart." a voice sounded from behind him.


    "I''ll be right there Joshua!" the young man replied.


    Standing in front of his full body mirror, this British 27-year-old, with short blonde hair and a well-shaped body, was fixing his tie. His dark blue eyes were shining from the apparent excitement. Wearing a black suit and a red tie, his standing was equally worthy of his name, Drake Pope.


    Drake was the heir of the Pope Enterprises, the second largest weapon manufacturer in the world. He was getting ready for his Christmas vacations on their winter house located in Forest on Dean, England.


    This was also the reason for his excitement. After spending the last three months solely focused on the family companies, he could spend the rest three weeks doing his most beloved activity, hunting.


    Ever since he was young, he was being homeschooled to receive the proper education to inherit the companies. Due to that, his only entertainment was following his father for his hunting trips. At first, he was hesitant, but after the first few trips, he realised that he was getting addicted to the thrill. He was enjoying every moment during the hunt, the preparation, the stalking and of course the best part for him, the moment before he pulls the trigger. That specific moment he was feeling like he was holding life and death in his hands. He just couldn''t get over that feeling.


    Shaking himself out of reminiscence, he took one last good look at himself and rushed out of the house so they can finally leave.


    His house was situated in the middle of London; it was one of these renaissance built homes, painted in white with the only contrast being the windows and the heavy black wooden door. It was passed down from generation to generation, so his grandfather had decided to sculpt the initials of their name right above the door. Now everybody knew that this was the Pope residence.


    As soon as he left the house, he could see Joshua, the family driver, wearing his distinctive black uniform with the family emblem on the left side of his chest and the white gloves, opening the door of the Rolls Royce for him to enter. Without hesitation, he got in and sat in the beige leather seats. He faintly checked the black bag to his left which had his favourite hunting gun and then turns his eyes outside while his mind started wandering and imagining the upcoming hunt.


    Time passes quite fast when your mind is absent and soon 2 hours have passed. The destination was only half an hour drive more. Drake was already bored, so he took out his gun from the bag and started caressing it gently. This gun was his best friend; it was a gift from his father for his eighteenth birthday.If you encounter this narrative on Amazon, note that it''s taken without the author''s consent. Report it.


    Suddenly he heard tires screeching, so he immediately lifted his head to look. An incoming truck had lost control, and it was heading straight at them. Drake looked around and instantly realised that there was no time for either the truck or the car to stop and there was neither enough space to avoid it. So he immediately braced for the crash. The impact, however, was stronger than he imagined and the only thing he felt was a huge tremor passing through his body.


    "Well aren''t you an unexpected guest." a voice sounded in his mind.


    He opens his eyes and in front of him is a beautiful girl in a white dress staring mockingly at him. She had long black hair and matching colour eyes. Her thick red lips were perfectly shaped. Drake met many models in his life, but her beauty could only be described as divine.


    ''Gorgeous.'' was his only thought.


    "I am the goddess of life and balance, Delia, and I am in charge of your planet. I can see that you spent your whole life being a hunter and living off your father''s fortune. Unfortunately for you to take a life, you have to offer an equivalent exchange. You took a hundred lives from other creatures, so you have to pay me a hundred lives as well. You will be reincarnated as the animals you killed until you fill your quota. Of course, it won''t be that simple. You will live experiences similar to them. You will be hunted by more powerful beings constantly. Any questions?"


    "So according to what you said, everyone who takes a life is supposed to die once afterwards? And what happens after I''m done with the payment as you called it?" Drake asked.


    "Interesting, even though you are apparently afraid of what I''ve said you kept your cool and asked me an important question. I do not see that often. As a reward as soon as you are done with your life payment to me, I will reincarnate you as a follower of mine destined to have a high position. Your status will be similar to your previous life. However, the world you will arrive will be a cultivation world. I understand that you know what this means.


    As for your first question, that is only the case for beings that kill others for sport and enjoyment as you did. You destroy the balance that I created, and you think you can get away with it without consequences. Therefore I will be punishing you." the goddess Delia answered him while giggling.


    "So you do not care about the lives lost, but all you care about is getting revenge on people that destroy your balance? How is that fair?" Drake replied while feeling his anger rising.


    "I never said it is fair, but you do not have a choice in this matter." Delia laughed.


    "So in order to teach you some manners, I take back the reward I promised you. We will leave it up to luck after you are done with your punishment. Now, this has taken more time than I can afford to waste with you. Let us see how you will feel since the hunter will become the hunted." said Delia. At the same time, she waved her hand making Drake instantly disappear.


    ''Now then, I just have to record his whereabouts to the punishment talisman,'' thought Delia. She immediately summoned a strange looking papyrus which seemed to be thousands of years old and started unrolling it.


    "Oh, this is full... Did I already punish so many beings? Now I have to go and ask from that annoying guy for some more talismans. But he will charge me so much... Tsk, I guess I''ll just add that human to the thousand lives punishment talisman. I didn''t like him anyways." murmured Delia summoning the second papyrus and writing the details of Drake Pope.


    Then she vanished.

 Chapter 2 : Five hundred lives

    Powerlessness...


    That''s all Drake could feel right now. He tried to breathe, but he realised he could not. He decided to open his eyes and yet again he could not. Panic started creeping up, but he forced himself to calm down. Being a hunter, he was able to focus quickly, and he started thinking about his situation.


    ''Ok, first things first, let''s try to find out where I am.'' he thought.


    He tried moving around, but he could hardly move. It was extremely tough to change his position. The only thing he was feeling was tremors around him. No sound no nothing. He tried to focus on the tremors, but abruptly they stopped. Then they started again. This went on for a while, tremors on and off. Unfortunately the more he tried to focus the more exhausted he became, and it wasn''t long before he fell asleep.


    The same scenario kept happening for god knows how long until one day, everything changed. Tremors have stopped for quite a while, and he was trying to find a reason when an intense pain coursed through his body. It started with his head and then moved to his lower body. Suddenly, he did something that he hadn''t done for a very long time. He took a breath. It was painful the first time but the more breaths he was taking, the easier it got, and the happier he became.


    ''Is this the feeling of being born?'' Drake realised.


    ''I suppose my punishment just started... I wonder what kind animal was I reincarnated into'' he mused.


    It wasn''t long till he found an answer to his question. It was a rabbit. A powerless, defenceless rabbit. All he was doing for the next few months was running around eating grass.


    ''What an unexcited life...'' Drake was thinking. He was bored so much, but he could do nothing. Every time he tried to move a bit further from the burrows wolves would be roaming, and he had to rush back.


    But the boredom didn''t last long. Soon wolves expanded their area searching for food, and after some time they found the burrows... Then, the hunting started. Every time he tried to go out for food, a wolf would be nearby, and the wolf would immediately rush to catch him. It was a matter of time until he starves to death or gets eaten by a wolf. But Drake was strong-willed, so he decided that it is better to die from a wolf''s jaw than starve to death.


    However since his whole reincarnation, was meant to be a punishment, it was inevitable for him to get caught by a wolf...


    Painfull. That was the best description for that feeling. The wolf that caught him was planning to feed him to its cubs, so he did not die immediately. He had to live during the whole trip from the time the wolf caught him until he took him to its lair. Then he got eaten alive.


    He felt everything. The pain was unbearable; he did not even faint until they started eating him. Drake was begging for death, but it took too long to come.You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story.


    ''Will it be like this for another 99 times?'' Drake thought. He couldn''t lie to himself. He was terrified.


    The only thing that could make him feel better is thinking that at some point the punishment will end. His only hope was to not go crazy before its over. He did not even know why he kept his memories from before, but he ignored it as being a process of the punishment.


    While he kept thinking about what''s next to come, he realised he was back to a state of powerlessness.


    ''That should be my second reincarnation...I wonder what type of animal will be this time'' Drake thought. ''I should cherish the times from being born until the huntings for my life otherwise there is no doubt I will go mental.''


    Time passed, and to his surprise, he was born as a deer. He was planning on enjoying his life while it lasted. He knew it wasn''t going to be very long, but he planned to take advantage of every second of it.


    Unfortunately for him, it was only two weeks after he got born that some humans saw them and hunted his entire herd. He couldn''t even console himself that his death was fast. Drake was the second one who got shot from the arrows. He got shot once and then the hunters turned to hunt the rest of the herd. He slowly bled to death.


    Time slowly passed while Drake was reincarnating into different animals and kept dying in multiple ways. Fireballs, arrows, knives, from other animals... He was hoping for humans to hunt him. Usually, they were killing him fast. It was an endless cycle. But he kept counting to keep himself sane. Twenty deaths, thirty, fifty, ninety...


    Finally, it was the hundredth reincarnation he was experiencing. He passed through the pregnancy phase, and he was feeling joyful. Strangely, he wasn''t hoping to live. On the contrary, he was hoping to die as fast as he could. He was hating being in an animal body. He hated himself being an animal. He wanted to be a human again.


    This time he got reincarnated into an elephant. As soon he learnt to walk and run, he threw himself in the face of danger. He charged into a human settlement, so he got shot down by arrows quite fast. Even as he was dying, he was rejoicing the fact that the next time, he will be reincarnated into a human being again.


    ''FINALLY!!!! MY PUNISHMENT IS OVER!!!'' Drake''s thoughts were devoid of any negative feelings. He wanted to scream in joy. He wanted to celebrate. This time after he gets out of his mother womb he will be able to live again. Live as everyone should. In charge of his own destiny.


    However, as soon as he got born, he realised something was wrong...


    ''What is this... This... Am I a rabbit again? How is this possible? Didn''t my punishment end?'' thought Drake confused. ''Did I count wrong? No, that''s not possible, counting was the only way to keep my sanity. I couldn''t have been wrong.'' He was trying hard to find an explanation but he could not.


    Time passed, and reincarnations were happening one after another. At first, he was desperate, even if he was suiciding the next reincarnation came afterwards, and it was the same thing. He knew he was losing his sanity. He was going crazy.


    ''THAT FUCKING BITCH, GODDESS MY ASS'' Drake wanted to shout. ''THAT BITCH COMPLETELY FORGOT ABOUT ME. I''LL KILL HER.''


    But no matter what he wanted, he couldn''t escape his fate. Soon he went completely insane. His only thought was killing her. His entertainment was thinking of ways of killing her. Torture, amputation, rape. He played every scene in his mind time after time. He was even thinking of eating her alive.


    It was his five hundredth reincarnation. Everything was the same except this time at the time of his death instead of instantly starting all over again; he heard a voice. An extremely sinister voice...


    "Drake Pope, I can give you a chance to get revenge on Delia. Are you interested? "

 Chapter 3 : Golden-haired monkey

    "Drake Pope, I can give you a chance to get revenge on Delia. Are you interested? " the voice said in Drake''s mind.


    "All I will give you is a chance. I will help you by reincarnating you into a beast with massive potential in a cultivation world. Succeeding on becoming powerful enough to rival Delia will be entirely up to you. But you need to know that if you do get your revenge, you will need to repay me. As for what the payment will be, you do not need to know now.


    So what''s it going to be? Will you accept? "


    Drake knew that by agreeing, he would be selling his soul. Yet he didn''t care. His was filled with hatred, and the chance of getting revenge was all he needed to hear.


    "As long as I have the chance of killing her then I do not mind selling you, my soul," Drake replied in his mind.


    "Your soul? I do not want something like that. I will just be needing your help with a little something when you are powerful enough. But you are way too early even to be thinking about it.


    Since you agree though, we will be signing a soul contract." the voice sounded again.


    Words made of light appeared in Drake''s mind. When he focused on them, he realised it was the terms of the contract.


    "As long as you think that you agree, the contract will be established. After that, you will be free from your punishment, and you will be reincarnated for the last time."


    Without wasting time even for asking the name of the voice, Drake rushed to agree. He was sick of being powerless against his fate. He wanted to control his life, and he already had a plan for the next one... Become powerful enough to rival a specific god, goddess of life and balance, Delia.


    "Very well then, let''s hope you will succeed in your revenge." the voice sounded for the last time in his mind.


    Now he was back again being an embryo. But this time he felt it was different. He knew this time he has the power to control his life. He won''t let himself being hunted like a powerless animal. He will kill everyone and destroy everything that will be going against him on his quest to kill Delia. His only focus will be on increasing his power. He did not know how yet, but he will never stop until he faces her.


    He spent the next days up until his birth thinking and imagining of what kind of animal he will be reincarnated next. He could feel there was a change compared to his previous reincarnations. There was a feeling that just wasn''t there before. It was the feeling of power.


    Finally, the day arrived. The intense pain came once again, but this time he embraced it. This time the pain was the prequel to his freedom. Soon after the pain ended, he tried to open his eyes only to be blinded by an intense light. It took a while for his eyes to get accustomed to the light but as soon as they did, he was speechless. He could see a face so close to his own that it made him uncomfortable and he instantly knew it was the face of a monkey.Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.


    ''I guess I am a monkey this time.'' Drake thought and averted his eyes to check the other monkeys in the room.


    Apart from the monkey in front of him, two others monkeys were standing left and right to the one holding him. They weren''t the normal monkeys that he knew of. They were taller, at least one meter in height, all of them were standing in two legs and were watching him closely. Their most distinctive trait was the colour of their hair, it was a dark gold. From top to bottom these monkeys were dark gold coloured. It gave them kind of a royal feeling.


    The monkey in front of him and the one on the left seemed like females. The one on the right looked like the male, and it was even taller than the other two, at about 1,20 meters. He reached to that conclusion since the middle and the left one were wearing a strip of red cloth in their chest area and on their waist. The left one was also wearing round circle earrings in both her ears and bracelets in both hands while the middle one was only wearing the bracelets. The right one was wearing a black cloth around his waist and a black bandana around its head. He was also holding a golden staff making him look like someone important.


    Then he moved his eyes to the room he was in. It was a circular room with almost nothing inside apart from a bed that was below him, made from sticks and leaves. The walls seemed to be made from mud.


    "Isn''t he a brave one? He doesn''t cry and only looking around with curiosity. Exactly what I would expect from my son." laughed the male monkey.


    Drake''s eyes went wide.


    ''How is it possible for them to speak'' he panicked.


    "Haha, you scared him, dear," mused the middle monkey.


    ''How can they talk, they aren''t even moving their lips. What is going on here?'' wondered Drake.


    "Ok, time for the two of you to go out, let me and baby sleep for a bit, he is quite strong so it was pretty hard to give birth," said the middle monkey once more.


    "Before we leave I need to apply the herbs in his body. Otherwise, his hair will lose the ancestor''s colour." reminded the monkey on the left.


    "Of course, of course, how can we let my son lose his golden hair! Haha, at long last, I have a son! Let the village prepare for a feast. Tonight we will be drinking all our reserves of the Honeybrewed Wine!" shouted the male monkey before leaving the room.


    As soon as the male monkey left the room, the left one looked at Drake. Hesitation was apparent in her eyes.


    "Gillian, you have to be careful, there is something wrong with the boy. I can sense a lot of negative energy around him. I can''t see it affecting his body in any way but he will have a much higher bloodlust than the rest of us. Also, since the colour of his hair is pure gold unlike ours which is darker, it is apparent that his bloodline is very pure. That will further affect his savageness." warned the left monkey.


    "Mother Ginna, you do not have to worry about that. His father, Darth is the leader of our tribe and our strongest warrior, with him training him and watching over him, he will very soon learn to control our native bloodlust," replied Gillian while looking affectionately at her son.


    "Let''s hope so. I will also be feeding him some herbs for calming the mind every now and then to help with the situation. I can''t be too stingy with my grandson." added Ginna lightening the mood a bit.


    As soon as she said that, both of them approached Drake with Gillian lifting him up and Ginna started applying a paste of herbs all over his body.


    "Do not worry my boy, it might hurt a bit but as long as you eat this you will fall asleep immediately," said Ginna while giving a small round pill for Drake to swallow.


    Drake was already tired so without hesitation; he ate the pill. As soon as it entered his mouth, it melted making it very easy to swallow it. It had a strange sweet taste like bubble gum, making him extremely happy to eat it.


    Right before falling asleep he felt a burning sensation covering all of his body which lasted only a few seconds since he couldn''t stay awake any longer.

 Chapter 4 : Soul Test

    Days became months and finally, Drake was able to walk on his own. His daily life up until then was mainly sleeping, eating and getting herb treatment for his hair colour as his grandmother called it.


    Whenever he was awake he was focusing on trying to understand how these monkeys are able to communicate. It wasn''t long until his mother, Gillian, explained to him that they are able to communicate through a mind technique that allows them to relay their thoughts to everyone around or even to specific persons. The more he thought about this technique the more he realised the profoundness of it, as long as you were proficient enough you could avoid being overheard by others. Gillian also explained that when he reaches his first birthday they will test his soul power and if it is strong enough, he will also learn the technique. Drake couldn''t help but look forward to it.


    Immediately after taking his first steps, he started trying to get out of the house but his mother was always preventing him from doing so.


    "Little one, you can''t go out yet, I''ve told you many times that the first time a kid goes out of his house is when the soul test takes place. Before that, you are not allowed to go out or else the array covering the village will treat you as an outsider. Only when the test has taken place will you be marked as a resident of the village and you will be free to roam around."


    He only saw his father once after the day of his birth. It was when he brought some special herbs for him and he immediately left after taking a good look at him and smiled proudly.


    Soon the first year passed and the day for the soul test arrived. Drake was both excited and curious. It was the first time going out in this new world and the first time he was going through such a test.


    "Little one, are you ready to take the test?" asked Gillian caressing Drake''s head. "There is no need to be anxious, I am sure my little boy will astonish everyone with the results!"


    Even if Drake was an old man in a baby''s body, he couldn''t hide the excitement in his eyes when his mother asked him. He rushed to the door and stood by it waiting for Gillian to open it for him.


    "You can''t run around just yet, so give mommy your hand so we can walk there." Gillian reminded him while opening the door.


    He was not sure what to expect of the village but he was definitely thinking something more majestic. As soon as he got out of the house and checked his surroundings he was clearly disappointed. All the houses in the village amounted to around thirty and all of them were the same. Dome-shaped, built from mud houses. Outside of every house were two sticks connecting each other with a string where you could see dried meat and fish hanging from it.


    "Come on little one, we are going to the centre of the village. Do you see that big monolith? That is where your test will take place." Gillian mentioned while pulling Drake''s hand to move faster.


    The closer to the monolith they were, the clearer the architecture of the village was. All the houses were built in a half circle facing the monolith. Behind the monolith was a bigger structure built from stone. You could also see the same engravings in the building as they were in the monolith.


    "Do you see the engravings in the monolith?" Gillian asked. "Their meaning is the name of our village. Sun village, that is the name of our home. There is a story behind the name, but that is a story you will hear right after the soul test. That is a responsibility for the village leader, your father, Darth."Stolen story; please report.


    Soon, they arrived in front of the monolith and you could see that nearly all the villagers were gathered around it.


    "Since the second and last participant for this year''s test has arrived, we are ready to start. My name is Darth Sun, son of Rogan Sun, a direct descendant of Sun Wukong" Darth''s voice rang in everyone''s mind. "Before we proceed with the history of our lineage and our village, I would like the two children to proceed and touch the monolith."


    Drake and another baby monkey got pushed gently by their mothers to proceed to the monolith. While the other monkey was clearly hesitant and afraid, Drake was more curious to see what will happen. Soon both of them were standing in from of the monolith and slowly raised their hands to touch the monolith. It was cold and hard, that was the only feeling it gave. It seemed like a normal rock with some engravings.


    "Soon the ritual will start," Darth continued. "The monolith will light up and both of you will start feeling some pain in your soul. The pain will steadily increase. Fear not, youngsters, the more you can stand the pain, the higher your soul power is. In order to start learning our method of communication, you have to hold on for ten seconds. If you hold more than a minute you can start learning our ancestor''s breathing technique which helps with your body training and martial arts. If you can hold for more than one hour you will be eligible to start learning the Sun cultivation manual. It is a cultivation manual specific for our species. It is considered one of the best cultivation methods in all the beast species. It is good enough to rival the cultivation techniques of the descendants of the four legendary beasts, the azure dragon, the white tiger, the black turtle and the vermillion bird. The purer your bloodline, the higher cultivation realm you can reach. But you are both too young to even think about cultivating for now. You two should focus on passing the first hurdle and resist the pain for ten seconds. From today onwards you will be taking this test every year in order to test your progress. Sooner or later both of you will be able to resist more than one hour and you will be able to start cultivating. Now then, without further delay, let us proceed with the test! "


    The moment Darth finished his speech, four staff holding villagers approached the monolith and sat down in lotus position with the staff balancing on their legs. Soon after, a continuous golden ray of light stemming from each of the four villagers shot to the top of the monolith. Suddenly, the engravings on the monolith started brimming with light. The letters, that were now golden rays of light, slowly detached themselves from the monolith and started circling around the two examinees.


    Before Drake had a chance to marvel at the spectacle, he felt a sudden pain coursing through his soul. From what he understood from his father''s description the pain should have been quite a lot, but the pain he was feeling right now could only be described as a minor discomfort.


    Therefore, he turned his attention to the other kid which was obviously in a lot of pain. He could see the other kid gritting his teeth and the kid was already sweating even though not even 3 seconds have passed since the start of the test. As soon as Drake moved his sight from the other kid, his eyes connected with his father''s and it was clear that they were filled with astonishment over Drake''s relaxed look.


    Darth knew that nothing was wrong with the trial because some warriors were tested yesterday. That could only mean that this little son of his had an extremely strong soul for his age. His soul power could rival at least a five years old.


    ''My son''s soul is probably strong enough to start learning the breathing technique. Now let''s see how long he can hold out for.'' he thought proudly.


    Meanwhile, the eyes of all villagers were focused on Drake. They could already see that this child was destined to become a strong warrior for the tribe.


    Soon the ten seconds passed and the pain they were feeling suddenly intensified. The boy next to Drake screamed and took his hand off the monolith. Drake, on the other hand, was now in the same position as the young boy was previously. The pain was extremely intense. He instantly dropped to his knees but he was focused enough to still keep his hand on the monolith. He gritted his teeth while sweating profoundly.


    ''I have to endure, the more I endure the faster I will start the training, the sooner I''ll meet her again.'' Drake steeled himself by thinking the injustice he suffered by Delia.


    Five minutes...Ten minutes...Twenty...Soon, half an hour passed and Drake couldn''t handle it anymore. His soul might be extremely resilient because of all the tribulations he survived, but since his body is still that of 1 year old, the power he had was limited. Some may think that the soul has nothing to do with the body, but that is a clear misconception. The body is the vessel of the soul. If the vessel is weaker than the soul then it is bound to break. Therefore, even if the soul is way stronger than the body, it will only be showing limited power.


    As soon as he let hold off the monolith, he tried to stand up but he staggered and he could feel his body dropping forward before losing consciousness.


    "Today, you made me extremely proud, son." Darth whispered as he was catching Drake''s body.

 Chapter 5 : Innate Bloodlust

    Right after Drake lost consciousness, a big commotion started in the village. Everyone was cheering since it was now clear that the village will have another great warrior in the future. A one-year-old kid has the same soul power as a seven-year-old. This is what a genius looks like.


    Now that he will be able to learn the breathing technique from so young, his foundation will be extremely solid. Darth was even considering personally taking care of his son''s martial training.


    "Fellow villagers, what we witnessed today is a blessing for our village." Darth started making a statement. " The results today not only make me feel proud as a father, but they also make me feel at ease about our future. Both kids passed on their first try in the soul test and from this moment, they will be considered villagers of the Sun! Now, everyone should go back to their homes and we will gather here again tonight to teach to the two youngsters the history of our village and the burden we must bare!"


    Even though the excitement hasn''t yet died down, all of the villagers started moving towards their houses while congratulating the parents of the two kids.


    "Darth, let me take our son," Gillian said while moving closer to Darth."Since you are the village chief, you have other matters to take care of."


    "No need, today I need to have a talk with our son before the village meeting tonight. Even though he is so young, his peaceful days are about to come to an end since I already decided to take care of his training. As soon as he learns the breathing technique I will take him with me outside the array." Darth replied.


    "Darth, you can''t take him out yet! He is way too young!!!" Gillian shouted anxiously.


    "Gillian, you know just as I do that he is no normal kid. Everybody noticed that the only reason he managed to endure this long during the test was because of his bloodlust. Clearly, he is very strong willed but that won''t let him keep his conscious if he goes berserk. He has to learn to control it before it grows too much." Darth stated. "There will be no discussion about that, your mother will also agree with me. She has been feeding him herbs to calm his mind ever since he got born. She warned me before but I never realised how serious the situation is."


    Gillian wanted to argue but she knew she was in the wrong. She could also feel the negative state of emotions of her child. The only times he showed an interest was when he wanted to get out of the house and before he takes the test. Even that seemed only as a  simple curiosity. Unable to change anything she looked her son with worry and then followed after Darth, returning to their house.


    A few hours later Drake slowly opened his eyes. He immediately realised that someone carried him back home and he tried standing up but a hand held him down.


    "Relax kiddo, there is no need to get up just yet." his grandmother Ginna mused. " I fed you a medicinal soup to restore your soul power faster, but you will feel a bit light headed for a while. Furthermore, your father needs to have a talk with you."


    Drake looked around and saw that next to his bed, apart from his grandmother, his father and mother were standing looking at him. Being unable to speak just yet he could only take a quizzical look on his face while waiting for an explanation. If you come across this story on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it.


    "Hey son, how are you feeling?" Darth asked.


    Drake could only nod his head.


    "Good, I am sure you have some questions of your own, but they will have to wait until you learn how to communicate with us haha!" Darth mused "Now before I start explaining some things about our race, I have to ask you a question and I need you to answer me honestly."


    "Do you have any dreams where you are standing on a battlefield, while the whole sky is red and you non stop killing others?" asked Darth seriously.


    "DARTH!!! What are you asking him? He is just one year old! There is no way he is on the verge of going berserk!!" Gillian shouted. "You will just scare him with that kind of talk!"


    "SILENCE GILLIAN!!!" Darth raged. "We have to be careful. If you can''t stand it go and wait outside, otherwise I don''t want to hear another word from you."


    Gillian wanted to refute him but when she saw the look in Darth''s eyes, she chose to remain silent afraid of not being there for her son.


    "Now son, please answer me honestly." Darth continued while turning his eyes to look straight into Drake.


    Drake was confused as for the reason they are asking him such a question so he tried to remember if he ever saw such a dream. Sure, he dreamt many times of killing the goddess Delia, but he never dreamt of being on a battlefield with the same description as that. So he chose to deny it.


    "Ok good, then the situation isn''t as bad as I feared." Darth heaved a sigh of relief. "Son, what I am about to tell you, is a side effect from the creation of our race. We cannot escape it so we can only learn to control it. I will explain the history of our race and our village tonight in front of the whole village so the other kid can hear it as well, so, for now, I will only let you know of your situation.


    Kiddo, our village is inside of an array for two reasons. One is because we are banished from the world and the second is to calm our nature. We will only be talking about the second reason for now.


    We, the golden-haired monkeys, have an innate bloodlust that can go berserk every time we are angered. When this happens we lose control of ourselves and the only ways to calm again is to either start a bloodbath and kill everything around us, or to get so exhausted that we can''t move.


    This has to do with our bloodline. Most of us have a very diluted bloodline so the bloodlust can be easily controlled. But your bloodline, even diluted, is purer than us. Therefore you will not be able to easily control your bloodlust. The only way for you to control it is to get stronger. The stronger you get the easier it will be for you to avoid going berserk.


    Starting tomorrow, I will be teaching you our communication and our breathing technique, so you can start training your body. As soon as you master these two techniques, I will take you outside of the array so you can experience yourself how it feels to go berserk. Until you fully learn to control it, you will have to avoid any situation or thoughts that might anger you. If I or other warriors are next to you, it won''t be a problem since you are still too weak to pose any threat to us, but if you are next to other kids then I am afraid the worst will happen.


    Sadly, we will still have to limit your movements around the village so you can''t run around by yourself until you reach the fourth stage of the body refining realm. With your potential, it will probably take about a year. Don''t worry about the cultivation stages as I will teach them all about them while learning the breathing technique.


    It is important that you understand these facts because it can also harm yourself if you go berserk."


    As soon as Darth finished talking, Drake nodded his head and fell into deep thought.


    ''These monkeys were so human-like in their daily lives that I was under the impression that my life will be similar to that of a human. But it seems I have been wrong in that. I am really a beast...''


    "Good, since you understand, I will let you rest a bit more so you can be more clear-headed tonight when I will be explaining the history of our race." Darth smiled before turning around and leaving the house.


    "My boy, do not worry, your father is a powerful warrior and he will teach you everything that you need to know in order to control your urges. We all love you." Gillian said while looking affectionately at her son.


    "Little one, drink this soup, this is just to help you sleep until tonight." his grandmother whispered while giving him a bowl filled with soup.


    Drake wanted to stay awake and think about everything he learnt and happened but he decided otherwise since he will have time to think about them the upcoming days. Plus, if he didn''t drink the soup, they will probably force him to it. Therefore he drank it in one gulp since the taste was too bitter for his liking. Soon after he fell asleep again.

 Chapter 6 : History of the Sun village

    By the time Drake opened his eyes again, it was already evening. He looked around, but he was all alone. They were probably waiting for him outside or at the monolith. But he didn''t mind. He was enjoying the quietness, so he decided to lie down on the bed a bit more and ponder about what happened so far after his last reincarnation.


    ''According to what I''ve heard from my father, this body should have a lot of potential. Therefore, that God fulfilled his end of the soul contract. Now it is up to me to grow powerful enough.''


    Suddenly Drake recalled a piece of information from his previous life.


    ''Wait... Wasn''t Sun Wukong a character from Chinese mythology that was a monkey as well? But I am in another world, so it is probably just a coincidence.


    However, if it is not a coincidence since reincarnation and other worlds are both real, there is a high chance to have some of his powers from the story. Knowing this should help me grow my powers faster.


    Anyway, my doubts should be cleared after I learn more about the history of my current race."


    Shaking his head to clear the unnecessary thoughts, he stood up from the bed and walk to the door since the village''s event should start soon. The moment he stepped out he saw his mother rushing to him so they can walk together to the monolith.


    "You are right on time, little one, I was about to come and wake you up." Said Gillian. "Almost everyone has already gathered around the village centre. Only we and some of the older ones are missing."


    Gillian grabbed his hand and pulled him a bit to move faster towards the monolith. As soon as they arrived Drake saw his father standing right in front of the monolith while the rest of the villagers were sitting down cross-legged facing him. In the place where the four warriors had sat down during the test, now four lighted up bamboo torches have been placed.


    Drake threw his gaze to the villagers, and he realised that without sufficient light, you could hardly distinguish who is who. The only one who was standing out from them was the young one that he took the test with. The young monkey was sitting in front of the villagers, but instead of sitting cross-legged, he was sitting on its knees. Drake realised he would probably have to sit beside him on his knees as well.


    "Little one, do you see the girl you took the test with? Go and sit beside her on your knees facing your father. Today you two are having the honour of standing closer to the monolith." Whispered Gillian.


    ''She''s a she? I thought she was a boy all this time,'' thought Drake while moving closer to his position.


    As he was sitting down, he noticed that most of the eyes of the villagers were on him but he paid no more heed.


    As soon as he sat down his father''s voice sounded addressing the whole village.


    "Fellow villagers, tonight we have the honour of welcoming two new members in our village. Both of them passed the soul test, so they are ready to learn our communication method. From tomorrow we will be teaching them our technique so they will finally be worthy of choosing their own names." Darth shouted.


    Immediately the villagers erupted in cheers and started jumping around patting the two youngsters in the back as if congratulating them.


    ''Why is everyone celebrating for two monkeys reaching one year old. This should be the normal no?'' Drake startled.


    Darth raised his hands and waited for the commotion to quiet down. As soon as it did, he continued.Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.


    "I can see that both the young ones are shocked by our celebration. But there is a very good reason for that.


    LITTLES ONES!!" Shouted Darth, making everyone tense.


    "Pay attention to what I am about to say, engrave it deep in your memory and never forget it.


    We, the golden-haired monkeys are a race of direct descendants from the great sage Sun Wukong.


    He was the one who started as a monkey beast with nothing different than the rest and trained his way to the top, giving hope to all the beasts that they can achieve anything with hard work and strong will.


    He was the one who gave hope to all the beasts that were enslaved by the despicable humans when he fought against the enslavement and destroyed the mental shackles that made us believe we were inferior to them. He taught us to fight for our freedom.


    He is the one who caused havoc to the heavens and forced them to recognise him by reaching godhood, proving to everyone that as long as you deserve it you will be recognised and anyone can attain godhood with hard work.


    He was also the one who got tricked and died at the end from the rest of the gods because they thought godhood should be hereditary and they thought he was nothing more than a mad beast."


    While Darth was making his speech, not a sound could be heard by the crowd around him. Their attention and was solely focused on him.


    "During his travels, he had mated with another monkey beast leaving descendants behind. But after being tricked, the other gods made their believers in our world to hunt them down. Except one of his sons was too strong for the humans to kill. They used a god''s relic to banish him and seal him along with his family in a remote area. This is now being called the Sun village, and it is our village.


    After some time passed, our ancestors found a way to weaken the seal so they will be able to go out of it for a few hours every week to hunt for food. Unfortunately, a being that sets foot inside the seal array is being marked by it and can''t spend more than a day outside otherwise his soul will explode. The way for the seal to be weakened is our strongest warrior to expend his life force constantly.


    But we are not without hope. As long as someone from the outside undoes the seal, or we destroy the monolith, we will be free. Sadly, nobody has managed to do that until now.


    Sun Wukong taught us to live without losing hope and fight for our freedom, and that is what we would do. Everybody in this village is training daily to become powerful enough to escape the fate that the humans forced upon us.


    From the moment we have been sealed, thousands of years have passed, so we have no idea of the outside situation. We found a traveller on the brink of death some years ago, and he had no idea who we are, but he died soon after before we get the chance to ask him details about the outside world.


    The world has probably forgotten about us, but we will not rest until we regain our freedom. It is our right and the duty that runs in our blood.


    That is our history youngsters, and that is a reason for the bloodlust we all have. Our bloodlust is the manifestation of the hate against the trickery of the gods. It is the manifestation against the injustice that rules this world and the heavens. One day, one of us will be able to restore the justice in the world and take the place in the heavens that is rightfully ours."


    The whole time that Darth was speaking the only sounds that could be heard were sounds of sobbing and crying every now and then from the villagers. But as soon as Darth finished speaking everybody in the village was excluding some bloodlust making the atmosphere extremely heavy. They were all angry by the injustice their species suffered.


    But Drake had other thoughts...


    ''Holy shit, this history is remarkably similar with my past. Both of us have been tricked and suffered injustice from the gods. Is it actually possible to be fate? But it can''t be, my reincarnation was planned by that other god... Was it on purpose or was it indeed fate? I should ask him the next time I meet him.


    The good news is that my plans coincide with them. We have the same target, so if I can help this village without hindering me too much, I might as well do it. They will give me a way to grow powerful with their techniques anyway.''


    But as soon as he finished thinking these, he noticed the bloodlust that was in the air. Strangely, he didn''t think the atmosphere was heavy; he felt it was comfortable. Extremely comfortable.


    ba-bump...ba-bump...


    His heart starting beating faster and faster. Drake was feeling an indescribable excitement rising from every inch of his body. It felt like his body was screaming with excitement. His eyes along with his vision started turning red.


    BA-BUMP...BA-BUMP...


    He looked to the sky and let out a long rawr. The sky seemed to turn blood red, and everything around him changed. The villagers were replaced with millions of soldiers fighting. Blood was splattering all around, and Drake stood there, in the middle of a battlefield wearing a black bandana on his head, full body-no sleeved black leather armour reaching to his knees and he was holding a gold staff filled with engravings...

 Chapter 7: Battlefield of the Gods

    Drake was going mad with excitement. The smell of blood and the sight of carnage were like a drug to him; it was addictive. He wanted more. As soon as he stopped screaming to the sky, he jumped to his closest target. He didn''t care who was who. All that mattered to him was to kill more.


    As soon as he got close to his target, he lifted the staff with his hand and swung it down to his target''s head instantly killing him. Then he turned to the next one and the next one. He kept killing everything around him using his staff, stabbing, smashing. He couldn''t get enough; he still wanted more. The excitement he felt kept rising. At some point, some drops of blood from the blood that was splattered all around got into his mouth. Instead of being disgusted though, he licked his lips. Drake started laughing maniacally; the taste was delicious. He shrank his staff, and hid it behind his ear and started killing bare-handed, scratching, biting. He started drinking some of the blood from his kills, and with every drop of blood he gulped down, he felt his power restoring and was growing more powerful. The faster he was killing, the quicker he became.


    Unbeknownst to him, he started looking like a gust of wind to everyone else. Everywhere on the battlefield, scenes of massive destruction could be seen. The area, which used to be green flatland seemingly with no end, was now filled with craters, fire burning all around, huge rocks that looked like meteors, lakes having being formed. It seemed like the elements were fighting for supremacy. Clearly, this battle was not something a mortal could take part in. Even with all of that, what scared everyone was a golden-haired monkey with black armour, that was now covered with blood from top to bottom.


    Nobody could stop him. Spells were being cast targeting him, yet he was dodging all of them. Suddenly, he froze in place. He felt that something was restricting his movement. Drake let out a loud roar, and a sound similar to glass breaking rang into everyone''s ears. Clearly, it was a spell of the space element specializing in restricting the target''s movement. He looked around to see to find the caster and there she was standing, in the midst of the battlefield, the goddess of balance and life Delia was looking at him grinning.


    She was wearing a silver shinning upper body armour with a sun symbol in her chest area. Two wings could be seen protruding from the back side of her armour. She also had a matching colour skirt and boots reaching all the way up to her knees. The material of her attire seemed to be metal, but you could see with a glance that it was way more durable than an ordinary one. On her right hand, a longsword could be seen with its edge dripping blood. That was only helping the dreadful aura the sword was emitting. The strangest thing was though, that even while in the middle of the battlefield, not even one drop of blood was staining her.


    "Hey, monkey boy, aren''t you getting a bit too excited from killing a few minor gods?" Delia laughed.


    As soon as she spoke, Drake screeched with hate and rushed to attack her. Before reaching her, he swung his hand downwards, scratching the air in front of him and four blades of wind appeared from his fingers. They reached her almost instantly yet, before touching her they seemingly vanished. Drake didn''t hesitate for a second after using his spell, as if he was expecting it to fail, reaching her with a small delay after it.


    As soon as he was in front of her, he took out his staff and expanded it once again, using both of his hands to smash it to her head. She calmly blocked it by raising her sword. After blocking it, she only said one word to him.


    "Weak."


    The moment Drake heard it, he became enraged and started furiously swinging his staff trying everything he could to hit her. Sadly, she was blocking all of his moves calmly.


    "It seems you can''t even use your elements anymore." Delia laughed at him. "I guess the poison we fed you worked perfectly."Royal Road is the home of this novel. Visit there to read the original and support the author.


    Drake widened his eyes.


    "YOU BITCH. I WILL NEVER FORGIVE YOUR "LIGHT" ALLIANCE!!!" Screamed Drake. "You proclaim yourselves as the righteous, yet you use underhanded methods to suppress and kill anyone you don''t like or is against your plans.


    I WILL KILL ALL OF YOU!!!"


    "Hahaha, I am afraid you won''t have the chance little monkey. Currently, you are way too weak to resist any of us." Delia mocked him. "You won''t even survive this battle."


    After she was done talking, Delia waved her hand restricting Drake''s movement once again. As soon as he was constrained, two persons appeared left and right from him. They started making hand signs, and a beam of light fell on Drake.


    "Even if you seal my soul and destroy my body, you can''t keep me sealed forever," Drake shouted with hate. "Sooner or later my soul will be freed, and I will get my revenge against all of you."


    "No chance of this happening you beast," replied Delia mockingly. "The moment we are done sealing you, we will move your soul to Death''s domain and leave it there. You know as well as I do that to escape from there, you will need another God''s help. Unfortunately for you, nobody here will help a beast.


    After you spend a few thousand years there, I hope you will realise your place. A beast will always remain a beast."


    The instant she finished her mocking, the beam of light grew more prominent, and it started burning Drake''s body. He was screaming from pain, but that didn''t last long. Seconds later his body was utterly destroyed, and all that was left in its place was a white orb of light with the word "SEAL" seemingly engraved on it.


    Delia approached the orb and as soon as she grabbed it the ball vanished.


    "This takes care of you," she whispered and then turned to the others. " Go inform Ares that our job is done."


    Back in the village, four-five monkey warriors were surrounding a small monkey. Darth was holding the small monkey down.


    "Did he finally lost consciousness?" grandma Ginna asked Darth.


    "MY BABY!!! How is he? Is he hurt anywhere?" Gillian shouted.


    "Relax, he is not hurt anywhere, he just fainted from exhaustion," Darth said while everyone let out a sigh of relief. "I was not expecting him to get affected by everyone''s bloodlust. This was a miscalculation on my part. It is my fault."


    "Nobody could expect him to react like that Darth" a strong looking monkey calmly uttered while grabbing Darth''s shoulder. "It is not your fault alone, we could all feel his bloodlust during the test, so we should have never leaked ours during your story. Thankfully nobody was hurt."


    "Nobody was hurt this time, you mean Doko," Darth replied. "I must train him as soon as possible otherwise he might go berserk at a time when we are not around.


    I had to use a restraining technique by injecting my ki into his body so he won''t hurt himself and that cost me a good amount of soul power. I will need about a month to recover. Doko, starting tomorrow and until I recover you will be in charge of teaching him the communication and the breathing technique. You need to be strict with him and not let him slack off even a bit. It is imperative for him to learn the communication technique first as soon as possible. I would like to question him about his berserk. Judging from his screeching and screaming, he probably dreamt of the battlefield. If that is true, we need to explain to him that it is not merely a dream but memories of the past. This should make him strive harder in the future and grow in power faster. "


    "As you command chief," Doko replied.


    "Gillian, take him to his bed." Darth continued. "Ginna, please make some pills for him to eat during the next month so he can keep his mind calm during training."


    "Of course Darth" granda Ginna replied, " I have been making the pills for quite some time now just in case. Now I am glad I did."


    Gillian approached and picked up Drake with teary eyes. She caressed his head a bit and then proceeded to take him back to his bed.


    Everyone started scattering going back to their houses now that the situation cleared and soon only Darth and Doko were left near the monolith. Suddenly, Darth coughed a mouthful of blood and dropped to one knee.


    "Was it that bad?" Doko asked worryingly while holding Darth helping him stand back up again.


    "The backlash from the restraining technique was harsher than I thought due to the purity of his bloodline. But it is nothing serious" Darth replied calming Doko. "Doko, my brother, he might be our path to freedom. If we train him, he has a chance of reaching the Merging realm and break this accursed seal in our village."


    Both of them turned to look in the way Gillian left with Drake, with the expectation and hope apparent in their eyes.

 Chapter 8 : A mothers worry

    Following Gillian and the unconscious Drake home, was grandma Ginna. As soon as they got inside and Gillian laid Drake down to bed, Ginna approached him and took out a pill from her pocket. She then opened his mouth and used her ki to force Drake to swallow the pill.


    "This grandson of mine is an endless pit. All the herb supplies I gathered the last 20 years will probably be used by him." joked Ginna. She then took out another pill from her pocket and turned to look at her daughter.


    "Here Gillian, this is for you to help you relax." She uttered while giving the pill to Gillian. "I know this is a hard sight for you, but you have to get used to it. It is not easy for me either but we can''t let him see our worries. He will probably go berserk many times until he learns how to control his bloodlust. The only thing we can do is be there for him when he needs us."


    Gillian remained silent for a few moments while looking at her son with tears running down her face. Finally, she ate the pill and then asked her mother without taking her eyes off her son.


    "Mother, I have seen Darth returning home from hunting, wounded. I even watched grandfather dying using the last of his life force to weaken the seal. But it was never this hard. My son is already one year old, and I have never seen him laughing or crying. The only emotion he showed, apart from excitement due to bloodlust, is curiosity. If I could credit that to him being extremely smart, I wouldn''t be feeling that bad, but every time I look at his eyes, the only thing I can see is extreme pain. Yet, I can''t find a reason for it. We all have been staying in the house until we reach the first year of our lives but nobody I know was in pain, we have only been annoyed. There has to be a reason for this. I only hope that as soon as he learns to communicate with us, he will let me know and help him but I fear he will keep it to himself."


    "Gillian, I told you since the moment he was born that I could sense a lot of negative energy around him. Now after him going berserk for the first time, this has only grown stronger. Maybe it has to do with his bloodline being purer." Ginna voiced her concern as well. "I checked the tribe''s archives some time ago. There was a case a few hundred years back of a child that was born with extremely pure bloodline. According to the records it was even purer than your son''s. After that child grew up, he confined to the village chief that he had awakened memories of our ancestor. That helped him to grow in power extremely fast to the point that he was stronger than everyone in the village by the age of ten.


    Maybe our little one is in a similar situation but the memory he awoke was a sad one." continued Ginna trying to calm both hers and her daughter''s worries.


    "Mother, how come I''ve never heard of such a child? If he became so powerful, I should have heard of him. Also, with his growth, it should have been possible for him to break the seal sooner or later!" exclaimed Gillian.


    " That was my first thought as well; however after the boy reached twelve years of age, he just vanished from the village. Normally, this should be impossible, so there was a big commotion at that time. Yet nobody could find his whereabouts, so they concluded that he sneaked out along with the hunters when the array weakened but never came back. So he probably died due to the array''s mark on his soul." Ginna replied. "Therefore, we have to be careful and not let our boy''s curiosity lead him to a mishap."This story has been unlawfully obtained without the author''s consent. Report any appearances on Amazon.


    "Mother, since we can''t teach him not to be curious, I can only let him know of the dangers of it. I trust Darth will also be looking out for him and not let anything happen to him," said Gillian. "Anyway mother, I think your pill started affecting me so you should probably head back. We will be fine."


    "Goodnight my daughter, I will go to sleep as well since I will be making a lot of pills starting tomorrow," Ginna spoke before caressing her daughter''s cheek with her hand and leaving the house.


    "Goodnight, mother" Gillian murmured. She then lied down beside her son and hugged him.


    "My little boy, do not worry, I will be there for you no matter what happens. Mommy will help you carry whatever burden you have, and she will help you solve it." Gillian said gently. "I love you, little one."


    For one whole year, Drake''s expression showed no emotions except excitement due to bloodlust and curiosity. He always had that solemn and plain expression, hiding his thoughts. Yet, at that moment, when his whole body was exhausted from going berserk when he had clearly lost consciousness, and he should be unable to hear what Gillian was saying, a very faint smile was formed in his face.


    As soon as Ginna left Drake''s house, she headed straight to her own. The door was already open, but apparently, she was expecting it since she did not hesitate at all entering. Her house was nothing like Drake''s house. It was still dome-shaped, but her home was bigger and had a chimney. From the door, you could see to your left one big wooden bookcase, and by moving your sight to the right from the bookcase, someone could see lots of wooden shelves stuck on the walls. As soon as the shelves stopped, there was a desk filled with papyruses containing pill formulas. Right next to the desk was a bed made of leaves and sticks. In the middle of the room was a fire burning and on top of the fire was a cauldron with boiling water inside it. The most eye-catching thing though was that in front of the shelves was a man standing seemingly looking for something.


    "Darth try the second shelve from the bottom to your left, third bottle." Ginna voiced.


    Darth opened the bottle that Ginna mentioned, took a pill from inside and sniffed it before eating it.


    "Thank you, Ginna," said Darth.


    "You are lucky that he got exhausted the time he did. If he could last a few more minutes, your situation would have been way worse, and a first-grade restoration pill wouldn''t have helped."Ginna uttered while picking some notes from her desk and putting them inside her bag.


    "I know, but even so I would have still tried to restrict him. He is my son, and that is all that matters." Darth replied.


    "That may be so, but you are still the village chief, and you have responsibilities. Doko could have restricted him as well, and his life force isn''t affected like yours. Anyway just remember to be careful next time. Especially when you take him out of the array." Ginna warned him.


    "I know, I already asked Doko to take care of his training until I restore most of my strength," said Darth before noticing that she was packing some of her notes. "Where are you going this time of the night?"


    "You should be concerned with recovering yourself instead of meddling into my business." joked Ginna. "Now off you go to sleep" she continued while pushing Darth out of her house.


    "Crazy woman..." muttered Darth and sighed before moving towards his house.


    Shortly after Darth left her house, Ginna finished gathering her notes and turned to the bookcase. She then picked up a book, put it in her bag and left her home. Then Ginna headed towards the monolith. But after she reached it, she didn''t stop, but she kept walking heading to the biggest house in the village, the only one behind the monolith.

 Chapter 9 : Training begins (Part 1)

    Drake didn''t wake up for the next two days. His mother was leaving the house only to bring some more food for the two of them. Grandma Ginna was visiting them at least three times per day, and every time she would be giving another pill to Drake. Instead of his father though, the third person that visited Drake''s house was Doko. He was going in, checking Drake''s condition and then leaving without saying a word except for the first time when he explained to Gillian that he would be in charge of him for the next few weeks. Gillian knew that he didn''t want to waste even a minute before starting his training.


    The morning of the third day, Drake slowly opened his eyes. His mother was still asleep next to him, and he tried to push her a bit so he can stand up. However, the moment he exerted some strength he let out a muffled sound.


    "Ugh..."


    Instantly his mother jolted up filled with concern.


    "Little one, don''t be hasty. Your body isn''t completely recovered yet. Even though you will be able to walk around normally, you can''t be using any strength for the next days. So until you recover, you will focus on mastering our two techniques instead of doing body training." Gillian said while preventing Drake from getting up just yet. "Doko will come by later on; he will be in charge of your training for the next few weeks. He will explain everything you need to know."


    Right after she finished talking, as if it was planned, Doko knocked on the door and entered the house. Immediately, his eyes fell on the now awake Drake.


    "Youngster, it seems like you woke up. I will give you one hour so you can get ready. I will be waiting outside the door for you. Don''t be late or I will have to come in and drag you out." stated Doko before leaving the house once again.


    Gillian was a bit annoyed with Doko''s strict attitude, but she decided against talking since it is for her son''s own good. She looked over at Drake and then rushed him to get ready.


    "My boy, you should make haste, even though Doko is not a bad one, he will still be very strict with his training. You better follow his words since it is for your own good."


    Drake nodded and then stood up. He felt a bit light headed from standing up too fast, so he sat down on the bed.


    "Little one, here take these fruits and eat them before going out. You haven''t eaten normally for two days, so it is normal for you to feel weak," said Gillian while giving some apple-like fruits to him.


    Drake took the fruits and sniffed them before putting them on his mouth. It was the first time Drake was tasting such a fruit since until now all he was eating was milk and some soup herbs and pills. The exterior was pretty hard, but the interior was soft, juicy and sweet.


    ''This is pretty good'' thought Drake and he madly ate the rest of them since he was starving.


    "Haha, slow down son, nobody is going to steal them from you." laughed Gillian when she saw the child-like expression on her son.


    As soon as Drake finished eating up, he stood up once again, and it was clear that he was feeling way better than before. Then she waved Gillian and rushed to the door. He was looking forward to starting his training. Back when he was still human, he thought many times about having superpowers, yet he knew that it was only a dream. But now, the dream he had on his previous life, was the way to exact his revenge against Delia.The narrative has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.


    As soon as he got out, he saw Doko standing outside the door. When Doko turned to look at him, Drake for the first time realized how menacing this monkey looked. The only clothing he was wearing, was the same black cloth around his waist as his father. Apart from that, he was naked. His dark gold hair covered everything on him except his face and his chest area. His hands and chest were buffed like bodybuilders in his previous life, and his most distinctive feature was a long scar from his right eye down to his cheek.


    "I thought you will take a bit more time since the hour hasn''t passed yet but this is better. Follow me," said Doko before starting walking to the opposite direction of the monolith.


    They kept walking until they passed all the houses and they arrived in an extensive grassland. At the far end of it, you could see a line of small rocks seemingly marking borders. Apart from that, there was not even a tree in his line of sight.


    "The small rocks at the end are marking the end of the array. The moment you pass them, you will feel extreme pain, and then you will be jolted back inside, so do not even try it. Especially with your weak strength, you will hurt yourself pretty badly," mentioned Doko when he noticed Drake looking at the rocks.


    They proceeded to the middle of the grassland, and then Doko stopped and turned around to face Drake.


    "Listen up kiddo. My name is Doko, and you can call me either Doko or uncle since I am your father''s brother. I will be sole training you until your father takes over and after that, I will be helping with your practice every time your father is unable to do so.


    From today, your daily life will include training in the communication technique, then the breathing technique and the moment you get better, we will start with training your body.


    As soon as you learn the breathing technique, we will be checking your soul power weekly until you reach the threshold for learning our cultivation manual since the breathing technique apart from helping your body significantly, it also helps your soul power."


    Drake could only nod the whole time since he pretty much guessed it would be like this. This was also helping him with his plans since the sooner he starts, the better.


    "Good, you are a smart kid, and I know you can understand everything I say. We will be starting with the communication technique because we want you to explain to us what happened after you went berserk.


    The two aspects that every cultivator needs to train if he wants to become powerful are the body and the soul. Training the body is simpler since it only requires diligence and hard work along with a good body cultivation manual. Our breathing technique is actually a manual that has two stages, one for teaching you a proper method to breathe so your body takes enough oxygen and nature Ki and the second stage is body movements in order to train your body. We call our breathing manual the "Nature''s Breath manual" since it helps the cultivator become one with nature.


    As for our communication technique, even though it is considered a mind one, it actually stems from our soul. All the spells and techniques in this world, apart from the body ones, have as a basis, the power of the soul. Even to use the elements you have to train your soul to sense them and absorb them. But before reaching the Merging Realm, where you combine your body and soul to become one, you have to use your mind as the median to cast them.


    In order to use spells, we are using a thing called Ki. Ki is the energy that exists all around us. It is the natural energy of the world. However, in order to use it and control it, we gather the Ki through our soul so it can acknowledge us and becomes "ours". If you try to directly use Ki without it passing through your soul first, it will be too unstable to be used, and it will end up backfiring whatever you are trying to do. When you gather Ki and make it yours, you have to give it directions. That is when your mind comes into play. Your mind is the one that will be giving instructions to the Ki that you gathered so you can achieve the desired effect.


    As long as you learn how to use your soul to gather Ki, then you will realise it is pretty easy to use basic techniques. As for higher tier spells, you have to circulate vast amounts of Ki in a certain way through your body before activating them, but if your body or your soul isn''t strong enough, it will kill you. That''s where the cultivation manuals are helping. But that will wait until you can cultivate it.


    Today I will teach you the way to gather Ki and filter it through your soul so that you can use it."

 Chapter 10 : Training begins (Part 2)

    As soon as Doko finished explaining the theory basics to Drake, he started the practical lesson.


    "First of all, I need you to close your eyes and focus on feeling every inch of your body. When you become familiar with your body and understand everything about it, turn your attention to the middle of your chest, next to your heart. That''s where our soul lies. What you will "see" will be a ball of light. When you can clearly sense your soul, we will proceed by teaching you how to absorb Ki. It will help you a lot if you sit down cross-legged."


    Following Doko''s instructions, Drake sat down cross-legged and closed his eyes. It was hard for him to calm down. He tried for many hours before finally relaxing, but at that point, the sun was already setting so Doko decided to call it a day.


    "You need to relax and calm yourself. If you are anxious, you won''t be able to calmly feel your body. Do not let your emotions affect you. A warrior has to face everything with a calm mind or else your enemies will take advantage of it. Let''s stop for today. Go back, eat and rest. We will continue tomorrow as soon as the sun rises, I will come and pick you up."


    Drake nodded and sat up, stretching his body a bit before making his way home. Until he reached his house, Doko''s eyes never left his back.


    "Did going berserk affect him so much? It should have been easier for him to feel his body. Based on his bloodline alone, he should be able to start gathering Ki on day one, yet he couldn''t even relax enough to feel his soul. I should ask Ginna for a calming pill for tomorrow..." murmured Doko before leaving the area heading to Ginna''s home to ask for the pill.


    After Drake reached his house, he was welcomed by his mother who already had some fruits ready for him.


    "How was your first day little one? Did you learn to communicate yet?"


    Drake just made a grumpy sound and focused on eating his fruits; then he headed straight to his bed. Ginna could see that he was upset, so she realised there was a problem with his training, but she let it pass since if it were something serious, Doko would have already notified her.


    As soon as Drake lied down on his bed, he fell into deep thought.


    ''How can it be so hard to calm down. I used to spend days without making a sound while hunting animals yet now every time I close my eyes, I see that hated goddess, and I can''t help but get angry and feel the hate I have for her.


    This won''t do. If I can''t control my emotions during such a simple exercise, I will get killed the moment I step outside this village. This world, based on the history of this village alone, is a world where the strong prey upon the weak. I will probably get in a lot of life and death situations, especially if people find out the race I belong to now.


    The only way to get stronger faster is not to give up. I will keep training even when I eat and sleep. Maybe it will help me remember the days of hunting. The feeling before pulling the trigger. The stillness that comes with that extreme focus.''


    Unfortunately, his body was too tired, and soon he fell asleep.


    The next day, Doko woke him up even though Drake was still feeling a bit tired. However, that did not stop him from eating his breakfast fast and following Doko immediately after.This story has been unlawfully obtained without the author''s consent. Report any appearances on Amazon.


    A few minutes later they arrived in the same spot as yesterday, and before he started trying to feel his body, Doko gave him a pill.


    "Take this; it should help you calm faster."


    Drake immediately accepted and ate the pill, and he took his position sitting cross-legged once again. He tried to ignore the image of Delia that was appearing in his mind and focused on remembering the feeling he had while hunting. Thankfully this time, Drake managed to calm his mind, and he felt everything around him becoming still. He entered the state he wanted, the same one he had right before going for the kill. It was a focused state that all that mattered was his prey. During this state, he focused on his body and tried feeling everything that he could. It was effortless. He could feel even his blood running through his veins.


    Ba-pump... Ba-pump...


    The only sound he could hear was his own heartbeat. He turned his attention to the middle area of his chest, and he could faintly sense something. He instantly knew that it was his soul. He tried to focus on that, and soon the image of his soul became clear. It was a red ball of light. The moment he succeeded, he got excited, and instantly he got out of his relaxed state and opened his eyes.


    "Seeing your excitement, I guess you felt your soul," Doko said with a small smile forming on his face.


    Drake nodded and waited for the next part of the instructions. Now it was time for him to learn how to absorb Ki through his soul.


    "Now, I want you to focus once again on your soul and try to move your consciousness inside it. When you succeed, you will get a glimpse of the true form of your soul.


    Everyone''s soul, when you first feel it, is like a ball of light. The colour of your soul is based on your emotions so it can change at any point depending on what you are feeling at any moment, so you should not pay attention to it much. Until you refine your soul in the second realm of cultivation, your soul will only have the form of a ball of light. Afterwards, depending on its true form, it will change shape. Mine, for example, has the form of a mountain. That gives me a higher affinity with the earth element and makes my body very suitable for body training techniques.


    After you get a glimpse of your soul''s true form, you will be able to sense the natural energy around you, the Ki, so you can then have your soul absorb it. You will realize the process naturally as if it is to eat food or drink water so you won''t be needing any help there.


    Following the absorption, you just need to think of what you want to say and the persons you want to. As long as you channel your Ki to your mind while you think that, then your thoughts will be transmitted to the ones you desire. Since your thoughts will be transmitted through Ki, it is impossible for others to overhear your conversation unless you want them to, but keep in mind it is possible to see the transmission of Ki. Using our communication technique nobody will know what you said, but they can find out that you said something through sensing the disturbance of Ki, unless you mask it.


    It is a law that every time you use a spell, or you absorb Ki, a disturbance can be sensed in the surrounding area. That is the basis of how all sensory techniques work, by detecting that exact disturbance. In order to avoid being noticed, you have to hide this disturbance. I will teach you how to hide the disturbances in your surround natural Ki after you learn our cultivation method."


    After Doko finished his explanation, Drake closed his eyes once again and focused only on his soul. He immediately sensed it. Then, he tried to move his consciousness to his soul. The moment all his thoughts and consciousness revolved around it, the red ball of light started changing its shape, it was slowly transforming to look like a person. It wasn''t long until he realised that his soul, had the form of his appearance when he was human. He did not know if this was bad or good, but he was happy anyway since seeing his soul''s true form, meant that he succeeded.


    Suddenly, he felt like he was taking a breath for the first time. Only that the one feeling alive this time, wasn''t his body, but his soul. He was feeling like a different person. It was like he was seeing the world in black and white, yet now, it was in full colours. Unbeknownst to him, his body emitted a light that lasted for mere seconds that was only noticeable if someone was paying attention to him. Doko was.


    "Welcome to the world of cultivation young man." Doko smiled.

 Chapter 11: My name is Drake

    "Doko?" a childish voice was heard in Doko''s mind.


    He looked at the small golden-haired monkey with the bright blue eyes that was sitting in front of him cross-legged and laughed out loud for the first time in a while.


    "Hahaha! How do you feel youngster?"


    "I feel... Strange... It is like all my senses are better, and I can think clearer than before." replied Drake. "Also being able to talk is a big relief."


    "Good. Now our training can progress faster since you will be able to ask any questions you have," said Doko. "However, we have already spent hours training, and you learnt the communication technique, so we will stop your practice here for the day.


    But before you go and take a rest, we have to pay your father a visit."


    After Doko finished, the two of them started walking towards the village''s chief house. As soon as they arrived, Doko had Drake waited outside for a bit while he entered the house.


    The strange thing about this house was that there was no bed or anything of a kind inside. It only had a pentagram array drawn on its floor, and you could see Darth sitting in a lotus position in the middle of it, while a green gem was floating in front of his face. He had his eyes closed, and he appeared to be providing the gem with energy, making it shine in an otherwise dark environment.


    Doko was very careful not to disturb him or touch the array, so he just stood at the doorstep and waited.


    Soon, Darth opened his eyes, and the gem stopped shining. He stood up and walked out of the array with the gem still floating in it.


    "What''s up brother? It is rare for you to come and visit me here" asked Darth.


    After Doko saw the exhausted expression on Darth''s face, unwillingness immediately appeared in his eyes.


    "Darth, you know, I can take your place. You now have a son while I have nobody in my life. I am more suited to be providing life force to weaken the array."


    "Doko, we have discussed this many times. This is my responsibility as the village''s chief. There is no changing my mind about it. Now, tell me why have you visited me here?" Darth replied stopping the argument there.


    "Your son has learnt how to communicate. You told me to notify you immediately so you can ask him about his dream."


    "Oh? That is some good news. My boy has now become a man!" Darth happily said. "Let''s go, after we are done discussing, him going berserk, I will have him pick a name since he now earned the honour of doing so."


    Darth patted Doko on the back, and they both got out of the house. As soon as they stepped outside, they saw Drake, but now he was sitting cross-legged sensing his soul.


    "After you learn how to cultivate, the feeling is even more amazing kiddo" uttered Darth, breaking Drake''s focus.


    "Hi, dad," Drake replied somewhat unwillingly since he couldn''t really get himself to call this monkey his dad. Sure they brought him to this world, but he still believed himself to be somewhat human.


    "So it is true that you learnt how to communicate, haha!" Darth mused. "Let''s go to your mother''s house so we can eat something and discuss.Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.


    Doko, can you please go and inform Ginna? She probably wishes to be present as well."


    "Sure," said Doko and he started walking towards Ginna''s house.


    Meanwhile, Darth and Drake moved to Drake''s home. When they entered, they saw Gillian cultivating on the floor. As soon as she heard them coming, she opened her eyes and voiced her excitement.


    "Little one, did you succeed? Oh, what am I saying, of course, you did since you came in with Darth! Did you pick your name yet? Are you hungry? I got some fruits here for you."


    "Gillian! Calm down a bit, even if he learnt to communicate nobody can answer so many questions at once!" joked Darth. "Let us eat some food while waiting for your mother and my brother to arrive."


    "I''m not doing anything before I hear my boy talking," argued Gillian. "Little one, how are you feeling?"


    "Hungry, I am feeling hungry," Drake replied.


    "See Gillian? I told you we need to have some food first, but you couldn''t control yourself."


    "Hmpf. What do you know? You already heard him talking that''s why you didn''t care, but I am his mother, and I was the last one to know about it" said Gillian somewhat annoyed.


    Nevertheless, she gave some fruits she was saving to Drake while giving only one to Darth.


    "Isn''t this unfair? You only gave me one fruit. I need to eat as well you know." Darth muttered.


    "These fruits were meant to be eaten by my boy and not you. You can go find your own food," said Gillian while giving Darth an angry look.


    Everyone started eating their share of food while waiting for the rest to arrive. Drake was obviously starving, seeing that he was eating his fruits without even chewing them. Darth, on the other hand, was more reserved and was enjoying his.


    There was a knock on the door, and everyone turned their attention to it.


    "Come in," Darth voiced.


    The door opened, and as expected, Ginna and Doko entered the house.


    "Unfortunately, I am kind of busy, so we have to do this fast," uttered Ginna while giving a leather bag to Drake. "The green ones are pills to calm your mind; the red ones are to help you with body training and the blue ones are for after you learn our cultivation technique. Also, I gave your mother some herbs earlier for recovering from injuries. Just eat them raw. Take them as a gift from your grandmother."


    "Thanks" Drake replied.


    "Come on little one, show some emotion, nobody in the village is being taken care of like that. Not even your father and he is the village chief." Gillian reprimanded him.


    "Never mind that boy, I just want you to let me know what you saw when you went berserk. I need you to tell me the full details, do not forget anything," said Ginna while waving her hand as if dismissing Gillian.


    Everyone''s eyes turned to look at him, and you could feel the atmosphere getting tense. Drake however ignored all this and since he also wanted to know what his dream was, he started explaining it as best as he could.


    While he was explaining, one could see his mother''s expression turning to that of concern while the rest stayed emotionless until the end, at that point, however, his grandmother''s expression turned grim.


    "Darth, I leave it to you to explain the situation to him, he needs to understand this was not simply a dream. I need to go back and check the village''s records. The seal on our ancestor is the same one as the one used in our village albeit a way stronger one. Both seals weaken the sealed ones over time until they become mortals and their bloodline gets extinguished. This dream was probably a sign from our bloodline asking for help. This kid might be our only chance of having a future at all." said Ginna while making sure Drake couldn''t hear her words. After finishing, she immediately left, leaving Drake standing there with a confused look on his face.


    "Kid, you grandmother has some things to take care of so don''t mind her. Now, regarding your dream..." Darth started explaining. "It is not actually a dream. It is more like memories of our ancestor hiding in your bloodline. Usually, when one has such dreams, he can only see bits and pieces, yet you saw the whole thing. You could even describe it with extreme details. That should be impossible with your bloodline. Even though it was purer than ours, it is still only about one per cent of our ancestor''s. But you do not need to worry, it is probably due to the combined bloodlust at that time around the monolith." finished saying, Darth, while hiding some facts and trying to calm his son down.


    ''It seems this is destiny, both this race and I can be considered mortal enemies with Delia. I might as well be doing them a favour when I kill her off.'' thought Drake.


    "Son, there is one last thing we need to do today before you go and rest. Since you already learned our communication method, you already earned the honour of choosing your own name.


    If you want we can give you a record with all the names used in our race so you can choose from." Darth said breaking Drake''s thought.


    "No need for that. I already have a name. Drake. My name is Drake."

 Chapter 12 : Natures breath manual

    Everyone was dumbfounded. There was no such name in the history of their race. It wasn''t unheard of, someone making his own name, it was just unusual.


    "Drake. I like it!" shouted Gillian. "My little boy, Drake! Haha!"


    All of them agreed that the name was good and they accepted it without any arguments.


    "Drake, I know that what we discussed can be a big burden for a child of your age to bare, but try to forget about it. The chances of you seeing something like that again are simply too low. Right now, you should be focusing on growing stronger." said Darth. "But we had enough excitements for today. It is better for you to go straight to bed since you still have training tomorrow."


    "I will be picking you same time tomorrow, Drake." smiled Doko and left along with Darth.


    "You heard your father little one, go straight to bed, don''t forget you went berserk not too long ago, and since you do not know the breathing technique yet, you won''t recover so fast. Luckily for you, I have the feeling you will be learning it tomorrow," said Gillian while gently pushing Drake towards his bed.


    After he lied down on his bed and he was left alone to sleep, Drake started rethinking his dream.


    ''According to what they said, that means the dream is real and is something that happened a long time ago to that monkey god. It is good that I left the details about the staff out of my description. I have a feeling that the staff, that God was using is the same one as the one Darth uses. After I get strong enough and find a way to leave this place, I should find an opportunity to steal it. I''ll take as repayment since my actions will be helping them as well.''


    Eventually, Drake fell asleep trying to plan his next actions, but he knew that the most important part is to learn the breathing technique and the cultivation manual so he can acquire some actual strength. Otherwise, all his plans will be for nought.


    The next morning, Doko came on time as promised but this time Drake was already awake and ready for him. As soon as they arrived at their usual spot, Doko started explaining the breathing technique to Drake.


    "Ok kiddo, listen up, the breathing technique is actually simple since you already know how to absorb Ki. All you have to do is change your breathing rhythm while infusing Ki to your breaths. From now on I want you to keep breathing like that at all times, no matter if we are doing body training, cultivating or sleeping.


    You will be taking three long breathes and one short. Between the long breaths, you will be taking a pause of three seconds, two seconds and one second respectively. As for the short one, there will be no pause between the last big breath and it. It is essential to infuse Ki to your breaths, so you have to coordinate your soul and body to succeed.


    Today and the next two days you will be focusing on that, and from the third day, you will be doing it while also focusing on your soul. One week from now, your body will be fully recovered, so we are going to start body training. Lastly, about one month from now we are going to test your soul power once again. It will have probably increased significantly to make you eligible for learning our cultivation manual, providing that you are diligent in your training."If you encounter this tale on Amazon, note that it''s taken without the author''s consent. Report it.


    Even though Drake had a hard time at start adjusting his rhythm, he became familiar with it soon enough as it was just a matter of getting used to it. In order to make things harder, after he started sensing his soul and keeping the breathing technique, Doko started distracting him either by shouting at random times or pushing him slightly to throw him off balance.


    Soon, one week has gone by, and his body was ready to start training. Doko and Drake were facing each other at their usual spot.


    "Alright Drake, your progress so far has been admirable, but that was the easy part. I will be showing you a set of moves, and I want you to copy them. We will be doing these moves for the better part of the day. These moves are focusing on training your body based on agility.


    However, do not think that your agility will be the only thing increasing. Since you will be doing them along with your breathing, your body will naturally get stronger due to the natural Ki. These techniques are enough for you to break into the first stage of the Body Refinement realm, which is the first realm of cultivation. Either I or your father will explain more about the cultivation realms after you learn your cultivation technique, so once again, focus on our current training and not your future one."


    After Doko finished explaining, he started doing some yoga-like movements that made him look kind of funny. Due to him being a monkey, Drake thought he was doing some kind of Circus act.


    ''Isn''t this just yoga specialized for monkeys? I swear if this wasn''t including some poses that could only be done by having a tail, it would be identical to the yoga back in my world.'' thought Drake while having a funny looking expression on his face. ''Well, if it can make me more powerful, I wouldn''t mind walking on all fours every day.''


    Drake was thinking it will be easy for him to master these movements since he had taken some yoga lessons when he was using, but as soon as he started, he noticed a huge problem.


    ''What is this? Every time I try to perform these movements, my breathing gets disrupted.''


    "You thought it would be this easy? HA HA HA. Since it focuses on becoming one with nature, then this was bound to be hard kiddo. The key to success for it is doing the movements while keeping up your breathing technique." Looking at Drake, Doko had a triumphant smile on his face. "Time for your real training to start. I will be correcting your mistakes so you can master it faster."


    After Doko said that, his expression turned stricter than before and he started correcting Drake''s mistakes. When he said correcting, he meant hitting Drake on the part that had the movement wrong, with his tail.


    But who was Doko? He was one of the strongest in the tribe with ages of cultivation and body training behind him. A cultivator trains every part of his body, including the tail. Every time he hit him, Drake was like being whipped and soon the parts that the tail had hit more than once, started bleeding.


    "That''s enough for today. Go back and take a red pill from what your grandmother gave you and eat some of the herbs. I want you to take a pill and eat the herbs daily from now on as soon as we finish our training. Then you are to rest immediately." Doko stopped the training as he could see that Drake was on the brink of falling down.


    The moment Doko said that Drake actually fell down and started breathing heavily. He couldn''t even keep the breathing rhythm he just got used to. It took him a few minutes to adjust it again; then he tried standing up to go home.


    ''He didn''t even whine or uttered a complaint the whole time...'' Doko thought while watching Drake leaving. ''That''s a good son you have there Darth.''


    After Drake arrived in his house he was barely able to eat the pill, the herbs and some fruits his mother had prepared for him. Under the constant complaints and threats toward Doko from Gillian, mentioning how he was mistreating her son and she needs to have a word with him, Drake moved to his bed and lied down.


    He was unable to relax due to the pain his whole body was in.


    ''Holy fuck, this is painful.'' was Drake''s last thought before sleep took over him as he was clearly exhausted.

 Chapter 13 : Breakthrough

    Thanks to the pill and the herbs, Drake woke up with his body fully healed. But today he woke up even earlier so instead of waiting for Doko; he headed to the field himself. When Doko arrived, he saw Drake training on the body movements. Without saying anything, he once again started correcting his movements in the same way. By beating Drake with his tail.


    With every day passed, Drake was improving himself in a tremendous pace, and by the end of the month, Doko has stopped correcting Drake. Now he was just paying attention while Drake was training and he was trying hard to find a mistake. But, he appeared to have mastered the movements.


    It was the last day, and Doko was planning on taking Drake to take the soul test the next day to make sure his soul passed the required power to learn the cultivation technique. The sun was setting, and just as he was about to call it off for the day, he noticed something peculiar with Drake. In particular, he noticed something strange with the Ki around Drake. It was being absorbed by him at an increasingly fast pace, to the point of forming a vortex with Drake being the centre of it.


    The disturbance in the surrounding Ki caused by a breathing technique is minimal at best; one needs to pay very close attention to feel it. The disturbance caused by a spell when it is being cast is noticeable from a certain distance, the stronger the spell, the greater the distance.


    Yet there are four situations when the Ki can go berserk, and it will be noticeable from very far away. The first situation is when an ancient treasure appears; the second is when a portal to a secret realm first appears, the third is when a long-lasting sealing technique breaks and the last one is when something or someone breaks through to one of the seven major cultivation realms. The more powerful the situation, the further the ripples can be sensed or even seen. The only disturbance that can be masked among these. Is that of a breakthrough to the next cultivation realm.


    Drake was now in the middle of breaking through to the first stage of the Body Refinement realm.


    ''Oh? That is a nice surprise. I thought it would take him at least two more weeks to enter it. I guess the pills he was consuming daily, helped him a lot.''


    When someone is breaking through, they are in a very delicate situation. They enter an ethereal state paying no attention to their surroundings, and they only get out of it after they succeed or fail. During the breakthrough, if one gets disturbed, they will receive a major backlash, injuring themselves internally. There is also the chance of dying. If one fails to breakthrough, the backlash is way lighter, and they will only receive minor injuries. Thankfully for Drake, he was in a safe environment where nobody would disturb him.


    Unbeknownst to Drake, villagers were gathering around the grasslands to see and congratulate the person that was breaking through. All of them were surprised when they realised that this person was a kid who was barely one year old.


    "Doko, it seems your teaching capabilities are way higher than I gave you credit for. Haha!" laughed Darth when he arrived along with Gillian and Ginna. "His progress is even faster than I imagined."


    "Darth, don''t joke like that, I did nothing more than showing and correcting his movements. It was Ginna''s pills and his hard work that achieved this result." Doko replied, but he was clearly happy as well.


    Grandmother Ginna, after checking the situation, she just nodded approvingly and left immediately after, she didn''t even stay to congratulate him. Gillian, on the other hand, was ecstatic.


    "My boy is a genius!! I need to treat him to some rare fruits tonight! I am the luckiest mother there is."


    The rest of the villagers congratulated the three persons and then slowly left since Drake hasn''t finished his breakthrough yet and too many people around him, might disturb him. After they left, Doko, Darth and Gillian stayed quiet waiting for Drake to finish.If you stumble upon this tale on Amazon, it''s taken without the author''s consent. Report it.


    While all of this was happening, Drake in his ethereal state was feeling wonderful. His body was making crackling sounds, and it was feeling lighter by the second. His movements were being perfected down to the last detail, and they started feeling natural. The fatigue he had was slowly recovering, and he was feeling stronger and faster than ever. The feeling lasted for a few minutes until it slowly vanished.


    When Drake stopped his movements, the disturbance in the surrounding Ki also stopped. Drake stood there checking his palms, slowly forming fists with them.


    ''This feeling is wonderful. Is this how it feels to breakthrough? And this power, it is just great.''


    He wanted to test this power. He wanted to see how strong he was. He slowly turned to look at Doko with a smile creeping up on his face and a glint appearing in his eyes. Even though he knew not how to fight, he charged towards Doko trying to punch him while ignoring his parents standing a bit further.


    Doko didn''t seem to care at all about Drake''s reaction, and he started dodging the amateur punches thrown by Drake. But he was fulfilling his role of a teacher extremely well. Even though he never taught him any fighting techniques, he was planning to, so even while dodging he was whipping Drake with his tail shouting instructions at him.


    "Your left side is open; you need to guard it. Use your tail as well. Are you stupid kiddo? Who will get hit by such a kick."


    This kept going on for at least another hour when Doko forcefully finished it.


    "Ok kid, that''s enough for today. I was planning on taking you tomorrow to test your soul power, but we might as well do it today. I am pretty sure you will pass it, so it''s better to get examined right now and start cultivating from tomorrow."


    As soon as Drake stopped, his mother rushed to hug him leaving no chance for him to resist.


    "Haha! My young genius! You are way better than your father. He entered the Body Refinement realm only after he was three years old!"


    "Congratulations son." Darth smiled. "But you should not get complacent; you are still too weak for the world. Your road to power is just getting started."


    "Darth come on! Give him a break. He hasn''t rested a day during the last month! He is still a kid, and you two will overwork him to death." voiced Gillian while angrily looking Doko and Darth.


    "I do not want to rest. The only thing I want is to grow stronger as fast as I can." Drake''s voice was heard making everyone''s look turn to him.


    While Gillian was speechless hearing her son shutting her down so fast, the other two were extremely happy.


    "Good resolve. Let''s not waste any more time here then. We will head to the monolith immediately." uttered Darth. "Doko, can you please gather three more warriors to start the test? We will be waiting for you there."


    Doko nodded, and two parties formed heading in different directions. One was with Drake, Gillian and Darth heading to the monolith, while Doko went to call the others.


    During the whole trip to the monolith, Gillian was voicing complaints and tried to change Drake''s mind since she thought a kid at his age should play around a bit as well instead of training like crazy. Even though Drake completely ignored her, Darth couldn''t anymore, so he tried to refute.


    "Gillian, the training is for his own good. Since he is resolved to do it, you should encourage him instead of preventing him."


    "I don''t want him to grow like that. He should enjoy his life as a kid! " Gillian answered, refusing to back down. However, after that, Darth started ignoring her as well until she eventually quieted down, seeing that her words fell on dead ears.


    After arriving at the monolith, they didn''t wait long, and Doko with three other monkey warriors arrived. They instantly took their place around it, sitting in a lotus position with their staffs balancing on their legs, waiting for Darth to give them the signal to start.


    "Go on Drake. You just need to hold for one hour. After one hour passes, they will stop using their Ki, since there is no benefit in holding out more than that." said Darth and Drake moved to take his place as well next to the monolith.


    As soon as he moved next to it, he placed his hand and looked at Darth, nodding him that he is ready.


    "Then let''s begin testing him once again."


    The moment Darth gave the signal, their Ki took the form of golden rays of light, merging at the top of the monolith. The engravings lighted up once again and started circling around Drake.


    This time the first ten seconds of pain was barely felt by Drake and the next wave was merely a discomfort for him.


    "As we thought, he already passed the threshold. It seems he will succeed easily." Darth said while smiling.


    The next hour went by, and everything proceeded according to plan, with Drake easily passing the one hour mark. Even though the pain he was feeling on his soul was quite intense at the end, it took only a small effort for him to withstand it.


    The four warriors, including Doko, slowly stood up from their positions and the lights around Drake and the monolith vanished.


    "The hour has passed. Well done son. From tomorrow you will start cultivating." Darth announced.

 Chapter 14 : The road of cultivation

    The sun was rising and in the, now, familiar grasslands, Doko and Drake were standing facing each other.


    "You better sit down, because this will take time kiddo" Doko suggested.


    "No need," Drake replied.


    "I know you are anxious to start training already, but unfortunately you have to hear the theory first before we proceed to the practical training. Cultivating is not something to been taken lightly. Since it gives a person the chance of defying fate and challenging the gods, the road of cultivation is bound to be difficult. The slightest misstep can cause a person to lose all his chances and become crippled." Doko warned. "Today I will be teaching you about cultivation realms and then the process of cultivating in the first realm, the Body Refinement realm.


    Cultivation is separated into seven major realms, and each major realm is being separated in ten stages. The Body Refinement, which is the first major realm, focuses on refining the body of the cultivator. The Soul Refinement realm comes second and focuses on refining the soul. The third one is the Dantian Opening realm, and as the name implies, a cultivator opens up the dantian, which allows him to store Ki and use it in times of need.


    After that comes the Merging Realm and it is one of the most important realms since the strength of the cultivator undergoes a qualitative change. Each realm after Merging realm is also considered a significant change for the cultivator. In this realm, one needs to merge his body and soul and the peak of the realm is when a cultivator has completely merged them together. If a cultivator succeeds in merging them, in order to kill him, one has to destroy both his body and soul. Otherwise, he can regenerate even the worst of injuries. It is also the strength of the peak of Merging Realm that is required in order to break the damn seal on this village.


    The fifth realm is the Enlightenment realm and that it when a cultivator gets enlightenment regarding the elements of the world and he is able to use them freely.


    The sixth realm, the Fate realm. In the Fate realm, the heavens themselves are against the cultivator and try to stop his progress. The reason for the name is that it is considered the period in the life of a cultivator that he is actively going against fate.


    The last realm is being called the Godhood realm and one that reaches it is being considered a God already by all mortal men. I am not familiar with the last three realms since the only one who had reached them from our race is our ancestor Sun Wukong."


    Drake, when listening to the Doko''s explanation, was trying to imagine the cultivation realm of the others in the village. It wasn''t'' long until his question got answered.


    "In order for you to realise how weak you are to the eyes of the world, you need to understand that me and your father, even though we are the strongest in our village, we have only achieved the peak of the Soul Refinement realm, and we haven''t manage to break through for at least fifty years. We might look young, but we are already way over two hundred years old. Oh, your grandmother is also quite strong, only one stage behind us.


    Right now, you are in the first stage of the body Refinement realm. Each stage of every realm measures the percentage of completion for that realm. For example, right now your body is about ninety per cent away from being completely refined. So each stage represents another ten per cent completion. The only exception is the Dantian opening realm, where the dantian is fully opened as soon as you break through and the stages represent the percentage of it that you filled with Ki. "


    Even though Drake was receiving an influx of new information, he was excited to learn more about cultivation. Therefore his attention hasn''t wavered even for a moment.This tale has been unlawfully lifted without the author''s consent. Report any appearances on Amazon.


    "While this is the basic theory that everything follows, be that beasts or humans, during the road of cultivation, there are some beasts that are exceptions. You will probably never meet one of them during your whole life. These beasts are considered as the embodiment of elements and their cultivation process is only about absorbing the natural energy around them into a magical core that exists in their body. They do not face any bottlenecks, but their cultivation is slower than regular cultivators. The magical core they have is extremely useful for a cultivator since it contains pure natural energy. If you ever meet one be sure to kill it and consume its core. It will certainly be very beneficial for you, and it will probably help you instantly break through some stages.


    I can''t highlight the importance of each stage and realm has. Usually, the ones able to fight a stage higher cultivator are the exception, while those able to fight against a higher realm opponent, are one in a million. They are considered extreme geniuses that will leave their mark in history except if they die in the process.


    Lucky for you, we have a racial trait that allows us to be on par with all the geniuses. That is our bloodline. Every being that is a descendant of a god, has hidden, in their bloodline, the powers of its ancestor. The purer the bloodline is, the more powers one can unlock. All the beings with powerful bloodlines, instead of solely focusing on their cultivation, they are also trying to refine their bloodline. That is an extremely hard thing to do since every refinement has the potential of unlocking extremely useful powers. Take, for example, our bloodlust. Even though our bloodlust makes us go berserk and lose control of ourselves when we go berserk our powers are increasing by at least thirty per cent. You have a purer bloodline, so your powers are increasing by at least fifty per cent. I assume you understand that such an increase in power, when you are facing an opponent in the same stage of cultivation as you, can be the difference between life and death.


    We also have other hidden powers, yet none of us has unlocked any of them. Other examples of bloodline powers are the extreme heat, able to burn everything, that a vermillion bird can emit, the majestic roar the white tiger can make, that disorients everyone who hears it, the extreme hardness of their body a black turtle descendant has or the eye beam an azure dragon can produce."


    Doko gave a few minutes to Drake, so he can digest what he just heard. Seeing Drake asking no questions he then proceeded to explain the cultivation technique used by their race.


    "Now, I am going to explain to you our cultivation technique for the Body Refinement realm. Keep in mind that in each realm the process changes so after you break through to the Soul Refinement realm, I or your father will teach you the new process.


    You have to sit down in lotus position first because it makes the gathering of the Ki easier." As soon as Drake sat down in the mentioned position, Doko continued. " Now I want you to absorb as much Ki as you can using our breathing technique and then I want you to circulate it. Since it starts from your soul, I want you to circulate it first to your left arm, then your left leg, then your right leg, then right arm and after passing it once again through your chest area, make it head to your head. Then keep repeating the process until I tell you to stop."


    Drake started cultivating following Doko''s instructions. Since he was already familiar, due to the communication technique, with the manipulation of Ki, the process was pretty easy. With each circulation, he was feeling his body growing stronger at an alarming rate. He kept cultivating for at least two hours before Doko stopping him.


    "That''s enough for now, even though you will spend a lot of time cultivating from now on, you should not neglect what you learnt so far. Starting tomorrow, you will be cultivating for four hours here with me, then we will be doing body movements for another two hours, then combat training for three hours and lastly, you will cultivate at least another two hours before falling asleep. You should get used to this schedule since the only time you are going to change it, will be when your father takes you out of the array to teach you to control your bloodlust.


    Is that understood?" Doko questioned Drake.


    "Yeah" Drake replied earnestly.


    "Then we will start now with the schedule I just mentioned."


    The rest of the day went by pretty fast, and so did the next few days. Drake was faithful to his schedule, and he also added a few extra hours of cultivation each night.


    A morning that was the same as every other, he woke up and got out of the house ready to move to the usual spot but today instead of Doko, it was Darth waiting for him.


    "Kiddo, there will be no training for you today. We will be going outside the array so you can go berserk" Darth said with a small grin on his face.

 Chapter 15 : Berserk

    After hearing that today was the day he will get out of the array, excitement appeared in Drake''s face.


    "Don''t get too excited. Even though we will be going out, we will only stay for a maximum of one day. Also, our primary focus is for you to experience the feeling of going berserk, without seeing dreams. We need you to completely control your feelings of anger and trust me, if there were a faster way, than by going berserk repeatedly, we would have chosen it since this way is quite dangerous. If you have any thoughts of sightseeing, it is better to forget them.


    Anyway, it is time to go; the hunters are waiting for us at the edge of the array. From the moment one of us goes out, the one-day countdown will start. Doko will be with us just in case."


    Even though Darth warned Drake about the dangers repeatedly, he couldn''t help himself. Since he has been reincarnated as a golden-haired monkey, he was trapped inside a village unable to go out. He was curious about the outside world, because all he could see from the inside, was an illusion of never-ending grasslands surrounding the village.


    Soon, they arrived next to the other hunters. What surprised Drake was that even though most of them were staff wielders, he could see a couple of monkeys holding bows while Doko was bare-handed. Seeing him looking at the weapons the others were equipped with, Doko let him know a bit about his future combat training.


    "All of us can handle both staffs and bows. Obviously, fighting bare-handed is also a must. That is what your combat training will include. First, we will start with hand to hand combat, then staffs and the last will be bows. If you perform well, I might teach you some minor combat spells for enhancing yourself."


    Drake turned to look at Doko, since what he just told him, was everything he could ask for.


    "If everyone is ready, let''s head out," Darth said while leading the way. Drake was behind Darth, and even though he was pretty much expecting it, he stood there dumbfounded, since the moment that Darth passed the line of small stones which was declaring the boundaries of the village, he just vanished. Curiously, he proceeded, and he stood still for a second when half of his body was outside the array, marvelling at the fact that his half body was now invisible to his eyes due it still being inside the array.


    As soon as he got out the first thing he noticed was the trees. They were everywhere; it was apparently a forest. But what he astonished him was the height and the width of the trees. He looked up, but he could see no end to them. The trees were so high, and they were so close to each other, that inside the forest, you could not see the sky at all. Obviously, he never saw trees like them before.


    He went close to one to touch it, and the moment he touched the trunk, he realised that it was extremely tough. He could feel that even if he punched one with all his strength, not even splinters would scatter. Darth urged him to move so he made a note to self to study the trees when he had time, the wood from them could probably be used as a crude made weapon if he was able to retrieve it.


    After they walked for around ten minutes, Darth gave a command to the hunters, and they split up from him, Drake and Doko. They walked for more than an hour and the more they walked, the denser and more abundant the vegetation in the forest became.


    "From what we know, the place our village is sealed is being called "The Great Wilderness". It used to be one of the five places in the continent where beasts and animals are living. All the other places in the world are being dominated by humans. Even in the places similar to here, the beasts are living in fear of them. They are using us as training exercises, trophies or as food.


    According to legends, when our ancestor and the four divine beast''s ancestors were gods, beasts were having equal strength to humans. But after humanity''s gods colluded and tricked our ancestor, eventually poisoning and sealing him, they turned to the other divine beasts overpowering them in the end. We do not know what happened to them but then the humans started hunting all the beasts in this world." Darth was explaining to Drake while walking towards their destination. Soon they arrived at a lake and Darth signalled them to stop.


    "Do you see the herd of black-striped deer next to the lake?" asked Darth.


    Drake turned his eyes to the herd of deers that were looking like a mix between zebra and deer from his previous life, slightly taller and bigger than a normal deer and with black stripes covering their bodies. One more difference was that all of them had antlers. Even the small ones. He saw many of them drinking water from the lake, which contrary to his expectations was pretty standard and had crystal clear waters.Ensure your favorite authors get the support they deserve. Read this novel on the original website.


    He then turned his eyes to Darth again and nodded affirmatively.


    "Go and kill them. Do not think, do not plan. You won''t be hunting today. You will just charge and kill them. Either that or they will kill you. Do not think of them as prey, they are quite strong and fast compared to you, and they have the advantage in numbers. Also, they are beasts, not animals, meaning that they have sufficient intelligence, so you will have to fight for your life. Neither Doko nor I will help you."


    Before Drake even realised what Darth just said to him, Darth picked him up and threw him into the middle of the herd. The deers first got startled, but that didn''t last long. They all charged at him. Even though there was no coordination between them soever, there were still around twenty deers attacking Drake.


    He managed to dodge them for the first few seconds, but then he made the mistake to jump up trying to get out of the encirclement. The moment he jumped, a deer from behind him headbutted him with its antlers.


    Drake felt like a truck collided with his body. He got thrown four meters away and then tumbled for another two. He struggled to get up, and in the process, he realised that some of his ribs should be broken.


    ''Fucking hell, what is this shit. That fucking Darth threw me in the middle of the deers. No, I can''t call them deers, I clearly have more strength than a bodybuilder from earth, yet one hit from them almost killed me.'' Drake thought then turned to look at his opponents. Instead of attacking him they just stood there motionless, looking at him like one looks at an ant. Mockery was apparent in their eyes.


    ''You fuckers, do you think I am a fucking ant?'' Drake felt his anger rising up. ''First, it was that bitch of a goddess looking down on me; then it was my first death, then the second. Each and every fucking time I was dying and I was looking into their eyes, be it beast or human that was killing me, they were looking down on me.


    DO YOU FUCKERS HAVE ANY IDEA WHO I AM? I AM FUCKING DRAKE POPE.''


    Unknowingly, the muscles on his body started expanding; his eyes were turning red. Drake began emitting killing intent making the deers take a step back.


    ''I WAS ONCE LOOKING DOWN ON THE WORLD, AND I WILL DO THE SAME NOW!!!''


    Drake then screeched out loud, scaring the smaller deers into retreat. Then, he charged at them. He did not know any combat techniques, nor did he know how to fight barehanded. But his bloodline did. He started scratching and biting everything that was close to him. His body slowly started copying the fighting style that Sun Wukong had on the battlefield of the gods. He was jumping to one''s deer back, scratching its throat with his hands, killing it in the process. Then he was jumping to the next one.


    Every time he was getting hit by them, one could hear the sound of bones breaking, and blood slowly started covering his body. But he could feel no pain. He kept standing up again and again until he killed all the deers in the vicinity. He then stood still and lifted his head up smelling the air trying to find the next target. His blood red eyes turned and looked at the direction where Darth and Doko were standing, and immediately he rushed at them.


    "Time to calm down boy," Doko said instantly appearing behind Drake hitting him at the back of the head making fall unconscious. "Darth, the plan was stopping him after going berserk, not letting him go on a rampage."


    Darth looked around before replying. The area next to the lake where previously a herd of deers were drinking water peacefully, was now filled with corpses and blood. The usually calm place was now reeking with the aura of death.


    "Yeah, that was the plan... But he needs to see the results of him going berserk. I want him to remember this scene. I want him to engrave this deep into his mind, as long as he recalls it he might help him calm down.


    I was looking from afar when you told him about the power-up that comes with going berserk. He was looking forward to using it, but that is a wrong train of thought. It can lead to his demise. He needs to fear this strength. He must understand that this is only a last resort and not a power to be used during every struggle.


    I brought along a grade two pill; it will help him wake up in the next hour and heal his injuries within a day. That way he will be able to resume his training tomorrow." Darth then took out a green pill with a strong smell that was annoying everyone close to it. Afterwards, he used his Ki to help the unconscious Drake swallow the pill.


    "Gillian will kill you if she finds out" joked Doko while waiting for Drake to regain his senses.


    Less than an hour later, Drake had stood up and was looking at the results of him going berserk that looked like a scene from a horror film. But contrary to Darth''s expectations, the power didn''t scare him at all.


    ''This power is so great. I actually killed all of them. I should be careful of the exhaustion afterwards though.


    Too bad the last thing I remember is that deer looking down on me.


    But I can somehow recall the style of combat I was using and I feel I can use it now. Is this a side effect from the berserk? But the others told me that your mind goes completely blank and you don''t remember anything. I should keep this a secret from them.''


    "Now do you realise how dangerous this power can be?" Darth asked him.


    "Yeah, it is evil," Drake replied.


    "Good, remember that, now if you are able to walk we should head back and meet with the other hunters. If they have already found some prey, we will immediately return to the village and we will come out again next week." Darth announced.


    Luckily, their side has already completed their task, so the group immediately returned to the village.


    Drake''s life from then onwards was constant training except once per week he was going out with his father and Doko, repeating the process of going berserk every time. Day by day he was growing stronger, mastering the fighting styles that Doko was teaching him and soon four years have passed...

 Chapter 16 : Four years later

    "Hey, Doko, how about limiting your cultivation down to mine for this fight?" a monkey almost at one-meter height with a sharp looking body and a pure gold hair holding a wooden staff could be seen asking from the other one it was facing.


    "Drake, just because you learnt everything I have to teach you, it doesn''t mean you are my opponent" Doko let out a smile.


    "I won''t know if I don''t try." refuted Drake before charging at him swinging his staff.


    "Haha, I like your attitude, fine, I will let you see the difference between us then." laughed Doko while blocking Drake''s attack easily with his own staff. The next moment he started restraining his aura down to the peak of Body Refinement realm. " I still can''t believe that within four years, you reached the peak of the first realm. You are a monster kiddo."


    Drake only smiled and started attacking again. He first swung his staff trying to hit Doko''s shoulder but once against he was blocked. Immediately after, he wrapped his tail around Doko''s ankle and tried to throw him off balance. Doko directly raised his leg and he balanced himself with his tail.


    "Kid, I told you many times that our tail can become as strong as a weapon and since its more flexible, it can easily be used to balance ourselves." but before he finished, Drake used his staff to stab his tail. Doko then used his tail and another leg to jump above Drake, kicking the back his head in the process. "You are still too young," he uttered while smiling.


    However, his smile didn''t last long. After Drake was kicked on the back of his head, he made a tumble in the air in order to reduce the power of Doko''s attack. Before he completed his tumble when his head was still down and his feet up, his belly suddenly swelled looking like a balloon. Right after, Drake opened his mouth and used his left hand which was his free hand, to slap his belly. As soon as he did that, a ball of air flew from his mouth, hitting Doko before he managed to stabilize himself.


    Doko used both his hands to block Drake''s technique and he succeeded but not before sliding more than three meters backwards. He then waited for Drake to finish his tumble and stand back up.


    "You learnt the Air Bullet?" Doko asked him with a surprised look on his face.


    Drake just nodded and without waiting he charged at Doko once again. The fight kept going on for at least two hours until Drake dropped to the floor exhausted.


    "You only won because you have higher stamina," Drake muttered while panting.


    "As I said, you are not my opponent" Doko grinned. "Anyway, we will stop training here for today. You should go back to your house and cultivate, then rest until tomorrow."


    "What? But it is still noon. We have never stopped training so early." Drake said with a questioning look.


    "Today I have some business to take care of with your father." Doko started talking in a serious tone. "Kid, listen up, no matter what you face in future, you must never lose hope. Every obstacle can be overcome when you face it with a clear head and strong will. I already taught you everything you need to know to survive out there."


    "What''s wrong with you today old man. It''s not like you to get sentimental," Drake questioned.


    "Who knows, maybe I''m just getting old. Haha!" laughed Doko waving his hand, walking towards the village.


    Drake decided to not give much thought to Doko''s words and he stayed there until he recovered enough strength, heading straight to his house. After arriving, his mother was waiting for him with lots of fruits to eat. But instead of her usual cheerful and loud character, she was very quiet today.


    "You okay?" Drake asked her.


    She got startled, but she immediately straightened herself up again before replying.


    "Of course dear, what could I possibly have? Haha" Gillian gave an awkward laugh. "Oh, your grandmother brought a different pill for you today. She said to consume it after finishing cultivating tonight."The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings.


    "Uh-huh," Drake voiced and took the pill. Just as soon as Drake finished eating, he looked at his mother that seemed like she wanted to say something, but she kept herself from voicing it. "You want to say something?" asked Drake.


    "No...It''s nothing, just know that I love you, Drake," replied Gillian with somewhat teary eyes.


    "Yeah, I know," Drake uttered before standing up to go to his bed.


    ''What''s wrong with everyone today, did something happened that I am unaware of? Everyone is so melancholic, it''s depressing.'' Drake thought and then shook his head to focus. Then he sat down in a lotus position on top of his bed and started cultivating.


    Three-four hours later, he stopped cultivating and consumed the pill his grandmother left for him.


    ''I should ask Ginna to teach me how to make this pills tomorrow.'' Suddenly, a wave of drowsiness hit him. Yawning, he was wondering what did he do to get so sleepy. Soon after he was sleeping heavily.


    Gillian approached Drake and gave him a nudge as if checking if he was sleeping. After making sure he was asleep, she caressed his head for a while before giving him a deep look and leaving the house, where Doko was waiting for her along with another female monkey which was holding a little one in her arms. If one paid close attention, they could make the connection of the little monkey in her arms and the female monkey that took the soul power test, four years ago, along with Drake.


    "Did the pill work? Is he sleeping?" Doko asked her.


    Gillian nodded while tears were running of her eyes.


    "Gillian..." Doko chose not to finish his sentence and signalled the other female. "Danka, go and place her next to him. But please do it fast we are running out of time."


    Danka already had swollen red eyes, making it clear that she was crying not long ago as well. She got inside the house and soon after she got out.


    "Gillian, did you leave them the rings and the voice talismans ?"


    "Of course Doko, there was no way to forget that," Gillian said with a hushed voice.


    "Ok, then it is time to go," Doko announced. Both Danka and Gillian seemed unwilling to leave but ultimately followed behind Doko, heading to the house behind the monolith.


    As soon as they arrived, they entered and they saw all the habitats of the village sitting in a semi-lotus position, naked forming a huge circle covering the whole house. In the middle of the circle was a, square with a triangle inside, symbol and in the middle of it, the green crystal was floating. The three of them took their clothes off and sat down in their positions of this circle.


    Everybody had a solemn expression and whispers could be heard until a voice higher than the others questioned.


    "Ginna is there really no other way?"


    "I spent decades trying to find our exact situation. I read thousands and thousands of our ancestor''s knowledge and records that were stored in this house. After I realised how grim this seal is, I spent the rest of my life trying to find a solution and one came up about twenty years ago. From then until now I was trying to find another way yet this is the only one I can make sure it succeeds.


    I had enough time to slowly search back then since we had no births in the village for over fifty years, but five years ago we were blessed with two new seedlings who are also able to mate. Furthermore, Drake''s talent is too high; we can''t let him break through to the Soul Refinement realm here or else he will cripple himself like the rest of us.


    If we want our race to have a future, we must do this." Ginna replied, her tone being extremely serious.


    "The seal is being weakened. The time has come." Darth announced. Immediately everyone quieted down. "Everyone, do not be afraid. Be proud. After tens of generations, we are finally able to provide freedom to our race. We might not be there to see it, but our descendants will be. Now, my fellow villagers, my family, burn your life force and let the kids live in the real world once more!"


    After Darth finished speaking, green rays of light stemming from every villager''s body condensed in the green crystal. It started shining extremely bright. Then, it slowly started trembling and cracks were appearing on it.


    On the other side of the village, around the house where two, five years old, monkeys were sleeping, a small star-shaped array, shining with green light appeared on the ground. From the lines of the array, a barrier started forming before covering the whole house.


    Back to the big village house where the villagers were completing their rituals, the cracks on the green crystal were now covering every inch of it. The tremble started making a buzzing sound, so loud that blood trickled from the ears of the villagers surrounding it. All of them seemed like they aged hundreds of years in the duration of the ritual. Using their life force in such a way had only one ending, death.


    Suddenly, the green crystal broke. As soon as it did, a deafening sound of glass breaking could be heard.


    If someone from outside were looking towards the village, they would be able to see space cracks appearing in the air where the sealed village was.


    What followed, was a loud bang like a thunderclap that shook the entire forest where the village was situated. Ripples of Ki starting from the village disturbing the natural calmness were expanding non-stop until they disturbed the whole world.


    Then everything stopped abruptly. Not a sound could be heard from the village. Actually, no village could be seen any more; just a single house was still standing with a crater forming in a radius of ten kilometres around it.


    But you could see the house. There was no illusion or anything sealing it from the eyes of the outsiders.


    The seal that existed in the village for thousands of years, has been destroyed.

 Chapter 17 : Ripples through the world

    Every cultivator in the world felt the ripples resulting from the breaking of the seal. All the kings from the weak kingdoms sent messengers and search parties to find out what happened.


    Usually, when something similar happened, it meant that an ancient artifact or some ancient ruins had been surfaced. But a powerful object was also the prelude of a war. Everybody wanted it for themselves; therefore if one appeared, they need to be prepared.


    Only the kings of the Three Great Kingdoms, the ancients clans and powerful cultivators knew the difference of the disturbance in the natural Ki between a seal being broken and a treasure appearing. They all immediately called meetings asking their members if anyone knew of a seal so powerful being placed that could cause the ripples. However, no matter how much they searched nobody could find anything about such a strong seal in their records.


    The situation of the four ancient god beast clans was different. The clan leaders had records left behind by their ancestors, mentioning that thousands of years ago the god beasts were five and not four. They were also indicating that a seal had been placed on the last clan to prevent them from rising ever again. These records were extremely confidential, and only the clan leader could read them.


    As soon as the ripples of a great seal being broken appeared, they instantly thought of that ancient clan. Unfortunately, the records were not mentioning what kind of species this ancient beast clan was, so they could only order their clan members to inform them if they find any unusual beasts on their travels.


    In a cave, somewhere extremely far from Drake''s village, an extremely old, corpse looking, human, opened his eyes the moment he fell the ripples in natural energy.


    ''This disturbance is the result of a Soul Death Seal breaking.'' He turned his eyes towards Drake''s direction. ''This direction is towards the village of that filthy monkey we sealed a couple of thousands of years ago...But it should be impossible for them to break it. Did somebody help them?


    Too bad I can''t go and take a look myself right now. I''ll have that useless son of mine take care of it.'' As soon as he finished his thoughts a round medallion appeared in his hands out of thin air. He then injected his Ki before breaking it and closing his eyes again.


    In a city of humans called the Holy Capital, there was a majestic looking Cathedral. On the top floor of the cathedral an old looking man with a muscled body that was in direct contrast with his age, was taking a bath along with his concubines.


    "Your Holiness, please stop that, it''s tickling me," giggled one of the concubines.


    "What if I moved my fingers bit lower?" asked the man while lowering his hands, feeling the girl''s body. All the concubines around him started laughing except the girl being touched by him; she started moaning.


    Suddenly, the man froze on the spot and immediately stood up.


    "ALL OF YOU OUT!!! USHER, GET YOUR ASS IN HERE RIGHT NOW! " The man roared. All the concubines hurriedly got out the bath gathering their towels and rushing outside the room while a man dressed up in white metallic armour and a sword strapped to his waist got inside the room and kneeled in front of the man.


    "I await your orders, your Holiness."


    "I want you to find a Bishop near the Great Wilderness and order them to gather a group of at least a hundred Holy Knights and check for any unusual activity there. They must scan the whole area. If they find any golden-haired monkeys, they must capture them alive and bring them here. As soon as they are done, tell them to report all the findings using a Sound Transmission talisman immediately. NOW" the man ordered.


    "As you command, your Holiness" the man named Usher replied and left to complete his orders.


    ''That old geezer was in closed cultivation for more than two hundred years, I thought I had freed myself from him. For him to contact me now, it appears the matter regarding the ripples that appeared, is more severe than I thought.Unauthorized use: this story is on Amazon without permission from the author. Report any sightings.


    But what kind of beasts are these golden-haired monkeys he asked me to search for? '' the man that everyone called, his Holiness, frowned.


    Back to the Sun Village, Drake was slowly waking up from his slumber. It took him a few minutes to completely wake up and check his surroundings. First, he saw that a female monkey was sleeping next to him if he remembers correctly her name was Diana, which completely baffled him. Then he saw a ring and two talismans next to each of them. He picked up the smaller one that was next to him and broke it in his hands. Immediately, Darth''s voice sounded in his mind.


    "Drake, if you are listening to this, we probably succeeded in breaking the seal in the village. The other talisman contains an explanation about everything, but before you break it, you must wake up Diana sleeping next to you if she isn''t awake yet.


    Then pick up the things we left for each of you, the rings are being called interspatial rings and let the user store things inside them. Drop a bit of your blood on it, in order to bind it to you. After that as long as you inject a bit on Ki in it, you will be able to check inside and store or retrieve items.


    Afterwards, store the other talisman so you can listen to it later and RUN!! Run as fast as you can and hide. Both of you. You do not have time. People will soon arrive at the village to check it and if they find you, what awaits you will be a fate worse than death. Now, RUN SON!!" finishing Darth''s voice in his mind became increasingly loud.


    Drake wasted no time waking up Diana, she was also perplexed when woke up, but Drake explained to her to break the small talisman to listen to it. The more she heard, the paler her face was becoming.


    While she was listening to the small talisman, Drake started binding his ring. As soon as he did, he injected his Ki, and he was astonished by the items inside. There were hundreds of books and papyruses, along with a few talismans. Furthermore, there were a couple of clothes for him to tie around his waist as well as the black bandana his father was wearing and a strong bow that he used to train with. But the most essential item inside the ring, was the only thing he desired from his village, the golden staff filled with engravings his father was holding.


    Immediately he took out the black bandana, tying it around his head. Then he took out the golden staff, thinking it would be better for him if it were a bit shorter and lighter. Instantly the staff''s shape changed according to his desires.


    ''That''s a damn useful ability.'' Drake mused, storing the staff once again. He looked at Diana which was now on the verge of crying. ''Since you guys gifted me with the staff, I''ll take her away from here. But that''s the only thing I''m going to do for her.''


    He picked her up, and she let out a short scream. Drake ignored her, picked up the other talisman and ring that she hadn''t bind yet and rushed out of the house. The moment he got out he froze looking at the village which was now just a massive crate as if a bomb dropped, but he instantly remembered Darth''s warning, so he started running.


    ''What the fuck happened here? Are they all dead?'' Drake was wondering while running. Since Diana hasn''t stopped crying since her scream, Drake decided to smack the back of her neck making her fall unconscious.


    He kept running for hours even after he left the crate. Apart from the scenery changing into the, now familiar trees to him, he had no idea where he was or where he was going. He just kept running. Even though he knew he had to hide, his excitement was rising.


    ''I am free at last, free from that fucking village.'' He wanted to scream; he wanted to let out all the frustration he was feeling for the last five years. But he forced himself to endure a bit more since no matter how excited he was, him getting far away from his former village was his priority.


    The sky was turning dark, and he was getting anxious since he couldn''t find a good hiding place. The scene around him has changed, and instead of only trees, plants of all kinds were everywhere around him, looking like a jungle. Fortunately, it wasn''t long that he eventually saw from the corner of his eyes, a cave in the far distance. Not caring if another beast occupied the cave, he rushed in. Luckily for him, the cave was empty for now. However, it was clear that its owner was simply away.


    He dropped Diana who was still unconscious, and he went back out of the cave planning on gathering some sticks and grasses in order to make some traps for when the owner of the cave returns.


    After he was done gathering and went back to the cave, he started making the traps. The whole time he was creating them, he couldn''t help but reminisce the time when his father in his previous life was teaching him how to hunt before he allowed him to start using guns.


    "A good hunter does not only rely on ranged weapons to hunt. He takes advantage of his environment in order to lure and capture the prey." He remembered himself spending hundreds of hours reading book and guides on how to make traps from all kind of things that exist in the wilderness.


    The traps were ready near the entrance of the cave and Drake went inside readying himself for the upcoming hunt. Soon he felt the familiar feeling of extreme calmness right before he goes for the kill.


    "Ah, this feeling... It has been so long..." Drake muttered while an evil grin formed from his lips.

 Chapter 18 : Diana

    Minutes and hours passed, yet there was no movement from inside or outside of the cave. Diana was still unconscious and Drake hasn''t moved an inch since he was already sitting in an optimal position holding his bow.


    At some point, he heard heavy footsteps outside of the cave. Drake slowly nocked an arrow and carefully, without making a sound he lifted the bow, drew it and aimed towards the mouth of the cave.


    The footsteps stopped a bit further from the entrance and Drake heard his prey sniffing the air. Realizing some beings trespassed in his cave, it let out a loud growl and charged towards the cave.


    Since Drake was expecting such a situation, he waited until he heard the sound of one of his traps triggering he let his arrow loose. Soon after, the painful growled was heard and Drake moved from his position heading towards the trap that got triggered. Before arriving, he swapped his bow for his staff.


    When he saw his prey, he realised that what he just hit was a horned bear. It looked like a brown bear similar to the ones he was used to with the only difference being a horn in its head. He fought against one before, back when he was in the fifth stage of Body Refinement realm, and he had to go berserk to kill it. Yet, now that he reached the peak, it posed no threat to him.


    He slowly walked towards the bear that had an arrow stuck on its front right foot while the left one was held on the trap he placed earlier. The bear stopped trying to break free the moment it sensed Drake and turned to look at him growling loudly.


    Since his communication technique was focused on relating thoughts to the target, he could also communicate with animals that had basic intelligence. However, the wild beasts would ignore everything and only think with their instincts making it very hard to communicate.


    Drake stopped as soon as he arrived in front of the bear looking at it with madness written all over him.


    "You know, I never tasted bear meat before," Drake said before swinging his staff downwards instantly killing the bear.


    A few hours later inside the cave, Diana woke up. She slowly sat up and saw that Drake had lit up a fire and he was cooking something.


    "What is that?" She asked. "It smells nice."


    "Bear''s leg. It used to live in this cave." Drake replied emotionless.


    As soon as Diana heard that, she turned around and vomited. After coughing a few times, she looked disgusted at Drake reprimanding him.


    "How could you eat another beast! That''s disgusting. Not even humans eat one of their own."


    "I am not eating you, so it''s not really disgusting. This bear is not one of my own. Also, it smells great." Drake cut a piece of the meat and ate it. "Wow... It tastes great as well, no wonder humans hunt us for food."


    Diana turned around refusing to look at Drake any longer while Drake kept eating not paying her any attention. After he finished eating, he threw some dirt to put out the fire. Drake took out the other talisman left to him by Darth, pondering if he should hear it now but he chose otherwise, so he stored it once again. He then turned to Diana.


    "I''ve left you some food. You should eat it and get used to it. Other beasts eat the weaker ones, and that''s the truth whether you like it or not. I will cultivate for some time first and then sleep. When I wake up, we will head out.


    "I am pretty sure you know it as well that we should be running and hiding for now until we get away from this place so we won''t be having much rest from now on. If you want to hear the other talisman they left for you, now is the time. Also, wake me up if you hear anything outside." Drake told her while taking out her ring and talisman and giving them to her.


    He then sat down in a lotus position and started cultivating. He knew that he needed just a bit before reaching the peak of the tenth stage and trying to break through. He wasn''t worried about the cultivating method for Soul Refinement realm as he recognised one of the books in his interspatial ring as the cultivation manual for their race.Reading on this site? This novel is published elsewhere. Support the author by seeking out the original.


    Diana looked at Drake that closed his eyes to cultivate and then she turned to look at the bear''s meat. However, she couldn''t stand the thought of eating it, so she ignored it. She then used a drop of her blood to bind her interspatial ring, and she was thrilled to see that there were some fruits inside, instantly taking out some of them to satisfy her hunger.


    After she was full, she shifted her attention to the bigger talisman, and she shattered it.


    By the time Drake finished cultivating, she hasn''t moved nor spoken a word while still looking towards the ground. He stood up and stretched himself as he was planning on falling asleep immediately. But he stopped when he noticed Diana had her eyes focused on him.


    "You know, when we were growing up, everybody was talking about how you are the future of our village. Even though we were the same age, you were getting most of the attention from everyone, having two of the strongest warriors of the village to train you. I was jealous.


    "I was always looking for ways to prove to myself and the rest that I am better than you or your equal. But you never paid attention to me. You always looked for ways to train and get stronger. I was thinking how it was possible for a kid of our age to train as crazily as you did and not even complain."


    Drake was looking at her emotionlessly. He thought she was just rambling and he was starting to get annoyed.


    "When I saw you eating that bear meat, I instantly knew that you were a monster. You are not normal, I know it. I have seen the crazy look you have on your eyes; you have the eyes of a madman. It is the same look the other villagers had when they went berserk, but for you, that''s your normal one.


    "That scared me. I was planning on leaving right after you fell asleep so I can save myself from your madness. I thought that anywhere else would be better than being with you.


    "But then I heard the message left for me from my father. He was explaining some things to me that made me realise that becoming a monster might be the only way to survive out here. According to him, we will be hunted down by every human in this world, and the only reason is that we are beasts. Under such pressure, there is no doubt that only a monster can live.


    "Right now, I am powerless, and if I stay like that, I will die. So please, teach me how to become a monster. I don''t care what I have to do, just show me how to survive."


    Drake was surprised by her speech. Even though he had no feelings towards her and he was planning on abandoning her after taking her to a safe place, her plea forced him to recall the powerlessness he was feeling when he was being hunted down with every reincarnation of his. He pointed at the bear meat that was now cold.


    "Eat it."


    Diana froze on the spot. She never expected him to tell her to do something like that. But thinking about the words she said before, she approached the food and picked it up with her hands. She then took a big bite of meat trying to ignore the nauseating feeling that was making her want to vomit.


    "As soon as you are done eating, stay at the entrance of the cave and be on lookout until I wake up. Like I said before, wake me up if anything happens." Drake hesitated a bit before taking out a bunch of red pills he had on his interspatial ring left behind by his grandmother. "Take these; you are in the seventh stage of Body Refinement realm, so your talent isn''t that bad. They will help you reach the peak sooner. I was planning on trading them in the future, so you better pay me back."


    "Thank you," Diana answered, taking the pills from him.


    "Just to be clear, I am not planning on being your teacher. My path is different than yours. I will walk a path of blood. You are not suited for it. You can watch and learn until we get to a safe place then our roads will split."


    "Is there no way to change your mind?" Diana asked trying hard to hold back her tears.


    "No," Drake replied.


    After that Drake finally went to sleep and Diana took her position near the entrance lost in her thoughts after consuming one of the pills.


    In one of the entrances for the Great Wilderness, a blonde woman could be seen wearing red full body armour, with white stripes on its edges and a golden sun symbol, engraved on her chest area. She was riding a white lion that was at least two meters tall and four meters long. It also had three tails, each of them having a different colour on the hair tuft being white, red and blue.


    Behind her were one hundred soldiers of the Holy Knights. They were wearing well-made but straightforward silver armours with the same sun symbol on their chests, and holding lances, were waiting for her orders. One of them moved closer to her, kneeling when she reached her.


    "Bishop Daniela, everyone has gathered and waiting for your instructions," the soldier said.


    "Listen up everyone. This is a mission from his Holiness himself, so failure is not an option. We are to search the Great Wilderness and find all signs of anything unusual taking place. Apart from that, we have also been ordered to capture any golden-haired monkey beasts we encounter.


    "You will all split up and search all the outer area while I will enter the inner one. Cardinal Usher said he would be in charge of the core area. With your strength at the peak of the Body Refinement Realm, all beasts should be easy to deal with.


    "If any of you encounters anything unusual or the monkey beasts, you are to notify me with sound transmission immediately.


    "Is that clear?"


    An affirmative reply that almost shaken the surroundings was heard.


    "Then move out." Bishop Daniela ordered, starting the first hunt for Drake and Diana.

 Chapter 19 : Encounter

    After only four hours of searching, a group consisting of five Holy Knights arrived at the position where the former Sun Village was existing.


    "We should notify Bishop Daniela about this." said one of them while taking out a talisman hidden below his armour. "You guys should go check that house in the middle of it."


    The other four soldiers walked towards Drake''s house which was now empty, trying to find anything useful to report. Since it was a search party consisting of Holy Knights, that were on the peak of the Body Refinement realm, it wasn''t long until they discovered traces left behind by Drake''s hurried escape.


    "Lady Bishop said she will be here within the next fifteen minutes. She ordered us to search for any traces left behind regarding what happened." Announced the soldier that contacted Bishop Daniela earlier.


    After no more than ten minutes, Bishop Daniela arrived and started questioning her soldiers but not before taking a look around herself.


    "Did you guys find anything?"


    "Nothing that can explain what happened but it was probably planned. The house over here had a barrier array around it, so it survived the destruction.


    Furthermore, there were definitely survivors. It should be only one though, with the possibility of a second one. They left in a great hurry as if something was chasing them." a soldier replied.


    "Any possibility they knew we were coming?"


    "Lady Bishop, I don''t see how that can be possible. Certainly, they might have been afraid that someone will come after all this destruction, but it would be impossible to know about us specifically. Except if the cause of all this is a beast of great power, but then there would be no reason for it to run."


    "Well done. Now all of you, go and find whoever it was that ran away. There is a high chance for them to be these monkey beasts they asked us to capture.


    "If you find them, try assessing their strength first. If they are weaker than you, capture them immediately otherwise contact me and trail them until I arrive.


    "I need to send a message to the Holy Capital and let them know about this." As soon as she gave the orders, the soldiers saluted and started running towards Drake and Diana. As for her, she jumped on top of her mount and rushed towards the entrance of the Great Wilderness to contact the Holy Capital.


    While the Holy Knights were investigating, Drake was waking up inside the cave. He slowly stood up and stretched himself by doing some of the body manual movements that were now as easy as breathing for him. Then he went towards the entrance of the cave where Diana was still on the lookout.


    "Hi, Drake" Diana smiled.


    "You have five minutes to get yourself ready. We will be leaving as soon as they pass" Drake said and sat down to cultivate. He knew they would be running for some time, so every second was precious.


    "You could at least try to be polite," Diana muttered.


    Five minutes passed very fast, and soon Drake stood up and announced they were leaving. Diana simply nodded and followed behind him. Their speed was considerably slower than when Drake was carrying her since her cultivation wasn''t on par with him.


    After running for at least five hours, they found a lake in front of them, and they stopped. Both of them greedily drank some water before Diana shyly asked Drake to take a bath.


    "You can take a bath while I''ll go and hunt something for us to eat," Drake announced.


    Diana waited for a bit after Drake left to make sure he was far away enough, and then she jumped inside happily enjoying a few moments of relaxation.


    Somewhere close to the lake, five Holy Knights were closing up on Diana who was taking a bath.


    "Those beasts sure can run. We haven''t rested for almost ten hours now." one of the soldiers complained.


    "You should be thanking the fact that they are beasts. A human would have never stopped to rest in that cave, losing so many hours of headstart. Now, we will probably catch up with them." Another one laughed.Enjoying this book? Seek out the original to ensure the author gets credit.


    A few minutes later, the soldier in the front stopped abruptly and raised his hand signalling them to halt as well.


    "We found it. In a lake about a hundred meters in front, there is a golden-haired monkey taking a bath. Its strength should be around the middle to high stages of the Body Refinement realm so it should be relatively easy for us to capture it.


    "But we must not take any chances, go surround it leaving it no chance to escape and when I signal we will rush to capture it." All the soldiers nodded and split up to take their positions.


    Being experienced soldiers, all of them were careful not to make a sound and alert their target. Soon after, everyone had taken their positions, and the soldier in charge gave the signal for them to attack.


    Diana was taking her bath while paying no attention to her surroundings at all until she sensed that something was amiss. She looked around, but she couldn''t see anything out of the ordinary. Unable to shake the feeling of anxiousness she was feeling, she decided to get out of the lake and find Drake.


    However, the moment she got out of the lake, the soldiers attacked. Unable to react before they surround her pointing their lances towards her, the only thing she could do was let out an ear-piercing screech.


    "Hey little monkey, be a good beast and don''t make trouble for us." a soldier laughed. "Let us capture you without fighting; you can''t win against the four of us anyway."


    Diana was scared out of her wits; she never thought the situation that her father mentioned at the talisman would happen so fast. Even though she summoned her staff form the interspatial ring she had, sadly, it was to no avail.


    "Oi, oi, that''s a precious thing you have there little beast." The leader of the group exclaimed being astonished. "If capturing wasn''t an order from the higher ups, I would have killed you already just for the ring." he continued while laughing.


    "Capture her!" he ordered right after.


    Four soldiers could be seen jumping at Diana while the leader stayed a bit further behind to cut her retreat. Diana had no chance to defend at all since before she even reacted, a soldier knocked her head with his lance''s shaft making her fall unconscious.


    "That was easy. Haha!" the leader uttered happily. Not a second has passed, and his face turned serious when he felt an extremely thick killing intent.


    Drake arrived back to the lake around the same time that the soldiers started encircling Diana. Thankfully, he realised way before Diana that something was wrong, so he became more cautious avoiding making a sound. As soon as he realised his enemies were human soldiers he was surprised.


    ''Are we close to a human settlement? No, this can''t be right, I would have seen roads in the forest if that were true.'' Drake concluded. ''Then they must be here for us. Let''s gauge their strength first before deciding my next step.''


    He watched them all the way until they completed the encirclement on Diana and charged at her.


    ''Each of them looks only a bit weaker than me. If I fight them head on, I''ll have no chance.


    ''Well, Diana is probably done for so I should make sure to lay down some traps for them since they will probably come after me when they capture her. If I can separate them and take them down one by one, then it should be easy killing all of them.''


    At least that was his plan before the four soldiers charged at Diana and knocked her unconscious.


    That was when his eyes got a glimpse of the leader''s chest plate. Engraved there he saw something extremely familiar to him, the sun symbol. The same one that was carved on Delia''s chest plate when he had the vision of the battlefield.


    Unbeknownst to him, Drake''s soul started emitting a huge killing intent. He discarded all his plans of laying traps for them, and he slowly walked towards the group. With each step he took, his killing intent was growing stronger. The aura of a peak Body Refinement cultivator was enveloping his surroundings.


    He stopped just five meters away from the group, and all of them immediately ignored Diana, taking defensive positions.


    "Did you come to protect your friend, beast?" the leader questioned mockingly not dropping down his guard in the slightest. He could feel that this monkey was stronger than him, but he had his companions, so he wasn''t worrying too much.


    Drake completely ignored the mocking in his voice, his eyes focused on the symbol on his chest. He summoned his staff before raising his eyes looking straight at the leader.


    "The symbol on your chest. What is it?"


    "Huh? You have the ability to communicate and understand us? You two sure aren''t some common beasts..." replied the leader.


    Drake was completely ignoring the fact that he could understand the language spoken by the human in front of him and he once again asked.


    "What relationship do you have with that bitch Delia?"


    "INSOLENT!! How dare a filthy beast to mention our goddess?" the leader angrily shouted. "We had to capture all the golden-haired monkeys we discovered, but since we already have one, we can blame your death, to you fighting to protect it. Men, kill that beast!"


    "Your goddess? That bitch has people believing at her?" Drake asked while maniacally laughing. "HA HA! THIS IS GREAT! I thought I would have to wait for ages until I find clues about her but apparently, there is a religion here for her!


    "I wonder what her reaction will be when I kill every single one of her believers in this world. Will she appear to stop me? Will she just ignore you guys?" Drake was crazily saying while his eyes were turning redder by the second.


    Right after Drake was finishing his crazed speech, the group of five charged at him. While they had closed half the distance, a voice was heard freezing everyone on the spot.


    "Hey monkey boy, need any help with them?"


    All of them including Drake turned their heads to the direction the voice was heard from. A majestic looking white tiger with black stripes was staring at them as if looking down to the whole world.

 Chapter 20 : Arte of the White Tiger beast clan

    "So? Need any help?" the white tiger asked once more seeing that everyone was dumbfounded.


    "No. I can kill all of them," Drake replied turning his head back to the humans.


    "Sure, but you should make it fast, there were about a hundred of them that entered the forest, and their leader is not someone you can deal with." the white tiger smirked.


    As soon as Drake heard that, he gritted his teeth.


    "You should mind your own business."


    "I am, that is why I want to help you," the white tiger refuted. "I imagine these bastards came here looking for you two, but it''s not like they will leave me be if they see me."


    "You bet we won''t," the leader said, breaking a talisman. "How could we ignore a white tiger when we see one? You are as important as these monkeys in the eyes of our superiors. We have a capture on sight for both of your races.


    "Even though we have no idea what these monkeys are, how can we not know the "King of Beasts" as you so shamelessly call yourselves."


    "All the beasts we meet seem to forget their place as livestock and pet for us." another soldier laughed.


    ROARR... The white tiger enraged charged toward the soldiers.


    ''What a naive beast. However, I need to thank him for his interruption and info. If I had gone berserk here, the rest of them would have surely caught up with me.'' Drake formed an evil grin, and his belly swelled before releasing an Air Bullet targeting the group of Holy Knights.


    "Men, I already informed the others, they will be arriving soon." The leader said before infusing Ki in his lance and piercing at the air bullet that Drake threw. "Let''s kill the beasts before they arrive!"


    The rest of them cheered then they split up with two facing the white tiger and two facing Drake.


    When the air bullet was blocked by the leader, a loud bang sounded, followed by a fierce wind lasting for mere seconds. Then the leader charged towards Drake along with the other two.


    Drake, not staying idle, used his staff to sweep their feet trying to make them fall off balance. One of the soldiers blocked his staff but underestimated Drake''s power. He ended up being lifted on the air, crushing on the other one, making both of them fall down. Drake jumped on them trying to kill them before the leader closes the distance.


    "STOP RIGHT THERE, BEAST!" The leader shouted, launching his lance towards Drake, forcing him to halt his steps.


    Drake looked at him mockingly and then extended his staff, making a hole in the middle of one the downed soldier''s chest.


    "One dead, two to go." He announced emotionlessly.


    ''How can he own a magic weapon? Only Bishop rank and above are qualified to have one.'' the leader was gobsmacked.


    The other soldier hurriedly stood up, using his lance to stab Drake. But monkey''s are famous for their agility, especially a god''s descendant, so he quickly dodged it. Drake then shrank his staff, immediately swinging it, breaking some of the ribs of the soldier that stabbed him.


    "This isn''t even a challenge... Are you guys really at the peak of the Body Refinement realm? Maybe I can''t judge another''s strength well enough yet." Drake mocked them.


    The leader had already reached his lance, picking it up. His face had an extremely serious look.


    ''How can this beast be so strong. He is clearly proficient in combat arts.''


    While he was thinking of how to proceed with the fight, Drake moved to the other soldier who was on the ground, groaning, grabbed his neck and lifted him up.Love this story? Find the genuine version on the author''s preferred platform and support their work!


    "Ah... This is nice... " Drake muttered, slowly increasing the pressure in his hand. "Yes... This is the feeling I want." An evil laugh was heard from the monkey''s mouth, making everyone feel a shiver down their spine.


    Crack. Everyone heard the sound of bones breaking. The now lifeless body, previously being held by Drake, dropped on the floor.


    Drake tilted his head to look at the leader.


    "You know, this is not nearly enough to satisfy me. You already sent a sound transmission to your friends, no? That means they will come as well." Drake started laughing maniacally while his killing intent was emitting. "I will kill all of them sooner or later. Every goddamn thing that has the symbol of that bitch will die."


    The white tiger had already finished killing the two that charged at him and was looking at Drake. Even though his race was the king of all beasts, right now he could only cower in front of this golden monkey.


    Of course, the leader of the group was now regretting giving the order to capture them before waiting for others. He was slowly retreating planning to run and regroup with the others.


    "You can run, I will give you a one-minute headstart," Drake said, instantly making the leader turn around and ran for his life.


    One second later, he felt a sudden pain in his stomach and looking down he saw a lance protruding through a newly formed hole in it.


    "I lied."


    That was the last voice he heard before falling, refusing to believe that he died like that.


    "So, what are you going to do now?" Drake asked the white tiger while he was walking towards Diana, lifting her up and throwing her inside the lake.


    "Escape with you guys, obviously. I am quite familiar with the forest, so I know how to get out of here, but if I meet too many of them, I won''t be able to handle them alone and neither will you." the white tiger replied. "It is better to for both of us to stick together for the time being."


    A splattering sound was heard, and Diana jumped outside the lake coughing water.


    "There are better ways to wake her up than that."


    Drake shrugged his shoulder dismissing the white tiger''s words and instead refuted him.


    "There are better ways to fight than lose your calm when somebody hurt your pride with his words."


    Ashamed, the white tiger turned to Diana who just regained her consciousness.


    "You okay?" he asked her.


    "Yeah..." she looked around and saw the corpses of the humans that captured her. "Thank you for saving me; my name is Diana. I will definitely repay you in the future."


    "Haha, don''t mind it. I am Arte of the White Tiger beast clan." The tiger replied. " I thought you would be as cold as the guy over there making the time we will spend together unbearable. I am glad I was wrong."


    Diana then turned to look at Drake while lowering her head.


    "I am sorry for causing you trouble and thank you for saving me."


    Drake picked up her cloth, throwing at her without saying anything and he started searching the corpses. While Diana was dressing and discussing the battle that took place with Arte, he was picking up the armours and lances from the Holy Knights until his eyes fell at the now broken talisman.


    "We should run now or else we will be surrounded."


    Arte and Diana looked at him and nodded.


    "Follow me Diana and what''s your name guy." The white tiger laughed. "I am used to hunting in these parts and we just need to head that way." He turned to look towards the west. "Until we reach a river. It should be around two days travel from here."


    "His name is Drake," Diana giggled before following him. "But he doesn''t talk much."


    Drake ignored their comments and took one last thoughtful look in the two bodies killed by Arte.


    ''He is strong. Almost at my level. I should really keep my guard up against him.'' Drake thought.


    They ran until night came when Arte took them to a cave, well hidden from the outside due to the extreme vegetation in the area. Drake stayed outside for some time, covering their tracks to delay their pursuers.


    A few hours after they ran away, another group of Holy Knights arrived at the previous battlefield.


    "These two were killed by the tiger, while two were killed by a staff. Probably a weapon that the monkeys were holding. The last one was strangled even though he got beaten first." the one checking the bodies announced.


    "These five were at the peak of the Body Refinement realm. Any chance the beasts are above that?"


    "This shouldn''t be possible, according to the traces left; they had time to react to the attacks, if any of the beasts were at the Soul Refinement, it could have just suppressed their souls."


    "So the golden monkeys are as strong as the legendary white tiger? We should inform lady Bishop immediately." said the leader of the new group, taking out a talisman transmitting everything they just found to Bishop Daniela.


    She was riding on top of her white lion when she received the transmission.


    ''Oh? Not only they found out the monkeys, they even discovered a white tiger? Even if we lost five members, as long as we capture them, the higher-ups will be very pleased,'' she thought while forming a smile. She then ordered her mount to turn around, rushing in the direction of her subordinates.


    Back in the cave, after everybody ate something, Arte and Diana fell asleep to rest. But Drake could be seen cultivating.


    Suddenly, he exhaled white smoke and his eyes opened up shining even in the dark.


    ''Finally, my body is completely refined by Ki. I should be able to have a breakthrough in the Soul Refinement realm within the next days.''

 Chapter 21 : The Holy Church

    After finishing his cultivation, Drake decided to take to take out the talisman left behind by Darth. He was hesitating to activate it. He knew they were not safe yet and with Arte next to them he had to keep his guard up.


    But, he wanted to listen to it. He believed himself to have no feelings towards the monkey village, yet, he couldn''t help but have a burden in his stomach every time he thought about the destruction. He wanted to know what happened.


    "I have been in this area a lot, this is where I grew stronger hunting beasts, but no matter how many times I visited I have never seen another golden-haired monkey before," Arte said making Drake instantly hide the talisman. "Yet now, after I received a message from my clan leader to pay attention for any strange beasts, here they are."


    The moment Drake heard that he jumped up while taking out his staff and taking a defensive position.


    "Relax, I do not have any intention to do anything to you two." Arte laughed, seeing that Drake was ready to fight. "I was just wondering about who you guys were. Not only our beast clan, who usually looks down on other beasts, sent a message to keep an eye out for you, but the Holy Church is also after your lives."


    "Holy Church? Is that where these soldiers belong to?" Drake asked without lowering his guard at all.


    "Come on, stop joking with me, half of the world is marked with that disgusting symbol. There is no way you don''t know about them." Arte replied.


    An awkward silence followed Arte''s words with Drake staring emotionlessly at him.


    "Wait, you seriously don''t know?" Arte exclaimed with shock.


    "I wouldn''t ask if I knew about them ."


    "Holy shit dude, which part of the forest did you guys crawled out from? Fine, I will explain everything I know, but in return, you have to tell me who are you and why they are hunting you." Arte offered.


    Drake looked deeply into Arte. Letting someone know about his race was not a good move, but he wanted to know about the Holy Knights that are chasing them. After giving it some thought, he decided it was worth the risk since to fight against them, he needed to get to know them first.


    "Fine." Drake finally agreed to Arte''s proposition lowering his guard and hiding his staff.


    Arte, having a triumphant look on his face, proceeded to explain.


    "Holy Church is the most prominent religion in the whole world right now. They existed for thousands and thousands of years.


    "Back then, they were not that strong since humans had a passive attitude against the beasts since they were afraid of us. Humans stayed in their cities, rarely venturing out to beast territories. In return, didn''t enter their area. Even though we were not afraid of them, they were still a force to be reckoned with.


    "But suddenly, their Pope claimed to have had a divine revelation that the humans are supposed to rule over this world. At the same time, the leaders of the four ancient beast clans, which were the most powerful beasts clans of that time, disappeared. Nobody knows where they went or what happened to them, so the power balance in the beast world fell into chaos."


    Drake instantly made the connection with what Darth said to him the first time he went out of the array.


    ''That must have happened right after the gods colluded against the divine beasts clans.''


    Arte, seeing Drake thinking, he paused for some seconds and then continued.


    "With all of the beasts in confusion, the Pope of the Holy Church started gathering strong supporters, even Kings. Under his leadership, humans began raiding all the beasts territories. At first, we could fight back. But soon, specialized teams and armies appeared with their sole mission to hunt and suppress the four most powerful beast clans.


    "We were caught unprepared and after killing most of us, we had to retreat and hide from the world. Within one month, our clan fell from King of the Beasts to merely scared animals."The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.


    Drake could see that Arte didn''t like talking about the history of his race. Anger and shame were apparent on his face.


    "After the four ancient beast clans lost, humans met minimal resistance in conquering most parts of the world. Of course, all the credits went to the Pope of the Holy Church who was being hailed as an apostle of a god and the number of his believers skyrocketed. Currently, there is only a few human countries and areas that have a different belief than them. Therefore, the Holy Church is the supreme ruler here controlling almost every kingdom.


    "The Pope at the time stepped down and his son became the next one. Nobody knows what happened to him; some say he died, some say he reached the Fate realm and ascended from this world."


    Arte finished his story then waited for Drake to gather his thoughts.


    "Your story has solved many questions of mine, so thank you for that, but you have some parts wrong." Drake voiced.


    "Oh? What could they be?" Arte joked mockingly; the story came from his clan which is one the four ancient beasts clans that retreated, so he was sure there was nothing wrong with it.


    "There were five ancient beast clans. Not four," said Drake choosing to keep the matter between gods infight to himself.


    "This can''t be, If another ancient beast clan were existing we would have heard..." then he abruptly stopped.


    "Drake Sun, a descendant of Sun Wukong, one of the two last members of the golden monkey beast clan, the fifth divine beast clan," Drake announced.


    He looked at Drake with disbelief, his mouth hanging wide open.


    "This... How is this possible? I have never heard of something like that. But that would explain the Holy Church chasing you and why the leader told me to pay attention to any unusual beasts...


    "What happened with you guys? Nobody had heard anything about you and suddenly you appear thousands of year later?" Arte was clearly confused; he couldn''t understand how a fifth divine clan suddenly appeared in the world.


    "Unlike your clans, the golden monkey clan was sealed by the humans. We have a more aggressive nature due to our bloodline that the rest of you, so they couldn''t leave us be. We have been confined for thousands of years and only broke free a couple of days ago." Drake explained. Arte satisfied his curiosity so he would return that, provided he was losing nothing in the process.


    "Is that what the disturbance in the Ki was? But if the Holy Church knew that your seal had been broken, why did they send only a few relative weak members? Since you guys were a powerful clan, there was a very high chance of having extremely strong members." Arte wondered.


    "I am not too sure about that myself. The clan left us with two messages before vanishing. I only heard one of them that was telling me to run immediately and that people will come chasing us."


    "I am sorry. Then maybe you should listen to the other one, so you can have your questions answered," Arte said.


    "Maybe," Drake replied, still reluctant to hear the voice talisman.


    Silence fell into the cave, everyone lost in their thoughts, but Drake still had one question unanswered, the one that was eating him up and even though he knew the answer, he had to verify it.


    "What is the name of the god they believe in?" Drake asked with a grim voice.


    "The Holy Church? Delia, the goddess of balance and life, at least that''s what they call her. But in my eyes, there is no balance in this world," Arte answered disgusted.


    Killing intent leaked from Drake the moment he heard her name, startling Arte.


    "You got a problem with her?" Arte asked carefully still concerned about Drake''s killing intent.


    Drake couldn''t exactly tell him that he has been reincarnated and that he had a personal vendetta against her. So he chose to explain based on the golden-haired monkey''s history.


    "She was the one responsible for sealing the village and almost destroying our clan. I won''t rest until I kill her and destroy everything related to her." Drake''s killing intent turned even thicker, to the point it would suffocate someone not cultivating.


    It took a moment for him to calm his emotions and when he did, Arte asked him.


    "You do know that you are just a Body Refinement cultivator, with no clan or anything, and yet you are telling me you want to, not only go against everyone in this world, but against a God as well?"


    Drake didn''t need to answer. His determination was evident on his face. One look at him and Arte understood he really believed what he said.


    "You are crazy. The craziest person I met..." Arte then started laughing loudly. "But I like it! Haha! As long as you plan on taking down the humans, count me in! At the very least I have to clear the shame and bring back the White Tiger beast clan to his former glory!"


    "Both of you are monsters. I am nowhere close to your level. But since you plan to avenge my family, then you have to count me in as well." Diana voiced behind them. She had apparently woken up some time ago. If she hadn''t with so much discussion and killing intent around her, then being a cultivator would have been for nothing.


    Both of them turned to look at her and even though Drake said nothing, Arte couldn''t help explain out loud.


    "Good! But you really need to grow stronger faster. You are pretty weak right now."


    "I know," she smiled, "but I will definitely catch up to you two."


    "Then go cultivate until we leave," Drake said as if he was unable to read the happy mood around him.


    Diana nodded and turned around heading deeper into the cave once again, but this time to cultivate.


    "I know you care," she muttered when nobody could hear her, but one could see that she was smiling.

 Chapter 22 : The truth

    After Diana and Arte went to cultivate, Drake was left alone. He once again took out the talisman they left behind for him and decidedly shattered it, waiting to hear Darth''s explanation.


    "Hey, kiddo, I hope you are safe when listening to this.


    "Sorry if you were expecting to hear Darth, but there are some things I need to tell you that Darth can''t know of. " the voice of his grandmother Ginna was heard.


    Drake wasn''t expecting Ginna to be the one who left behind the voice talisman, but he didn''t mind it if his questions were solved.


    "First I would explain why we had to break the seal now then I will proceed to the more pressing matters at hand.


    "I thought it was strange that being descendants of such a divine beast, our power could only progress until the Dantian Opening realm. Sure it is hard to progress in cultivation, but for thousands of years, not even one of us has reached the Merging realm. That could only mean there was some problem with us or the seal.


    "It ended up being both. I discovered that the seal was leaving a mark on our soul that was being refined by us when we were progressing in the Soul Refinement realm. After we were breaking through to the Dantian Opening realm, the mark was moving to our Dantian and was residing there, taking about half of our Dantian''s space, making us unable to fill it up and reach higher than the fifth stage."


    ''So that''s the reason Darth and Doko could only reach the middle stages of Dantian Opening. Good thing the seal has been broken before I entered the Soul Refinement.'' Drake thought.


    "The mark had other effects though; it was using the Ki we had stored in the Dantian to slowly destroy our bloodline. The more time one spent on the Dantian Opening realm, the more his bloodline was being diluted to the point that after hundreds of years, we would have no trace of the Sun Wukong''s bloodline.


    "As you can understand, if we let it go, it would only end with our deaths. We wouldn''t even have the power to weaken the array after a couple of hundred years.


    "Therefore, when you were born, we had to make a decision. Either bet our race''s survival on you and Diana, breaking the seal by using a spell that sacrifices, everyone''s who took part in, life force, or face extinction. Everyone in the village chose the first option, so we drugged you and Diana and then cast the spell."


    If Drake could, he would have stopped the voice. It was making him uncomfortable. He did not consider these monkeys his family, yet he couldn''t help but have an awful feeling of something being stuck in his throat. He didn''t need their help. He just wanted to get his revenge. Why would they sacrifice their lives for him?


    ''Did I feel a connection with them since I grew up with them?''


    He was clenching his fists. He wanted to vent this feeling. He didn''t want to accept it, but he was feeling sad.


    "Now onto important matters that only I had knowledge of in the whole village. Not even your father, being the village chief, had access to this information.


    "The first was that I had unlocked an ability when I broke through to the Dantian Opening realm. Unlocking a unique ability of the soul isn''t uncommon albeit rare. It was giving me the power to see one''s soul, true form after he sees it himself. I know yours is a human.


    "This can''t exist in a beast. Similarly, a beast''s soul can''t exist in a human. It will make that being lose his sense of self and drive him mad in the end. But there is one exception, and that is the second matter I need to address you." Ginna''s voice kept explaining in his mind.


    Drake was feeling a sense of foreboding. Why would his soul''s true form matter at all, except for his affinity with elements?Unauthorized usage: this tale is on Amazon without the author''s consent. Report any sightings.


    "Some beings in this world were born differently. It doesn''t matter if they are human or beasts, their souls were extremely powerful since birth and their growth rate was extremely fast. There is only one reason that this can happen and it is the reason their soul has an otherwise impossible form. Reincarnation."


    Drake froze on the spot. From all the things he expected hearing from the talisman, the matter regarding his reincarnation was not one of them.


    ''What is going on? Is being reincarnated a common occurrence here?'' Drake thought.


    "Some cultivators that have reached the Fate realm are unable to proceed to the last one, the Godhood realm. I do not know why this happens, but I do know some found a solution to it, a forbidden spell to be exact. They sacrifice their lives, cultivation and their memories get sealed, for a chance of being born again. The chance is extremely low, but if they succeed and reach the Enlightenment Realm once again, their memories return.


    "That gives them a second chance of reaching the Godhood realm.


    "The being that they are being born into is completely random, but they do hold something from their previous lives. Their soul''s true form takes the appearance of what they were in their previous lives."


    Drake was bewildered.


    ''She must think I am a reincarnated cultivator. Well, I guess that confusion helps me.''


    "I imagine you are such a being. An old human cultivator reincarnated as one of ours. I want you to know that you, being a human before, doesn''t make you any less of our family now. So, I would like first to warn you and then ask you for two favours.


    "You need to be extremely careful about revealing your soul''s true form. Every cultivator that reached Godhood has their pride in reaching that realm by fighting against their Fate. They consider beings that fail to do so as not worthy of being Gods. So they declared the spell as forbidden and they kill themselves all the cultivators that use it if they find them out.


    "You need to be especially careful of the Holy Church. Their old ancestor is a reincarnated human. He wasn''t just any kind of human, he used to be the brother of the so-called Goddess Delia. He has reincarnated at least five times that we know of. His name used to be Enver Dust. They will not let anyone get in his way of achieving the peak of cultivation and they will kill you to avoid the attention of the other gods.


    "The reason that Goddess plotted against Sun Wukong is that our ancestor found out the truth about her brother. She colluded with the other gods that are in a similar situation as her and silenced him before he manages to speak of it. They also targeted the other god beasts, on the assumption that they also knew about it."


    Drake was shocked and happy at the same time. He started laughing with excitement.


    ''Who would have thought there would be such a story. Haha! This is perfect. Now I definitely know that she cares about that Holy Church!"


    "That is the warning I said I will give you and now for the favours I want to ask you.


    "The first is for you to take care of Diana, she is the last of our race and even though she is still young, she is a hardworking and strong-willed girl. I know you think she is a bother but I assure you, she can help you. She is very talented in pill-making. I had her help me with some of my pills and I know her talent rivals mine. You can give her the book I left in your interspatial ring to her so she can cultivate her talent in pill making, or keep it to yourself. The decision is up to you. But please, keep her safe.


    "The second favour is to not go against the Holy Church. Hide from them until you become strong enough because they are extremely powerful. Apart from their old ancestor, they have other hidden cultivators who are at least of the Enlightenment realm. I guess the current Pope should be around the peak of the Merging Realm himself. Therefore, please just be careful.


    "Anyways kiddo, that is all I have to tell you. This is probably the last time you will hear my voice so know that whoever you were in your previous life, we love you."


    Silence... Drake was in deep thought, thinking everything he heard from Ginna. He felt that while her voice lasted, he was going through an emotional roller-coaster. It made him extremely tired. There was so much information in so little time.


    It wasn''t until the first rays of light entered the cave that Drake moved. He checked to see the others still sleeping and he moved out of the cave. Drake walked until he found a glade. He checked around until he found a spot where the soil was softer and he dug a small hole putting the pieces of the now broken talisman inside.


    ''Ginna, I am not your grandson neither I am your family. I am not a good person, I never was. I will only walk the path of revenge killing everyone who tries to stop me. So I can only ignore the second favour you asked of me.


    ''I will destroy the Holy Church. I will kill everyone related to Delia.''


    Drake slowly started filling the hole he opened.


    ''But you showed me that I am not alone in this. Since you want me to take care of Diana, I can only do it by having her walk the same path as me. As long as she stays with me, I will protect her. But if she chooses a different life, she is on her own.''


    Drake gave one last look where he buried the talisman before walking back to the cave.

 Chapter 23 : The ambush

    While Drake, Diana, and Arte were resting, the Holy Knights had now regrouped to continue the search for them.


    "You will be forming parties of ten, even if the beasts are powerful for their stage, they are still in the Body Refinement realm like you. There should be two monkeys and one tiger. You are allowed to kill, but you have to capture at least one of the monkeys alive. I will be searching for them by myself. If you think you cannot handle it even as a group of ten, immediately inform me.


    "Is that understood?" Bishop Daniela asked.


    "Yes, Lady Bishop!" everyone shouted.


    "Then continue."


    As soon as she gave the order, everybody spread and moved heading in the direction of the party of three. Bishop Daniela waited until everyone left, rode her mount and followed after them.


    ''There shouldn''t be any problems now. Too bad this useless mount of mine can''t follow their smell.''


    Back in the cave, when Drake arrived, Arte and Diana were already up and eating fruits for breakfast. Drake joined them and when they finished eating, he took out a book and tossed it to Diana.


    "This is a book about pill-making left behind by Ginna. If you plan on getting revenge, there are several ways you could help us instead of battle."


    Diana caught the book and looked at it briefly before storing it away.


    "Thank you; I will carefully study it when we find a safe place." She was a bit shocked by this move from Drake. This wasn''t like him at all.


    Arte on the side, however, was looking even more shocked.


    "Isn''t that a book about pill making? Lucky you, we can''t exercise pill making in my clan until we reach the Merging Realm, so we only have a selected few that do."


    "Oh? How come? I thought a clan like yours would be trying to nurture a lot of pill-makers." Diana asked.


    "We want to, but there are not a lot of us reaching the Merging realm. So, we are specializing in different occupations after it," Arte replied.


    Diana and Arte spent a few minutes discussing pill-making while Drake was getting ready to leave.


    "It is about time. From now on we should run non-stop until we arrive at the river that you mentioned," Drake announced, urging them to get up.


    "Indeed, we wasted too much time, and I almost forgot we are still being chased." Arte agreed and stood up, immediately followed by Diana.


    The three of them departed from the cave and started running with Arte leading the way. They thought about carrying Diana, but they decided it would be too risky in case they need to fight. They kept running for about half a day when Arte suddenly stopped.


    "A group is closing on us, they will reach us in about half an hour," he announced.


    "How do you know?" Drake asked him, looking at him curiously.


    "The sense of hearing of our race is extremely acute and since they are not trying to hide, I can faintly hear them," he replied.


    Diana was panicking, but she managed to hold herself together.


    "Do you know how many there are?" Drake asked once again.


    "I can''t know their exact numbers, but they are certainly more than the previous group and less than fifteen."


    "Then we can''t fight them head-on, this time they will be prepared for us since we already killed five of them. We also can''t keep going on like that since they are faster. We should ambush them." Drake looked around checking his surroundings. "Diana and I can climb the trees, I do not think they will be that careful to check them.


    "Unfortunately, we do not have enough time to set up some traps for them. Can you use your bloodline skill? The roar that disorients those who hear it?" Drake asked Arte.


    "You know about it?" Arte exclaimed, "Yes I can use it, but only two times and each time I use it, I lose a lot of stamina. Forcing it, a third time is possible, but I will probably be helpless afterwards until I recover."


    "How much time will they stay disoriented?" Drake asked with a gleam in his eyes.


    "About two, three seconds depending on their soul''s strength. Why? You got a plan?"


    "If they are unguarded, even Diana can kill them." Drake started explaining. "She and I will climb the trees and you will wait somewhere, where they can see you. As soon as they stop, you should use your roar immediately.


    "Diana will start shooting them with her bow and I will jump trying to kill as many as I can until they recover. I will be easily able to kill at least four of them in that time and with Diana shooting down another two we will have reduced their numbers considerably. Then we kill the rest and immediately run since your roar may notify the rest."Royal Road is the home of this novel. Visit there to read the original and support the author.


    Arte thought about the plan a bit before replying.


    "There are a lot of uncertainties with your plan. They might not know about you guys, but they certainly know about my bloodline skill. If they react fast, it might not work.


    "Also, people will certainly hear it so we will be giving away our position."


    "Do you have a better one?" Drake asked emotionlessly.


    "Not really," Arte said.


    "Then we go with mine." Drake ended the discussion.


    "Diana, go and climb that tree over there, the higher, the better. Keep your ears shut and after you hear Arte''s roar, start shooting arrows. Do not stop shooting at them until they are all dead."


    Diana nodded and moved to the tree that he pointed. Drake then moved to another one while Arte took one last look at him before heading some distance away from them and laid down waiting.


    Not much time passed until they started hearing the commotion from the Holy Knight''s group.


    "Seriously, I don''t know why we are forming groups of ten. The others were probably caught off guard."


    "Yeah, I think Lady Bishop is being too careful. They are just some beasts after all."


    "Well, they do have a white tiger with them. He can be a problem."


    "What are you talking about? He can be a problem for two or three of us but not five of us if we are careful. After all, I have never heard of a strong monkey beast; they are not apes."


    "Well, I suppose that''s true."


    "Come on, act like a man and don''t be scared. Otherwise, we will not take you with us to the brothel after all this is over!"


    Even though everyone broke into a laugh, none of them stopped moving at all. That was until they saw the white tiger standing a few meters away from them.


    "Isn''t that-" his voice was abruptly stopped.


    RAAAAAWWWWWRRRR.


    Arte immediately opened his mouth and unleashed his bloodline skill. It was a thundering roar that made all the Holy Knights cover their ears.


    But it was too late, it had already affected them.


    All they could hear was a buzzing sound and they started stumbling from being disoriented.


    Drake immediately jumped to the middle of the group with his golden staff already summoned and expanded, swinging it downwards, smashing the head of one member. A fraction of a second later, an arrow lodged itself in the neck of another one.


    Drake without stopping, swept with his staff making two of soldiers drop on the floor and he used his nails to cut the neck of another Holy Knight. The second arrow from Diana killed a fourth soldier.


    Arte didn''t lose time after he used his roar and rushed towards the group as well. Since he was some distance away, it took him some time to arrive and by then, the soldiers were already recovering, however, only six of them were left.


    Seeing the soldiers recovering, Drake used an Air Bullet to hit one of the downed soldiers. Being unable to guard and being hit from such a close distance with Drake''s spell, the soldier was doomed.


    Diana released her third arrow, but this time the targeted soldier had recovered enough to avoid it. Seeing that the arrows were not fast enough to cause any problems apart from distraction now that they were not disoriented, he turned his attention to his closest target, Drake.


    "FILTHY BEASTS, YOU DARE AMBUSH US?" the Holy Knight yelled and used his lance to stab Drake.


    Drake had just finished using Air Bullet, so his reaction was a bit late. He placed his staff vertically trying to change the stab''s trajectory and he succeeded but not before receiving a deep cut on his ribs.


    Ignoring the sudden pain, he pushed the soldier backwards throwing him in front of Arte''s way. Arte wasted no time, lifting his foot and lacerating the Holy Knight''s back. The armour got cut through like paper facing Arte''s sharp claws.


    Seeing that they were only four left, one of the soldiers backed away a bit and took out a voice talisman planning to report Drake''s party position.


    Seeing the Holy Knight''s actions, Drake and Arte rushed to stop him, but the other three Holy Knights intercepted them.


    The Holy Knight saw that his comrades blocked them and he let out a wide grin.


    "HA HA! EVEN IF YOU KILL US, THE OTHERS WILL FIND YOU!" mocked the Holy Knight. But he forgot about one crucial thing. His opponents were three and not two. That led to him being caught off guard by one of Diana''s arrows.


    When Diana saw the first soldier dodging her arrow, she knew that it would be very difficult to succeed in killing the third one. So, she decided to wait to catch one off guard. Diana found the perfect chance when a soldier backed away from the others and took out a talisman and instead of immediately shattering it, he chose to mock them. That was when she released her arrow.


    The timing was so great that Arte couldn''t help but exclaim.


    "Nice one!"


    Even the usually cold Drake had an approving look in his eyes. That last kill of hers bought them a lot of time.


    "Fast! Go grab the talisman and shatter it!" a Holy Knight shouted to the other next to him.


    The Holy Knight immediately rushed to pick it up, but Drake wasn''t planning on letting that happen.


    He charged at the one going for the talisman, ignoring the other two trying to intercept him. Arte also charged but to block the other two.


    Drake seeing the two in front of him used his staff as a support so that he can jump above them. One of the Holy Knights, swung his lance horizontally targeting the staff trying to stop Drake''s action.


    Drake expanded it and chose to forsake it while he was in the air, succeeding in bypassing the two soldiers, and rushed barehanded to the third one.


    The soldier that went to pick up the talisman was the timid one that was afraid of Drake''s party before, so when he saw Drake charging at him having a crazy look in his eyes, he screamed and tried to stab Drake with his lance.


    His posture, however, was off balance, making it extremely easy for Drake to dodge him by turning his body a bit. Then he grabbed the Holy Knight''s throat, breaking it.


    ''This might come in handy later,'' Drake thought while picking up the talisman from the ground and storing it in his ring.


    Turning around he looked at the two soldiers that were in the middle of him and Arte.


    The two Holy Knights left, were shaking from fear, making it extremely easy for Drake and Arte to finish them off.


    "We need to run away immediately. Even though we stopped them from using the voice talisman, the sounds of battle and my roar could have easily alerted the others." Arte said.


    Diana climbed back down from the tree and looked at the bodies around her. It was her first time killing someone and she was visibly shaken.


    "Let''s move," Drake announced moving towards their previous direction along with Arte seemingly ignoring Diana. But when he passed next to her, he stopped for a moment.


    "Get used to it. We will be killing thousands of them in the future."


    Diana looked at him, then at the bodies. She then closed her eyes for a moment and when she opened them again, She tried to throw these thoughts away. Diana then followed behind Arte and Drake as fast as she could.