《Immortal Shards》 Book 1 Prologue: Godsfall Rat 12, Year 0 of the Grand Wulin Era, Aeric The Fateweaver, God Of Karma I was falling through layers of reality, my body and soul slowly fragmenting. I hurt almost beyond my capacity to comprehend, to the extent that I couldn`t find the words necessary to properly describe the pain. It felt like my flesh, my muscles, even my bones, were freezing and cracking apart, and yet molten iron was running through my veins. Sharp, painful energy rampaged through my body, slicing me apart as I barely managed to stay intact. It was as if I was being crushed by an entire mountain, yet I also as if my body was on the verge of exploding into a cloud of bloody mist. Pain of this order should''ve near-instantly killed me, let alone the injuries that had caused it. I knew I had little chance to live, but I should be able to stave off my death long enough to resolve some matters and ensure my legacy was passed on, and if I was lucky,I might just survive. I extended my Divine Sense out across the endless planes and worlds of the Myriad Heavens Cosmos, seeing that my friends, allies, and even enemies were making their own preparations. I saw the God Of Thunder fall, his body splitting up into arcs of the crackling purple energy that was his domain. I saw the Goddess of Life shed her divinity and even most of her strength, turning back into the simple sapient rosebush she''d once been. I knew that by this point, the tragedy that had happened to us all was over, but we were doomed. After this, who would guide the myriad planes and ensure the Dao did not go astray? I did not know, but it was certain that there would be those who would rise to fill the gap. I, and those like me, must ensure that as many of those who rose as possible would be those fit to do so, beings who would carry on our dreams into the boundless future. After all, what my enemies wanted was something that should not be allowed to come to pass. I located a suitable planet somewhere ona plane of reality in one of the Mortal Realms, and created a spatial tunnel to reach it, collapsing the tunnel as I left it. Arriving in a somewhat remote area mostly controlled by some (in my eyes) small and insignificant clans,I dusted off what was left of my hands, and set to work.Starting off, I paused time in the entire plane, so that my work could not be interfered with. Power surged through the entire realm in rippling waves, shocking it to its core and transforming it at high speed. An ingenious self-replenishing network of energy-rich plants, ores, liquids, and other materials was set up, drastically improving the quality andincreasing the energy of this mortal realm.Did you know this text is from a different site? Read the official version to support the creator. "This will have to do.",I thought, waving my hands as various materials flew through the air, turning into shrines made of different materials, each connecting to empty or abandoned sub-planes of this plane I proceeded to remodel. I set up trials within them, with different techniques, materials, and a variety of other rewards. This would give the people and beasts of the world the ability keep up with the transformation I had made, and reward the lucky and the worthy. Extending my senses, I could feel the same happening across other lower planes, and even elsewhere in this plane. Through the haze of pain and degredation, I ensured my legacy included those of my two closest friends. Quetzacoatl, Khepri... please hold on. I think we can survive this. I could feel my consciousness, my very being, fading. Souls are unable to be completely destroyed,though most do not know this, but they can lose their power, memory, identity, and change into new ones. My soul¡¯s memory and identity were not lost, but its power and divinity were fading, reducing me to naught but a mortal soul. My body had stopped dying, and had slowly returned to that of a mortal. It felt quite strange, to lose my power, my divine nature. My senses, my strength, even the nature of my existence diminished. It felt like suddenly going blind or deaf, or losing a limb permanently, or experiencing paralysis. Something was missing, and I was aware of it and what it was- I had the memory of it and the knowledge of how to use it and how it worked, but it was no longer within my reach when it had formerly been as natural and automatic as breathing. I would have to go to sleep for a while, and my friends would sleep beside me. After the trials were set, and the required defenses and other neccesary amenities set up, I established a simple temple for myself and two friends , and I lay us down in stone bed-coffins with transparent crystal lids. All else was left to the hands of fate, and those hands were no longer mine. We would rise when adequate inheritors were found, to teach them the truth and to guide them to take the places we''d once held. Chapter 1: A Lesson in Empathy Rabbit 14, Year 8690 of the Grand Wulin Era,Quetzalcoatl¡¯s scrying bowl In a simple stone house, a man who looked to be in his early twenties sat in front of a fire, his back facing towards it. This man was tall and large, with a bearlike frame, waist length, thick rust colored hair,jade green eyes, ruggedly handsome facial features, a prominent chin, and a short, well kept beard. His skin was somewhat pale and spotted with freckles, and over it he wore spotlessly clean black cotton robes, with soft leather boots. He was staring at three children that sat in front of him, with a displeased expression on his face. These three children were, respectively, a rather delicate looking olive skinned 8 year old boy with the same hair and eyes as the man, a monkey with short, thick fur and a small,winged dragon around the size of a ferret, who sat on top of the boy¡¯s head. The boy and the monkey looked at each other, sure they were in deep trouble. The dragon buried his small face in the boy¡¯s hair, sure that nothing good could come of this. The man spoke, his soft and gentle voice belying with his expression and appearance. ¡°Do you understand why what you three did was wrong?¡± ¡°Well, not really. He bought something I wanted, and wouldn¡¯t give it up no matter how much money I offered him. It was kinda like he was slapping us in the face, so I slapped him in the face and then it turned into a fight. We beat him, so I took his stuff.¡± The monkey said from her spot in the boy''s lap, her high-pitched childish voice carrying a confident tone. The boy spoke next. ¡° I think beating him up, fighting 3 on 1, and taking his stuff was bad, but him offending us by refusing to sell Mingzhou that knife also was bad.¡± ¡°You kids listen to too many stories about the Dawn Era. Even if that old obsession with face still carries weight in a lot of places, what makes you think it¡¯s ok to just go and abuse your power? Even if you weren¡¯t all cultivators, why do you think it¡¯s ok to lash out and hurt people over such minor things?¡± The man asked, his eyes seeming to stare into the souls of the three children. ¡°Why is it wrong, then, if so many people live their lives by these rules?¡± The dragon asked, tilting his small head quizzically. The man sighed, and began to explain. ¡°If I were to punch you right now, it¡¯d be bad, right? Why would it be bad?¡± The boy¡¯s eyes lit up said ¡°Well, Papa, that¡¯s because it would hurt, and I don¡¯t want to be -Oh, I think I get it. But what if somebody takes my thing, or they¡¯re trying to hurt me, or kill me, or someone I care about?¡± ¡°You¡¯re beginning to get it. There are some things it¡¯s ok to use violence for, but in many cases there are peaceful solutions, and sometimes you have to take a loss to avoid hurting people. Nobody wants to be hurt, and wanting something is never an excuse to hurt or kill someone for it. Even if you need it, try to acquire it peacefully and honestly. Every situation has appropriate ways to behave and to respond to things, and to act like a spoiled brat and fight someone who isn¡¯t doing you harm for no good reason helps nobody in the end, especially not you. Even when you are being harmed, there are different kinds of response appropriate for the situation. Violence in general, and killing especially, are always the last thing you should resort to.¡± The man paused, catching his breath. One hand supported his chin as he stared at the kids.This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there. ¡°So like, we need to care more about other people¡¯s thoughts and feelings, and know when it¡¯s better to focus on either others¡¯ happiness or our own?¡± The boy asked. He looked at the monkey, who seemed to be deep in thought, and at the dragon, who¡¯d climbed down to his shoulder, and both seemed to agree. ¡°Ayup, you three also need to learn that while things like face and honour are important, being powerful and having a rich, influential family doesn¡¯t mean you or your life is more important than other people¡¯s, so for a while we¡¯ll be living out here, working, and cultivating with the Outer Sect members.Your mother, your other father, and I will even leave our main bodies here while our secondary bodies attend to our duties. Mingzhou, Avarius, your parents won¡¯t be back for a while, but I¡¯ve contacted them and they¡¯ve approved of this.¡± The man smiled, seeming rather pleased with himself. ¡°Well, you should walk us through what our responsibilities are. Seeing as we¡¯re cultivators and all, we¡¯re much physically stronger and have more stamina than an adult mortal, by like,at least 5 times, but my short arms and legs limit what I can do, Avarius doesn¡¯t have opposable thumbs,but he can change into a bigger form to be more useful and Mingzhou¡­ actually has the least problems cause she can manipulate her body size to a certain degree. He uh...hasn''t quite figured out how to shapeshift yet, though.¡± The boy said, putting up a front of seriousness and calm. ¡° Yeah, Uncle Marcus, you gotta tell us!¡± Mingzhou exclaimed, excitement and mischief showing in her eyes. Marcus smiled helplessly, amused by the kids¡¯ sudden enthusiasm. He¡¯d do his best to teach them the practical things they needed to learn, but also less practical things like compassion, empathy, generosity, and work ethic. *** Over the next few days, these children that had been very close to becoming problem children immersed themselves in their chores, as the work ethic they already possessed began to go further and they began to understand the duties, obligations, and worries of the people who helped provide the comfortable lives full of resources and safety they enjoyed. The red-haired boy was the first to understand it, seeing how hard common members of the Outer Sect worked at such duties as cleaning animal pens, looking after plants, and even more dangerous duties like leaving the safety of the sect to hunt for plants, meat, and other resources that were either rare or too difficult to cultivate within the sect itself. He began to share resources he felt he hadn¡¯t worked for, such as pills that helped with cultivation or healing pills, and would use his magical and physical abilities to heal injuries or help people carry things like firewood or magical plants. He developed an interest in alchemy, enchantments, and healing magic, seeking to help these people who worked hard and risked their lives and health for the sect. Themonkey, Mingzhou, with her wild temperament, struggled to get rid of her sense of entitlement, until one day, on an expedition outside the sect to harvest some wood particularly suited to making magical gear, especially Mage¡¯s staves and the like, two warriors of the outer sect took on severe injuries protecting her from the attack of a large bear that had gathered a pretty decent amount of mana and learned to infuse it into its blows, nearly crippling themselves to protect her. From that point, she began to develop an intense desire to protect others, especially the vulnerable and weak. She began to be interested in the making of armor and weapons, and her interest in martial arts grew even stronger, as she began to teach those less knowledgeable and talented than herself what she could. The young dragon , having quickly learned his moral lesson from the experiences of the others, worked even harder on his studies of magic, and developed interest in spells that could enhance the power of others, as well as himself, magical formations of all sorts, as well as creating golems. He wasn¡¯t quite aware of it yet, but he had become determined to protect and help as many people as he could, on as wide of a scale as he could. Chapter 2: In Which I Accidentally Create Life Dragon 7, year 8690 of The Grand Wulin Era, Alexander Grandstar Hey, is this thing on? Testing, testing, one-two-three. Alright, the words I speak are appearing on this screen, so I guess it''s on. If you''ve found this recording, you probably know who my friends and I are, and why that''s important, but you don''t know the story of how we got here. The records before are stuff I''ve included with the permission of those whose memory they belong to, but here''s where my own story begins. This event isn''t much, but I think it was the start of where and how I became who I am now. It was a pretty ordinary day, about half a month into my stay in the outer sect. I was cultivating, which in the Misty Sea Stage is pretty simple. You reach out with your Spirit Energy, which is a form of energy generated by the souls of living beings and does important things like helping regulatethe nervous system , being the basis for the Divine Sense;which is a form of sensory perception able to perceive aspects of things other senses struggle to or are unable to, and numerous other functions. It¡¯s essentially the blood, flesh, and hormones of the soul, in a sense. Spiritual Energy can travel through your nervous system,the circulatory system, the organs, out into the world, and even into the meridian system that transfers mana through the body. Once you reach out with your Divine Sense through your spiritual energy, you feel Mana, the lifeblood energy of the universe itself. It¡¯s kinda hard to describe what it feels like, as the elemental nature or other aspects of the mana can change the feeling, but pure, raw mana feels like a warm, gentle current of energy, but it takes the form of a strange misty substance. Once you feel the mana in the air, you grab onto it with your spiritual energy and drag it over to your body,where your own mana sucks it into your pores. It travels through the meridian system into the lower dantian, which is right above the waist and back a couple inches. It¡¯s a sea of energy that contains a cultivator¡¯s mana. You might think that could mess with some organs, but the dantian is interesting in that while it technically physically exists and can be damaged by physical things, it takes up very little actual physical space, merging seamlessly into the flesh surrounding it. When it enters the dantian, any unwanted impurities in the mana (mana of elements you don¡¯t want, bits of other people¡¯s spiritual energy, strange bits of random filth, and so on) are sent out through the meridians, escaping through the pores. The purified mana is imprinted with your spiritual energy signature, making it yours until you use it up. It goes on a trip through the meridian system, into the flesh and blood, nourishing them and clearing out toxins and other unwanted substances of physical, spiritual, and energetic natures. The mana then goes to the soul, where it nourishes the spiritual energy and cleanses and strengthens the soul somewhat. It then heads back to the dantian, where it again has the impurities purged and settles into the sea of mist in the dantian. When the dantian is full and the cultivator tries to absorb more mana, the cultivator must force the mana mist to condense, which refines it further, making it purer and of higher quality. This ,over time, creates a dense mist of mana which will be useful for far more than just strengthening body and soul.The first stage of cultivation, where the mana is still in a misty state and has yet to condense into liquid, is called the Misty Sea stage. It''s divided into 9 layers, based on the purity and density of the mana mist. This mist has a lot of uses! It can be infused into physical attacks, projectile attacks, the muscles, used for defensive purposes,shaped into various forms, or combined with the spirit energy in different patterns to essentially force the world to produce a specific effect, called a spell. The first path is the path of the Warrior, and the second the path of the Mage.These uses are very important to later cultivation, and all users of mana have their own specialties. I was at the peak of the 9th layer, close to breaking through to the next Stage, the Mana Sea stage, but i''d have to accumulate mana for a while to break through, and so I focused a bit more on condensing and purifying the mana I did have.Unauthorized usage: this tale is on Amazon without the author''s consent. Report any sightings. After that cultivation, I was decently full of energy. I was experimenting with spells I knew:the classic fireball, forcing plants to grow rapidly and act under my control, trying (and failing) to gather small arcs of electricity into a larger one, making a jet of water shoot towards my bed with such force that it cut a deep gash in the headboard (oops), healing small injuries i¡¯d taken from clumsy handling of tools, stuff like that. The patterns of energy required were basic, but they interested me and didn¡¯t cost too much mana to produce. After a while, holding a somewhat old carrot i¡¯d been considering eating, i tried to combine the patterns for Plant Control and Healing. I flubbed up the pattern a bit(I was trying to make it fresher and tastier, and had somehow accidentally infused my Spirit Energy directly into the carrot instead of just the spirit energy-infused mana pattern), and this lead to an excess of wood elemental mana, and some of my Spirit Energy entering the carrot in my hand, and the carrot began to grow with a bright green light. This had...not happened last time i¡¯d messed around with vegetables. The carrot started to vibrate, jerking itself free of my hand and floating in front of me. I could feel my mana rapidly draining, and started to pull mana from the environment to sustain me. The carrot continued to glow, and started growing bigger, until it was about as thick as an adults arm and two and a half feet long.When I was about to pass out from sheer exhaustion, it stopped drawing on my mana and Spirit Energy, and started to slowly absorb it from the atmosphere, as the green light seemed to take on the shape of a cocoon. I started cultivating to regain my energy,and by the time I had, i¡¯d made some improvements in the quality and quantity of mana, partially due to having almost my entire reserve drained. When I opened my eyes, the cocoon of light had taken on a solid form that looked kinda like giant carrot greens woven together, and still emanated a gentle green glow. I had no idea what any of this meant, but I had a strange feeling that the carrot was somehow alive, and not just in the way a normal plant is. It emitted an aura of mana that seemed to fluctuate between that of a magical plant and a cultivator, to the point I had no idea what it had become or would become. I figured I should go ask one of my parents, though I wasn¡¯t really sure which of the three to ask. My mother, Hilde, had pretty good affinity with the wood element, but she was more of a Warrior than a Mage, and didn''t generally use sapient plants in her fighting style. My father, Marcus, followed the same path I did, trying to combine the two paths of Mage and Warrior into the path of the Warmage, but while he was strong and and had various affinities to the elements, he mostly connected to the wind-lightning side of wood rather than the lie-centricside, and probably wouldn¡¯t understand this aspect to the degree I needed. There was also my other father, Alim, who was primarily focused on the path of a Mage, and knew a lot about almost every type of magic. He¡¯d probably have the best idea of what this was, what would happen to it, and what I should do, and if he didn¡¯t, he¡¯d know people who would, but he was probably busy. I decided to go to him anyways, because I knew the problem would interest him, and he was the most indulgent of me out of my three parents. Chapter 3: So, uh, what is this thing? Dragon 7, year 8690 of the Grand Wulin Era, Alexander Grandstar After a little while of walking,weird cocoon tucked under one arm, I approached the beat-up looking large blue stone building my father called a Mage¡¯s Tower. I wasn¡¯t sure how much of a tower it was given that it only had one aboveground floor, but Dad insisted it be called that. He had what I considered an actual Mage¡¯s Tower in the Inner Sect compound, but due to the current circumstances he wasn¡¯t using it. He was a man of many quirks, which might be why my Papa loved him, or maybe it was in spite of it? Anyways, I rang the small, golden bell attached to the door with my free hand, waiting for a response. The bell made a very loud sound, given its small size, but I figured that was related to the way it was made or some magic Dad had put on it. About a minute of fruitless waiting later, I rang the bell again. This time, it was answered in about 5 seconds. A tall, skinny, delicately featured man with a skin tone a bit darker than mine, shoulder length wavy black hair, warm amber eyes, and a lazy grin that could almost pass for a smirk on his face. The dirty blue robes and beat-up sandals attested to the fact that he¡¯d been so busy he hadn¡¯t even taken time to clean himself. ¡°Hey, Alex, how are you? Did ya just come to see your old man or do you have some questions, cause i¡¯d be up for either, I kinda need a- Yo, what¡¯s that you¡¯re carrying?¡± He said, pointing at the cocoon, his demeanor changing into a more scholarly mien, his casual smile and warm look replaced by a burning curiosity and a serious expression. ¡°I¡¯m not sure what it is either, I was just trying to freshen up a carrot that had gotten a bit old and this happened. I tried to mix the spell patterns for Plant Control and Healing, ¡®cause I¡¯ve seen Papa do that when he cooks to freshen up stuff that¡¯s starting to go bad. Next thing I know, it starts absorbing wood element mana from the world at ridiculous speeds and it takes half my spiritual energy and most of my mana. Then it wrapped itself in green light that looked like this cocoon. I started cultivating to get my energy back, and by the time I was done, it looked like this.¡± Dad¡¯s jaw dropped, his mouth hanging open a little wider than it naturally should, which was a weird quirk of his. Something about having a Naga for a great-great-great-great-great grandma or some other relation along those lines. He started laughing, though I¡¯m pretty sure it wasn¡¯t at me, but the situation.¡°Oh my gods Alexander, do you understand what you¡¯ve done? You¡¯ve created life through magic, something many adult Mages with more experience and less affinity than you spend years and even decades working on, and you stumbled onto it by accident!¡± I began to wonder what he meant by that. Was he mad, was he happy, or was he just shocked by what i¡¯d done? Was what I¡¯d done a bad thing? Was I going to be punished? ¡°A-am I in trouble?¡± I squeaked, my nerves creeping into my voice. Dad¡¯s expression softened. ¡°No, you goofy kid, I¡¯m going to reward you and teach you some things. You just did something really awesome I only mastered at a much older age than you are now, and I¡¯m very proud you managed it.I¡¯m gonna explain to you what that is, then we¡¯re gonna go show your Papa and your Mom.¡± As I was listening to him talk, I felt a strange sensation from the cocoon. It was taking in and pushing out energy in a strange, yet familiar rhythm. ¡°I can feel it still absorbing energy from the environment,but it feels more like...breathing, where earlier it felt like it was eating.¡± ¡°That¡¯s because it is. Alex, you¡¯ve created a Plant Spirit. Specifically, one whose domain is over plants and mushrooms that humans and other beings cultivate as crops. It¡¯s kind of similar to a Dryad, except Dryads are born from their source tree and cannot go far from it until they completely fuse with it, becoming able to shift the form of the tree into a humanoid one and becoming one of the Treefolk. Ordinarily, crop spirits have a similar relation to plants or mushrooms that Dryads do to trees, but you giving this carrot life bypassed that step and created a Crop Spirit that has fused with its source from birth and developed a soul-bond with you.¡± ¡°Wow! Does that mean it¡¯s like, powerful or something? Also, what¡¯s a soul-bond?¡± ¡°It¡¯s uh,kinda what it sounds like. It¡¯s a bond between two or more souls, and it can be created in many ways.One is by doing what you did, and forming another soul with your power. Another is a consensual,. deep bond, where two beings trade strands of their own souls, creating a permanent connection that lasts until both souls are destroyed. There are more, but most of the other forms are considered taboo or evil.And I won¡¯t be able to tell how strong the spirit is or will be until it emerges from that cocoon.¡± Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon. I nodded, not quite sure I entirely understood, but sure I¡¯d figure it out later. We left Dad¡¯s tower, and went looking for Mom and Papa. *** Soon enough, we found them in the practice yard,sparring under the sun. Papa used a dual sword setup, with one sword occasionally changing shape to a shield or a hatchet or a short spear, or vanishing entirely so he could use magic. Currently though, he was using his magic to empower his swords with the elements of fire and ice, seeking to take advantage of Mom¡¯s vulnerabilities to them that her affinities with earth and wood caused. Mom used a giant warhammer that crackled with lightning mana. The method was a bit different, as she merely infused elemental mana into her weapon to augment her attacks with its affects, while Papa literally created flames and a isolated of extreme cold around his blades using mana. The first would also boost the amount of kinetic energy in each attack,making them hit harder, while the second, while more energy efficient, would not. Papa moved around Mom like a dancer, his ethereal grace belying his large frame. The blades in his hands searched for a gap, while his quick feet kept him just slightly out of her reach. Mom was fast, but not quite as agile as he was, so she relied on a somewhat berserk offense and bursts of speed whenever he managed to get close enough to hit, and blocking him with her hammer when he tried to get in close. Sometimes he would gain the advantage, leaving a shallow cut on her torso or a leg or arm, but it wasn¡¯t enough to do more than tire her. Sometimes she would gain the advantage and unleash a strike that he would have to waste a significant amount of energy to block, dodge, or parry, and the energy surrounding his blades seemed to be running low. After a while, both parties seemed exhausted, and there was a gap in Mom¡¯s defense. Papa went all out (at least as far as you go in a spar) , aiming for her neck. He charged in, his blades blazing, and as his blades approached her neck, she moved, blocking his attacks with the head of her hammer, while the butt of it slammed into his stomach, knocking the air out of him, and knocking him off his feet long enough for her to kneel down on his chest, her hammer poised overhead as if to shatter his skull. ¡°I win.¡± She said, her cold , serious expression cracking into a smug smile. Papa grinned, then grimaced. ¡°Dear, can you get off my chest? You¡¯re crushing my ribs.¡± She rolled off his chest, and they both sprang to their feet. Looking around, they spotted us. Papa walked over and kissed Dad on the cheek, while Mom looked at the cocoon tucked under my arm. ¡°Heh, this is a nice surprise,even if you are a bit grimy. We¡¯ll have to go get you clean in a little while.¡± ¡°Hey, can I come along? I need a bath too, even if I can use mana to clean myself it¡¯s not quite the same.¡± Mom said, grinning at the two men who seemed, to my young self, to be about to do a LOT more kissing.Now, normally I adored the complicated relationship my parents had, but at the moment I was kinda annoyed that they were ignoring my problem to make romantic advances on each other.You might think I didn¡¯t understand what they meant, and they certainly seemed to think I didn¡¯t, but as a cultivator, especially one who was trying to walk the path of the Warmage, I had a pretty developed brain for my age, comparable to that of¡­.a thirteen year old kid who didn¡¯t cultivate? I figured if I didn¡¯t speak up, those three would vanish into the bathhouse for a long while, and I¡¯d be stuck waiting for them. ¡°Hey, there¡¯s kinda something important going on here, can you three flirt at each other later or something?¡± Mom took a look at it, using her Divine sense to examine it. ¡°A Crop Spirit, huh? And looking at the cocoon and the energy signature it¡¯s giving off, this one used to be a carrot, and you gave it life? That¡¯s pretty impressive, Alexander. Guess that¡¯s why Alim brought you over to us,huh?¡± She said excitedly, her voice raising as she spoke until the last few words were almost a yell. ¡°Yeah, Dad said something like that, and wanted me to show it off to you guys. Can you tell me when it¡¯s gonna come out of the cocoon?¡± ¡°I don¡¯t know, dear, but it should be within a year.¡± Mom explained. Dad whispered in Papa¡¯s ear, explaining the situation, and Papa let go of Dad, turned to me, picked me up for a hug, and said, voice full of warmth and a parent¡¯s pride, ¡®So not only is my little boy a tough kid for his age and quickly learning to be a decent person, he also did something that¡¯s that fuckin¡¯ cool? Alex, you¡¯re gonna be a star one day, just like our family name.¡± I blushed from the praise, trying to bury my head in Papa¡¯s shirt to avoid the embarrassment.¡± I s-sure hope so.¡± I stuttered, not knowing what else to say. In that moment, I decided I would become even more powerful, strong, and cool than my parents one day, so that they¡¯d always be as proud of me as they were now. They protected me, loved me, fed and clothed me, and I felt that I needed to be the best I could be, not just for myself, not just for them, but for everyone I cared about. Chapter 4:Birthday! Birthday! Dragon 15, year 8690 of the Grand Wulin Era,Alexander Grandstar It was a pretty average day for me, I¡¯d spent a little time reading books about alchemy and enchanting, which hurt my head a bit, but i¡¯d been told I needed to read them if I wanted to learn those things. I¡¯d helped heal some injured sect disciples who¡¯d gone out to gather food and herbs. I¡¯d watched Papa prepare food,I finished my daily chores and cultivation, including some basic exercise, and i¡¯d been so engrossed in everything that I¡¯d forgotten that it was the day I turned 9. When I was younger, and i¡¯d asked about when i¡¯d be allowed to train physical fighting techniques or train with a weapon, I was told i¡¯d have to wait till then to begin, and I¡¯d spent a lot of time waiting for the day. I wanted to be strong for a lot of reasons, especially for my family, but there was one reason that was above all others in my mind. It was my dream almost since birth to be both a powerful Warrior and a Mage,so when I remembered what day it was, I was pretty excited to finally be able to truly walk both paths as if they were one. I¡¯d done a lot of thinking over those years, reading myths, legends, and even true accounts of many of the great Warriors of history, watching members of our sect train and spar, seeing a few real fights, and I felt the qiang spear, with its long reach, double-edged blade that could slice and stab pretty decently, and flexible, yet firm shaft was the one that would suit a Warmage like I intended to be the most. Not only was it a deadly and versatile weapon in itself, I could use it to keep opponents at a distance while I casted my spells! This kind of spear came from the Azure Dragon Continent, far to the South,but it had spread over the whole planet due to the fact that it was the most versatile and reliable of spears and looked pretty awesome. I hoped to train in the spear, and maybe some other types of fighting, in case I was disarmed or otherwise had to fight in close quarters without a weapon. Maybe I should wear armor,too? Light or heavy, though? With the tough hides, feathers, fur and scales of beasts and with magical plants, cloth and leather armors could be actually worth wearing, but metallic armor, especially full plate, would always be superior in terms of defense, and shouldn¡¯t really restrict my movement once I got used to the weight. Well, that was what i¡¯d read anyways. I figured I should stick to training gear for now though, as making a full set of actual battle-ready armor for a kid would probably be pretty wasteful. I went to check the modest house in the center of sect headquarters that my parents lived in, and as I knocked on the door I heard whispering. I couldn¡¯t quite make out what was being said. I knocked again, and heard nothing. I shrugged,and opened the door.This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere. ¡°SURPRISE!¡± rang in my ears as several familiar faces sprung out from under the table, behind the cabinets, or in one case, in the pantry. In about a second, I recognized them all.All three of my parents, Mingzhou and Avarius, Mingzhou¡¯s father Hou Gaofei, and Avarius¡¯s parents Terraxia Goldscale and Theodore Goldscale. Uncle Gao was in his beast form, which looked like a standard Gorilla with a tail.He looked pretty uncomfortable in the robes he was wearing, which seemed to be trying pretty hard to restrain his muscles, and slowly losing. Aunt Terra and Uncle Theo were in their human forms. Theolooked relatively standard for humans of the Earth Dragon Continent, and Terra resembled those of the Azure Dragon Continent, but they were bothunusually tall and willowy from a child''s perspective, with some patches of brightly colored scales on their limbs and horns on their heads. I looked around at all the smiling faces (and Avarius¡¯s unfortunate attempt at smiling with a snout and face muscles not exactly made for smiling), and I felt pretty good. I saw good food on the table, a few presents wrapped in the corner, and a banner hung from the ceiling that said something about my birthday. ¡°Wow, how long did y¡¯all spend on this stuff? I¡¯m really touched that you guys did this for me, especially when I got so caught up in stuff that I almost forgot!¡± ¡°Eh, there was some planning involved, and it took some doing, but honestly, getting your presents was a bit easier than scheduling for us to all be here.¡± Uncle Gao said, grinning goofily. ¡°Oh, really? Well, I¡¯m glad you guys are here.¡± Everyone sat down at the table, and we had a good time eating. Uncle Gao ended up juggling some large berries with tough skins that looked like oversized grapes, and would occasionally toss one into his mouth( or at someone else¡¯s) without missing a beat. Avarius almost choked on one that nearly fell into his throat, and proceeded to use mana to levitate it and shoot it back at Uncle Gao, as if it¡¯d been shot from a slingshot. It splattered on his face, and he roared with laughter, as did the rest of the table except Uncle Theo, who made some weird noise and cupped his mouth with his hands, apparently trying very hard to not laugh. My presents turned out to be some guides on alchemy and enchanting from Ma, Dad, and Papa, some basic alchemy equipment and enchanting materials from Uncle Gao( and a cool looking cloak that was tough enough for weapons to have a hard time cutting through it), and from Aunt Terra and Uncle Theo, a magic artifact that I could use to enter what was essentially magic-aided virtual reality and do things like shop, or spar with people around my own strength, or plenty of other features. I was pretty happy with everything, especially since the gifts were catered towards my interests and pretty practical.Soon ,i¡¯d go to pick out a weapon, but I decided to enjoy this moment while I could. Chapter 5:A Spear, a Spear! Dragon 15, year 8690 of the Grand Wulin Era,Alexander Grandstar As the party ended, Papa and I headed for the Sect¡¯s armory. It was between the Enchanter¡¯s Pavilion and the Blacksmith¡¯s Forges, which I guess made a lot of sense. It was a no-nonsense generic square building about 3 stories tall that looked kinda like the warehouse we used for storage and to prepare the materials that would be sold in markets or to other Sects and clans. We entered and walked over to the clerk behind the reception desk. The Clerk was a chubby, friendly-looking guy who resembled a legendary Mage known as the Laughing Buddha , if the Laughing Buddha had short, spiky hair and liked to wear flower-print kimonos. ¡°What will it be today, Vice Sect Master? Is it official or personal business? I assume it involves Young Master Alexander?¡± ¡°Yeah,he¡¯s picking his first weapon. He¡¯s reached the peak of the Misty Sea Stage at at only 9, so I figure you understand what we¡¯d like to see?¡± The man fumbled around in the desk drawer for what looked like a fancy bookmark with a dragon and a phoenix on it. ¡°So, Senior, you¡¯d like to see the Spirit Weapons at the..Mortal Teir? This talisman should get you past the security formations.¡± He said, a bit shocked but trying to maintain his calm in front of Papa. Papa disliked overly obsequious people or people who would freak out just because of his position of authority, and this was pretty well known throughout the Myriad Existences Sect. Oh, about the teirs of weapons. As far as I knew, weapons were divided into Mortal,Soldier, Earth, Heaven, and Mythic teirs.Each tier was split into 4 grades:Low,Intermediate, High, and Peak. Their were probably teirs above those, but the Myriad Existences Sect wasn''t powerful enough to have any concrete knowledge of any weapons like that, let alone possess any. Spirit Weapons were different from regular weapons, but as far as I knew, they followed the same ranking system. ¡°Thanks¡­ I uh, forgot your name? It¡¯s been a while since I came to the Armory.¡± ¡°Zhang Lie, sir!¡± ¡°Well, Mr. Zhang, you¡¯ve been a great help to us. Keep up the hard work, you hear?¡± ¡°I¡¯ll do my best, Vice Sect Master.¡± Papa sighed as we walked towards the room the Spirit Weapons were kept in, and I waved to the clerk. He wasn¡¯t big on formalities or titles, they stressed him out. He was the kind of person who, upon becoming a god, would proclaim it was no big deal and that nobody should worship him unless they had a good reason to. ¡°Alex, you know what Spirit Weapons are, yeah?¡± He asked , making sure to walk slowly enough that my shorter legs could easily keep up. ¡°Uh.. sorta? I know they bond to a user and kinda grow in power alongside the user, but that¡¯s it.¡± I replied. ¡°That¡¯s the basics, but it¡¯s incomplete. Spirit Weapons are a kind of weapon , forged from whatever materials, that has given birth to a soul, and are thus able to cultivate. There are many ways this can happen, such as being made of incredibly mana rich materials, having Spirit Energy and mana infused into the weapon regularly, long use by powerful cultivators, a living soul choosing to take residence in a weapon, or a few other ways.The ones i¡¯m going to be showing you are spirit weapons that have never had owners, and as their souls were created deliberately during the process of forging, they¡¯re kind of like blank slates. When you pick one that suits you, everything about it, from weight to sharpness to the grip, will change to suit you. As you use it, it will become a more powerful weapon as you grow, and it will remain uniquely suited to you, though others may use it if you and the weapon themselves allow it.¡±The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings. He paused to take a breath, then continued.¡± You¡¯ll have to occasionally give it materials it needs to grow, but usually using it is the best method to ensure stable, beneficial growth. It¡¯s also possible to bond and use the Spirit Weapons whose owners have died, but that¡¯s more often done by people who are already far down their cultivation paths and either have no more room to grow, or sought out a spirit weapon specifically suited to them , but were too impatient to wait for it to grow. Also, you can¡¯t use a spirit weapon that¡¯s more than certain amount stronger than your own cultivation.¡± Father explained. ¡°What benefit would say, pre-made custom weapons of a given tier have over Spirit Weapons?¡± ¡°They can be used by anybody, and they¡¯re cheaper to make and improve, but when they¡¯re broken, they¡¯re broken, and it is very rare for a weapon to transform into a Spirit Weapon. Even if they do, it¡¯ll take a long time for one to become as intelligent or useful as a weapon that was forged as one. Also, a normal weapon, even one made by a grandmaster, won''t be as suitable for you as a Spirit Weapon that changes with your growth.¡± ¡°Oh, I see.Let¡¯s go pick one then.¡± I said. Papa, knowing what I liked, lead me over to the spears. There were large spears, short spears, thick and thin ones, lances, pikes, nagitana, yari, qiang, podao, glaives, halberds, assegai, and so on. Spears for throwing, spears that could thrust and hack, spears with flexible shafts, spears with firm ones, spears that were more a spearhead attached to another weapon than anything else! Damn, did one of our sect¡¯s blacksmiths like spears as much as me? I was drawn to a specific spear, though. It was a Qiang spear, rather short for the type of spear,about 6 feet instead of the usual 9 or longer, fitting well with my height of about 4 feet, with a spearhead that looked like ordinary steel and a shaft that looked like it was carved from ash wood. I was sure that the materials weren¡¯t exactly that normal, but wasn¡¯t sure why. The spear emitted a cold, piercing aura, as if it wanted to pierce every obstacle in its way. I felt no trace of any elemental mana, or really any mana at all from it, just the aura it gave off, and a suspicion that the spear felt...lonely? That was weird. Even if the spear had a soul, could a weapon that was essentially an infant feel lonely? Well, babies were pretty capable of feeling lonely, so even if its body was different , and its soul wasn''t exactly a person''s yet, it could probably feel lonely. That must be pretty bad, especially if it had no way to communicate with the other weapons or with the people who came in to clean or to pick weapons. As I was sympathizing with the spear, it flew off the rack, nicked my arm slightly with its point, absorbed a tiny bit of my blood into itself, and jumped into my hands. ¡°Alexander, the weapon chose you, so you need to circulate your mana and Spirit Energy through it to complete the bond. It¡¯s really important that you do that right away, or you might miss this chance.¡± Papa said, excitement creeping into his voice. I did so, reaching and feeling inside the spear with my energies, familiarizing myself with it.I saw it change, the shaft becoming slightly more flexible and the spearhead changing shape slightly to balance between piercing and cutting a bit better. The butt of the spear even seemed to use some of the metal elemental energy it absorbed to forma a metal cap over itself, to make using the butt of the spear in combat more viable and to balance the weight of the spear. I felt that the spear began to give off an aura similar to my own, a mixture of elements that at first seemed a bit chaotic but was actually fairly balanced and ordered, and I felt a tickling sensation in the corner of my mind that was a bundle of emotion and words-that-were-not words. Pretty quickly, I figured out that this was my spear, that the spear was both nervous and happy, and that the spear wanted..a name? ¡°Since you¡¯ve taken on my elemental affinities, and you seem like you really like to break through stuff, i¡¯ll call you Rainbow Breaker.What do you think?¡± The spear was very happy about that, giving off a a happy feeling in my head and a bright rainbow light that cycled through the color spectrum. I¡¯d used up most of my mana and spirit energy infusing it into the spear, so after we left the armory, I asked Papa to let me go back to my room and cultivate, and he promised to send Mom to help me pick the techniques i¡¯d use when I was done. I sat down in my room, slowly gathering energy to refine and recharge myself. Chapter 6:I鈥檓 Gonna Pick Techniques! Dragon 15, year 8690 of the Grand Wulin Era,Alexander Grandstar As I finished cultivating, I reached out to ring a small, green metal bell that sat next to my bed. A mile or so away, in my parents¡¯ courtyard, a similar bell was presumably ringing, alerting my parents. Within about ten seconds, I heard a loud thump outside my door, and then a comparatively quiet knock on my door. I assumed Mom had reached all the way to my courtyard in one jump, which wasn¡¯t unusual, as she liked to show off the immense physical power of a Warrior at her level of cultivation. I wasn¡¯t sure how high it was yet, my parents told me they¡¯d tell me their cultivations once I started going out to train and help people, but I knew it was at or above Shard Formation, which came after the Mana Sea stage. There were at least two realms of cultivation and an utterly immense power gap between me and my mother, which made even the gap between me and a normal kid of my age look barely different. It was as if a normal kid¡¯s strength was a single bucket of sand, mine was a well-packed sandcastle, and my mother¡¯s (and as far as I knew, the strength of both of my fathers) was a real castle, built with granite and mortared with concrete. I walked over to the door and opened it, greeted by the imposing figure of my mother. She could be called..Amazonian, I guess? She was taller even than my Papa, and her body reminded me of a tiger¡¯s, covered in lean muscle and appearing rather agile and flexible ,despite her broad shoulder and wide hips. Her face had a similar cat-like nature, refined and regal, sometimes seeming harsh, but carrying an undisguised playfulness and gentle joviality that made her come across as both a gentle,friendly type and a badass you did not want to be on the bad side of. Which, after a few too many idiot bandits had assumed that being gentle and friendly meant she was a pushover, had become common knowledge and earned her an unofficial title : Thorny Axe Queen. Of course, I hadn¡¯t seen any of this, and my mother had never been anything other than nice to me, if occasionally strict when I misbehaved, but I definitely believed it. I¡¯d seen her anger after my companions and I had roughed up that kid (who I¡¯d since apologized to and was trying to befriend). A redwood tree that had reached over 500 feet tall and with bark as hard as rock due to passive mana absorption had exploded from the sheer strength of her anger when she¡¯d dragged us home and dumped us in front of my Papa. Fortunately, nothing other than that tree had been harmed, and the wood had been put to good uses, but it was still pretty terrifying. ¡°C¡¯mon, Alex, let¡¯s go to the Library.¡± She said, grabbing me by my waist and placing me on her shoulders. ¡°Mom, this is embarrassing. I¡¯m 9, not 5.¡± I said, imagining the spectacle if we went to the library like that. Mingzhou would definitely laugh at me, and I was scared other disciples of the sect would make fun of me later for it. ¡°Look, Alexander, I know you feel like people will make fun of you, but a lot of kids your age wish their parents would do this with them ,or still play around with their parents pretty often, and the older kids did a lot of stuff like this when they were your age. Hell, when I was your age, your Uncle Gao carried me around on his back, and no one with a brain made fun of me for it. I understand all too well that kids can be cruel little jerks, but as long as you aren¡¯t hurting people, you don¡¯t really need to care what other people think.¡± She looked a little bit hurt at my words, but her general mood still seemed pretty good. ¡°Yeah, I guess I¡¯m not quite too big for this yet, huh? Can you put me down when we get to the Library though? I¡¯ve never met the Lorekeeper before, but I know she¡¯s in charge of all the technique manuals and other important books and I wanna make a good impression.¡± I asked, smiling. After all, even if I was gonna play with Mom, I needed to be serious and respectful when it came to the library, or at least that¡¯s what the librarians said after they chased out Mingzhou for carelessly getting the juice of some exotic berry on a signed copy of a powerful Warrior¡¯s memoir that had required several spells, an expert, and an irritable, multicolored weasel to restore it to its former state. Said weasel was actually one of the librarians, and it was her job to ensure that books didn¡¯t get damaged under her watch, which is already hard to do when you¡¯re just an oversized ferret. Mingzhou had eventually been allowed back in, but she¡¯d become unusually well-behaved in front of the librarians, and I figured it¡¯d be smart to do likewise. ¡°Yeah, sure. Let¡¯s ¡­.¡± Her knees bent, and I prepared for what I knew was coming. ¡°GOOOO!¡± She yelled, jumping into the air at high speed. Hurtling through the air at high speed, we flew over the sect in a blur. A blur that was screaming at a remarkably high pitch. It was fun and all, but going that fast, especially when I couldn¡¯t remember a time when Mom moved that fast while carrying me, was a bit... terrifying for my young self. Near the end of it, Mom carefully slowed down and landed, though there was still a pretty loud thump when we impacted. In about a minute, we¡¯d crossed the entire Sect compound that spanned several miles, and landed about 20 feet from the Sect Library¡¯s door. I¡¯d been here so many times, but today was going to be different, it was going to be special. I knew that in the future, I¡¯d probably go to that section of the Library a lot more, and it probably wouldn¡¯t seem as special and amazing as it did today. The place itself would stay special to me,as the Library as a whole was, but a first experience with anything would always influence the rest of your experiences with that thing, at least according to my (pathetically lacking) life experience at the time, so I wanted it to be really special. *** We walked in, and the Librarian at the front desk said ¡°Hello, Young Master Alexander, how are you doing today? I see you¡¯ve brought Head Elder Hilde with you today, I assume your business is important?¡±The author''s narrative has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon. I grimaced at the rat librarian. It wasn¡¯t that he was untrustworthy or skeevy or overly rattish in appearance, he was literally a human-sized (well, a bit shorter, he was only about 3 feet 8 inches) bipedal humanoid rat. ¡°Dmitri, I¡¯ve been telling you to call me Alex. I don¡¯t care if you¡¯re on duty, we¡¯re friends, and you didn¡¯t show up to my party because you were working on your day off, so you kinda owe me that, I think.¡± I paused, collecting my thoughts. ¡°But yeah, Mom and I are here to pick some combat techniques. Also, congrats on the body manipulation, I remember your back was a bit less straight and your hands were a lot more paw-y a few months ago.¡± ¡°Well, thank you, Alex, i¡¯ve been practicing. Pretty soon I¡¯ll be able to take on a fully human form and i¡¯ll look just like Da-I mean Master. Pretty good for somebody who started out as a glorified pet,eh? But yeah, business. Since the Head Elder of the Sect Guarding Corps is with you, just go up to the fifth floor and knock on the blue door with the Taiji symbol on it, alright?¡±He pointed towards the stairs. ¡°Yeah, see you in a bit, Dmitri!¡± I replied. As we walked up the stairs, I was thinking about Dmitri and his teacher/master/father. There were a lot of ways for Magical Beasts or for normal animals who had become Magical Beasts to cultivate, as many as there were for humans, but Dmitri sought a human form instead of his current, somewhat stronger beastman form or his original rat body, as he wanted to be the son his master, Andrew Summerwind had never had. There was also the fact that, at least for rat-type beasts and beastmen, it was easier to channel magic in a human form, and Dmitri walked the path of the Mage. Andrew had assured Dmitri that he considered him his son anyways, but Dmitri felt he wouldn¡¯t be worthy of taking the surname of the man who raised him and taught him about life and cultivation until he looked the part. The man who had helped him and guided him,raised him from a completely ordinary baby brown rat he found in an abandoned nest in the library, taught him to read and write and to cast magic,bandaged his wounds when those who were stronger than him bullied him for being a rat or for being weak or for not being a good enough shapeshifter to take human form. He¡¯d infused the naturally clever and capable Dmitri with a thirst for knowledge and the same gentle nature he had. In at least one instance, he¡¯d beaten the father of a bully who refused to stop the unwarranted hateful behavior of his bratty daughter, and even attacked Dmitri and Andrew himself, near to death. He had to be pulled off the man by at least three Warriors at the peak of Shard Formation, when he¡¯d barely reached the second layer of it.He was a kind, gentle Alchemist and Mage, who liked nothing more than making medicines and pills, various other alchemical products and experimenting with new ideas, but when he was angered, Andrew Summerwind was a force to be reckoned with. His gentle, easy-going demeanor would grow cold and icy, and he¡¯d start to unconsciously influence the elements, causing a wind to swirl around him and an aura of heat to surround him, as if he were about to become the center of a blazing wildfire. Andrew had become popular for his friendly attitude, his incredible medicinal skills, and the sheer terror he inspired in those who preyed on the weak or abused others. People called him the Stormbrewer, both for the magically powered storms that were likely to descend when he was angered and for the interesting methods he used to make medicine and pills, powders, and the like that would help in cultivation.He was one of my Dad¡¯s closest friends, and on pretty decent terms with pretty much every other adult I spent time around. At about that point in my thoughts, we arrived on the fifth floor, and I shook myself out of my thoughts and looked around. A tiled floor that had mosaics of various creatures and plants spread across it was under our feet, and scenes of humans, various kinds of beasts and beastfolk, and other races fighting, meditating, hunting, and doing all sorts of other interesting things were on the walls. Everything was in such stunning detail that it almost felt like I was looking at the scenes in person, and when I focused in on any given scene, it almost seemed to come alive. There was a short hall that split into 3 halls at an intersection, one going right, one forward, and one left. The left and right halls seemed to extend pretty far, and I really had no idea where they went, but the hall in front of us had the Taiji door at the end of it. The door was a deep cobalt blue, and appeared to be made of wood, though it was a bit hard to tell. The Taiji Symbol had been carved into it, and obviously had been painted, since it was a black and white ? on a blue door. People who didn¡¯t know the name but had heard of the concept it embodied would call it a yin-yang symbol. We approached the door, Mom flashed a badge with the Taiji on it, and it opened. A short, middle-aged looking woman with dark curly hair, brown eyes, and a skintone to match smiled at Mom as we walked in.From her appearance, I assumed at least a few of her ancestors had come from the Vermillion Bird Continent to the south. She gave off an aura of knowledge and power, something Mages of her caliber often did without realizing it. I had the feeling this woman who looked like someone¡¯s slightly stern aunt would be pretty scary in a fight, and my intuition usually isn¡¯t wrong. ¡°Hello, Head Elder, it¡¯s been a while! Looking to drop off some technique manuals you found when adventuring or to do some research on those herbs you asked me abou- Oh, I see, you brought this little one with you? Hmm¡­ let¡¯s see.. Elder Alim¡¯s skin tone, something like his face and build,Marcus¡¯s hair and eyes, those slightly pointy ears you have and that mouth that isn¡¯t thin or wide, but in between, like yours¡­ this is Alexander? I haven¡¯t seen you since you were a baby, young one. Probably something to do with me being so busy all the time, I¡¯ve been out of the sect so often to look for books and the rest of the time I¡¯m here.¡± The woman, who I was pretty sure by now was the Lorekeeper, seemed as if she might talk on forever,and I looked over at Mom a bit desperately. Mom understood my look, and said. ¡°Hey, Makena, why don¡¯t we catch up while Alex looks at techniques and picks a few he likes? You could have an assistant show him around or something.¡± ¡°I¡¯ll be fine, I know about the grades of techniques and stuff, and I¡¯ve done enough research that I have a pretty good idea what I can handle right now! I¡¯ll be back here in like, an hour.¡± I waved and walked into the rows of bookshelves, seeking techniques and maybe some new spells. Miss Makena and my mother watched me go, and as I began to browse I heard them start to chat about things. Didn¡¯t really catch what exactly, but I was too immersed in books to care at that moment. Chapter 7: So Many Techniques! Dragon 15, year 8690 of the Grand Wulin Era,Alexander Grandstar As I walked around the shelves, I noticed that the techniques were organized in a pretty meticulous way, such that a given shelf would gave very specific things on it. It was organized pretty meticulously first by the technique Tiers and grades: Mortal, Soldier, Earth, Heaven, and Mystic, Low, Intermediate, High, Peak, just like weapons, but higher tier techniques were much harder to find that higher tier weapons. They were also sorted by what type of technique they were . Body Refining, Mana Refining, Weapon Techniques(this included things like punching techniques and kicking techniques, as the body could be seen as the one weapon that you¡¯d always have, no matter what) Alchemical Formulas, Weapon Refining Techniques, Formation Diagrams, Enchantment guides, and all sorts of other weird stuff, like techniques on how to create mana projectiles and other manifestations, as well as Spell Formulas. They were also sorted by what, if any elemental affinity a technique had. I walked over to the shelves that held the Mana Cultivation techniques , and checked various books. Each technique manual had a formation in it that would check how compatible a cultivation technique was with you. Until now, I¡¯d just used the basic cultivation technique everyone in the sect that didn¡¯t have some sort of weird special constitution or illness used, and generally it worked well until you were about to break through to the Mana Sea stage.Doing a bit of checking, I found that while different cultivation techniques suited me to different degrees, my elemental affinity was extreme for almost every element, almost to the point of forming an Elemental Body. It was really weird for me to have this many affinities this high, but I assumed it had something to do with the way I was born, which i¡¯d been told wasn¡¯t the default way humans were born. Whether that meant I was a homunculus or something else, I planned to ask my parents later. These affinities meant that I¡¯d get the most benefit from multi-element techniques. The benefits there would be that I had more Mana available than others who used cultivation techniques of the same tier, all my individual element spells would be stronger, and that i¡¯d more easily be able to use spells or techniques that drew on more than one element. However, due to my several affinities, I¡¯d take more damage from most forms of elemental attack than someone who was exclusively attuned to one or two elements to a high degree, and my training speed, while still fast, would be slower than someone who had affinities similar to mine in only one or two elements. There were other benefits and negatives, but I didn¡¯t really have enough knowledge to understand those yet. I ended up choosing the highest tier technique that had all the affinities I possessed, the Existence Sutra. It was a Peak Earth-Grade technique that required high affinities in the Fire, Water, Earth, Metal, and Wood(both the nature-planty side and the wind-lightning side) elements, as well as the powers of Space, Time, Yin and Yang, Destruction,and Creation. Fortunately, my affinity for all these things was both high and perfectly equal, so I could cultivate it. It even had a Movement Technique built in, though the technique would be a bit hard to cultivate and wouldn¡¯t work very well with a different cultivation technique.I injected a little bit of my mana into the manual¡¯s formation, and it showed that I matched and even exceeded its requirements by glowing with a bright light that cycled through a bunch of colors before disappearing.Unauthorized duplication: this narrative has been taken without consent. Report sightings. I went to the shelves containing Body Refining methods. Body Refining methods are a weird combination of exercise technique, a way to nourish your body with mana and external materials, and cultivation, making your body tougher, stronger, more flexible,increasing your endurance, speed, mana storage and usage capacity of the body, the control you had over your body and similar stuff. Elemental body refinement techniques were either meant for people with low affinity, to increase theirs, or for people who¡¯d achieved an Elemental Body, to harness that power better. Seeing as neither of those problems affected me, I looked for a non-elemental Body Refining technique that would help me with the many factors I needed to improve in an equal and balanced way. I needed one that would optimize my body for the Path of the Warmage, so it had to be one with as few drawbacks and weaknesses as possible. I couldn¡¯t use say, a technique that would make my body incredibly strong, but would make me slow, or one that would give me a body well suited to a Warrior, but would make my spells weaker. I saw a few techniques that caught my eye, but they all either had fatal weaknesses, had requirements I either didnt fit or didn¡¯t want to fit, used resources that I couldn''t get, or would do weird stuff I didn¡¯t want to my body. I eventually settled on a Earth grade technique called Versatile Warmage Body that had all the requirements I wanted in terms of thing like flexibility, agility, endurance, strength, and so on. The only weakness was that it required one to learn both Enchanting and Alchemy, as it required you to be able to add enchantments to your body, as well as alter them,and alchemical medicines to help nourish the body and to prevent weird things that might happen when cultivating the technique. I figured that since I was learning both, this would be pretty perfect for me. I then decided I should get a Martial Art technique, one that has kicks, punches, and the like! I was looking for Martial Arts that were infused with both the elements I had affinity with and that contained concepts related to them, like sharpness for metal, vitality for wood, explosiveness for flame, and so on. After searching through numerous manuals, I found one. It was in several books,arranged across all the tiers from Human to Mythic! The Five Elements Martial Technique had been created by a terrifyingly powerful warmage who specialized in close combat, and contained fist, palm, and leg moves that suited what I need, and the first layer of the martial art was a peak Human tier martial art,suited for the peak of the Misty Sea realm and the early Mana Sea realm.Whenever I cultivated a layer to perfection, I could move on to the next, and each was most suited to a different realm of cultivation! Many of the techniques within listed ways they could be applied to weapons once I¡¯d learned to use them, so I figured this was what was most suited to me. As for a spear technique? I figured I should pick the easiest thing first, as I already at least knew a bit about normal, non-mana infused fistfighting, but had no real knowledge of spearmanship beyond books. I chose the most popular low-grade Human spear technique, the Military Spear Codex ,as it was the one that was supposedly the most easily learned, well balanced, and least flawed technique among the foundational spear techniques, and you could easily fuse insights about the elements and other things into it, as it wasn¡¯t very complicated. It was also pretty suited to the type of spear I used, as it contained some sweeping and slashing moves. Chapter 8: Study, Study, Study, Practice,Practice,Practice! Dragon 20, year 8690 of the Grand Wulin Era,Alexander Grandstar For the past few days, I¡¯d been practicing with the spear, going over all the basic moves and working on understanding the basic footwork it required. So far, I knew how to not stab myself with the pointy end, and how not to overextend myself and fall on my face, and that was good enough to start using a training spear to do some sparring, I thought. I was doing a bit better with the Martial Art, i¡¯d begun to grasp where and how these moves diverged from an ordinary kick or punch or palm move (and there were even...claw techniques, which I thought were weird then), and I was memorizing the methods that were used to infuse mana into the moves but i¡¯d need a lot more practice. The Body Tempering had been very painful, but now, my sheer physical strength and durability without using mana was at least equivalent to a 4th stageMistySea cultivator,(relying on pills from Uncle Andrew and some minor enchantments from Dad) which was at least twice the strength of a physically fit mortal adult in sheer terms of body alone, and significantly faster, more durable, and with greater reflexes. The gap would be even greater once I matured physically, and the reason i¡¯d had such speed so far was because my mana cultivation and my strength as a Warrior and a Mage was much greater than my body refinement cultivation. By the time my body went through adolescence, my Body Cultivation would have caught up, and it¡¯d be safe to break through to Mana Sea in both, so i¡¯d decided to spend most of my time for the next few years practicing my spear techniques, my Martial Art, the Spells I had(and new ones), sparring, having pseudo-life and death battles in the virtual world I could access through the Infinite Illusion Realm artifact i¡¯d received for my birthday, Alchemy, Enchanting, and more. After all, just restoring my energy after practicing would help me build up the power I needed to break through to Mana Sea.Soon, i¡¯d be able to leave the sect grounds a bit for training as well, and that sounded pretty fun to me. I had some worries, though. A lot of the techniques in the book made references to something called Dao, which was a word from the Azure Dragon continent that translated literally, meant way or path, but more often was the ¡°laws of the world¡± or ¡°the essence of things¡±. It was, like Mana, a part of everything, and shaped everything. Dao in regards to weapons is about technique and understanding your weapon, as far as I knew, but according to the books, by studying the many Dao in the world (elements, weapons, the secrets relating to how things like bodies and souls worked, the various creative arts,practical arts like Alchemy or Enchanting or Strategy ,or various conceptual powers, and many other things), one could infuse appropriate Dao into techniques, making them more powerful and one who was learning the technique would have an easier time gaining insight into a Dao. At the same time, though, the technique would become weaker in the hands of those whose comprehension of the Daos involved was lacking compared to the creator. Dao Insight could come through practice, witnessing a technique or natural occurrence that was heavily related to a given Dao or multiple Dao, through research, through meditation, and many other ways, It was said that there were even more ways to gain insight into Dao than there were Dao to gain insight into! This was hard to test, though, because Dao that hadn¡¯t been seen before and new methods to observe them would occasionally emerge, or the methods to comprehend certain obscure Dao would be lost. I¡¯d learned some of these things by double checking with my parents on what the technique manuals said, as I didn¡¯t wanna misunderstand them and harm myself while practicing. After all, some of the books i¡¯d read in the library had stories of people exploding from absorbing too much energy at once, or severely mentally traumatizing themselves practicing mind-related techniques, or their bodies turning to stone or becoming crippled from cultivating a Body Refining technique that was so unsuited to them their body rejected it. The story has been illicitly taken; should you find it on Amazon, report the infringement. Also, it turned out that spells were one of the most direct applications of the Dao, and the patterns you made when casting meant you could kind of tap into aspects of Dao without actually understanding them. This meant that the higher your insight into relevant Dao, the less costly, more effective, and quicker your spells would be to cast, and it¡¯d be possible to create new spells when you had insights into Dao that worked well together.I was particularly excited to find out that Alchemy and Enchanting could be combined with spells and other things in a lot of ways, due to their strong connection to most other Dao. It was going to be extremely difficult to become an expert at all the things I wanted to learn, but I felt that only the path I had chosen would lead me to fulfill my dreams. Soon, i¡¯d start studying Alchemy under Andrew Summerwind, who told me to call him Uncle Andrew normally, but to call him Master (in the sense that he was passing down to me his understanding of the Dao of Alchemy, not that he owned me or that I worked for him) in public. I¡¯d also be studying enchanting under my Dad. As it turned out, Alim Grandstar was the best enchanter in the entire Myriad Existences Sect, which made since, given that my Papa, Mingzhou¡¯s deceased mother Hou Zhouxin, and Uncle Theo had been the main founders of the Sect 30 years ago, and while Uncle Theo was the most powerful of the three and the official Sect Head, they¡¯d shared equal authority, their own spouses and friends gaining important positions not through nepotism, but because they were actually qualified. I¡¯d heard they all had impressive backgrounds, and that our Sect was actually a semi-independent branch sect of one of the great super-sects of the Earth Dragon Continent we lived on, but I was too young and weak to be told any more than that. Regardless, their backgrounds kept powerful Sects and Clans that would otherwise try to plunder our knowledge, resources and techniques that were a bit out of the league of what a Sect without said background would be allowed to possess away. Instead, they had to play fair and trade or buy things they wanted, so our sect had grown rapidly, even in the 9 years since my birth. That protection hadn¡¯t helped Mingzhou¡¯s mother when she fell prey to an incredibly powerful clan of bandits while out adventuring, whose strength had rivaled our Sect¡¯s at the time, but the great power who supported us had made a move, and that clan of bandits disappeared within two days of her death. As I thought about that tragedy that I was too young to remember, I began to practice again, this time with the Martial Art. My fists swept through the air as I practiced the simple movements, adjustingg how fast or how hard I was punching as I went. I did the same with the kicks, practicing the form and making adjustments over hundreds of repetitions. I figured within a few days I''d be ready to train on one of those unmoving dummies that basically exist so that you can feel what it actually feels like to hit something with whatever move you''re trying out. Later, i¡¯d read some more, cultivate, practice spells and more, with breaks in between to relax, eat, and just do fun stuff. The loop of my training would be pretty much self-sustaining as each thing I trained would help me progress the other things.It was fun and intense, and it would make me stronger, and at that time, that was what I cared about most. Chapter 9: My Alchemical Exploits( and some explosions) Horse 12, year 8690 of the Grand Wulin Era,Alexander Grandstar I had finally finished reading over and memorizing the Alchemy primers and basic theory manuals I had, both the ones I¡¯d already had or rented from the library, and the ones Uncle Andrew told me to study. I knew a lot about the basics of how alchemy worked, and even some basic chemistry, which would be enough for me to learn to concoct basic pills and powders, though higher tier Alchemy like transmutation or complex chemistry like producing bombs or doing things like isolating chemical elements was beyond my reach without years of experience and plenty of experimentation. I¡¯d learned a lot though, it turned out that mana was tied to all other energies because it was both a form of energy, like light, and an elementary particle, like a quark or lepton The elemental energy or elemental affinities that mana in the form of energy or in other forms had also had turned out to be types of elementary particles, meaning that mana and elemental energy are some of the fundamental building blocks of everything, even influencing these other building blocks. In a sense, mana and element were also fundamental forces, alongside such things as the weak-strong forces, electromagnetism and gravity. Every atom in existence, every proton, electron and neutron, every molecule, every cell, anything alive or dead, all the way up to the entire Myriad Heavens Cosmos with its infinite planes, had mana and elemental affinities. This meant that every action , every chemical reaction, every energy expenditure, had the involvement of mana and element. It wasn¡¯t entirely necessary for me to know this yet, but Uncle Andrew said a solid theoretical foundation would help my comprehension of Dao in general, help my cultivation, and help me to understand things that could otherwise waste my time or lead me down incorrect paths, as well as to understand why my experiments would go the way they would. Besides, I¡¯d have learned the knowledge for the sake of learning it eventually anyways, so it was good to learn it now. Today was special to me, Uncle Andrew was going to first demonstrate the processes of making some a basic medicine, while doing so slowly so I could see and understand it, then give me the recipe and a few sets of ingredients to practice with. This would be my first true foray into alchemy, and I really hoped nothing would explode in my face.In hindsight, that hope was practically inviting something to do so. I entered Uncle Andrew¡¯s shop and went to the Alchemy lab in the back, where he was waiting for me, playing with a very small alchemical bomb as if it were a coin. When I approached, he flicked his wrist, and the bomb vanished. Spatial storage , or something else, I wasn¡¯t sure, but that trick did look pretty cool. He flicked his wrist again, and a small pile of various plants and a few weird things like snake gallbladders appeared on the table in front of him. ¡°Watch closely, Alex, i¡¯m only going to show you this once, while I walk you through how to do it. This is a basic medicinal solution that disinfects wounds,dulls pain, promotes healing, and,helps regenerate lost blood, and aids in sealing up wounds. I call it Wound Patching Potion, but the official name is Lacusvulnere, which means pretty much the same damn thing in a language that hasn¡¯t been commonly spoken outside the Sol Magna Empire for 5000 years.¡± He flicked his wrist again and a mortar and pestle flew out,as well as a small glass vial full of water. He grabbed five nearly identical looking plants from the table in front of him.The major difference was the color. One had a purely green stems and a green flower, another was tinted blue-green and had a blue flower, the next was still green stimmed but its flower was bright red, one had a brownish-gray flower, and the last was golden-stemmed and had a metallic flower. ¡°These are the 5 Elements Poppies, and they are the main ingredients of the Potion, and everything else in it is there to either increase its effect or minimize unwanted side effects.¡± He explained. ¡°Wow, and normal poppy is just a painkiller!¡± I said ¡°Well, mana effects different things differently,and even a regular poppy that becomes a Magic Plant can gain interesting magical and medicinal properties, let alone poppies like this that were hybridized with other Magic Plants to give them more useful properties.As the seed capsules on these have already opened into flowers, they have less pain killing properties and are less likely to cause addiction, but the other properties are stronger.¡± He put the flowers in his mortar and pestle and mashed them until they became a multicolored paste, upon which he tossed in part of the snake gallbladder a white mushroom that radiated heat and a small amount of light, called a Yang Mushroom, a blackish-green grass with a black flower,that gave off a cold aura, called Yin Flower Grass, and a magical variant of a rather ordinary looking herb called Oregano. I knew that one even better than I knew most magic plants, Papa used it as a seasoning pretty often, he would make interesting seasonings with magic herbs sometimes.Andrrw then pulled out a very small cauldron, poured the water in the vial into it, and scraped the paste into it with what looked like a flattened spoon. He used a small spell to hover the cauldron in the air, then created a flame with mana and held it under the cauldron until the paste dried into bright purple powder. He then poured the powder into the vial, used mana to condense water to fill it, and shook the vial until the powder had fully blended into the water. I¡¯d say there were about¡­.3 ounces of the translucent purple potion? I had taken careful note of the exact proportions of ingredients used, and used my fire affinity to keep an eye on the flame¡¯s temperature. Those would be in the recipe anyways, but I figured I should take notes anyways, to see how different Uncle Andrew¡¯s preparation was from the recipe¡¯s.Unauthorized reproduction: this story has been taken without approval. Report sightings. ¡°Did you catch everything,Alexander?Enough for 10 doses for a Mist Sea cultivator, one dose for a Mana Sea, and 50 doses for a mortal. It should greatly aid the healing of most cuts and bruises, even deep ones, but damage like broken bones or severed parts are beyonds its ability to repair. He moved aside to let me make an attempt, and let me read the medicine¡¯s recipe. I made an attempt to copy the process he had used myself. Everything was going fine,until , when I was mashing everything into paste, the mixture spontaneously caught on fire. I yelled and poured water on the fire, putting it out. Uncle Andrew wordlessly got more ingredients, cleaning out the cauldron with a wisp of mana. ¡°What did I do wrong?¡± ¡°Too much Fire Poppy, too little Water Poppy, a bit too much Yang Mushroom. The five elements and the yin-yang ingredients have to be balanced,or else even weirder stuff could happen.¡± He showed me the process again, showing me where i¡¯d gone wrong. It looked like, even if I was supposed to be talented, there was a long road ahead. The next attempt was also a failure, I used too much heat when drying the paste and ended up with a bunch of purpleish ashes. I was pretty sure those would make good fertilizer, they were chock full of mana. *** About 2 weeks, 200 tries, 20 spontaneous combustions, 8 explosions,2 very angry nests of sparrows, and 1 accidental neurotoxin later, I¡¯d learned to consistently refine the Wound Patching Potion in powder form and potion form. After the first successful refinement, I had immediately taken it to Uncle Andrew, more than a little exhausted. He scanned it with his Divine Sense, which was the most efficient way to determine the quality of the potion. ¡°Good Job, Alex, this meets the standards of low quality Wound Patching Potion! I¡¯ve seen your work, and I¡¯ll supervise your next few refinings to help you can improve. Once you can refine intermediate quality Wound Patching potion and powder, i¡¯ll let you move on to the other forms it¡¯s available in, like ointment and poultice.¡±He explained, seeming excited by my progress. ¡°Can I start to work on making other medicines too?¡± I asked. I felt learning how to make other medicines would make it easier to make high quality Wound Patching Potion. ¡°Sure, but only one other type until your refinement of Wound Patching Potion reaches the intermediate level.¡± With that settled, I went to go take a nap. Cultivation can restore energy and drain away fatigue, but especially when mental exhaustion builds up enough, you have to sleep sometimes. I had a lot of self-assigned work ahead of me,after all, so I¡¯d need a lot of rest, especially with being a kid and still having a lot of growing to do. I needed to work hard to improve the quality,as mine had around a quarter of the effectiveness of his, but that would come with time and experimentation He¡¯d helped me a lot by walking me over the medicinal formula and why it was the way it was during my mana attempts, as well as answering my many questions as to why my medicine refinement had gone wrong. I was told that I had to learn every basic medicine to at least my current mastery of the Wound Patching Powder, if not better, before I was allowed to work on cultivation medicines or anything else alchemical. It¡¯d been tough to learn, but once I got it down, it wasn¡¯t really too difficult outside of the focus and energy expenditure required. I knew it was the absolute easiest medicine to produce, as well as among the least expensive, but I was sure that with this basis, I should be able to grasp decent Alchemy skills at a pretty good pace. Soon, i¡¯d be allowed to learn Enchanting as well, and I was excited by the possibilities there too. I wonder if it¡¯s possible to enchant alchemical pills, medicines, and such to make them stronger or last longer or whatever? I knew Alchemists, Enchanters, and Blacksmiths all got along well, but I wasn¡¯t sure why. I decided to leave that for later and fully immerse myself in Alchemy for now. Chapter 10: Learning To Enchant Dog 22, Year 8690 Of the Grand Wulin Era, Alexander Grandstar I¡¯d learned about 10 of the 22 basic medicines in about 3 months, so I figured it was time for a brief break from Alchemy while I focused on enchanting. I¡¯d kept up with my other training, of course, making decent progress there: I¡¯d grasped the basics of each of the Elemental Punches and Kicks in the Five Element Martial Arts, for example, but needed to work on the palm attacks and other moves, my Versatile Warmage Body had only reached the peak of Misty Sea¡¯s 4th stage due to needing enchanting knowledge to go any farther, I¡¯d become proficient enough to actually fight with the Military Spear Technique, I¡¯d even grasped the basics of the movement technique in the Existence Sutra, the Vanishing Step, which would eventually allow instantaneous movement within a certain radius. At the moment, it just made it way easier to dodge things by hiding in the gaps between molecules for a split second, which would consume a lot of energy if it wasn¡¯t used sparingly.Good in combat, not so great for moving long distances. I would pick up a Movement Technique that was suitable for that later, but now, it was time to learn Enchanting from Dad, then once I¡¯d gained some proficiency in it juggle it and Alchemy as I progressed in my cultivation. Through my research, I¡¯d learned that Enchanting relied on Primordial Runes, which depending on their purpose and what they were going on, were either directly carved into the object, stitched in, or inked in, or applied using an enchantment scroll. In the case that they were applied to bodies, they were either tattooed on or raw mana was used to create the rune pattern without damaging the flesh. Primordial Runes could be considered physical manifestation of Dao, and also pretty similar to written versions of spells, and would similarly be strengthened by higher mana input , relevant dao insights of the enchanter, and relevant Dao Insights of the user. Dad had told me that , before I¡¯d be allowed to learn Enchanting properly, I¡¯d practice single runes on paper with normal ink until I could make them up to a certain standard, upon which i¡¯d be allowed to use special, prepared scrolls and magic ink to start making enchantment scrolls. I¡¯d practiced drawing the runes in my spare time until they were as perfect as I could currently achieve, and today would be my first attempt at making an actual enchantment scroll. All enchantments were made up of one or more runes, linked together to create specific effects. Today, i¡¯d be creating a Perpetual Sharpness enchantment, specifically one intended for a sword. It was made from a Sword Rune, to represent the weapon, 2 Sharpness Runes to make it sharper , and a Samsara Rune that, representing the cycle life and death,creation and destruction, would allow the sword to condense energy into matter to repair its edge. Higher grade Perpetual Sharpness runes would be made of more runes and have more features, such as being customized to synergize better with a particular Dao beyond basic weapon Dao, or repairing more of the sword or make it sharper than the rune could currently achieve, but I wasn¡¯t ready to make those yet. I left my courtyard and walked to the Enchanter¡¯s Pavillion. Dad was waiting for me at the entrance, and led me past the shopfront to a back room. I entered the backroom, and saw the prepared scrolls and ink. Dad demonstrated the Perpetual Sharpness rune. He infused mana into the ink as he drew the runes, and when he was done, there was a bright flash of light that quickly disappeared, turning the scroll into a completed enchantment scroll.The runes continued to glow with a soft white light, much less intense than the initial flash. Enchantment scrolls had the advantage of being cheap and easy to mass produce, and being usable by those who didn¡¯t know enchanting (And one could even inscribe a spell pattern on them to create a one or multi-use spell scroll), but the enchantment, once applied, would eventually fade, whereas Enchantments enchanted into an item or person in other ways would last until the rune was destroyed. I began my first attempt. I took two small rocks from my pocket and used them to hold down the ends of the scroll. I then opened the bottle of ink, grabbed a quill pen, and began to scrawl the first sword rune while carefully infusing small amounts of mana into the ink.I carefully monitored the rune that was beginning to form with Divine Sense. I¡¯d drawn the rune perfectly, but right as I made the last stroke the rune exploded with, for some reason, the sound a sword makes when cutting air. There was a small hole in the scroll where I¡¯d been drawing the rune, and a scroll with a ruined rune would reject anything else being drawn on it. I¡¯d read before that it took as many resources, if not more, to train a competent enchanter than it did an Alchemist, and I was beginning to understand why. If, even with the sheer amount of resources I had, as well control over energy,dexterity, and sharp senses I developed due to cultivation, I failed despite so much preparation, it must be even harder for most people. If you discover this tale on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the violation. ¡°Alex, you infused too much mana infused on that last stroke.¡±Dad said, his tone stern and teacher-like. ¡°Thanks, Dad, will do. Sorry about wasting materials.¡± Dad shrugged, and I was pretty sure that meant he¡¯d expected this. Yeesh, without the support I currently have, it¡¯d be ten to a hundred times harder to learn one of the two occupations I was learning, much less both! Man, I made thousands of attempts when learning to make those medicines in the different ways, and I had many more ahead of me if I wanted to learn the rest, of just the basic medicines, let alone making them in pill form or making more complex medicines. I really hoped Enchanting would be a little easier, I hated to waste resources other people could be using.I made a mental note to try to do something about that later, when I had more skill and influence myself. After all, if I have things easy, I should try to make them easier for others, right? With that in mind, I figured I should start attempt two, so I did. I finished the first sword rune fine this time, and even got halfway through the sharpness rune, carefully controlling my mana output, when I felt the connection between myself and the rune break. Damn, what was it this time? Too much mana? Had I gotten distracted? Drawn a line in the rune wrong? ¡°Too little mana in that stroke, Alex.Nice improvement though, I think you might be able to make a working one within a few days. Took me a few attempts to get that first rune right,and I had a much better teacher than I am.¡± ¡°Really? Thanks, Dad. Attempt three, I guess.¡± This time, I almost finished the first sharpness rune. I¡¯d screwed up the shape of a line, I could see that myself without needing Dad¡¯s help. Ugh. Attempt 4, I guess. I didn¡¯t know it at the time, but failed runes drain about 10 times the energy of successful ones due to the backlash of the connection being cut involuntarily, and cause much more mental stress, so I was tiring pretty quickly. I could feel that my mana was down by about 40 percent, though, and my brain felt a bit scattered and foggy.I sat down to cultivate, intending to solve both of those problems, as well as think about what I¡¯d done wrong, and how to improve. *** About a week, 50 attempts, a patient Father-Teacher, and one extremely frustrated fledgling Enchanter later, I produced my first Perpetual Sharpness enchantment scroll. As the bright light flashed and then settled into a gentle glow, I was ecstatic. I ran to show Dad, who tested it on a spare sword he had laying around. The scroll collapsed into dust, and the rune appeared on the sword. The sword seemed sharper, and when he casually swung it, it sliced through a 3-inch thick wooden board with him using about the same strength an average mortal would for an all-out strike. I had suceeded,and suceeded pretty well! My next goal was well, to do it better and do it consistently. In another week, and about 100 more attempts, I had a 50% success rate. Within a month, and about 500 total attempts, I would achieve a 95% success rate. I figured I shouldn¡¯t get an overinflated ego over it, though, it was a really basic enchantment, and if I couldn¡¯t accomplish at least this much with my talent, the resources at my disposal, and the amount of effort I put in, I should probably give up.Dad told me I was allowed to sell the successful scrolls, but that, until I started to buy materials myself or purchase them from the sect with contribution points, I¡¯d have to give 70% of the earned money to the Sect.I could also earn contribution points by donating finished product to the sect. By the way, I had a similar deal with the products of my Alchemy. I figured this was pretty fair, since I didn¡¯t work for a living and the sect was supplying me with materials. Dad also said I had to get 10 basic enchantments to the standard I had for the Perpetual Sharpness enchantment before I¡¯d be allowed to practice on equipment, much less myself, so I had a lot of work ahead of me.It was exciting!I¡¯d decided to work on the basic Elemental Infusion enchantments next, then ones that would allow someone to manipulate the weight of their weapon.After that, probably some defense based stuff, then enchantments designed to be used on the body. I would have to learn a lot of basic runes for these, but it¡¯d be worth it. Plus, I had heard Mingzhou was working on weapons to get to a level where they¡¯d be worth engraving enchantments on, so I was looking forward to working with her. Neither of us were quite sure what Avarius was up to, but we both suspected it was something interesting. Chapter 11: We Kick Ass And Take Names Snake 10, Year 8693 of The Grand Wulin Era, Hou Mingzhou Mingzhou here, I¡¯m not much for this kinda thing but Alex said we ¡±Should leave a record of the truth of how we got to where we are now.¡±, and since he¡¯s been doing most of the work so far I thought I¡¯d take over for a while. I¡¯ll bug that brainy lizard to take over later, and i¡¯ll probably talk about stuff like blacksmithing or the first time that pretty-boy Alex and I made a Mortal Tier weapon together later, but right now I wanna tell whoever will see this about the first time we went on a training trip together. It was when we felt like we were adventurers, able to live like we wanted with no concerns other than keeping the people we cared about safe and sticking to our own morals. It was a good time for us, before we felt like we had to carry huge responsibilities on shoulders that were totally not ready to do that. But yeah, anyways, first adventure. All three of us had reached the peak of Mist Sea in both Mana and Body Refinement. I didn''t know pure Mages could do body refinement, but it turned out they could, it just wouldn''t be ones suited for physical fighting, just stuff that made them hard to kill. Boring, right? Apparently, I had pretty strong affinities to fire and metal, to the point i had a dual element body that the old coot in charge of the Sect''s Blacksmiths called the "Heavenly Royal Artisan Body" or something. I just called it the "Smith''s Body" because I hated stupid flowery names that meant nothing. I wasn''t very talented in the other elements, though I had enough affinity to smith metals and stuff that were elementally aligned with them, so about average I guess?I kicked ass with pretty much every weapon I could get my hands on, but my favorite was a quarterstaff. I could also kick ass using my body as a weapon, but that didn''t have the nice meaty thwack of staff on unfortunate idiot standing in my way that I liked. Alex had gotten pretty good at what he did, and he had some pretty sick spear arts that he would combine with his spells and his martial arts to the point where even though I was equally good with the staff as he was with the spear and much physically stronger, he could generally fight me to a standstill. My favorite was a technique that surrounded his spear in a mini tornado and used the wind from the tornado-let to spin the spearhead like a drill. He hadn''t used it at full force during sparring, but I was sure that when he did, it would be so cool that i''d have to lay off calling him a nerd for at least a week. That scale-headed nerd Avarius wasn''t that great in a physical fight, though he didn''t have to be. He relied on spells, the fact that dragons are damn tough, and some other stuff he wasn''t willing to use outside of real combat.Dragons were often born with innate Omni-Element bodies, ,which meant they were, despite their incredible physical defenses, usually pretty squishy when it came to elemental attacks, and would focus on that when it came to defense. The dude had like, a different shield spell for every freaking element. I thought that was a bit weird, but apparently the Gods who created this place were really big fans of dragons. I didn''t blame them though, dragons were pretty awesome, even if that doofy scale-head Avarius didn''t really live up to the image I had of dragons. We''d accepted a special mission from the sect. A group of lame-ass bandits called the the Black Iron Gang had taken over a town on the fringes of the sect''s territory, and their leader was at the peak of Mist Sea. His top officers were similarly strong, and the only reason the group had been able to get a foothold in the first place was that the Mana Sea Warrior that''d been stationed there had died of old age recently.This was bad for the people living there, and was obviously provoking the Myriad Existences Sect, but these bandits didn''t seem like a big enough threat to send out really experienced cultivators,so they sent us, well-trained kids who needed to gain some experience. We were to head to the town, arrest or wipe out the bandits, and return to the sect. When we were done, the sect would station another warrior at the Mana Sea there. What? Why would a bunch of 12 year olds be sent to take out bandits, without older, tougher bodyguards? Well,we were tough, and there were bodyguards tailing us, they''d just not help us unless it looked like we were gonna be crippled or die or something. I figured they''d sent some of our older friends in the Sect who''d reached Mana Sea or something like that, so I felt pretty safe. It''d take about a week for us to reach the village, as the dragon flies.(Hey, scale-head, if you see this, thanks for letting us ride you on that trip, it woulda taken like a month on foot.) About the second day,we got attacked by Demonic Beasts. If you''re reading this, I''m sure you probably know this, but Demonic Beasts are a subtype of Magic Beasts. Their bodies and pure strength are stronger than normal Magic Beasts, but they are unable to reach sapience and are even worse off than normal animals, who have a chance to gain a high degree of sapience through cultivation and become Magic Beasts. Species who are born as Magic Beasts are born sapient and have to learn stuff the way human babies do,though we''re usually tougher. It''s commonly believed that humans are a type of Magic Beast whose evolution made their bodies and instincts weaker in exchange for their sheer variability in terms of stuff like appearance, talent, and so on, as well as forcing them to be creative, variable, and ingenuitive to not get absolutely annihilated by other species. Demonic Beasts were a weird case, both envied and pitied, as they were very strong, but would never be seen as equals by sapient beings. Some of them even got domesticated to be like, mounts or food or whatever.Since Demonic Beasts diverged from normal beasts and Magic Beasts, there were often Magic Beasts who were incredibly similar, but not quite the same, as a given type of Demonic Beast, and there would usuallly be some awkwardness if these two types met. There were about 5 Demonic Beasts surrounding our campsite. It was a pack of Iron Claw Wolves, named for well, the fact that their claws were tough and sharp, and contained a certain amount of metallic iron that had somehow become part of the structure of the claw. I''d forged with them before, they were pretty good for carving things like knives or spearheads. The leader gave off the aura of peak 9th layer Mist Sea, while the other four were all about the middle of the seventh layer. This... was going to be a slaughter. Sorry, doggies, Mama''s gonna kick your ass. I shook Alex awake. Love this story? Find the genuine version on the author''s preferred platform and support their work!"Hey, dork, get up, there''s Demonic Beasts here." I yelled, not really feeling patient at the moment "Just five more minutes, I stayed up late making pills. Wait, you said Demonic Beasts? I''ll go after the leader, you wake Avarius!"II nodded, and he seemed assured.The pretty boy rubbed the sleep from his eyes, flooding mana into his anklets, bracelets, and necklace, which quickly expanded into a full suit of plate armor.It was a bit of a shame to cover that pretty face of his,but it was so cool to watch the armor expand, despite the fact we made the damn things together. He grabbed his spear from next to his bedroll and rushed out of the tent, ready to kick wolf ass. I wanted to get to the fight quickly, so I stood in front of Avarius'' house-sized dragon tent and yelled. "Hey, silver-face, we got freakin'' demonic wolves out here!" There was a loud sound of screeching metal, and then Avarius ran out of the tent so fast it seemed like he teleported. This was a silver-scaled dragon about twice the size of a full grown horse, and a bit longer than two horses, and if I didn''t know him, i''d be pretty intimidated. This was still an immature dragon, meaning that he''d probably be fuckin huge like Uncle Theo and Aunt Terra were in their true forms eventually. There was a flash of light,that seemed to collapse in on itself, and when it faded, there was a dragon-type beastman about my own age, who despite having scales and a goddamn snout, seemed to have aprettier face than my own. I liked how pretty Alex was, but the dragon being a damned pretty boywas almost insulting to my pride, for some reason. Well, beauty is in the eye of the beholder and all, and I didn''t usually care about that kind of thing, but Avarius seemed to have a talent for annoying me. I turned and rushed at the wolves, going for the one that looked the strongest after their leader. Alex was currently fighting the leader, making small stab wounds all over its front legs and head. He''d avoided serious injury so far by using that weird teleporting Movement Technique of his to dodge at crucial moments, though he''d taken some grazing bites on his arms.As I engaged my opponent, I heard Avarius run over. The ground under one of the wolves rippled, and a ball of rock hit in the stomach, knocking it over. I stared at my opponent. It stared at me. I raised my staff. It snarled, looking at me with the eyes of a hungry predator. I raised my eyebrows and charged, swinging my staff at its waist, which I was pretty sure was one of a wolf''s weak points. The wolf stepped back, my blow glancing off its shoulder instead. I heard a thwack, but the wolf was still standing. It seemed mad. It lunged for my throat,snarling like the angry dog it was. "Not today, puppy." I said, swinging my staff again, smacking it in the neck with all my strength (and a bit of fire mana, hehe.) I heard a loud crunch and it lay still. I probably broke its neck. I turned to see that Avarius had the wolf he''d hit in the stomah with a rock trapped in what looked like a bramble bush, if a bramble bush had foot-long dagger like thorns and branches as thick as my leg.It was constricting the wolf, piercing it with the thorns. I could see deep, bloody gashes in its fur, and the wolf yelped in pain, long and loud. I saw Alex, getting annoyed at the alpha, surround his spear in a little tornado. The spearhead began to spin so fast it blurred, and his target, seeing the danger, tried to lunge at him. His spear stabbed its open mouth, drilling into its skull and breaking out on through the back of its head . The wolf, in its death throes, forced itself up the spear and left deep gashes on his chest. He grimaced in pain, and I felt a red mist cover my vision.I was pissed, and I would kill every last one of these stupid, rabid dogs that hurt my friends. I don''t rememeber what happened next, but when I came to, I was lying on a bedroll in Alex''s tent,covered in blood, injuries, and wolf guts, my head hurt,and I could see through the flap that the 5 wolves were in various states of dismemberment. One had its snout crushed so hard it destroyed its skull, one had its front legs torn off and shoved down its throat, the one Alex killed had been left alone, my first kill was a bloody pile of fur, bones and meat, intestines burst and leaking everywhere, and Avarius''es wolf had died when I had apparently broken off a thorn and driven it into its heart.The first thing I noticed was that my whole body hurt. Through the pain I noticed Alex was cleaning the blood and guts off and tending to my wounds with a paste version of that purple potion he always carried. He bandaged the wounds afterword. With the number or wounds and the way he wrapped them, I probably looked like a mummy! Hehe, monkey mummy. I''mvery funny. Don''t look at me like that, I canfeel you judging me as I transcribe this. "You should be fit to fight in two days,and you can take the bandages off tommorow. If you weren''t as resilient as you are, you could have died of blood loss or all those freaking wounds if I hadn''t done this quickly. What were you thinking, risking your life like that? Ugh, it''s a good thing I practiced basic medical skills when I learned my Alchemy. Today, you rest on dragonback and eat lots of stew to help you get back all that blood.Doctor''s orders." He said, his brow furrowed with worry and the look in his eyes coming across as concern, despite his angry tone. "Yeah, yeah. I just. The Wolf hurt you and I got mad and then everything went red.Now they''re dead. Oh gods,Alex. We killed them,and I know it was them or us, but I don''t have to like it. I know we might have to go kill those bandits too. If I feel like this over wild beasts who wanted to freaking eat us, how will I deal with killing people, even bad people? Should children even be doing this?" I said, staring into his eyes as the guilt sank in. "I don''t know, but we''ll cross that bridge when we get there." His expression became gentler, though he still seemed worried. He handed me a bowl full of what I assumed was the stew. "Eat up and take a nap, I''ll look after you while Avarius handles the corpses." I agreed, and held the bowl to my lips. Yep, beef and vegetable, my favorite stew. I finished the stew, and quickly sank into sleep, tired out by my fight, my full belly, and the heavy thoughts in my head. Chapter 12: Nature is Pretty Cool Snake 12, Year 8693 of The Grand Wulin Era, Hou Mingzhou We were flying on Avarius''s back, looking over the landscape as we went, and I thought it was pretty beautiful. Trees, towering or tiny, bushes with fruit, interesting , multicolored herbal ground covers, All sorts of stuff. We were about a hundred feet over the treetops,and I saw a well kept blue stone path,worn smooth by generations of feet, wheels, hooves, claws, and so on stretched through a beautiful forest. It was full of interesting looking variants of common trees and beasts, as well as some very magical ones that gave off strong auras and had oddities like fruit that could be used for Alchemy or do weird stuff like grow extra limbs, or a tree where the leaves and trunk were made of living metal, or the deer with what looked like solidified fire for antlers. Interested, I scanned it with my Divine Sense, trying not to spook the deer, and found out that the bones in the antlers had become a weird hybrid between bones and Mana Crystals.I also noticed he was on the verge of gaining sapience and becoming a Magic Beast because the mana activity around his head was unusually high. He was pretty standard for a fire affinity deer besides that, but the whole crystal bones thing wasn''t supposed to happen until you reached at least peak 9th layer Mana Sea in Body Refinement, and since the deer was only at peak 9th layer Mist Sea, I figured the majority of its cultivation was focused into its antlers. It''d make a strong defensive weapon for the deer, but why would it do that, since antlers were temporary and all? Was it trying to leave a source of mana lying around for other people to scavenge? Oops, I''d scanned too obviously and spooked the deer! He ran, and in his panic,smashed into one of the metal trees hard. About half of one of his antlers snapped off, with not even a mark left on the tree. The deer got up and noticed his snapped antler lying on the ground, and quickly... oh man, that deer ate it! The aura of mana surrounding him got stronger, and suddenly, the weirdness made sense! The deer used them as a weapon when they were there, and took advantage of the fact that they were very full of pure, concentrated mana to help it cultivate! I figured next time he shed his antlers, if he managed to survive ''til then, he''d metamorphosize into a Magic Beast and reach the Mana Sea stage. I didn''t know if it was evolution or the gods being really clever, but since i''d never heard of a deer with mana crystal antlers, I figured this weird species or variant or whatever had evolved recently. Man, I had to tell Uncle Alim about this guy, he''d love to find out how this deer does what it does and what it might have evolved from. Well, I would tell him, but that story is for another time,but would lead to some pretty cool stuff, if I remember correctly. The deer scampered off, but my attention was caught by something else. A ten foot tall.... turtle-rabbit? Looking closer, the shell was like a normal turtle shell, but the skin and bone plates had a rough, rocklike texture. There was probably a lot of earth mana in there. But still, turtle-rabbit, how did that work? Some sick, sadistic bastard had to have created it, because while species boundaries can be pretty fuzzy when it comes to Magic Beasts, this guy clearly wasn''t one yet, and the line between rabbit and turtle seemed too distinct for it to be natural. As I watched, a green-and-white furred tiger , a bit on the small side for a tiger, snuck up on the turtle-rabbit, clumsily using the wind to boost its speed as it sprang at the rabbit''s neck. The turtabbit, feeling danger at the last moment, tucked its head into its shell and sprang into the air,its feet tucking in as well as it cleared the ground. The edge of the ascending shell smacked the unfortunate tiger in the forehead, knocking it out cold, and the rabbit flew over our heads, narrowly missing us, before crashing through the canopy into a forest pond, scaring the hell out of some fish and an alligator, who yelled, seeming almost as suprised by his own speech as by the terrified rabbit now floating in its pond. "Oh shit, what the fuck is this? It nearly smacked me in the head? Wait, since when did I lose my lisp? This is awesome, I gotta tell Ted." the Blue-and-brown scaled alligator yelled.He was about 20 feet long, and had quite a scary looking mouth. "Ted? Ted? Where are you, Ted?" He paused, scanning a wide area with Divine Sense, and noticing us. "Hey, you three, flying up there, you seen a green-and-white tiger? Little bit uhh.. dainty? Delicate? Small?, early Mana Sea, really fluffy fur."The story has been taken without consent; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident. Alex yelled back at him. "Yeah, we saw him. Promise not to eat us and we''ll come down and show you where." "Look, I don''t eat people who can talk without their permission, and you and that monkey are wearing robes from that Myriad Existences Sect, it''s safe. Please come on down, i''m afraid he''s hurt or something. Also, yelling is physically painful and I don''t know how to use that mana sound transmission I''ve heard about." Avarius nodded, diving down through the hole in the canopy the rabbit had made and landing beside the pond. A very anxious looking gator waved a front leg at us. It was a pretty nice pond, and there was a house nearby, made out of some of those metal trees, that was constructed a bit roughly, but was pretty big and looked sturdy. The door didn''t seem big enough to fit this alligator through, though. Eh, i''d ask him later. Alex and I jumped off Avarius''s back, and the dragon transformed into a dragon beastman, this time without his wings. How does he get his sect robes on while transforming? Alex was looking around, interested in everything as usual, and Avarius was staring at the gator, seeming a bit nervous. "Hi. I''m Hou Mingzhou, the Human''s Alexander Grandstar, and the Dragon is Avarius Goldscale. We''re on a training mission from our sect. You are?" The alligator shapeshifted into a human form. He was a tall, muscular, brown skinned man in his early twenties with short, curly hair the same blue as his beast form''s scales, and his facial features and general appearance looked like the native people of the southern part of Vermillion Bird Continent. I was sure he''d be considered ruggedly handsome anywhere, though. I was almost sure the humans that lived there didn''t have blue hair, but figured it didn''t matter. He was wearing black cloth pants and a sleeveless blue shirt. He also had the bright yellow eye color of his beast form, buthis eyes were otherwise human. Alex had said a while back that crocodiles , at least on our planet,originated on the Vermillion Bird Continent, so it made sense for this crocodile''s human form to resemble the people who lived there. He extended a hand, that, fitting the rest of his frame, absolutely dwarfed my own. I grabbed it for a handshake and he spoke. "Hi, I''m Kellan. No surname, though I''m thinking of taking one eventually. Can you show me where you saw Ted?" He asked, worry creeping into his face at the mention of his friend. "Sure, follow me. " I said. We lead him to the clearing near the path where we''d seen Ted and the turtle, and he shook Ted awake. The tiger woke up, seeming a bit groggy, but when he spotted Kellan, he seemed to light up. "Hey Kell, I kinda got uh, knocked out by dinner." He shifted into human form, that of a pale-skinned short man from the Earth Dragon Continent, with long, bright green hair and cat-like eyes to match. Damn, another pretty boy? Everywhere I go, there seem to be delicate, soft looking guys who look like they''d shatter into glass if you punch them, and half of them can put up a damn good fight. On one hand, this is viscerally annoying, but on the other, twinks are pretty nice to hang around. He looked to be around the same age as Kellan, and looked at Kellan with a look that was half shame and half pure adoration. "Yeah, it landed in our pond. I''ll cook it when we get back. Just be careful next time, ok? There are beings in this forest that could kill you in a second flat,and I don''t wanna lose you." Kellan reached out a massive hand and ruffled Ted''s hair. Ted seemed to take the head rub as a challenge, and jumped into the air, embracing Kellan in a hug.The gator-man kissed the small tiger-man on the forehead, and I heard what sounded like an excited squeak from Alex. "I''m safe as long as I have you, aren''t I?" Ted said, his last few words turning into a purr. "Damn right, you silly cat, and don''t you forget it. Now let''s go home, and treat these kids to some trabbit stew for helping me save your ass." "Sounds good to me, what do you three think? Thanks for saving me, by the way. If you hadn''t told Kell, I could''ve gotten killed or badly injured by the time he went to look for me." Ted said. Avarius spoke up. "It was no problem,we like helping people. Also, I''ve never turned down an offer of food in my life, and i''m not going to start now." Everyone laughed, and the three of us followed Kellan and Ted to their home. We were all hungry, and Kellan killed, gutted and cleaned the unfortunate trabbit pretty quickly, throwing the good meat and some diced magic vegetables into the pot.Looked like carrots, potatoes, onions, celery, and few other things, including some herbs, as well as garlic that radiated a pretty strong fire element mana. We settled into some comfy chairs to wait as a heavenly smell began to fill the house. Chapter 13 : We Capture A Patrol Snake 18, Year 8693 of the Grand Wulin Era, Hou Mingzhou So, a few days before, while eating with Ted and Kellan, we''d explained our mission, they''d offered to tag along, and Kellan had come up with a plan that would help us capture as many of the bandits as we could alive. Without them, we might have had to do some killing or maiming, as it''s a lot less dangerous and easier to kill someone with about the same strength as you than to incapacitate them and capture them. If we caught them crossing certain lines, though, I didn''t think anyone who did would make it back to the Sect alive. I didn''t want to kill, but even then, I knew that some people were disgusting and evil enough that they shouldn''t be allowed to live. We''d gotten fairly close to Falling Cheese Town a couple days ago, with the help of Ted and Kellan''s Mana Sea cultivations. The plan began here. We''d been observing the bandits and the townspeople, and had seen some things that made us mad, like extortion, but Kellan had held us back from charging in and beating bandit ass, because it was more important to gather information right now unless somebody was in real danger. During that time, i''d noticed Alex keeping logs of every shitty thing we saw the bandits do in a ratty-looking journal, and I''d been paying a lot of attention to the bandit patrols, while Avarius, Ted and Kellan had gone into town to gather information under the guise of shopping. They didn''t find out much, other than there were about 70 bandits total, and that there were 5 bandits at the peak of Mist Sea other than their boss, "Black Iron Fist" Regulus Septimus. From what we could tell, they seemed to be styled after the military of the Sol Magna Empire, especially in terms of discipline and the way they ran the town. There were 3 patrols a day, and one at night, where the bandits would search the area a couple miles around Falling Cheese Town for any sign of outsiders or threats, then return to town. There were also guards posted at every entrance into the town, and atop the walls. We''d decided to capture a patrol to learn more. "So , which patrol should we go after?" I asked, when everyone was back at our campsite. Alex looked up, seeming a bit tired from making medicine and a few alchemical bombs that we had figured we''d need. "We should go with the night patrol. You said they have 9 people compared to the day patrol''s 5, but they''re all still around the 7th stage of Mist Sea , and it''ll be a bit easier to set an ambush in the dark. Also, i figure it''ll be easier to interrogate them if it''s harder to tell that we''re just 5 people, 3 of whom are kids. We should be able to knock them out, bring them here, and interrogate them before anyone realizes they got captured." He said. My usually excitable, dorky. and easygoing best friend was pretty serious and cold right now, and I wasn''t sure if the contrast was uncomfortable or interesting. "I like that. Anyone got a problem with that? Any thoughts? How do we keep them from blabbing and the higher-ups from getting suspicious?" "Well, Alexander''s an alchemist, right? Does he have anything that causes temporary amnesia? If he doesn''t , I know a hypnosis technique I found on some idiot who tried to kill me for my scales a while back that will erase the memory of our interrogation, but it''ll put me out of commission for a day or two after hypnotizing that many people."Ted replied. "Ehh, no. People usually use those to erase mental trauma or to otherwise forget things that they don''t want to remember, so I know how to make them, but I don''t have any on me. Let''s seal their Dantians so they can''t use mana instead,Avarius knows how to do that, and I''ve got some of those weird nut things that Dad made that are strong enough to keep someone at peak Mana Sea imprisoned, so that should help when we get around to the raid." Alex said, seeming a bit apologetic. "No problem here. " Ted said, shrugging his thin shouldersReading on this site? This novel is published elsewhere. Support the author by seeking out the original. "This is gonna be fun, I think." Avarius grinned. I was surprised to find myself agreeing with that shiny silver geek, but there''s some proverb about a broken clock or something. "Sounds good to me." Kellan said, smirking. "It''s official, then. Let''s do this thing." I said. I smacked my chest with a fist and barely restrained myself from hooting like an excited chimpanzee. Look, I didn''t like killing, but a fight, even with lives on the line, was something I enjoyed. *** We''d picked a location we knew the bandits would go to, on the edge of the area they patrolled, and waited..They were using Divine Sense scanning heavily due to the lack of light, so they spotted our pit trap almost immediately when they reached us, and started laughing. The laughs turned into a chorus of cursing when they approached it to wreck it, and some vines snaked out from nearby trees, courtesy of Alex and Avarius, to snag them into the air by their feet and wrap them in a sound-dampening cocoon. Kellan used a weird palm move that i thought relied relied on vibrations , tapping on each cocoon to shake their heads hard enough to make their brains gently knock into their skulls, knocking them out. We quickly took them back to camp, and had Ted and Kellan stick with me while the other two guarded the prisoners. I picked one of the cocoons, and unwrapped the top enough so that the woman within could speak,and woke her up with a gentle infusion of mana to the head. She began to struggle,and looked like she was about to yell for help, so I decided to play the villain. "Scream and you die, bandit scum. My friends and I have some things we want to know." I paused, and Ted and Kellan flared their auras, putting pressure on the poor woman.Her face went white, and she glared at us, but I guess she wanted to live, because she closed her mouth, and then opened it again. "Ugh, just my luck. I guess if you came here and ambushed us this easily, you''re strong enough to take out the boss, so there''s no harm in telling you what you want to know. I guess you''re here to take us out or capture us, and since you seem to be a kid, you''re probably at least peak Mist Sea and from a sect?Can I get reduced jail time or something if I cooperate?" Seemed like she was pretty smart, if she could figure that much out from what had just happened. Ted cracked his knuckles, which was much more intimidating than it really should be, and I replied, smirking." That depends on your crimes and how good your information is." "Here''s what I know. The boss is about to break into Mana Sea, and the 5 lieutenants aren''t far behind. We''ve been holding back from doing anything more than a little extortion to wait for that, especially because the boss is afraid of the Myriad Existences Sect that oversees this area. He was trying to keep low-key and not get noticed, but I guess we already screwed that up, since you''re here and all.We have 10 people at 8th stage Mist Sea, 20 at the seventh, and everyone else is about 6th stage. About 5 new recuits are at the 4th.About 2/3 of us are Warriors, with the remaining 3rd being mostly Mages, though the boss and one of our Lieutenants are Warmages. "Anything else?" I asked, while Kellan cracked his neck loudly. "Well, I can tell you a bit about our defenses. We have a 6th stage Mist Sea on every street corner, and a 7th stage for every 3 6th stagers. The 8th stagers and the remaining 7th stagers are split between guarding the walls,patrolling, guarding our barracks , and out looking for resources. The boss and all but two of our lieutenants are currently in closed door cultivation, trying to break through to Mana Sea." She really wanted that reduced sentence, I figured. There was some stuff that didn''t add up, like the reasons for not acting like actual bandits, but I figured there was enough truth in it to be useful. "Thanks, we''ll be checking your story with your squad mates.Avarius, would you do the honors?" I stood aside. Avarius, using a spell pattern, wove something out of mana that looked suspiciously like a lock, and pressed it against her waist. It sunk in, and I felt all but a thin trickle of her mana, not even enough to equal a First Layer Mist Sea cultivator, vanish.Kellanthen gently knocked her out with his weird vibrating palm move, and I went to wake up the next guy.I hoped they would all play along as nicely as this lady had, I really didn''t want blood on my hands yet. GLOSSARY, BECAUSE THIS IS IMPORTANT The Calendar: 12 months, each thirty days long, matching up exactly to the lunar and solar cycles. Why do these match? The gods did it!Anyway, the months are Tiger, Rabbit, Dragon, Snake, Horse, Goat, Monkey,Rooster, Dog, Pig, Ox,and Rat, in that order. Dao: The "way", the "path". the "laws of heaven and earth". Dao is the nature of everything, and shapes everything. All knowledge and understanding of any natural or unnatural force or phenomenon is in fact insight into the natural laws that make these phenomena act in this way.This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere. Mana: the energy that''s infused into pretty much everything, control of mana and accumulation of it are essential to cultivation any other terms or individuals or whatever mentioned in immortal shards that you think I should add to this, leave a comment and I will. Chapter 14: Turnabout is Fair Play Snake 18, Year 8693 of the Grand Wulin Era, Hou Minzgzhou We had interrogated the other patrollers, and they''d corroborated her story, adding that at this time all the hunting teams and such had returned to barracks, so all that we''d have to face before getting to the barracks were the bandits stationed on street corners. Thankfully, it wasn''t a big town, so there were a total of about 15 6th Layer Mist Seas and 5 7th Layer Mist Seas spread through the town. No Mages or Warmages should be among the sixth layers, but all but one of the 7th layers that''d be with them would be Mages. We figured each of us could take one team of a 7th layer and 3 6th layers at a time, so we split up while Ted and Kellan went ahead to watch the barracks the Black Iron Gang had built for any signs of anyone catching on to our shenanigans. We''d all changed out of our sect robes into clothing fit for the roles we''d decided to play in our plans to trick the bandits. I wore dirty cotton clothes with no shoes, and was in my human form, so I looked like a12 year old farmgirl from the Azure Dragon Continent, which made sense, since I was a Gemborn Ape, and the Ancestor of the Gemborn Apes, Sun Wukong, who had a lot of titles, like Victorious FIghting Buddha or Great Sage Equal to Heaven , had been born from a special gem created by a goddess on Fruit-Flower mountain, in a place that was pretty similar to the Azure Dragon Continent, so him and most of the rest of my people resembled the tannish-brown skinned, brown eyed, humansof the southeastern part of the Azure Dragon Continent when we took on human forms.My human form in particular had blond hair, though most people from Azure Dragon Continent had black hair, and other colors were usually a sign of Magic Beast ancestry there. People from all 5 continents would often show up on the others due to various reasons, and it wasn''t uncommon for someone from say, Vermillion Bird to settle in Azure Dragon or Earth Dragon or vice versa, so I wouldn''t really seem out of place. I figured I should play up the cute factor, draw a few bandits together and then ambush them, and Iknew for sure Alex and Avarius had their own plans, as we''d discussed them while interrogating the night patrol. I drew the mana aura I unconciously emitted into my body, so anyone who wasn''t doing a pretty thourough Divine Sense scan and wasn''t stronger than me would have no idea I was even a Cultivator. I wandered up to the nearest bandit, a 6th Layer dressed in the military gear of the Sol Magna Empire. He was a pale guy with rough features and beady brown eyes. I couldn''t see his hair due to his helmet, so I figured he had it pretty short. I started tugging on his sleeve and crying. "What do you want, kid?" He said, annoyed that this random mortal kid was bothering him. "Mister soldier, my momma went out to the fields and she hasn''t come back even though its dark. I think she might''ve gotten attacked by one of those wolf Demonic Beasts that you guys have been fighting!" The bandit''sexpression softened, and I almost felt bad for tricking him. "Sure, kid, let me grab a couple other guys so we can bring her home safe. The boss didsay we should try to protect you mortals unless you did something stupid, after all." The man turned his back and spoke into a small shell that looked like some kind of communicator, and within a minute, three banditsran over. Two were 6th Layer Mist Sea Warriorslike him, and the last was a 7thLayer Mist SeaMage.They all looked a bit annoyed, but they seemed about as eager to help as the first guy had. They didn¡¯t speak, just nodded at the first bandit and looked at me with a mixture of pity and curiosity. None of these bandits so far had really seemed like that bad of people, and they all wore the military uniform of one of the strongest empires of the Earth Dragon Continent, the Sol Magna Empire. That and the fact that most of them seemed very disciplined and soldierly made me think something weird was going on here, and that the Black Iron Gang might not be bandits after all. Maybe that was related to why we¡¯d been given the option to capture rather than kill, and the real reason they hadn¡¯t sent serious firepower out to mop the floor with them? Either way, I had to capture them, so I decided to keep up my act and swallow the doubts that I was grappling with. I hated doubt. It made me feel like I might not be doing the right thing, and since I was the type to follow my instincts, conflicting feelings were a pain in my simian ass.Help support creative writers by finding and reading their stories on the original site. ¡°Follow me! She went to the western fields!¡± I led them to the nearest set of gates, out of them, and a little down the road. As soon as we were far enough from the village that the sounds and mana aurae of a fight wouldn¡¯t attract attention, I flared my aura, revealing my cultivation as a 9th Layer Mist Sea Warrior. The Mage turned to the others and spoke, seeming more amused than anything. A small fireball appeared in his hands as he said ¡°Damn, this kid¡¯s even more powerful than me. I don¡¯t think her mom¡¯s in any danger at all, do you?¡± The first guy spoke. ¡°No, but I think we might be.¡± He drew a two-handed sword from a sheath at his waist, and the other two almost instantly prepared their standard sword-and-shield setups. I smirked, shifting back to my true form. My mid length, blonde human hair was replaced by metallic-looking golden fur and the texture and tone of my skin changed as my facial bones, along with a few others, rapidly changed their shapes. A simple wooden quarterstaff appeared in my hands, and as I infused Mana into it, it shimmered and turned the same metallic golden shade as my fur. ¡°Sorry about this, boys, but orders are orders, and I have to bring you to justice.¡± I sighed as jumped into the air and leapt toward the Mage, my staff raised overhead so as to bring it down hard on his. I controlled my strength perfectly, and when the staff hit his head, the fireballs in his hands dissipated and he hit the ground like a sack of potatoes. He was just unconscious, so he''d be fine. Blocking the greatsword of guy number 1 with my staff, I jumped into the air again and kicked him hard in the side of his helmet, knocking him out. The other two were even more pathetic, they didn''t even get an attack in before Itripled my body size, grabbed them by the torsos, and knocked their heads together with just the perfect amount of force to knock the two unconscious. I tied them up, then placed a Walnut Prison on the chest of each of them, activating it with mana. Each rapidly grew into a walnut little taller and wider that the person it would contain, then opened, encapsulated them, and enclosed. Don''t worry, the nut had enough pores in it that they could breathe just fine, and it even had comfortable padding! They just wouldn''t be able get out unless they had Mana Sea cultivation or outside help with that same strength. I repeated the same process with the other banditsquad I had to handle, right down to the trick. It was almosttoo smooth. Are thesepeople that dumb, or is something like this just that common outside the sect to the point my honestly pathetic lie wouldn''t even be questioned? I didn''t want to think about that at the moment, so I rushed to meet Alex and Avarius. They''d been working together, so they''d managed to take out 3 squads in the time it took me to handle two. We met up in front of the Black Iron Gang''s Barracks, where Ted and Kellan were waiting. Kellan looked at us, seemingly uninjured, if a little shaken, and said. "Are y''all ready for this?" The three of us looked at each other, then at the two Magic Beasts in human shape in front of us. We spoke in unision, right down to the same vaguely smug smirk covering up internal conflict. "We were born ready." Ted shifted into a panther and slammed into the door, and a solid, reliable Ironoak door snapped like weak balsa,revealing a bunch of stunned bandits. For a moment, everything seemed frozen, and every detail was crystal clear. The sleepy faces of some bandits, the food scattered around, a few bundles of blankets that had been moving and moaning, the hands halfway to weapons and some people halfway through dressing or undressing. After that brief, timeless instant, all hell broke loose. Chapter 15: 5 versus 40, Unfair Fight? Snake 18, Year 8693 of the Grand Wulin Era, Hou Minzgzhou As that moment shattered, and mana aurae flared, I looked at the people in front of us. There were about 5 people at the 4th layer of Mist Sea, probably the new recruits, around 14 people at 6th layer , 8 at the seventh, and I could feel about 0 8th layer and 6 9th layer aurae coming from other buildings in the barracks. Given that we''d captured a total of 29 bandits already, the numbers matched up pretty perfectly with the information we''d gotten from the night patrol. It was time to capture some more bandits, and I really hoped we didn''t have to get lethal. That thought was interrupted as about 14 bandits ran towards us, grabbing weapons as they went, in various states of wakefulness and clothedness. The 5 at 4th layer tried to pretend they didn''t exist, I guess they figured that with three people at 9th layer Mist Sea and two who had yet to show off their power they wouldn''t be able to do much. It was more likely they were just scared shitless. I understood, if I had to contend with someone as strong as Ted or Kellan at the time it wouldn''t have ended well. Cowardice is pretty smart when you''re hopelessly outmatched,and without the promise of backup and the fact that 3 of us 5 were kids, the bandits who were rushing at us would probably be running away or surrendering. There wasn''t much difference in aura between the three cultivation paths, but from the way the people charging at us were attacking, it looked like they were 2 Warmages, 4 Mages, and 8 Warriors. This was going to be a decent fight, and when the stronger guys showed up it''d be even better. After all,setting aside the gap in cultivation, the resources and training we had were definitely higher in quality and quantity than theirs, let alone that we had higher quality techniques and Cultivation Methods. You didn''t really get good stuff as a bandit, and even if they were ex-military like I thought, soldiers had to work hard for resources and methods, and armies usually had much higher requirements and more restrictions for buying things like cultivation methods than a sect did for its own people. "Hey,Mingzhou, let''s try a Fastball Special!" Alex said, his spear in hand. "You sure about that? Who do you want me to target?" I said, grinning as I imagined what was about to happen. "Those two Warmages in the back. Quick, before they get too close." He replied, smirking. In less than 3 seconds, I grabbed Alex by his feet, doubled my size, and swung him in a circle by his feet several times, fast enough that when I let him go and he flew through the air towards those Warmages, his figure seemed a bit blurred. Not waiting around to see what happened, I ran to join the fight myself, while Avarius started chanting and Ted and Kellan ran to block the other two entrances into this building. As I swung my staff, which had grown when I had (thanks, Spirit Weapons, for doing things that would require a much higher tier of weapon otherwise), I sent three Warriors flying, and they knocked into the walls pretty hard, and did not move to get up. The others seemed a lot more on guard after they saw that, so it''d be much harder to do that again, and as I was sizing them up, and dodging an axe strike from an overzealous Warrior, I saw that Alex had already knocked one Warmage unconcious with the butt of his spear and was about to put another out of the fight with a little tornado that was moving fast enough to suck the air out of his lungs centered around him. The man fell to his knees, gasping and choking, and Alex dispelled the tornado while placing Prison Walnuts on the two Warmage''s chests and letting them do what they did best, while turning towards those Mages who were behind the remaining Warriors. As I moved to confront the remaining Warriors, shrinking back to my normal size so I wouldn''t be an easy target, mana erupted from Avarius and a blast of cold air froze the 4 Mages. Looks like he was holding back too, otherwise that freezing wouldn''t just be a thick shell of ice surrounding them and they''d be shattered pieces of icy flesh on the ground instead of flash-frozen in a way that would let someone with the strong vitality of a cultivator live. The remaining five Warriors were kinda screwed, and in the few seconds it took to realize this, I''d charged forward and knocked two unconscious with two quick strikes to the tops of their heads, dodging a hammer blow and a stab from a sword along the way. Alex encased the remaining three in thick, thorn covered vines he''d grown from the floor in that short time, covering everything but their heads. They kept their mouths shut and didn''t even try to move, their widened eyes and pale skin showing an intense fear. If you discover this tale on Amazon, be aware that it has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. Please report it. It was about that time that the door Kellan was guarding burst apart and the 8 seventh layer cultivators tried to come in. Kellan grinned, wide and toothy like his true form''s mouth, and seemed to disappear, moving so fast I couldn''t even see what happened. Within a second, all 8 of those 7th layer cultivators were out cold, and one seemed to have a gator-tail shaped red mark that looked like it would turn into a bruise on his face. Kellan, looking satisfied, pulled some Prison Walnuts from his pockets and placed one on each bandit''s chest. They quickly did their thing, and when the 10 8th stagers came running, they were met with the sight of hilariously oversized walnuts before recieving the same fate. "Hey, when their lieutenants and that boss of theirs get here, can you two leave them to us unless it looks like they''re about to win?" I asked. Ted and Kellan nodded, and simultaneously said "No problem." Pretty soon, the boss came through the door, flanked by his six lieutenants. Each had their own mana aura flared, and I could tell that they were all at the peak of Mist Sea, with the boss showing signs of being on the verge of breaking through to Mana Sea.They noticed all the Prison Walnuts, and the robes Alex, Avarius,and I wore, and pretty quickly figured out what we were here for and what sect we were from. The boss was a tough looking man in the armor of the Sol Magna empire ,and was holding his helmet under his arm. He seemed to be in his late twenties, with short black hair, a mild tan that indicated his natural skin tone was probably pretty pale, and ice- blue eyes. He spoke, and his deep, booming voice seemed surprisingly calm . " A young boy with red hair and olive skin, a young monkey girl with golden fur, so either half human or a Gemborn Ape , and a young Silver Dragon in his Beastman form, at the peak of Mist Sea? Two men who I can feel are at Mana Sea, but have never heard of before, especially with those appearances?" He paused, looking at us, seeming a little puzzled when he looked at Ted and Kellan. l Well, given that you''re wearing Myriad Existences Sect robes and you''re this powerful this young, you''re Alexander Grandstar, Hou Mingzhou, and Avarius Goldscale, are you not? I have no idea who these two gentlemen escorting you are, unfortunately." "Yeah, and you''re "Black Iron Fist" Regulus Septimus, founder and Captain of the Black Iron Gang. These two are Ted -"I said, pointing at each as I introduced them "-and Kellan, they joined us in the forest on the way here. We gonna fight, or we gonna talk?" "I assume from their strength and the fact that they lived in that forest, that they''re Magic Beasts? As far as I know, none of the human hermits living there are at Mana Sea. But,yes, miss Hou, I would rather talk for the moment. How that talk goes will decide if there is a need to fight." "Sir, are you serious? Why don''t we just fight and die with some dignity, like the soldiers we are? It''s dishonorable to surrender to a bunch of kids, even if they have some tough guys with them!" A large woman in red robes, carrying a staff with a crystal on the end, spoke up angrily. "As you can see, Marcia, they''re obviously here to capture us rather than kill, and even if they weren''t, I would rather explain our situation than leave our blood on the hands of three godsdamned children. If you''d rather traumatize kids that be jailed, your honor is worth nothing." He replied, having gotten worked up as he spoke,the last word practically hissed from between his teeth. The woman looked ashamed, and her face turned as red as her robes. "I-i-I I''m sorry sir, I didn''t think of it that way." "Yeah, yeah, it''s cool that you''re a decent guy who doesn''t want to make us kill you and all, but you need to spill the beans. Tell us why you took over Falling Cheese Town, and why a bunch of bandits are wearing the symbols and gear of the Sol Magna Empire." "It''s going to be a long story, you may want to sit down." He said, pulling a table and enough chairs for everyone from a ring on his finger. Oh nice, a Spatial Ring! This guy used to be somebody, or had an important background, to have a Spatial Ring at only the Mist Sea. We all sat, including his lieutenants, and waited to hear his story. Chapter 16: Soldiers Far From Home Snake 18, Year 8693 of the Grand Wulin Era, Hou Minzgzhou "As you might think, all but a few of my Black Iron Gang and I are expatriates of the Sol Magna Empire. There are a few new recruits, and a few of the more unsavory types, but most of us were proud soldiers who fought for our country and to protect our people. " Regulus Septimus sighed, his eyes growing a bit misty as he reminisced. "Well, why did you leave, then? Why come to the territory of the Myriad Existences Sect? I mean, it''s pretty far from home and I dunno what kinda soldiers would throw away everything to become the least criminal group of bandits I''ve ever heard of." I asked, more than a little confused by the situation. "We were betrayed. Chased out and vilified by our own fellow soldiers, treated as some kind of disposable toy by someone who was supposed to guide and protect us. We only managed to not die due to the help of a few important officers who did all they could to protect us.The reason those bastards targeted a bunch of ordinary soldiers and a man who barely qualified to be an Sergeant is-" He broke off, trembling. The memories seemed to weigh heavily on him, and more pain filled his eyes with every word. I tilted my head and stared at him. It wasn''t that I didn''t feel bad for the man, but I was a kid with a prettystraightforwardpersonality who didn''t have much patience. I''m sure that if he''s reading this, Regulus has forgiven my youthful insensitivity. "Look, it pretty obviously hurts to talk about,but if you want out of here, you have to talk about it." I said, my tone a bit terse . Ouch, that hurts to remember. I mean, I know I was a kid and all, but that was areally bad moment to not be empathetic. Not holding the snarky little monkey kid''s attitude against her, Regulus Septimus replied. "Yes, I know. To really understand this, you have to know how it all began. Ten years ago, I joined the Sol Magna army at 15, and , as follows procedure for a commoner like myself, I was given the most basic cultivation methods, weapon techniques, and the like. I found that I loved to cultivate, and as I trained and fought in the borderscuffles and bandit raids and other duties of a soldier, my strength grew rapidly. The first 5 years were wonderful, and by the end of them I had already reached my current cultivation as a Warmage and been made a sergeant for that and my sucsesses in battle. " "Huh, seems like you''re ridiculously talented to get that far that quickly with basic methods. What happened, did you piss off some powerful cultivator organization or some jackass politician?" I said, puzzled.Why hadn''t someone with that much talent and who was pretty obviously a decent person been given the best resources and "Worse, I offended a general. You know me as the Black Iron Fist but when I was in the Sol Magna Army, I came to be called the Twinblade Thunderfire Knight. After mastering the basic martial arts and weapon techniques of the Sol Magna Army, I began to develop my owntwinswords technique. I was always talented with the sword and the elements of fire and wood, especially the wind-lightning aspect of wood, so I tried some simple things first, like infusing one sword with fire and the other with lightning." He paused to take a breath. "By the time the first 5 years were up, I''d managed to create a peak Mortal Grade sword technique that fused lightning and fire energiestogether, and struck with as much speed and power as my insights into the daos of the two elements and the sword would allow. There was a general,Quintus Maximus Optimus, of the Sun Striders,the division of the Sol Magna armed forces that specializes in aerial combat. He was close friends with the general of my own division, the Burning Earth division, who were the main ground forces of the empire. This general had a grandaughter, and she would be what brought me down. You see, she wanted my Thunderflame Sword Art. Almost as soon as I began developing it, she saw its potential, and she would stop at nothing to get it." His voice shook, and his expression soured. How close had he been to that woman? "So, what did she do?" I asked. It had to be pretty bad for him to still be this emotional about it this long after it happened, right?Ensure your favorite authors get the support they deserve. Read this novel on Royal Road. "For three years, we were friends, and fought on the battlefield together. Whenever the Sun Striders and Burning Earth worked together, so did we. We saved each other''s lives, laughed at each other''s jokes, sparred with each other. We did many things together over those years, and Islowly grew to seeher asI would asister. And then? A confession I was extremely uncomfortable with. She claimed to love me, and maybe she did, but I turned her down gently, due to being lowborn and uninterested in her in that way. I don''t regret that, orour friendship.but I do regret what happened next." "Damn, dude, that''s heavy. Anyways, how''d she react to rejection? A lot of people don''t react well to that, especially when they have creepy and weird agendas involved." The sadness in his expression gave way to anger, and his voice rose as he spoke."Shedid not react well. She left in a huff, saying i''d broken her heart, and that she''d get revenge. She came back a week later with her grandfather, and demanded that I should give her my sword technique as compensation, or no matter how great my contributions or talent, I would get nowhere. She knew how important that technique was to me, and how I wanted to make it reach the level of at least a Soldier Grade Martial Art before sharing it with others, but she wanted it, and she wanted to hurt me. From that point on, I wasn''t allowed to spend the contribution points I earned on anything but food, clothing, or gear, cultivation materials I was not allowed to use, and I was not permitted to cultivate without her permission. It took the intercession of the General in charge of my division for me to even keep the Spatial Ring he''d given me after he knew i''d created quite and impressive sword art. Over the next five years, she made my life hell however she could. She bullied me and my subordinates, tried to ensure we got the worst assignments, made rude demands of my people.like making us wait on her hand and foot. Any time an enemy spy was caught amongst our ranks , or one of my subordinates messed up, I was forced to take the blame. In one instance, she fabricated an excuse to have my younger siblings executed and parents jailed for crimes they did not commit.Why she did that to me, I''m not sure I''ll ever understand." "So what did you do after that,and how did you end up here? All that bullshit was supported by a powerful general just because one bratty woman couldn''t handle rejection, so what could you even do in response?" "At first, I did nothing. I just quietly collected resources and gear, building up a stock for what I didn''t know. After about a year, my subordinates urged me to leave the army and flee, so I decided to desert, and spent the next three years gathering enough stuff for me and the rest of the people you see here to escape and found a little gang of our own. We barely escaped, and that was due to about half the entire Burning Earth Division helping us fake our deaths, as they''d grown disgusted at the endless, pointless suffering that began over pettiness. We left a year ago, and slowly made our way here, where we arrived a few months ago,scoped the place out, and took advantage of the old man''s death, all to establish ourselfves as a legit bandit group to shake off the suspicions that we weren''t just a group of bandits who''d gotten lucky enough to get their hands on some gear. You know how manypeople in the Earth Dragon Continenthavepretty much the same names we do? Thousands, and that''s just outside Sol Magna, let alone within it." His expression softened a bit, I guess he was thinking about how his troops were willing to risk everything, despite the fact that he was the cause of their troubles in the first place. "So what do you want? You''re gonna have to suffer consequences, but maybe you and your troops could be of use to our sect. You know who we are, so you know how influential our parents are to the sect. Surrender to us, serve a short sentence as penance for scaring the shit out of these poor townspeople, and we''ll do everything we can for you." Regulus Septimus turned to his lieutenants. They all looked back at him, and nodded. He sat for a bit, thinking deeply. He spoke, and his voice seemed a bit hoarse. "Alright, I''ll surrender. Though, once we''re free, i''d like to have my men and I spar with you kids, is that alright? You seem really tough, and pretty decent besides, so it''d be good, clean fun." "Yeah, that''d be nice. " I said. Septimus and histroops kneeled, and we placed Prison Walnuts on their chests, infusing them with mana until they did their thing. Alex spoke a command word, and all the prison walnuts shrank to the size of regular walnuts,without harming the people inside. I think it was some weird form of Spacial Storage for use on living things? Probably a combination of Life and Space Dao, then. Either way, it was convenient, cool, and gave me a lot of ideas for things to work on with my two best friends in the future. It was time to head home, and that we would do. Chapter 17: Unexpectedly Expected Snake 22, Year 8693 of the Grand Wulin Era, Hou Minzgzhou We were about halfway back to the sect, resting in a campsite that''d taken us about ten minutes to set up. Ted and Kellan were still with us, supposedly in case of a prison break or something, but since they knew we had a couple guards just as strong as them tailing us at all times, I think they just wanted to make sure we were safe. We were surrounded by the Prison Walnuts, the smooth-looking fleshy green husks dotted with spots of lighter green and some thin, soft, semi-transparent stuff that looked like spines but weren''t quite. They reminded me of kiwis, except whereas kiwis have tasty flesh surrounding a couple rows of seeds in the center, this was a thick, fleshy skin surrounding a hard, woody shell, which surrounded the people inside. See, normally a walnut would have a lot of crunchy, flavorful nutmeat inside, but in this case the nut meat was people, and you don''t eat those, especially without their permission.Well, there was enough nutmeat around them to feed them for a few more days, especially given that they were all cultivators, but still, you''d expect more from a nut that big. On the bright side, since these nuts had been magically bred over generations for specific characteristics, they let in enough air to allow breathing, and if the nutmeat ran out, the nut would gather mana from the air and generate more, as long as it still contained a prisoner. It also contained several like..gourd sack canteen things full of water, similarly distilled from the air using mana.Oh, bathroom related stuff? Cultivators can , when necessary, use their control of their bodies and some mana to break down food much more efficiently, using much more of the nutrients and the leftover waste turning into impurities that would be ejected naturally through cultivation. Most people don''t like to, though, because the excrement of cultivators and magic beasts apparently makes pretty great compost, and going without going to the bathroom for too long feels weird and kinda unnatural. Sometimes high level cultivators do the super digestion thing because they can go into seclusion for really long times and you really don''t want years or decades worth of that building up. Then again, cultivators do things like sell arms, legs, blood, and all sorts of other body parts and products for money, due to the high availability of either medicines to help regrow that stuff or that their natural regeneration was just that impressive. There are a ridiculous amount of ways to make a living in a world like this, I guess. As long as you aren''t doing harm, especially permanent harm, people seem to be okay with a lot of things. On the negative side though, people get a lot of weird ideas about what''s okay to do into their heads when there''s so much opportunity and power going around. While we were all resting, Dmitri, who was a friend of ours, as well as one of two of our sect-assigned guards, contacted me through my communicator. These things made the classic cultivator ability of voice transmission more energy efficient and workable over longer distances, which was super useful,especially at lower cultivation levels. "Mingzhou, there are 5 Mana Sea cultivators in the military uniforms of the Sol Magna Empire heading your way, Banken and I will be there about half a minute before they reach you. You three just guard the prisoners and let us and your two friends handle this!" Dmitri seemed out of breath and more than a bit panicked, so I went to tell everyone what was up. Why couldn''t they hear Dmitri? Voice transmissions are projected directly into the ears of the target. Unless you intentionally speak to more than one person , you can''t be eavesdropped on. I gathered everyone from their tents or around the fire. "Hey, Ted and Kellan, you two are gonna need to be ready to fight, and Alex, Avarius, and I will keep an eye on our prisoners. 5 Mana Sea cultivators from the Empire our prisoners are from are coming our way, but also we have backup coming so we should be ok I think?" I said, trying to keep calm as I explained the situation. Just about then, a handsome, pale guy with white hair and black eyes who looked to be in his mid-teens flew in, followed by an Akita Inu about the size of a bear. The handsome guy was Dmitri, and I think Alex had mentioned something about his attempts to gain a human form before? Well, he had, and despite being kinda ratlike, he was pretty cute. The Sect robes with the black and white looked pretty nice contrasting with the hair and eyes, though I noticed he kept his tail. The huge Akita with a fairly standard sesame coat was Banken. Her name was pretty literally "guard dog" in the language of one of the regions of the Azure Dragon continent, and she apparently liked living up to it. She liked to fight even more than I did, and whenever she had to protect someone, she was 100% serious about it. She was a lot goofier when not on duty, which I chalked up to the fact that being serious all the time builds up a lot of goofiness to vent, especially when you''re a dog. She usually fought in her beast form or her beastman form, and had a set of really awesome claw gauntlets made to be used in both forms. I think she was around the same age as Dmitri, and the two were pretty close friends, especially given that they''d both cultivated to their current states despite having started as ordinary animals. About 30 seconds after those two flew in, 5 strangers flew in. Two of them were armored, two were in robes, one wore what looked like some kinda loose body covering suit made of what looked like metal woven into cloth. They all had a large, golden sun on the front of whatever they were wearing, symbolizing their allegiance to the Sol Magna Empire.Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon. The woman in the weird metal suit spoke first, as our 4 Mana Sea cultivators readied themselves for a fight. "Hand over these.. weird nut prisons and I''ll let you all live." She said, her tone as arrogant as her words. "Let us live? You''re a long way from home, and this is our territory, but you''re gonna threaten us and make demands? Just because you have one more person than we do... doesn''t meant you can beat us." Dmitri replied, the aura of a Mana Sea Stage radiating off of him. He slammed a staff he''d been carrying into the ground. "Now, you either explain why you want our prisoners and then you leave, or we make you leave, understand?" All of a sudden, the nut that Regulus Septimus was in shook, and a whirlpool of mana began to form around it as it sucked in as much mana as possible. See, the Prison Walnuts dont block Divine Sense, and they also allow the person inside to cultivate, if they want to. So our prisoners could obviously tell what was going on, and it looked like Regulus Septimus had finally begun to break through to Mana Sea. Sensing this, everyone on our side looked at each other, and simultaneously decided to buy the man some time. Alex, Avarius, and I gathered aroundhis walnut,sure we could at least delay her, while our four Mana Sea cultivators glared at the enemy. Everyone could sense that a fight was going to break out, and all we could do was delay the inevitable. "I''m Aelia Maxima Optimus, and I''m here for Regulus Septimus and the rest of those traitors. You should know who I am, given that that bastard''s probably told you his version of events. Can your second-rate sect, even with the backing it has, dare to offend my empire? You want to pull that pathetic you shall not pass routine on me, mouse?You''re just a stupid animal that thinks he''s a person, are you gonna smash me with that silly little staff you''re holding?" Banken growled, shifting into her beastman form, a monk''s habit in the style of the Earth Dragon Continent with the sect''s insignia seamlessly appearing on her as she did. She brandished her pawlike hands, her claw gauntlets glimmering in the sunlight as the ones on her feet became clawed boots. As her snout shortened a little and her features became somewhat more humanlike along with her changed form, the snarl on her face became that much more evident. She spoke, her words half-growled, half-spat. "One. Dmitri is a rat, and heis a person. Two, nobodythreatensthese people under my watchespecially not some rich military brat who got her position and her power because grandaddy loves her. Yeah, we''ve talked to the prisoner, but even if we hadn''t, everyone that knows much about your empire know''s that you''re the shame of your family for what you did. Now do you want to back off, or do you want you and the soldiers you''re probably taking away from their duties for no reason to suffer?" Damn, she was really worked up. Banken usually didn''t speak much, communicating mostly through really expressive gestures and low-level telepathy. When she did,though, it was pretty important to listen. Aelia''s face turned bright red with anger, apparently suprised that anyone would disrespect her like that. "You''ll die first, you canine bitch!" She screeched, and pulled two short swords out from sheaths at her waist, as shecharged at Banken. Banken smirked,and her skinand fur shimmered with light andturned the same shiny, metallic silvery color as her gauntlets. She crossed her arms in front of herhead,relying on her tough defenses to disregard this attack. The attack didn''t contain fire-type mana or strong enough sword dao insight to break through Banken''sSteelstoneBody. The Steelstone body was a metal-earth dual element Body Refining technique that created a body with both terrifying offensive force and supreme defense by drawing on the user''s affinity for metal and earth, as well as their knowledge of relevant Dao.One could also absorbspecial ores and elementally infused materials or plants to be able to better mimic the properties of specific metals or minerals. Banken had a high level of proficiency with this technique and a naturally strong body, so Aelia''s sword attack that contained neither elemental mana or Sword Dao Insight only left white scratches on Banken''s arms below the gauntlets. "Hmmph, looks like i''ll have to get serious! You two Warriors, go after the little man and the tall man, while you two Mages go after those kids and the rat. I''ll join you as soon as i''ve taken out this trash." Aelia''s swords began to glow with a green and red aura as she channeled the elements of wood and fire. It looked like she was channeling the elements of wood and fire, since fire melts through metal and wood separates earth. Was this her version of Regulus Septimus''s sword technique? It could probably do so, but given that metal element could counter wood, it''d be a bit less effective againstthe two cooperating elements that Banken used. The swords also seemed a bit sharper, was she using Sword Dao insight? As I thought about it, the two warriors engaged Kellan and Ted, the latter two shifting into their beast forms. Kellan whipped his tail at the first, who barely managed to dodge, and the impact he did take knocking him back a few feet. He grimaced, holding up his shield and pointing his sword towards Kellan. He spoke. "Look, I don''t even want to be here, but I guess we''ve got to do this. Gimme your best, alligator man." The other engaged with Ted, his spear stabbing the air faster than i''d ever seen Alex''s move, yet Ted gracefully dodged every time. "Trying to keep up in speed with a catlike me? Try again in your next life, buddy." Ted sped up. turning into a green blur as he aimed his claw''s for the man''s neck. I guess he was trying to slice through the weaker armor there? That was all I saw before the two Mages captured my attention. As they prepared to attack,Dmitri was casting an illusion to distract them while he prepared his signature technique,called the Laser Trap. It involved focusing light into a mana-infused laser beam, then bending the laserbeam until it became a cage that trapped the opponent, and would slice into them and burn them if they touched it. It had taken him years to develop, and was ridiculously lethal when he wanted it to be. As the opponents disregarded the illusion, which had told them we were much farther away than we were and that there was a Shard Formation cultivator between us and them, the whirlpool behind us slowed to a crawl, and a cracking sound was heard. A cage of bluish light had formed around our shocked opponents, and as they tried to break it, the Prison Walnut behind us cracked into four pieces and fell apart from the inside out. Chapter 18:Shifting Tides of Battle! Snake 22, Year 8693 of the Grand Wulin Era, Hou Minzgzhou Regulus Septimus stepped forward, flames wrapped around him in the shape of bird that looked like a cross between a crane and a phoenix, and electric arcs jumping around on his gear and over his mildly tanned skin. One of his eyes glowed with golden-yellow fire that reminded me of sunlight, and the other glowed with purple lightning. The two swords in his hands glowed with both the purple lightning and the sun-like fire, to the point the two glows began to blend. He kept walking towards Aelia, motioning to us to get out of his way. "It''s been a while,Parva Flamma." He said, the last two words said with a gentle inflection, like he was giving the words a hug.It was Sol Magnan for... Little Flame? Small Flame? I don''treallyremember, I haven''t spoken the language in a while. Even if I hadn''t understood the meaning, though, I''dhave probably picked up on the fact that it was a nickname or pet name kind of deal, like you give to a really good friend or your kid or your younger sibling...or even a lover. "I told you not to call me that anymore. You lost that right when you rejected the best you''ll ever have. Hmmph, it looks like even with me actively trying to ruin you, you''ve made a lot of progress with your sword art, I didn''t see the Bennu Manifestation last we fought. Shame it won''t get to do much before I crush you like a bug."She grimaced, and herface turned red with fury, and I guess in her mind she had a lot of reasons to be mad. From whatI could tell, some of the biggest ones that weren''t named Regulus Septimus were that Dmitri had trapped her Mages ,and that the other fights dragged on. "C''mon, you''re acting like I''m the one who promised friendship till the end and then tried to ruin the other person''s life when they turned down your unreciprocated and frankly creepy affections. You know, even after all the shit you''ve done to me, I still find myself caring about you. But I guess me caring was never quite enough for you, was it? You wanted everything,and to get it you''ve chased me into the house of people who shouldn''t even be involved." His expression seemed melancholy under the flame and lightning,as if the last thing he wanted was this fight. "That''s right, youhandsomejerk! I''m beautiful, and talented, and from a great family. I was nothing but good to you, until you rejected me. Where the hell does a commoner like you with just some weak strength and decent potential get the idea of rejecting someone as great as me!" A tear slipped out of one eye and rolled down her cheek, betraying the sadness she''d hidden with rage. "Aelia, did you ever think about my feelings? Why I rejected you? Why I couldn''t return your passion? I don''t think you ever did. While you do care for me, you care selfishly, with yourself alwaysbeing the number one priority, other people''s pain be damned. Sure, you saved my life and helped me many times, you did thatfor yourself,because you wanted to have me for your own. You don''t love me as a lover or a brother or a comrade, you love me like a toy or a pet, and I cannot and will not live with that." He said, his tone gentle and calm, but loud enough for her to clearly hear every word. Through it all, the melancholic expression on his face was constant. I guess despite everything, even if she was more of an entitled brat than the three literal childrennearby, he still cared about her and didn''t want to hurt her. Huh, how did someone that caring get into a military famous for its efficiency and brutality? I didn''t know then, and I still don''t know know. What I do know is that those words made her even angrier, and the two swords in her hands began to glow with a fiery light. She screamed wordlessly and charged towards him, going for what looked like a decapitation. He stepped out of the way at the last second, the fiery steel passing close enough to singe the hairs on his neck, and nothing else."Ensure your favorite authors get the support they deserve. Read this novel on the original website. "Damn bastard, you were always better than me at this. Even though i''ve reached the peak of Early Mana Sea, and you''ve just broken through, you dodged that like it was nothing! At least use that stupid Static Flash Step technique you''re so damn proud of!" She said, her voice almost cracking with anger as she attacked again, this time aiming for his legs. Looked like even though she was angry, she remembered she was supposed to be there to capture the poor guy. I assume she figured she could cripple him without killing him and then fix it when she had what she wanted? He managed to use two swords to block one, but the other sliced through his armor and left a long cut on his leg as he tried to step to the side to avoid her slashes. With my Divine Sense stretched out, I could see that it had torn through skin and muscle, but hadn''t cut into the bone. The wound wasn''t bleeding, because the heat of the flame had cauterized it enough to stop blood flow. He winced from pain, but kept moving, as if he hardly noticed it. With the physiqueof a Warmage at the Mana Seastage, the injury wasn''t exactly debilitating, and the adrenalinerush of the fight was probably severely dulling the pain, so I was pretty sure he wasn''t just acting tough. His expression changed to one of grim determination, his eyes narrowing and his lips pressing themselves into a line. I guess he''d decided to actually fight for his life?At the time, I guessed he''d wanted to tire her out so she''d get bored of the fight and leave, but he understood that wasn''t gonna work. Years down the road, he''d tell me I was right, but right then I couldn''t really have known that, I just felt it. "I guess it''s about time to show off the Static Flash Steps, wouldn''t you agree? Try to keep up, because I''mnot going to hold back any of my techniques anymore!" He flashed a smirk at her, and the anger on her face seemed to sap away for a second before returning in full force. As the smirk faded from his face, the lightning on his body covered it entirely under the fiery Bennu Manifestation as his body disappeared from the spot he was at in a puff of purple & gold sparks. "You were HOLDING BACK? Against a clearly superior opponent? You damn IDIO-" The last word cut off as she spun her body to face where her back had been a second before, blocking the two swords with their weird,cool lightning-fire perfectly. "Hmmph, that was a good hit! It looks like you''re actually using the power of the Bennu! Channeling the power of a bird related to such illustrious beings as the Phoenixor Golden Crow feels nice, doesn''t it?Now tastemytrue strength!" Aelia said, somehow as smug as if his power were her own accomplishment. At that moment, I remembered that Bennu were a type of firebird magic beast from the VermilionBird Continent, with a close association to the Sungod of VermilionBird Continent, Ra, and the original Bennu, one of his aspects/siblings. Look, gods are super weird, OK? Especially ones that are born that way. Living beings are so weird and variable anyways, so gods have to be even weirder I guess. Anyyyways, back to the fight. Aelia flashed him a smirk herself,Her swords glowedbrighter, and the air around her began to shimmer as fire gathered around her body in the shape of a Phoenix. It screeched as it formed, and Regulus''s Bennu Manifestation let out what sounded like a bird battle cry in response. She slashed out at him, this time aiming for his waist with one sword andprotecting herself with the other. His body vanished into purple-gold sparks again, barely dodging what could''ve been a really nasty wound. He reappeared in front of her, slashing both blades towards her right arm, which seemed to be her dominant one from the way she used her swords, and I guess he knew that really well given how much they''d sparred with each other and fought side by side in the past. She moved the sword she was defending herself with, the one in her left hand, just fast enough to defend against one sword without cutting herself, but the other stabbed into her shoulder, leaving adeep-looking cutcut that had burned edges. Didn''t seem like it was enough to do more than slow that arm''s movement a little and make moving it hurt like hell, though, as she immediately stepped backward to distance herself from him. For now, she had a bit of advantage, but who knew how long that would last and who was gonna be the one to survive this fight? Chapter 19:Hanging By A Thread, Victory or Defeat! Snake 22, Year 8693 of the Grand Wulin Era, Hou Minzgzhou Aelia screamed, apparently extremely upset that her opponent had tried to cripple her dominant arm. The Phoenix Manifestation cloaking her screamed too, and the two voices made a weird, unpleasant harmony. As she did, the flames around her got thicker, seeming almost solid, and the eyes of the phoenix began to resemble hers, glaring at Regulus with a gaze full of intense hate. The wound on her shoulder began to slowly heal, the flesh visibly crawling as it did so. "Why do you keep fighting, Regulus Septimus,when you know you cannot win? Even if you can keep wounding me like this, I can cripple or kill you first. Unless you use that move that you were still experimenting with last I saw you, you can''t win. The power of the Phoenix strengthens both my fire and my healing abilities more than it used to, so if this drags onI will win." n response, the lightning cloaking Regulus shaped itself into another bird, the Thunderbird of the White Tiger Continent, far to the west. The Thunderbird and the Bennu seemed to fuse, like the the lightning and fire on his swords had. From how powerful these manifestations were and how they''d fused so effortlessly, he must have studied Thunderbirds and Bennu a lot, and have a high level of insight into Fire and Lightning Dao. A lot of time and energy had gone into a sword art like this, especially since he had created it himself. Aelia floated up into the air,the flames around her sword shaped themselves into two phoenixes , and the swords themselves were glowing white-hot, somehow managing to not melt under the intense heat. It looked like a pretty scary attack,and it was pretty flashy, but could she hit him with it? As I thought about that, she reached the peak of her flight and began to dive, the Phoenix Manifestation making her vaguely resemble an actual phoenix diving down to attack. Regulus flew up into the air to meet her, the weird combo-bird aura surrounding him shaping itself onto his swords as well. His flight was slightly unsteady, as he hadn''t yet practiced it after his breakthrough to the Mana Sea stage, but it was enough that it didn''t weaken his attack. as the four swords met, and lightning, fire, and the pure power of physicalstrength and mana met, the resulting reaction was an explosion that forced Aelia back so far she slammed into an unfortunate tree at the peak of Mist Sea nearby, shattering a large hole into its trunk and catching it on fire. Regulus ended up smashing into another, unfortunate tree, but that one got off a little better, ''cause it didn''t start burning. They were both covered in bark, wood, and sap, and honestly looked ridiculous. Both parties were stunned a bit by the sheer force of the explosion and the collisions with their respective trees, so they both took a little time to gather their wits and catch a breath. They both extracted themselves from the trees, not noticing that the other fights were all over by now. The Warriors Ted and Kellan had faced had given up, understanding that these two Magic Beasts were too strong for them to handle, and the two Mages had surrendered, and were chatting with Dmitri about the finer points of spellcasting. Avarius was currently trying to cool down the poor burning tree with a blast of ice, while Alex was preparing some nature and healing magic to heal the trees and enable them to survive the battle. Everyone kept their eyes on Regulus and Aelia''s fight, but it seemed like nobody was going to get involved unless absolutely necessary, as their clash was something intensely personal and private. They flew up above the trees, almost to the border of where my Divine Sense could reach, but not out of sight. As they flew up, the sap dried and the bark and wood on their bodies began to burn away from the intense heat surrounding them. They clashed again, with fairly similar results but instead of hitting trees they created human-shaped craters in the ground, with thewalls and bottom of the craters superheated into glass. Well,at least partially glass, cause I think the heatvaporizedthe organic parts of the dirt they''d slammed into. They rose out of the human-shaped craters, ascendingrapidly, covered in dirt and ash. They were both battered and bruised, the sets of armor they''d worn mostly destroyed by the explosions they''d managed to survive, and the clothes underneath not doing much better. They had used a lot of mana and energy in those intense strikes, and they were starting to tire out. Both of them were looking for openings, trying to make a decisive strike. Smoke had begun to fill the clearing from all the fire that had been thrown around, but it didn''t inconvenience us, as cultivators, as much as it would normal mortals, as our bodies were a lot better at filtering the toxins out of the smoke before they could damage things like lungs much. Similar things to that were also why things like poison had to become even more toxic and sneaky to hurt powerful cultivators.This tale has been unlawfully lifted without the author''s consent. Report any appearances on Amazon. They charged at each other again, the flames and lightning seeming a lot dimmer than before, and the swords in Aelia''s hands had cooled to a red-orange color. Even their respective bird manifestations seemed duller and less defined, as is they were about to break apart into more of the smoke that surrounded us. They both seemed to decide that this would be the last clash, and charged towards each other, one sword each aimed at the other''s neck and the other at the waist. Regulus knocked away the sword aimed at his neck, and the sword aimed at his waist managed to stab into his stomach as he knocked her other sword flying, the edge of his own sword, no longer surrounded by electricity or flame, pressed against her neck. Just enough for her to feel the edge, not quite enough to draw blood. He was severely injured, but one move from him and she''d die, even if he had to die with her. As they silently stared at each other, a man who looked about 30, dressed in the armor of a General of the Sol Magna Empire, appeared about two feet from them. His body radiated a terrifying aura, one I knew from having seen Alex''s parents fight before to be the aura of the stage above Shard Formation, Crystal Soul. He waved his hand, and as the sword flew out of Regulus''s belly, the wound, and the others on his body, rapidly closing and healing as we watched. The sword on Aelia''s neck left Regulus''s hand and flew back to the sheath on his back, as Aelia''s flew into the hands of the man. The wounds she''d taken during the fight closed rapidly too. The two were forced about 30 feet back, so that they couldn''t lunge at each other.I had no idea who the man was, but from their expressions, the two who''s fight had just been stopped did know him, and neither seemed very happy to see him. "Grandpa, you saved me! Thank you, but can you capture that damned traitor Regulus Septimus for me?" Aelia said, put ting on a cute & sweet face, as if she wanted to trick the old man into thinking she was in the right. Theolder man, who I nowrealized was GeneralQuintus Maximus Optimus of the Sun Striders, the general who''d allowed Regulus''s life to be ruined, glared at his granddaughter. "Shut your lying mouth, little girl. It has already ruined 40 lives and chased away a very promising young officer, I will not have your brattiness and entitlement hurt others any longer. We''re going home, and you''re gonna learn some lessons about humility, compassion, love, empathy.. you know, those things you''re normally good at faking when I''m around or your parents are?" The old man''s eyes and tone of voice carried the severe disappointment he was feeling towards his wayward granddaughter. "But I didn''t do anything wrong! He deserved it, and they all deserved it for helping h-" Her mouth suddenly closed, and she looked terrified. "I said to shut up. You''re going to learn how to be a better person, but first we must decide what is to be done with the people in these interesting walnuts and with young Regulus, who our whole empire has let down."He paused, then turned to Regulus.What do you think, Regulus Septimus? The families of you and those who left with you are safe and doing well, hidden from the wrath of my foolish offspring." Regulus sat there for a while, thinking. It looked like he had a lot to say to General Optimus, and he seemed to be crying? "I have a lot of thoughts, sir, if you will honor them by listening." Regulus said, staring at General Optimus. Chapter 20: Important Grandpa Negotiations Snake 22, Year 8693 of the Grand Wulin Era, Avarius Goldscale I see, so it''s my turn to add to this thing? Well, Alex asked, and that friend of mine who likes to use her feet to hang off of tree branches already contributed, so I guess I have to. Tch, how annoying, I have so much research to do and so little time. What,did you think that someone who''s reached the point I have can just give up on improving? Nah, there''s always more to learn and change and improve. But that''s all beside the point, I''m supposed to be telling you about the events of that day from my perspective. I''m Avarius Goldscale, which is pretty funny when you consider that mine well, aren''t. I hadn''t had a super big role in these adventures yet, partially because I was young and thought being quiet was cool and scholarly, which in retrospect is really kind of embarrassing. So many thoughts were left unsaid because I wanted to seem cool and mysterious,and I think only a kid can really put so much effort into that for such a weird reason. Right about when I was finished cooling off the poor tree, which was complaining in the heads of anyone who would listen about how badly it was hurt, the young-looking grandpa showed up. As Alex healed the trees, the old-but-young grandpa forced apart the two fighters, and began talking. By the time he''d admonished Aelia for being a disgusting entitled brat, Alex was about halfway through healing the trees. If you want to know how we heard the trees, let''s just say a combination of high wood affinity and sapience makes it really easy for plants to annoy you about their problems, like the squirrel living in a hole on their trunk or the seasons changing or suddenly discovering the concept of death. If you didn''t know berry bushes can be nihilistic, they can, and it annoys me how funny I find that.But yeah, anyways, back from my tangent. As the tree doctoring finished, Regulus spoke up. "I have a lot of thoughts, sir, if you will honor them by listening." he said, staring at the young-old grandpa/General Quintus Maximus Optimus/ ah fuck it I''ll just call him General Gramps, you all know his name. "I promise to do so to the best of my ability, but for any requests out of my reach I will have to contact my superiors." General Gramps nodded, his mouth curving into a wry smile. "First thing, I want all charges against my troops and I dropped, and anyone who wants to go home should be allowed to do so. Second, I don''t want the people Aelia dragged along punished. Third, I want to leave the military and become a member of the Myriad Existences Sect, and I want any of my subordinates who would like to do so to be allowed to do so as well." Regulus said, his voice shaking slightly. "I am agreeable with those terms, anything else?" Dmitri, who''d been contacting my Mom and Uncle Marcus, laughed and said "Those conditions are good with our bosses too, the Myriad Existences Sect always welcomes people with good morals and a will to improve." He waved his hand and a green light covered the other prison walnuts, which burst open. Those inside had heard everything, and were looking at Regulus and General Gramps with a determined stare. Regulus asked. "Sir, the two young birds I left back home, could you fetch them for me? I left them behind when they went on the run, but I don''t want the poor kids to be alone any longer. As well, could you send my family, as well as the families of my soldiers, to the Myriad Existences Sect if they want to go?"Support the creativity of authors by visiting Royal Road for this novel and more. "I thought you''d ask, and the families, possessions, and pets of you and all those who left with you are in my World Ring, ready to follow the decisions their family members make. I spent a lot of time preparing to clean up the mess that damn brat made, and was actually on my way to visit you to discuss what to do when she took the opportunity to ambush you." He waved his hand, and a bunch of animals, people, and Spatial Storage Bags poured out of the ring.Two older mortals and a young boy with an aura at 2nd layer Mist Sea, all three resembling Regulus, ran over, as well as two young birds that resembled the manifestations Regulus had used during his fight. The birds began to rub against his legs,making excited coos and caws, and then switched to using recognizable words "Papa, Papa! Khet and Waasi and Gramma and Granpda and Uncle Felix missed Papa!" The Bennu, which I was 100% sure it was by the small bits of fire she was breathing and her crane-like appearance. The Thunderbird, which looked a lot like an oversized purple and blue eaglet, was crying. I hadn''t known birds had tear ducts, but he definitely did. He stuttered. "P-papa.. Papa no leave Waasi and Khet again, kay?" "I promise, alright? I''ll only ever leave you behind if a mission is too dangerous for you, so train hard OK? Waasigan, you''re a thunderbird, so you''re gonna grow up big and strong, just like Khet will, and maybe then you two will be strong enough that I''m the one you''ll protect." Regulus Septimus smiled, picking up the two human-toddler sized birds and cuddling them.After about two minutes, they climbed onto his shoulders, and his parents and brother closed in for a group hug. Even to someone like me, who was pretending to be a lot tougher and colder than I was, their reunion was obviously emotional and I held back tears as similar situations happened all around. It seemed all these former soldiers had decided to join our sect, which would actually be pretty useful and help us expand our operations by a good bit. I was pretty sure the old folks would get together later, and discuss an alliance , with today''s events being part of the reason. After all, it''s a lot easier to paint it as an exchange of talent with an ally than losing defecting soldiers to a neutral party or enemy, which would make the people believe their leaders were cruel or inept, or both. After a bunch of laughter and happy tears, the people prepared to follow us back to the sect. Regulus and his troops approached our group, as we gathered and prepared to lead everyone home. "We have something to say, and I think we all want to say it together." He waved his arms at the group behind him. In unison,as if they''d practiced, the words "Thank you for treating us like we were good people with good reasons to do what we did!'' came out of their mouths. I didn''t quite realize how cruel the world could be at that time, so I thought treating people who turned out to be good people as if they were good people was no big deal. I understand now how much that meant to them, and how scared they''d all been that we might turn on them or kill them at any time, and how safe they felt once they learned that General Quintus Maximus Optimus had interceded for their sake and our sect had decided to help them. We simply nodded and then bowed, as if to say it was just part of doing our duty. In the end, I think it was. After all, if the purpose of a sect isn''t to help and defend people and punish or rehabilitate evil, and to provide governance,then why gather together all that power and those resources in the first place? If the purpose of doing something like that is just to do it, then it''s not just wasteful, you''re letting the people you''re supposed to defend down. Cultivation came into this world as a gift to us, to protect ourselves and what matters to us, so to treat it as something to control and oppress others with is wrong. I didn''t realize, then, how many people disagreed and would use their power selfishly or for evil. After all, even if I was smart and well read, I was still a twelve year old kid,and I wanted to think the world was a good, safe place for people to be in. But seeing this happen strengthened my resolve to make the world the place I believed it was and thought it should be, cause I''d already seen how the world could be unfair , but not how cruel and inhuman people could be. Well, I''d seen that Aelia woman go on her entitled brat rampage, and done something stupid and mean when i was younger myself, but I thought things were much kinder and sweeter than they were. Eventually, I''d be disabused of that notion, but I was still an idealistic kid who carried the dream I put so much time and care into even now. Chapter 21: Home. Snake 22, Year 8693 of the Grand Wulin Era, Avarius Goldscale We gathered everyone and marched home to the Myriad Existences Sect. The strongest people,the Mana Sea Cultivators were positioned at the compass points, with Regulus in the very center, guarding the weakest people, those who weren''t cultivators. The cultivators at 5th layer Mist Sea and above made a large protective ring around those weaker than themselves, and it was under this protection that I''d have previously thought to be extravagant that we returned to the Sect. General Gramps flew ahead of us, apparently sure we could protect ourselves, and excited to meet the higher-ups of the Myriad Existences Sect. That General Gramps seemed to have scooped up Aelia and stowed her in the same ring he''d stored the family of our new sect members, while the Mana Sea Stage cultivator soldiers she''d lead to fight us looked sheepish. My young self wasn''t sure why, but looking back, it makes a lot of sense, because even if they were obviously coerced into doing Aelia''s dirty work they had still done it, and it likely weighed on their consciences and their pride that they''d been used as someone''s private tools instead of the defense of their home and people they''d signed up for. See, especially early into their careers, soldiers don''t like that "protect my home" is often interpreted by their superiors to be "Needlessly attack or antagonize someone else''s home for political reasons." That''s reasonable and natural, because sapient beings don''t like to be aggressor unless they feel like they''re justified in doing so, and even in the most justified war, the horrors of the battlefield, the horrors of taking another thinking feeling life, of watching your friends and comrades die, etch themselves into your brain, and so often, soldiers never get the therapy necessary to move on with their lives or get better. Sometimes that''s due to not being able to bear the cost, sometimes due to their own stubborn insistence that they are fine,but most of all due to the worries of their superiors that it would break the conditioning that binds them so tightly to the armies they serve in. It makes no sense, especially when therapy has developed over the ages into myriads of methods that vary by effectiveness and cost, and should be offered to anyone that needs it, no matter what. Even in mortal worlds, therapy is often readily available, how can societies whose way of life can lead to terrifying, eternal trauma lasting for unlimited amounts of years and drive people with immense creative and destructive power to do things they should not , not have very advanced methods to deal with trauma and mental illness? In a world where someone with sufficient power can twist reality to match their misconception of it, it becomes even more imperative to treat those whose mental states twist their realities, and that''s not even bringing basic compassion and the universalizing moral truth that no one should suffer without good reason into it. At that young age, I didn''t understand this, didn''t understand their reasons, didn''t really understand people all that well, even with my intellect and knowledge. Some things are just learned through experience, especially when you''re the kind of person I was and am, and people, no matter their species, are a strange thing you spend much of your life learning to interact healthily and nicely with. I could go deeper into my thoughts on the nature of sapient beings, but especially as you''re seeing me through the lens of my young self, I don''t believe that would be appropriate. I will at a later point when it''s relevant, but for now that aspect of philosophy is not interesting or relevant. After around two weeks (we went slower so the mortals could keep up), we arrived back at the Sect, and we found places for everyone to live and cultivate. During got to know a lot about the soldiers and their families, and that Felix kid, you know, Regulus''s little brother? He was around 5, and looked creepily like a small clone of his brother. He apparently thought Mingzhou, Alex,and I were even cooler than his brother. He spent half his time following us around, asking us to show off our moves or teach him things or help him take care of an orphaned young bear whose parents had been killed by some terrified hunters when they stumbled into the bears'' territory looking for food and the bears had reacted badly.The tale has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident. The bears in question hadn''t been Magic Beasts quite yet, so the hunters hadn''t felt super guilty, but they''d been looking to find a home for the unfortunate infant, and had met our group on our way back to the sect. It helped that, despite being a baby bear, its parents had been relatively close to metamorphosing into sapient Magic Beasts, and had been at the peak of Mist Sea, so their baby was the size of a miniature pony(around 28 inches tall) and very talented, social, and intelligent for a bear cub. He showed signs of being an Inferno Bear, from the fire dominated section of the local forest, so this made sense, but still, all that was pretty impressive, given he was half a year old at most. Felix took to him very quickly, as did Regulus''s Birds, and soon Felix could be seen riding around on the tiny red-and-orange furred bear, feeding him meat, fruits, some vegetables (which the bear wasn''t fond of), cheese (a big fan), bread(an obsession, probably why Felix later became renowned for his baking skills), and talking to and about him. At night, Felix could often be found cuddling the bear, which he''d named Cinere after the ashes that would emerge when he got excited and his feet burst aflame. Cinere, for his part, quickly grew attached to many of the people around him, but especially Felix. He defined his personal territory, his critical space to protect, as Felix himself. He wasn''t necessarily aggressive to to people who were around Felix, but people who looked in any way to his ursine sensibilities as if they might hurt the kid were going to get an aggressive grumbling roar at minimum and a mauling at worst.This nearly led to a bad situation when some of the other similarly aged relatives of the soldiers picked on Felix for being so obsessed with the cub, but the situation was quickly deescalated by none other than myself. When we arrived at the Sect, Cinere and Felix refused to be separated in any way, so accommodations for a young bear were added to the room Felix would be staying in. We settled back in to the sect, and as the new people settled, there was atmosphere of peace and contentment, everyone finding the places they wanted to be and the roles they wanted to play. As for myself, I just wanted to rest and get back to studying. That peaceful childhood, where I could do purely as I wanted and had little responsibility beyond self improvement, would come to an end soon enough, and I knew that, so I''d decided to enjoy it as much as I could. As days and weeks passed, fading into months, and the wheel of the year turned slowy, I''d make sure to spend my time learning, teaching, researching, and helping, as was my want. I pretended that I was annoyed when others asked for this or that bit of knowledge or can you please help with this project, but I really enjoyed it, and very few people in the sect couldn''t see through the somewhat harsh exterior to how I actually felt. For their parts, Alex and Mingzhou did similar things, but those two were always emotionally open and better with people than I was, so it made sense that if I, the awkward, shy, dorky, cold-seeming dragon kid was doing that, my two social butterfly friends would be helping people as well. Alex was even more driven than I was, always working himself to exhaustion for the sake of others, and for his own improvement. His parents talked to him several times about taking good care of himself, too, and knowing he was incredibly stubborn about it, would enlist Mingzhou and I to make sure that he got time to well, be a kid, relax and enjoy things before responsibility became an absolute imperative instead of something chosen. It seems almost silly that we were so serious about it so young.But, looking back it stuck, and for good reason. Even to this day, despite being as powerful and important as we are now, we still take time to make sure we balance responsibility and desire, enjoyment and work, happiness and duty, like we did then. It''s important to enjoy life and be able to have others help carry your burdens, no matter if you''re a farmer or a soldier or a ruler or a god or even just a humble artist. Chapter 22: I Tutor Some Brats! Horse 12, Year 8693 Of The Grand Wulin Era, Avarius Goldscale A surprising amount of these soldiers were from poor families, so while the soldiers themselves had been well educated by the Sol Magna Empire, most of their younger siblings and relatives weren''t so lucky. I get that they''re an Empire and all, and their social programs and stuff are a bit archaic, but it really weirded me out that basic education wasn''t freely available to everyone regardless of economic or social status, having grown up in a sect where resources and information were pretty easily shared and for more valuable or rare stuff you''d just have to put in some extra effort beyond your normal duties, which were carefully assigned to allow for either free time, one''s own studies and training, or time to earn extra contribution points withoutexhausting oneself half to death. ( I know you''re reading this, you stubborn flame headed pretty-boy, and you still do that kind of thing to this day. Honestly, how does an immortal being exhaust himself into a near-death state constantly? You work too damn hard.) The task of educating them fell to those of us who''d been in the sect a while to teach them, and I volunteered. Somehow, I got stuck teaching a bunch of kids, from a little younger than Felix to barely younger than myself, with their anxious parents standing by, ostensibly to calm their children if they got upset or remove kids who disturbed the peace, but really, they wanted to learn to. After all, who doesn''t want to know more about the world they live in, let alone one where cultivation exists and anyone can potentially become an immortal being or even a god? Imagine someone with barely any education gaining that kind of terrifying power, the power to warp the laws of reality without understanding them and how their alterations would effect things,and you''ll understand why I was so shocked by the concept of a country with so many cultivators not having universal basic education, let alone that, yanno, everyone deserves free access to that regardless of the power they might or might not wield. As I thought about these heavy subjects,that my young self didn''t know carried such weight,I calmed myself and asked the assembled class a question. "Well, I have a list of your names, and I''m going to do a roll call soon, but first I''m going to ask what you''d like to learn about first! Would you like to learn about the basics of cultivation or the story of how our world was born, or would you like to learn the runes we use to read and write? You can learn about the magic ones that create cool effects later, but you need to learn your basics first!" I stopped and took a breath, only to realize I''d been babbling,and was sure I''d destroyed my cool and collected image(that I didn''t really have). The class seemed to have not realized that, and were staring at me attentively, with pondering looks on their faces as they tried to decide what they wanted to learn. I''d later learn that the upper classes of Sol Magna had traditionally asserted that the poor were unintelligent and superstitious, bad at learning, as well unwilling to learn and not worth educating. I have since learned that those in power often act that way across many worlds, as an uneducated people who don''t know their rights or their history or how they''re being controlled and abused are significantly easier to control and abuse and deceive. Experience has taught me that the societally disadvantaged are in fact willing and able to learn and change, and in that moment the eyes of these kids and their parents carried a burning curiosity, a pure desire to know tinged with the drive to improve themselves. The children looked at each other, then gathered together into small groups, exchanging hushed whispers I could easily hear if I wanted, but deliberately chose to not, out of a certain respect for their desire for privacy. I let them discuss for a few minutes, waiting for the whispering to escalate and then die down. The parents were apparently willing to abide by whatever decision the kids came to, as they stayed out of the intense whisper-debate entirely. After a while, they came to a consensus. One kid, a small girl around Felix''s age, spoke up. "Well, we''ve all heard it before, but we want to hear you tell it. The story of how the Myriad Heavens Cosmos came to be!" Given that a 5 year old was capable of that kind of eloquence, she was probably from a merchant family or noble family, and I''m pretty sure she was. From what I remembered, she was the daughter of that Mage subordinate of Regulus''s , Marcia Potitia? Either way, she came from a well off background, and her mother had likely made sure she was educated, so I wondered why she was there. I would soon find out, but for that moment the question bothered me.If you spot this narrative on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation. "Well, since you asked nicely, let''s get to it. In the beginning, the creators came from many places. From worlds far flung on the grand Wheel Of The Multiverse that orbits the Well Of Origin, they came. They left their homes for many reasons, some exiled, some seeking purpose, some having given up on life, some looking for a fresh start. They came for many reasons, often fleeing mistreatment and oppression and pointless hatreds and injustices. They wished to start a world of their own, as free of these things as they could manage. They found an empty spot on the Wheel, filled with energy and substance, where the laws of reality could be easily shaped into the Dao they sought to establish. Some had even come from worlds where there was no such thing as magic or cultivation and where science was the only way to understand Dao, before having been reborn into other worlds and working their way up to godhood." I paused, taking a breath and looking around. I''d carefully infused a little mana and some Illusion Dao Insight into my words, creating the images that matched the words in their heads, filling even the oldest of the adults with feelings of absolute, childlike wonder. They saw pieces of many lives, a tapestry of experiences that I''d pieced together from tales of the lives of the group of gods that had created our universe, as well as memories embedded by the gods themselves into copies of those stories. "They joined together their massive strengths, channeling their nigh-limitless energies and formidable insight into Dao and many other powers into a grand act of creation. Guided by their thoughts, feelings, and pushed and prodded by reality itself, they gathered energy and matter and formed a world that could fulfill their dreams, and that they could watch over and do their best to ensure the things that drove them away from their homelands wouldn''tspring up in their pure, new land.The world, our world, the grand and vast Myriad Heavens Cosmos, took its place on the vast Wheel Of The Multiverse. The gods filled it with life, some brought with them from their homes, some created out of memory, some springing from the vibrant energies of the early universe itself, and some entirely from their own imaginations and experimentation. Some of the life they created or introduced even continued to evolve at a rapid rate due to the sheer power present in the new universe, producing even more fantastic life forms!" I paused again, looking around at my spellbound audience. That blond child, whose name I didn¡¯t yet know, asked a question. ¡°Mister. Goldscale, what did the gods do after they created the world, and where are they now?¡± ¡°That¡¯s a good question, MissPotitia, and to answer it I have to go into things we don¡¯t know for certain.¡± I explained, not wanting to give the kids the wrong idea by stating theory and suspicion as fact. ¡°My name¡¯s Lucia! I really wanna hear what¡¯s next, even if it might not be true, and I think we all do!¡± The other kids nodded and whooped and cheered in support of Lucia,and a smile crept onto my scaly face as I waited for the assembled kids to calm down. A smile?Yeah, despite the scales and all my face was in a pretty human state at the time,so I could talk to these mostly-human kids and their parents more easily. I¡¯d learned quickly that without visual social cues, misinterpretations were hard to avoid. ¡°Well, nobody knows for sure why, but about 2000 years before the current calendar began , people stopped being able to travel to first the Divine Realms, and the gods stopped leaving the Divine Realms, as if they had all be called back home for some reason. About a thousand years after that, the Immortal Realms closed off. 500 years after that, the myriad Mortal Realms closed off from each other as well. Another 500 years after that, we stopped receiving communications from the gods, and mysterious ruins, tombs, temples, and the like began to appear across the various Mortal and Immortal realms, and nobody has been able to enter them yet. As well, many resources and materials appeared in places they had never before been, and the background mana levels in many worlds increased drastically. These structures all have a timer in some way, shape, or form, that counts down to the same day, the last day of the month of Rat ,in the 8699thyear of the Grand Wulin Era.¡± I paused, taking a deep breath before I continued.¡±When the grand Wulin Era began, the seals locking people to their home planes faded, and we could travel again, but the gods were gone without a trace but these strange structures and without the gods'' gentle but firm rule and with the greed and evil in the hearts of some people, our world began to change from the gods¡¯ shining vision to what it has become today.Since that day, no one has ascended to god-hood, and the Dao has had to take care of itself.¡± The kids sat there in awe, soaking in what I said, but I saw something in the eyes of the adults and the older kids. It was a grief for the gods they''d long known to be missing, a sadness for a world that had seen better days. They lamented for what had been, and were saddened by what was. I saw something else in the eyes of a few, though. A determination, burning and pure, a desire to rebuild their world into what it had once been. This was the goal of many cultivators, but as of yet nobody knew how exactly that''d be managed. Many hopes rode on those ruins, hoping that these relics of our past would lead us to the future. Chapter 23: More Teachin! Horse 12, Year 8693 Of The Grand Wulin Era, Avarius Goldscale I watched the awed silence turn into chatter, closing my eyes and shutting off my ears, sitting in the chair behind the desk I''dbeen standing in front of. I extended out my Divine Sense, waiting for the chatter to end. When it did, I opened my eyes, and used my Divine Sense to ask them all a question. This was pretty much the classic cultivator ability of voice transmission, and all voice transmission devices really did was focus at specific targets and allow for greater range with Divine Sense communication. They all simultaneously heard my voice in their heads, as if I was speaking directly into their brains. "So, what''s next? What would you like to learn? By The way, this speaking in your head is Voice Transmission,an ability all Cultivators with sufficient Spirit Energy to develop Divine Sense have." The kids discussed again, andI hear various subjects flung around, from the alphabet to golemancy to cooking.After a while, they quieted down and stared at me. They seemed to have decided Lucia should be the one representing the class as a group, as she asked. "Can you teach us to cultivate, Mr Goldscale? We want to get started young , because we''ve heard its something you put a long time into to get anywhere, and we want our parents to get started too." ":Well first, you reach out with your Spiritual Energy, which is a form of energy generated by the souls of living beings and does important things likehelp keepthe nervous system running, being the basis for the Divine Sense, which is a form of sensory perception able to perceive aspects of things other senses struggle to or are unable to, and numerous other functions. It¡¯s essentially the blood, flesh, of the soul, in a sense. Spiritual Energy can travel through your nervous system,the circulatory system, the organs, out into the world, and even into the meridian system that transfers mana through the body. Do any of you know how to control your Spiritual Energy?" I asked. Felix Septimus, who was in the class, spoke up. "Uh, my big bro taught me how. Cultivators have strong enough minds and souls to do it all the time, but mortals like us have to meditate to do it. We gotta sit down, clear our heads, and focus really hard on reaching out with our minds, kinda like when you strain your eyes to see or sniff harder to catch a smell!" he seemed excited to know something that important, which made sense to me. "Very good, Felix. I''d like all of you, parents included, tosit down, meditate,and try to feel your spiritual energy. Your parents will have an easier time sensing and controlling it, since the mind and soul naturally strengthen as you age and experience things." They sat down and meditated, focusing their minds, and one by one, I could feel their Spiritual Energy stir. It''s very similar to consciouslybreathing, everyone naturally uses their Spiritual Energy in an undirected, unconsciousway to feel out their environment, it''s where the idea of the "sixth sense" comes from. Spirit Energy is also the part of people that forms the soul, like...Neurons for the soul I guess? Dueto that, the soul stores memories in case of loss of body or reincarnation, and is essentially the "self" that exists regardless of body. Brain damage can prevent accessingthe memories stored in the soul, as the soul is centered there and the physical versions of memory are stored in the brain anyways. I guess souls were first created as a sort of brain backup/ the part of a person that gets reincarnated, and developed more from there. No one''s really sure, as souls are present in pretty much every sentient or sapient being across the multiverse, and even things like weapons and places can develop souls of their own. When you learn to control and direct Spiritual Energy, that controlled energy becomes a weird combination of another appendage and a sensory perception, andthatis the true nature of Divine Sense. I could feel them pushing their Divine Senses around, looking at their own bodies, sensing the weird semi-physical, semi-spiritual nature of the meridians, some of them getting lost in the rhythmsof their hearts or the many weird and interesting processes their organs carried out. I needed to distract them, because if you got lost in the miracles of yourown body and didn''t learn how to pull out, bad things could happen. What should I do? Wait, I''d seen this situation before, I knew what to do! I spoke, and as I did, I infused my words with mana and a little bit of Illusion Dao again. "That''s good! Now, push it outside of your body, into the air around you. Do you feel the air around you? The many little living things and bits of dust floating in it? Do you feel something else, a warm, gentle misty thing, sometimes without color, sometimes with different colors and feelings attached?" They complied, and I could feel their own Divine Senses stretching out, exploring and grasping, feeling their way around a whole new sensory interface for the first time in their lives.Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon. "Yeah! This one feels cold and that one feels warm and that one feels heavy! The golden one feels sharp and the green one feels like that forest we walked through to get here!" Felix babbled, excited. "That''s Mana, Felix. See,Once you reach out with your Divine Sense through your spiritual energy, you feel Mana, the lifeblood energy of the universe itself. It¡¯s kinda hard to describe what mana overall feels like, as the elemental nature or other aspects of the mana can change the feeling, but pure, raw mana feels like a warm, gentle current of energy, but it takes the form of that strange misty substance. Can anyone else feel it?" They all nodded one by one, with awe and childish wonder on their faces, even the adults grinning goofily. "Well then, once you feel the mana in the air, you grab onto it with your spiritual energy and drag it over to your body,where your own mana sucks it into your pores." *I explained. "We have mana?" Lucia asked "Yes, Lucia! Everyone is born with Mana, but it doesn''t really get stronger naturally unless you cultivate. Well, it does a bit as you grow up, and for normal animals,Demonic Beasts, and non-thinking Magic Beasts, but outside of that, or eating very mana-rich foods or medicines, you have to cultivate if you want to strengthen your mana. Now, onto what''s next. That captured mana travels through the meridian system into the lower dantian, which is right above the waist and back a couple inches." "What''s a Dantian?" Another girl piped up. She was short and chubby, with black hair and dark eyes. "Well, It¡¯s a sea of energy that contains a cultivator¡¯s mana.There are two others, but they don''t become relevant until Shard Forming. You might thinkwith its location, that could mess with some organs, by pushing them around or something, but the dantian is interesting in that while it technically physically exists and can be damaged by physical things, it takes up very little actual physical space, merging seamlessly into the flesh surrounding it." "So what happens next?" The short girl asked, as I watched the mana flow through my student''s bodies into their Dantians. "When mana enters the dantian, any unwanted impurities in the mana (mana of elements you don¡¯t want, bits of other people¡¯s spiritual energy, strange bits of random filth, and so on) are sent out through the meridians, escaping through the pores. The purified mana is imprinted with your spiritual energy signature, making it yours until you use it up. It goes on a trip through the meridian system, into the flesh and blood, nourishing them and clearing out toxins and other unwanted substances of physical, spiritual, and energy types. Is everyone getting this?Are you feeling it happen!" I could tell they were, as dark, smelly stuff, which was dead cells, toxins, and other impurities started to ooze from their pores. A lot more was coming from the adults, which made sense, as they had higher natural mana levels and much bigger bodies.The class nodded silently as one, nobody wanting to miss a second of what I was saying. "Feels nice, right?It always does, that''s part of why cultivating never gets boring.The mana then goes to the soul, where it nourishes the spiritual energy and cleanses and strengthens the soul somewhat. It then heads back to the dantian, where it again has the impurities purged and settles into the sea of mist in the dantian. When the dantian is full and the cultivator tries to absorb more mana, the cultivator must force the mana mist to condense, which refines it further, making it purer and of higher quality. None of you are at that step yet, it takes a while to fill the dantian with even the thinnest mana mist. " "So that''s how cultivating works?" A man in his twenties who resembled the short, chubby child , stopped cultivating and asked. "Yep! There are lots of methods, and a lot of different types of cultivation, but they all revolve on a basic level around mana and purification. Condensing mana into purer, higher quality mana, over time, creates a dense mist of mana which will be useful for far more than just strengthening body and soul.The first stage of cultivation, where the mana is still in a misty state and has yet to condense into liquid, is called the Mist Sea stage. It''s divided into 9 layers, based on the purity and density of the mana mist. A few more days to a few weeks of cultivation,and you all should reach the first layer of the Mist Sea stage.. " "Other uses? Like the weird spells and magic weapons cultivators use?" The man asked. "Yeah, the mana mist has a lot of uses! It can be infused into physical attacks, projectile attacks, the muscles, used for defensive purposes,shaped into various forms, or combined with the spirit energy in different patterns to essentially force the world to produce a specific effect, called a spell. The first path is the path of the Warrior, and the second the path of the Mage. There''s another path, the Warmage, that combines the two. These uses are very important to later cultivation, and all users of mana have their own specialties. For example, i''m a Mage. I specialize in attack and support spells, as well as golem creation."I waved my hands, and vines grew out of the floor rapidly, grew beautiful, glowing flowers,and then burst into flame and vanished. "Whoa, how strong are you, Mr Goldscale? " Lucia asked, tilting her head. "Well,Lucia, I''ma 9th layer Mist Sea stage cultivator, about to break through to Mana Sea by liquefying my mana. Your Mom''s boss, Regulus, did that a couple weeks back during the big fight that got you all brought here, and your Mom is as strong as me in terms of Cultivation level, though I could likely beat her in a fight." Marcia Potitia, watching from a corner of the room, shrugged. She''d seen me fight, and as much as it would wound her pride to admit, she only had about a 50/50 chance of beating me 1v1. "Wow, will we get that strong if we keep cultivating?" Felix asked. "Yes,almost certainly. Maybe one day, you might even become an immortal, or a god, like the ones that built our world, if you keep at it and get lucky." I said, smiling. Chapter 24:Old Folks Announce Alliance Horse 20, Year 8693 Of The Grand Wulin Era, Avarius Goldscale The news came while I was working on a damaged golem, trying to figure out how it did what it did, how to replicate it, and how to fix it. The golem in question was something Uncle Marcus and Uncle Alim had found on a trip into a ruin, and kept because it could be useful. Uncle Alim knew enough about it to repair it, but he had similar models that were currently working, and wanted to test if any of the sect''s young artificers and alchemists and the like could figure it out. The golem had a special ability, to self-repair and upgrade itself by absorbing minerals, metals, and other materials. This process relied on its core, which was a large, pure mana crystal somewhat resembling the Crystal Shard formed in the Shard Formation Stage,inscribed with various runes and conduits carved into it. The runes provided function, and the conduits were like a meridian network, moving mana around the core structure and into the various wires .devices, and crystals that were the internal parts of the golem. I guess you could say it was more a robot than a pure golem, but those two categories were pretty much the same thing in this world. The core was damaged, a few key runes and mana conduits broken or obliterated.These runes were in charge of the golem''s self repair ability and the absorption and transmission of mana and other energies. I could tell this from looking at the rest of the core , and what should be in those places, but was unsure how to fix them without compromising more of the runes or causing the core to overload and explode. At the current moment, I''d given up on repairs, and decided to attempt to create another core like the original one, to see what an undamaged core should function like. To that end, I''d borrowed a golem of the same model, graciously loaned to me by Uncle Alim, with a gentle reminder to neither blow it or myself up. Did things really explode that often during my experiments? Thinking back on it, I''d managed to make a lot of things explode while experimenting, the list including weapons, training dummies, various furniture, lab equipment, a rune that was supposed to suppress explosions, a cake I''d baked for Alex''s last birthday,a bag of chemically inert sand, the last six inches of my tail (which had since grown back), and the fruit juice I''d been drinking that morning. At the time, I figured that perhaps I should study explosion Dao, gain some control and weaponize this unfortunate fault. I would later end up becoming one of the greatest experts to ever exist when it came to explosions, but that was far in the future, and the overly-serious little brat I was then would never have thought his attempts to be less wasteful and not embarrass himself would lead to something that cool. While I was memorizing the runic patterns and mana conduits of the intact core, comparing them to the broken one, and shaping an as yet unaltered mana crystal into the right size and shape for the core I intended to make, the communicator on my wrist buzzed,and I gently, almost lazily, tapped the screen on top of it with a claw. It had a lot of functions, including access to that virtual-reality internet thing that Alex introduced when talking about his birthday, but the one currently being used was the voice transmission function. "All Myriad Existences Sect personnel please report to the auditorium of the Recreational Palace, we have an important announcement to make. This concerns the futures of all Sect members, their families, and the mortals and sect-less cultivators within our territory, so try to make it snappy!" Mom''s voice blared in my head, and I assumed everyone else who was part of the sect was hearing it as well. I put away my experimental materials into the Spacial Ring on my right hand, and gloomily marched out of my room towards the Recreational Palace, grumpy about my experiment being interrupted. The Recreational Palace was actually a really fun place, it was the sect''s designated "Kick back, relax, and enjoy stuff" zone, with everything from pools, to little food stalls, sparring arenas, virtual combat simulators, all sorts of interesting games and activities, roller coasters and the like, and there were even things like exercise classes or people sharing their memories publicly as if they were movies or TV shows. It was fairly comprehensive, and there were even parts dedicated solely to adults that kids like myself could only try to figure out and were not allowed into. There were also various meeting places for clubs and groups of friends, auditoriums with stages for plays or for important announcements or sect meetings, and other things of that nature.This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it. I figured I''d console myself after this oh-so-important meeting with some food that was extremely sugary and tasted good while not being very good for me, and then splash around in a pool for a while before I went back to my experiments. It seemed like it''d be a productive use of my time, as everyone needed to relax sometimes, even me. I wasn''t planning to slack off because I was in a bad mood, not at all. As you can see, I was bad at lying to myself, but still managed to fall for that bad lie. I arrived at the relevant auditorium half an hour later,and sank into one of the many comfy armchairs that were this auditorium''s form of those weird uncomfortable folding seats I''d seen in other auditoriums outside the sect. I looked up at the stage, and my parents, Alex''s parents, Uncle Gao, and a few of the Sect''s other Elders (Andrew Summerwind had become one recently, by working his way up to a position of authority in the Sect''s alchemy department), stood there, along with that Grandpa General, Quintus Maximus Optimus, as well as a few other men and women in the uniforms of Sol Magnan generals and government personnel. Mom turned towards the audience, clearing her throat loudly and waiting for everyone to quiet down and focus on her. Her human form had long silver hair like mine, with golden-yellow eyes, and her facial features were pretty similar to my own, but with thicker eyebrows and lips, a more pronounced chin, and higher cheekbones. She was tall and somewhat willowy, but that was only in proportion to how overall hugeshe was, she actually had relatively broad shoulders and wide hips for a woman her height. She was not neccesarily as muscular as Aunt Hilde, but still had enough muscle to show that she wasn''t a pushover in a physical fight. Standing there in front of everyone, the space where she was gave off an aura of casual strength, as if she was always subtly reminding you that she could crush stones into powder with her bare hands. Looking at Dad next to her, he was actually kinda short, now that I had grown up enough to realize it, only around 5 feet 4 inches to mom''s 6 feet six inches. I guess when you aren''t quite a kid anymore, adults aren''t all titans. He was a very thin and overall delicate looking man, with features even softer than my own. He seemed more bored with what was going on than anything else, his usual perpetual grin replaced with an annoyed grimace.He was often described (in whispers he wasn''t supposed to hear) as cute. Despite his entirely nonthreatening appearance, he gave off an aura of mystery and a sense that he was much more than he appeared. Any idiot who judged him by appearance soon learned that Theodore Goldscale, for all that his apparent softness, had a sharp mind and sharper abilities. When the audience did focus, she spoke, her voice carrying across the auditorium, yet sounding as if she was calmly talking to each person ,right in front of them.It was a neat trick involving a little bit of illusion-type Dao Insight, combined with a mass Voice Transmission. Slightly inefficient and wasteful of mana, but it was definitely a cool way to grab people''s attention and hold onto it. "The Myriad Existences Sect has officially declared an alliance with the Sol Magna Empire! The purpose of this alliance is to exchange knowledge and resources easily, as well as to learn from one another''s cultures, traditions and institutions while helping each other to improve. There''s also the side benefit of this alliance presenting a strong front to our mutual enemy, the Frost Walker kingdom, and their attempts to expand across the whole Earth Dragon continent. They have some foolish claim about how it should be theirs because they''re descended from the top echelons of the Earth Dragon Empire, before the gods ended that empire for its hubris and imperialist expansion, but it''s just a cover for their nationalist views and hatred of cultures not their own, as well as their greed. Any questions?" Nobody asked a thing, but it was apparent to the members of the Myriad Existences Sect that we were allying with a lesser evil to face a greater one, in hopes to turn that lesser evil into a true ally. I figured the questions would come later, when people were no longer spellbound by mom''s neat trick and unlikely to attempt to form any sort of mob if the answers pressed the wrong buttons. "Well that''s good, then. The contract that our alliance was formed under will be available in the library one week from now for public reading, and the exact terms of it and how they affect individuals, the sect as a whole, and our new allies will be clearly explained in relevant documents that will also be available at that time. You''re free to go, but remember that we will be having a party to celebrate the alliance a week from today, and invitations will be sent out to all guests tomorrow. You will be allowed, and even expected, to bring one or two guests of your own, if you receive an invitation. That''s all folks, enjoy yourselves." Mom cut off the voice transmission, and disappeared in a flash of light, probably off to gorge herself on food and then rest in a lava pool to relax. Look, she was a Crystal Soul stage cultivator and a dragon to boot, she would easily be able to deal with and even enjoy the intensity of lava. Hiatus(sorry) I can''t stay motivated to write this at the current time. My life is currently really busy, and will be for a while. So, I''m dropping Immortal Shards for now. However, I will be writing another,somewhat easier to write story, and it will be updated as I can. I will return to immortal shards once i''ve progressed enough in that new work and my life is much less hectic.When Immortal Shards returns, i''ll finish up the childhood arc and the world will finally find out what the fuck is up with those weird sealed places with the timers.I''m very sorry to bring bad news, and I''ll make sure that Immortal Shards is a much better piece of work than it currently is when it returns.Also, it''ll finally have a damn cover. I''ll say that my new fic is in the same setting as Immortal Shards, and you''ll see some current and future IS characters,though it''s also set in a lot of other settings. It will somewhat use the same system of cultivation as Immortal Shards, but it''ll also use a lot of other types of powers and abilities and cultivation systems, as the MC will be a dimension hopper of sorts. Those of you who actually read this, look for it, and get hyped please. The first few chapters of the new work should be coming very soon, so keep an eye out for a new fic by yours truly. Bookdragon out.If you find this story on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the infringement.