《The Monster Immortal》
Chapter 1 - Leaving Home
Chapter 1 - Leaving Home
''How have i gotten myself here? What did I do to deserve this?WHY????¡¯
In that very moment he could see everything and it all made sense.
He was born Zhou Ryu, second son of Zhou Hai and Youlan, younger brother to Zhou Wu by two years and older brother to Zhou Zishan by a year. He was born in this little family. The Zhou family, but this little Zhou family was actually one of the many branches of the Zhou clan, one of the Great Four Clans, the 12thbranchto be exact.This was his boon and his curse.
The Zhou familyweresettled in the northern part of the Xia continent, in Rock City and where his father was Lord Prefect.Rock City was situated atop a plateau with a view over the Dark Forest, a place infested with low level magical beasts and very thick vegetation. As such even if the Dark Forest was an easy hunting spot for any decent cultivator it was prohibiting for regular humans, making it the last city before the Frozen Mountains and the Ice Waste beyond, and those were the danger areas the cultivator wanted to keep an eye on. That was the true value of Rock City. Not the trading centre over the pelts and meat from low levelled magical beasts, but as a watchtower, making sure to sound the alarm in case anything that shouldn¡¯t left the Frozen Mountains.
Supposedly Ryu was born with great talent and luck, and by the age of 7 he managed to get to the 1st level of the beginner realm of martial arts. This was a great feat, almost miraculous, of an unparalleled genius and he was basked in gifts and the respect and admiration of everyonefor it. Everyone except his mother. For as long as he could remember, his mother always treated him either coldly or ignored him altogether, which up until then was never as apparent. Frustrated with the way she treated him, Ryu insisted in tryinghis best in cultivating, reading every manual that he had, every martial art, consuming every medicine, hoping that she would notice him, but it had the opposite effect. The more Ryu tried the less she seemed to like him and the more apparent it was that there was something wrong with him, for some reason Ryu didn¡¯t seem to breakthroughor make any progress at all.
As time went on the respect and admiration he had gained lessened, then it turned into indifference and then into scornand by the age of 9 servants and village people even started to bully Ryu. Of course, the main instigators were still his own brothers. Zhou Wu was apparently a late bloomer, of sorts, whose rise coincided with Ryu¡¯s downfall, he was mean and enjoyed it and had a superiority complex. Wu would take every chance he could get to bully Ryu and make clear to all that he was the eldest son, he was the talented one. Thankfully, not long after his rise,Wu was sent to the Zhou clan main villa, to live with his grandfather, where he would train to become the next head of the 12th branch. Missing her eldest son, Youlan put all her attention on Zishan, who, even though not as talented as Wu and despite being a year younger than Ryu, was already at 3rd level of beginner realm. Zhou Zishan grew up to be a spoiled little brat, who though he could do anything to anyone without repercussions, which seriously twisted his personality.
Eventually Ryu stopped trying so hard and then stopped trying cultivating altogether. He realized that the cultivating techniques, martial arts and cultivating resources he had access to were all low level, gifts or otherwise. He realized that if he wanted to breakthrough he would need something else, something more powerful, and he would only get it if he broke through and showed promise, which was impossible. Unemcumbered by that he sought other things in life, and he did what he wanted, what he liked. So he read. He read and read everything there was on cultivating legends, mythological magical beasts, great cultivators wars and even about outsiders. Now he saw how he was torturing himself, how the dream of immortality and great power never left him, how he was searching for the impossible.
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And this brings us to this fateful day. Ryu was now 10.
Due to family reasons Ryu usually steered clear of anyone and everyone, so he spent most of his days reading in the library and when that wasn¡¯t possible wondering just outside the city, observing the animals and the birds, the flowers and the trees, rocksand well...nature. And this day was no different, except when he was approaching the cliff to the west of the city Ryu ran in on his brother, Zishan. He was accompanied by a servant boy and girl and their mother, who stayed a bit behind.
¡°My, my, what a coincidence to run into you elder brother.¡± said Zishan with a sarcastic tone, which provoked giggles from the servant girl. ¡°What are you doing here wandering by yourself?¡±
¡°Just going for a walk.¡±
¡°Hahahaha, how good it is to be a genius. He can even spend his days doing nothing.¡±
As soon as the servants heard this they burst out laughing.
¡°Zishan, you know full well that I am no genius. I was just a bit lucky when I was young. You and Wu are the true geniuses.¡±
¡°How dare you speak to young master Zishan like that? And how dare you presume to know what young master knows?¡± barked the servant girl, and the servant boy seemed about to jump at Ryu, but with a wave of his hand Zishan stopped them. Then he looked at Ryu seriously and said with a grin
¡°Brother, I am starting to get sick of you, always scurrying about with your little books or staring at nothing,I think that you are an eyesore to our great Zhou family. From this day forward you are to bemy servant. No, better yet, you are to be her servant, because you don¡¯t deserve to serve me.HAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!¡±
¡°What? What are you talking about? You can¡¯t be serious. I am, still, your elder brother and a member of the Zhou family. I will never serve you, much less her, so quit talking drivel.¡±
¡°Ho!? You won¡¯t? Now let¡¯s see about that.¡±
As soon as he uttered those words he jumped at Ryu, kicked him to the ground and started wailing at him with his 3rd level beginner realm cultivation power. He went on and on and on, broke Ryu¡¯s teeth, his ribs and his left arm and then picked him up and asked:
¡°Will you serve?¡±
¡°Mother, please help! Please!¡±
Zishan heard Ryu and turned around to see the reaction of their mother, but all there was to see was a shine in her eyes and a big wicked smile plastered on her face.
¡°HAHAHAHA. No one will help you. Will you serve?¡±
¡®How have i gotten myself here? What did I do to deserve this?WHY THIS?????¡¯
And in that very moment Ryu could see everything and it all made sense. In a flash of either insight or madness or maybe even both Ryu¡¯s thoughts were clear.
¡®I haven¡¯t done anything to deserve this. I shouldn¡¯t have to plead for my mother¡¯s love. My brothers shouldn¡¯t treat me this way. There was nothing that I did wrong. They were in the wrong. But, unfortunately, there is nothing that I can do now, I could only serve or die. If that is the case then I would rather die than serve this family, and I will go down swinging, Iwill bring Zishan with me. This way he will pay for what he did and Zhou Youlan will lose her most precious son.¡¯
He knew what to do. Ryu grabbed Zishan with all his might and performed the forbidden technique: Last Cry. He shouldn¡¯t have had access to a forbidden technique like that, a technique thatconsisted in exploding his dantianand suiciding, but Ryu suspected his family had little knowledge of what was actually in the home library. As he started all of his ki rushed to his dantian, followed by all of the ki nearby and he felt his body strengthening beyond belief. Zishan frowned and tried to free himself, but to no avail. After his dantiancame out of his mouthasball of incredible radiant white light and started hovering just above their heads. As soon as Zishan and Youlan saw this their faces grew ugly, and the servants ran away. Zishan tried frantically to escape but he just couldn¡¯tbecause even thought he had superior cultivation Ryu under the effects of the forbidden technique was incredibly physically strong.
¡°RELEASE ME!!NOW!!!!¡±
¡°You will die with me today.¡±
Youlan seeing that her beloved son was in danger jumped in to try and separate Ryu from Zishan, but as she did this she pushed Ryu away and ended up throwing Ryu over the cliff. Ryu didn¡¯t see what happened next but as he was free fallinghe saw the sky light up and heard the most beautiful sound he ever heard a huge ¡°BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOM¡± and then the world turned dark.
Chapter 2 - Breakfast
Chapter 2 - Breakfast
Ryu woke up in the shore of a small river, half submerged, and his once refined blue robes were now so torn and worn out that they were no more than mere rags. He slowly and painfully tried to get up, but he was too weak, too injuredand had now a twisted ankle, the best he could manage was to barely sit up. He looked around and tried to figure out where he was.
¡®I must have fallen into the river that runs in the bottom of that cliff and then was dragged here.¡¯ All he could see was a flush green and thick forest with a small river running by. ¡®If I remember correctly that river was the river He that runs north into the great Silver River and then it continues through the Ice Wasteand into the North Sea. If so, then this must be the Dark Forest.¡¯
The Dark Forest was a forest that spans almost all the length of the northern region of the Xia continent, as for width, it went from Rock City in the southern part of the northern region to the Frozen Mountains. It was inhabited mostly by animals, but it also housed low level magical beasts, a great number of them.
Even though they were low level magical beasts, their presence made Ryu fearful because they were still stronger than any human of the same level, much less him that had no dantian. When this thought occurred to him, he remembered what happened, how his family had treated him for years and how it all ended. He wondered if Zishan was dead, if his mother also died.
He looked at the river and saw his reflection. He saw a pale, frightened boy with messy dark hair, freckles and missing his front teeth. He looked to his side and saw his broken left forearm just dangling there. His family had betrayed him, acute pain ran throughout his entire body, he was weak, alone and cold in an isolated forest full of deadly beasts that wanted to eat him.
¡®No they are not my family anymore. Probably weren¡¯t for a long time now.¡¯
He thought of giving up. Just letting go and dying peacefully, but thefact that he was where he was, how he was, instead of bringing him dread and sadness, brought him an incredible sense of peace and freedom. For very first time in his live, he could do anything he wanted, be anyone he wanted and he had no one to account for or to. His mind was clearand revenge filled his heart, like a fire breathing life into him.This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.
¡®I will not die here. The entire Zhou clan will perish at my hands. I will rise from the ashes and make the whole world tremble at the mere thought of me.¡¯
¡®Never will I be this helpless again. Never will others look down on me again¡¯
He had learned his lesson and now he wanted revenge. He wanted anything and everything.
And this very feeling etched itself in his mind, in every fiber of his body, in his soul, in his very being. As long as he continued to exist, in all the worlds, in all the times, he would strive with everything he got to stand above all othersand to end the damned Zhou Clan.
As such he stared to ponder how, exactly, was he going to survive? He was cold, weak and hungry, very hungry. Ryu figured that there was nothing he could do about his weakness for now, but he should eat something and built a fire. The only problem was that he did not know what he could eat or how to build a fire.
Since he did not know what was good to eat and what wasn¡¯t he couldn¡¯t pick flowers, leafs, fruits or berries because they might be poisonous. Since he was so weak he couldn¡¯t hunt and since starving wasn¡¯t an option, Ryu decided that he would risk it and eat whatever he could get his hands on. So he crawled his way to the nearest tree and with his good hand he pried a piece of bark out of it and ate it.
¡®A true woody flavor.¡¯
The tree bark was disgusting and hard, but Ryu ate it none the less and when he finished he grabbed another piece, and another and another. Soon he had taken all the bark he could from that tree, but it didn¡¯t even begin to quench his hunger, so he moved to the next tree, and then the next and the next. He also began eating fallen leaves, grass, flowers, ants and worms, but no matter what he ate it felt like it would never satisfy him.
Night fell and Ryu, hungrier than ever,remembered that he read somewhere that by striking two rocks together it was possible to make a sparkand create fire, so he took a few leaves and dry branches, two rocks and crawled back to a small crevice he had found by the river shortly after he woke up. There he spent most of the night unsuccessfully trying to make fireand ended up falling asleep before managing it.
When morning came Ryu tried to get his bearings and think things trough.
¡®My family must have sent people to retrieve my body, but I can¡¯t see the plateau of Rock City, which means I am pretty far into the forest and chances are whoever they sent won¡¯t be coming nowhere near here.¡¯
¡®My front teeth are still missing, I have a few broken ribs and left forearm and now my right ankle is twisted. I should try making a sling for my arm. There is nothing much I could do about the rest.¡¯
The next few days were pretty much the same. On the third Ryu actually managed to make fire, but he let it die out the next day. Fortunately all the experience he accumulated to make the first fire didn¡¯t go to waste as he was now able to create fires more easily and in less time.
As the days went by Ryu lost the track of how long he had been in the forest. After a while his foot healed which granted him new mobility, but on the other hand his broken left forearm was looking worse by the day.
Chapter 3 - Hunting
Chapter 3 - Hunting
Today was a joyous day. Nay a glorious day. Today was the first day since Ryu recuperated his mobility, but still Ryu woke with a heavy heart. He had a lot on his mind.
Firstly, his arm was looking worse by the day and he didn¡¯t know what to do about it. It was starting to smell of rot. He considered returning to civilization but he doubted he would make it that far without running into some strong magical beast. It was already a miracle that there seemed to be none around the place where he ended up and even if by chance he actually made it to some backwater village he doubted he could get assistance there. There were no healers in such places. Ryu would have to go to some city and after the stunt he pulled back home he was most certainly being hunted, either to find his corpse or be put down.
Which brought him to his second major problem. He had to grow strong. Strong enough to crush his family. Strong enough to crush his clan. Strong beyond belief. Ryu had perfect awareness that if he was to get revenge he had to grow strong, for he was pathetically weak right now, so he had to hide and bide his time and this forest was actually the best place for him to start. It was huge, which meant that it was almost impossible for anyone other that a true expert to find anything in it, and also, overflowing with low levelled magical beasts perfect for him to hunt and cultivate. There was just one problem, he couldn¡¯t. He had blown his own dantian. It was amazing how he was still alive. Ryu had never read about anything like that before and he had read a lot.
Ryu had been trying to cultivate this past few days. Everyday before sleep he tried. He had been racking his brain for answers, but he found none.
As far as he knew it went like this.
There were 10 realms: beginner, disciple, apprentice, journeyman, master, grandmaster, king, emperor, saint and god. Those were the only true barriers to cultivation. If one was to separate them even further based on strength, like so many did, then it would be like this: beginner realm could be separated from 1stlevel to 9thand disciple, apprentice and journeyman into beginner, intermediate and advanced. It was divided like so because in the beginning of cultivation every small increase in ki made a huge difference in a fight, but once you reached master realm what made the difference was mastery, power and efficiency of techniques as well as battle experience. There have been martial artists that spent a lot of time in journeyman realm only to completely dominate masters after they broke through. You were considered a true expert when you broke through to master realm and a cultivator or martial artist when you broke trough to disciple and that was because this world he lived in was saturated with ki, which meant everyone would eventually breakthrough some of the beginner levels, even if only two or three. As a matter of fact, he read somewhere that if you didn¡¯t train and lived to the age of 70 you would reach 3rdbeginner realm, and that was without any talent. There were cases where regular people actually broke through to disciple level before dying. Even still Ryu had talent. He knew at least that. He had broke through to 1stbeginner realm at the age of 7. A child would be considered a genius if they broke through at the age of 8, talented at 9 and regular at 10, so he knew he was talented. He didn¡¯t know what went wrong him his cultivation after breaking through, but he always felt something was wrong, like he was missing something, like he was missing a part of him and now, all things considered, he suspected some sort of foul play.The author''s narrative has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.
But all that didn¡¯t help him because all he knew and all there was of cultivation was based of the fact that you had a dantian, a centre a core, which he didn¡¯t. That was the thing that frightened him the most right now. That he was going to be weak like that for the rest of his life. That he would never get his revenge.
But even still Ryu pushed all that into the back of his head for today was a joyous day. Nay a glorious day. Nay an impossibly super duper awesome day. Today he could walk and run and move through the forest for real, which only meant one thing, today he would get the thing for which all men crave, the thing that would get any half decent person salivating over.
Today he would hunt and get meat. Meat. The greatest of all foods. Meat.
Aye meat, Ryu was hoping that if he could eat something decent then his hunger would sate, because he was getting worried. Ever since he first woke in the middle of the forest, Ryu has been assailed by an unending and insatiable hunger. He has tried eating everything and anything he could get his hands on and nothing would help. By now the trees around his little crevice were all peeled naked, the ground was picked clean and Ryu was only growing hungrier. He was starting to suspect that it had something to do with either some sort of side effect of the forbidden technique he performed or the fact he lacked a dantian. If that were the case he was then again screwed. That was why he was excited, meat would give him strength or so he hoped and it was with that hope that Ryu set out to hunt.
He didn¡¯t have any experience hunting or any weapons but he had a plan. A quite simple and elegant plan in his opinion. His plan consisted in wondering the forest all quiet like and find some prey, preferably some animal and not a magical beast, preferably something that didn¡¯t bite or scratch or well... preferably something that didn¡¯t fight back at all. Once he had found said prey he would then proceed to throw a sizeable rock and hit said prey squarely in the head, only to then rush in and finish it if necessary. It was a fool proof plan through and through. Ryu had complete notion that he would have to get a better plan eventually in order to get bigger prey but it would be enough for some rabbit or squirrel.
And so wonder he did and by the end of the day all that he had found was that it was not that easy to find prey.
Chapter 4 - Bullseye
Chapter 4 - Bullseye
It was only on the third day that he found the prey that he was looking for, well.... kind of. Instead of something that couldn¡¯t fight back it was a horned rabbit.
Horned rabbits were low levelled magical beasts, merely beginner realm, usually ranging from 1stlevel to 3rd, tough in some rare cases they could actually reach 4thlevel. They were carnivorous contrary to the regular rabbits, had high breeding rates and were highly adaptable, living throughout the entire world. By their colour and size, one could differentiate where they came from and how advanced their cultivation was. This one was a small one and had white fur with a small tint of grey, enabling Ryu to recognize it as a 1stlevel beginner realm Dark Forest horned rabbit. It was hypothesised that once regular rabbits started cultivating they would mutate into horned rabbits, though it was never proven.
Horned rabbits were considered to be one of the weakest magical beasts of all, but at first Ryu considered running away, after all this was still a magical beast and it could kill him. Desire, though, made him stay. Greed pushed him forward. Hunger convinced him. This was the perfect opportunity for him. Horned rabbits only had one way of attacking, it was lunging forward and trying to stick whatever they wanted with the horn that protruded itself from their heads and right now Ryu was behind the rabbit. If he could approach it without alarming it, he had a great chance of actually killing it and so it started, a game of chicken.
Ryu very slowly and very quietly inched forward, step after step, inch by inch. He could feel his heart beating faster and faster in his chest, the sweat drifting slowly down his back, he could hear the birds chirping all around him. He knew that if he was too slow the rabbit would eventually move, possibly escaping or worse see him, but if he made any noise he could alarm it, after all magical beasts had insanely strong senses.
Luckily things went perfect for Ryu and he was almost upon the rabbit when he decided it was best to move to the next part of his plan.This narrative has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. If you see it on Amazon, please report it.
Ryu clenched his fist tightly around the stone he was carrying, pulled his hand backwards and...
¡°WOW¡±
It was the most wondrous throw Ryu had ever seen. Not that he had seen many people throwing rocks or anything really before, but he was convinced that this must have been one of the most amazing throws ever. When he was readying himself to throw the rock, it suddenly and somehow jumped out of his hand and went flying hitting a tree at least fifty paces away, and leaving Ryu completely dazed.
Of course, such an amazing throw wouldn¡¯t go unnoticed and the rabbit quickly turned itself around and eyed Ryu with predatory eyes. Ryu caught completely unprepared didn¡¯t know what to do. His fool proof plan had failed. He had no weapons and was weaker than the fricking rabbit. Stumped for answers he decided to run, but before he could even begin moving the rabbit was already flying toward him. It was only by instinct that Ryu managed to avoid getting gutted, quickly jumping out of the way of the rabbit.
Seeing death coming so close gave Ryu new found energy and with a speed that surprised even himself, Ryu got back on his feet and started running.
Ryu ran until all of his new found energy was spent, he ran until all of his old energy was spent and even his reserves were all spent, but he still didn¡¯t shake the rabbit off his trail, mainly because he was slower. With all of his energy spent, out of breath and his muscles begging for mercy he still couldn¡¯t stop or he would die.
With his mind racing for answers and the rabbit lunging for him, Ryu dove behind a tree and heard a loud bang. He looked around and saw nothing. He then heard some soft scratches and curiosity got the better of him. Rising back up and painfully circling the tree he found that the horned rabbit had impaled itself on the trunk and was now trying to get free.
This was how Ryu¡¯s first live and death battle ended. With luck. Smiling bitterly to himself Ryu went over to the rabbit and strangled it. Out of strength and with hazy mind Ryu was now driven by hunger. He didn¡¯t even try to skin the rabbit or cook it, hell, he didn¡¯t even try to take the rabbit out of the tree, Ryu just bit into it and ripped a piece of its flesh. As soon as that hit his stomach and for a very brief moment, his hunger was gone. What followed after was hellish pain. He could actually feel the very small amounts of ki in the meat slowly but surely leave his body. It felt like a billion fire ants crawling inside of him just biting and ripping whatever they could find. The pain only lasted for a brief moment but it felt like an eternity for Ryu and afterwards came hunger. A hunger that came for the deepest parts of hell and left him once again feeling naked and utterly empty.
So Ryu took another bite and another until the transition between pain and hunger was too much and he passed out.
Chapter 5 - Try again
Chapter 5 - Try again
Ryu woke with a start, the nightmarish experience between extreme hunger and pain he had was still fresh in his memory. As he rose back up he observed his surroundings. The forest was quiet, the light barely made it through the canopy and it gave him a sombrefeeling. There was just the rabbit, still stuck in the tree, but now only a skull and bits and piecesof mangled pelt. Ryu pulled the rabbit out of the tree and bashed its head against the ground until the horn was freed from the rest of the carcass.
Now armed with and impromptu dagger and feeling much safer, Ryu examined himself. The tiredness that had assailed him during his escape was now only a distant memory, gone as if it had never even been there in the first place. The hunger tough, the hunger stayed stronger than ever. He felt energized, as he had never felt since his fall at Rock City and oddly enough the rotten smell from his arm was now gone.
Going back to his crevice by the river, that was starting to feel like home, Ryu mulled over these past events. The way he had frozen when his not so fool proof plan failed was pathetic and the fact that he had no contingency plan even more so. He could have died. He was weak and if was to survive and start growing strong in order to have his revenge he would have to be more careful, he would have to be smarter.
And how come he missed that throw? At such a short distance? Feeling irritated Ryu picked a few stonesand started throwing them against a tree a few steps away. Surprisingly or unsurprisingly he missed. He missed all the throws,turns out he had terrible aim, really terrible aim. And that was putting it mildly.
Also the disappearance of the rotten smell from his arm and his sudden energized feeling was weird. Therewas no sorenessin his muscles as he would have expectedafter such escape. He had ran with all he had and yet nothing, no soreness. And it seemed as if his arm had healed a bit, but that was impossible. Horned rabbits didn''t have healing properties. In fact, Ryu had read most of the books in his family library on magical beasts and none of them had any such properties, not without being first refined into pills. As far as he knew only healers could heal others. Healers were cultivators who were highly sought after cultivators because they specialisedin...well,healing others and they could even mend wounds some cultivators couldn''t on their on.The story has been taken without consent; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.
Then it clicked.
Cultivators had naturally long lives and could heal small wounds themselves, sometimes even internal ones. Magical beasts had the same capabilities. Throughout the times and the lands ki had been called many things such as qi, chi, mana, heavenly energy and life force. Literally life force. Ki itself wassaid to be ineverything,to be everything,including life. Therefore theki from the rabbit must have healed him.
But how? He had no dantian, so how could he absorbki to heal himself?
There was only one explanation Ryu could think of. His body absorbed the ki directly. Even if he wasn''t sure, it made sense. Bodily cultivators were rare, but the principle of it was to undergo hellishly difficult and taxing training to strengthen the body. The theory was that byrepeatedlyand systematically destroying and healing their cells, the cells would be forced to absorb increasingly amounts of ki in order to restore themselves and wouldthereforegrow stronger and so wouldthe cultivators¡¯bodies. Also magical beasts only got their dantian when they broke through to the elementary realm, so where did they keep their ki until then. The answer was simple their bodies, their flesh and bones.
So what Ryu thought was what if he could do the same. Instead of hard training to destroy and rebuild his cells he would just eat magical beasts. Since he had no dantian the ki would just flow out of his body, but only after it flowed through him and that was the important part, because it would allow him to store ki directly in his cells, allowing him to cultivate. What he was proposing would be more akin to ki poisoning or a beasts cultivating than actually bodily cultivating, but were it to work he could finally start walking the martial path again.
Instead of growing back a dantian his whole body would become one. That would be his path.But he wasn''t sure it would work and even if it did he would have to eat insane amounts of magical beasts.
He had to make sure this would work. He had to try again.
And so Ryu turned back and headed back into the deep green looking for more prey, this time with a new resolution, a stronger one, this time it was not only to quench his hunger for food but also for power.