《Misfortune Reborn》 The Prologue Prologue: ¡®How did it end up like this?¡¯ I thought as my head hit the hard rocky ground. The desolate terrain around me slowly fades into the deep darkness of death. Nuclear explosions are never fun, but being the only survivor of one and dying of dehydration could be considered as an even crueler fate. It truly seemed as if the gods seemed to laugh after I experienced misfortune after misfortune. I truly could not give a shit any more. This life was never good anyway, born in a family broken apart by poverty and alcoholism ruined my childhood, and watching the one girl I had ever loved slowly deteriorate till a point of being unable to recognise me broke me in more ways than one. Maybe death would be good for me. Maybe hell would be good for me; after all I am incapable of being angry. No matter how much shit life threw at me I could never get angry, I was simply incapable of the emotion. I was just empty inside, feeling nothing. The world had no colour to it anymore, everything was grey and monotone. I didn¡¯t want a life like this anyway, so death seemed like a happy ending for a story like mine. I prepared myself as I felt my very consciousness slipping into eternal darkness. It truly was a surreal and blissful feeling, to see myself lose control and eventually become an existence of nothing. But then, there was light. ¡®A light at the end of the tunnel, how clich¨¦ was that¡¯. I felt frustrated, but above all angry. ¡®How could the gods bear to do this to me! Just when the bliss of death was upon me I had to¡­¡¯ My mind stopped functioning for a second, what was that? Was what I just felt a feeling of¡­ anger? Tears of confusion and happiness streamed down my face as two gargantuan hands grabbed me and pulled me out towards the light. Help support creative writers by finding and reading their stories on the original site. My shrieks and cries filled the room. I could not see, but I heard people talking in a language I had never heard before and heard the happy laughter of adults around me. I eventually calmed my emotions and stopped crying, I opened my eyes and saw a very blurry world, only seeing the seeing the beautiful face of a woman looking into my eyes with a motherly love. Her eyes were blue and she had long blonde hair. Suddenly two large hands grabbed me and pulled me towards the face of a man that could not be considered handsome, but had very strong features and had a face that was pleasant to look at. ¡®So this was rebirth?¡¯ I thought. That must mean that these two people are my parents. Seeing the love in my new parent¡¯s eyes was something that I had never really experienced, and it gave me a sudden urge to cry again. Seeing this, my parents must have misunderstood my crying as me being hungry, as the next thing I knew my mother gave me a nutritious portion of milk and then set me down in a crib where I let my dreams take over. A new start. That¡¯s what this was. A new chance to begin and live a life full of happiness, love, and success. That¡¯s what I believed at least, until the incident. Chapter 1: Light and Happiness Chapter 1: Light and Happiness The sun¡¯s rays penetrated through the curtains and landed directly on my face. A smile appeared across my face, as I felt the warmth caress my smooth and spotless skin. My eyes opened, displaying two beautiful blue eyes filled with life and happiness. My slightly chubby and cute round face displayed such life and excitement. I was happy, today was my fourth birthday after all. My parents were fairly well off, and we lived in a rather large town full of sunlight. After four years in this world I realised how beautiful life could be. The pure simplistic happiness of chasing a butterfly for hours was something that I had never experienced before. In this world I developed a fascination of reading and I became very studious and intelligent. I learned how to speak very quickly and had already finished reading all the books in the library. This world was truly much simpler than the one I lived in previously. People here had a technology level similar to people in the middle ages in my previous world, but there was something in this world that my previous world did not have. Magic. There was so much magic in this world. People could cultivate in this world through meditation, they could gather qi and train martial techniques in order to get powerful and live as immortals. It truly was a magical thing. In this world there were two different types of qi, battle qi and mana qi. Battle qi would be used by the warriors of this world. The more one trained battle qi the stronger ones physical strength would become. Warriors also had many techniques for swords and many other types of weapons. Mana qi would be used by mages. Mages could learn many long distance techniques. While mages would lack the physical strength that warriors would have they could make up for it with more their strength in long distance battles. Personally, I wanted to become a mage. I did not like getting hurt very much, so I decided that the path of the warrior was not for me. Admittedly I was not a very hard worker, but I still liked to imagine myself standing at the top of the world, holding beautiful women in my arms with the whole world admiring me. As unrealistic as it was, it was a dream. I never had a dream in my previous life, so it was very special to me. After several minutes I stopped daydreaming about possible future accomplishments and went on downstairs. My parents sat there waiting for me. I gave each of them a hug as they sang me the happy birthday song. It was a happy day, and my father seemed very excited. He pulled out a wooden sword and said, ¡°Alright Wickham. This is your first sword. Take care of it every day, practice every day, and one day you might end up as strong as me!¡± The smile on my father¡¯s face was so full of love and expectation. I couldn¡¯t bear to tell him that I didn¡¯t want to become a warrior so I thanked him with a bright smile ¡°Wow! Thanks dad! I love it. I can¡¯t wait to start practicing!¡± Seeing the bright and proud smile on my father¡¯s face made me feel that changing my dream a bit wouldn¡¯t really matter as long as I could make my family happy. ¡°Oh, Wickham! Your mother also has a present for you!¡± my mother suddenly exclaimed, she was rather forgetful, but she surprisingly remembered to get me a gift ¡°Here! It¡¯s a book on mana qi. I saw that you were really interested in it when you were studying in the library so I got an basic instructions book for you!¡± Hearing this, my father raised an eyebrow, as if to say: My son will become a warrior. To which my mother simply smiled, but the look in her eye said: My son will become a mage! Being very attentive I noticed this and quickly said ¡°Wow thanks mom, now I can be a mage and a warrior!¡± Both my parents were shocked for a while after hearing this, but then they laughed a little, realising that I said this in order to avoid any familial conflicts. I ran outside with my sword. I looked at the estate that we lived in. It was truly a beautiful sight as it basked in the sunlight. Taking out my new wooden sword I looked towards the beautiful blue sky and swung the sword, only for me to fall over on my behind. It was much heavier than I thought when swinging it. A case of theft: this story is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation. I heard the laughter of my father as he said ¡°Haha, looks like you¡¯re going to need some training. What do you say? Think your old man could teach you?¡± My eyes lit up and I ran up to my father and said ¡°Yes please!¡± And so my sword training began. My father taught me the essence of the sword. The sword was not a weapon, but an extension of your arm. You were the weapon. I was very confused by this, but mastering the sword could clearly not be done overnight. For the first several weeks of training my father would not allow to drop the sword, I was to use it a replacement for my previous hand. I would hold the sword out in front of me for hours upon end, until my eyes turned bloodshot and my arms felt numb. While I endured this torturous training I would also practice magic in the evenings. My body was still too young to gather qi, but I was able to learn the basic concepts behind magic. I looked and learned all the techniques in the book. I could not perform any, but this meant that once I would be able to cultivate I would already know exactly what to do. My parents were very happy with my hard work, and considering how quickly I learned the sword they immediately thought I was a genius. Seeing my parents being so happy was such an indescribable feeling, and because of my previous life I knew that I had to treasure these moments. I trained with the intent to protect my family. Two years passed and I became 6 years old. I reached the second level of the warrior realm, as a warrior, when one reached the peak of the second level of the warrior realm would one start to cultivate battle qi. I was now at the peak of the second level of the warrior realm and I was ready to cultivate battle qi. I was also old enough to start cultivating mana qi. I was slightly hesitant to cultivate however, as when I started to cultivate my parents would send me off to a school. I¡¯m not sure if I wanted this yet. I was still very much enjoying my life at the moment and I didn¡¯t want to be separated from my parents just yet. Several days after I turned 6 years old my father went on a journey to the capital. My father was quite a skilled swordsman and he had been called up by the military for service. Later I realised this was because we were in the middle of a war we couldn¡¯t win. Our kingdom of Lyuh was being attacked from both sides, and we were cornered. A month later we got a letter. Within it was a lot of money and a letter. Before my mother could read it I had a quick peak to see what it said. ¡®Dear Mrs Gregory, We regret to inform you of the death of Gareth Gregory. He fought valiantly against the invading nations. He took many lives and died with no regrets. There is money within the letter; this is compensation for your loss. Apologies for your loss, Renly Turing ¨C Great general of Lyuh¡¯ After reading this I fell on my knees. My father was dead. Just one question rang through my head ¡®Why!? WHY!? PLEASE, JUST TELL ME WHY!?¡¯ I started crying and screaming loudly, unable to contain my emotions. I couldn¡¯t describe what I was feeling at this point, a mix of every negative emotion one could think of. At this point my mother ran into the room and saw me on the ground with an open letter in front of me. My mother picked up the letter and it seemed that her face suddenly aged by 10 years. Tears streamed down her face as she hugged me trying to reassure me that everything would be alright. But we both knew that it wouldn¡¯t be alright. My father was gone. I had failed my wish of protecting my family. I felt so guilty, almost as if I was the one who killed him. What was even more hopeless was that our country was just days from being overthrown, meaning that our town would probably get attacked soon. Chapter 2: The Message Chapter 2: The Message I slept in a puddle of tears that night. The next morning I didn¡¯t move, meaning my mother had to force feed me. I was in a state of depression and shock, I just couldn¡¯t believe it. Just a few months ago my life was full of colour and was happy, but slowly I felt the world changing colour. The blue sky turned grey as my heart turned black. Luckily my mother was still here, as when I looked at her some of the colour returned to the world. Days passed and life had seemingly returned to what it was before we had received the letter. Though my mother and I tried to display happiness in order to seem strong to the other, we both knew that we were deeply filled with sorrow. That night I went to bed, it was like any other night. But just as I closed my eyes I heard a sound. ¡®What was that sound?¡¯ I thought. Then the sound happened again and I suddenly recognised the sound. It was a battle horn, what the armies would use in order to intimidate the enemy before attacking. I started hearing shrieks as my bedroom door suddenly opened. Soldiers dragged me out of my room as I screamed. I saw the village on fire around me and was shocked. The buildings I knew, the people who I knew were charred and laid on the ground showing no signs of movement. I was put in a line of children and I saw my mother in a line of adults. The commander from the soldiers then said his orders ¡°Kill the adults, and take the kids as slaves.¡± What shocked me was not what he said, but how he said it. There was no emotion in his voice, as if he did this every day. What kind of sick man could do that without blinking an eye? I looked up at my mother, and saw her lifeless eyes. I knew, I saw, that she was already dead. Not physically, but she had already given up on life. Unknowingly tears started to scream down my face. I wanted to shout, but I couldn¡¯t speak. The moment the axe sliced through her neck I felt nothing anymore. Watching her head roll on the floor I could do nothing, say nothing, and feel nothing. My eyes merely shut as I fainted. A familiar feeling took control of my soul. My heart turned black and I felt my face smiling. ¡®Aah, this feeling. How lovely, that sensation when you know you should be furious and feel something, but you just don¡¯t feel anything at all. All my anger is gone.¡¯ I slowly opened my eyes and saw the world. It was really strange. The world seemed so colourless, I could see the colours, but it was as if the emotion behind the colours was not there. It was like an empty shell. I heard sounds around me, but I did not process them in my head. They were like mumbles. The smile on my face grew even wider on my face as I realised that I had completely snapped. I started to laugh loudly, so loudly. All the other children stared at me in horror as I laughed away. ¡®HAHAHAHA. This is truly too funny. I finally understand. The gods are playing a game with me. They think they can get away with torturing me. It seems that I will have to give the gods a bit of their own medicine.¡¯ I thought. I would change my dream to destroying the gods. This was no longer a dream of a child, but instead the dream of a man who had lived two lives in torture. I would no longer follow the path the gods have set for me. I REFUSE to follow what other people taught me. I continued to laugh until the soldiers started to beat me. And then I only stopped laughing in order to stop myself from choking on my own blood. The soldiers spat on me, they pissed on me. I was beat constantly, but I would never stop laughing. My laughter carried through the entire camp we were placed at. Even while enduring the ridiculous labour they put us through. My laughter would only stop in the night. This was not because I slept, but instead because I was cultivating. I absorbed the qi around me. The battle qi and mana qi I absorbed was very different from what other people would absorb however. During my torturous experiences it seemed that I had formed a mutation. I would now absorb only death battle qi and death mana qi. This meant that when I cultivated I would quite literally suck the life out from the world around me. Not many days passed until people started realising that the plants around the camp started to wither. The food got rotten much quicker, and there was suddenly a food shortage. This was not enough for me though. I needed more. I started to directly absorb the life force of the people around me. I felt no need to harm the children, so I only absorbed the life force from the soldiers. They started to visibly be more tired and they started to suffer from headaches. Then that night happened. I had already risen to a level 2 mage, this was because the qi needed to reach that level was not much, and your level would rise rapidly if you knew magic techniques and understood the basic premise of magic. In magic when one reached level 3 then they would really start as a mage, similarly to reaching level 3 as a warrior. I sat meditating in my tent with several other children. I got a lot of room since they were terrified of me. I felt a strange feeling take over my body, it seemed that my mana qi and battle qi was merging. I was slightly confused until I remembered what I read in a book once: Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon. ¡®If one experiences a growth in level simultaneously as a mage and as a warrior then the qi¡¯s will merge into battlemana qi. This has only occurred several times in history, but from what is known is that the very realms of mage and warrior would merge into one. If one were to experience this change then one would become much stronger than those of the same level and even most of the level above. Anyone who has experienced this has gone on to become a heaven-defying genius¡¯ I didn¡¯t react to this change in my body, but I realised that this change would make it easier to become strong enough to kill the gods. I felt as my qi underwent a change and felt my body naturally refining itself to be stronger. The deathly battlemana qi rushed through my meridians as it formed my body differently. My skin became deathly white and my eyes became red. My hair turned white and I generally became flawless in every sense. I looked like a demon. My eyelids opened up, revealing my glowing red eyes. I smiled, not because I was now a third level battlemage, but because I now had the power to kill all the bastard soldiers that dared take my mother¡¯s life. I thought of a plan. Most of the warriors at the camp were at the third and fourth level, and the commander was at the fifth level. This meant that if I wanted to kill every soldier and the commander I would need to be in peak condition in order to kill the commander, otherwise I wouldn¡¯t stand a chance. Luckily my awakening into a battlemage had sucked even more life force out of the soldiers. This meant that it would be easy to sneak around them. I decided that I would first kill the commander, and then I would kill the rest after I had destroyed their morale. The next evening I decided to put my plan into place. I snuck into one of the soldier¡¯s tents and stole a sword. I used battle qi on the sword to reinforce it and make it stronger. My body was much stronger now that I had cultivated to the third level of the battlemage realm. And the sword which should be impossible for a six year old to lift actually felt a little light in my hands. I only used one hand to hold the sword, because I wanted to leave my other hand open to use magic. I only knew one strong offensive technique when it came to magic, and that was called the Martial Grip. The Martial Grip would allow one to use an illusionary hand to hold a target, and to be able to throw them around like a ragdoll. It was quite a powerful technique so I decided that using it would at least make it difficult for the commander to move as well as he would want. I knew that the commander would be in his tent right now, so I simply walked inside. The moment the commander saw me he stood up, he knew why I was here. There would be no words exchanged, just a pure contest of strength. He launched towards me, but I caught him off guard using the Martial Grip, I realised that my Martial Grip had become a Deathly Martial Grip, and I could actually absorb life force directly from the commander like this. After a couple of seconds the commander managed to escape the grip, but he had clearly had a lot of life sucked out of him. Just through that one move I had probably lowered his longevity by 10 years. He launched towards me with his sword. I was certainly surprised by his agility even after I had absorbed so much of his life. Our swords clashed, and I had to use both hands on my sword to try and resist the commander¡¯s strength, but he sliced directly through my sword. I was shocked for a moment, but then started to laugh. This was great. Not only could I kill this bastard, but I could even take his sword, which I projected to be a lower level artefact. Seeing my killing intent only growing the commander grew increasingly nervous. He had expended a lot of energy on that last attack and he probably only had one attack left in him, whereas I still had tons of energy left in me. Looking at my broken sword I frowned and looked around for a weapon. I quickly found a spear, but the moment I saw the commander leaping towards me. I happened to lift the spear up just in time and it managed to stab him through the stomach. It wasn¡¯t able to kill him fully, but he was unable to fight. Seeing this I laughed and dragged him outside. In front of all the faces of the shocked soldiers I started to take out the small intestine of the commander. Then I stretched it out and tied it around a tree in a noose-like fashion. I grabbed the commander and put his head in the noose made from his intestine. I knew that the small intestine would hold, because it was the small intestine of a fifth level warrior. Of course it would be able to hold the weight of an 80 kilo man. I put the commander¡¯s head through the noose and then dropped his body, causing him to die not of the spear wounds, but because of a noose made from his small intestine. Watching his face turn blue, and seeing the life slowly exit his body was rather beautiful. This was a message to the gods. I turned to the terrified soldiers and asked as simple question ¡°Who¡¯s next?¡± Chapter 3: I am god now Chapter 3: I am god now The soldiers all shivered at the thought of dying like the commander. They stared at me with eyes that questioned whether I was really a child or a demon. I walked over to the commander¡¯s body and picked up his sword. It was a bit big for my hand and it was quite heavy, but it was infinitely better than the garbage swords of the standard soldiers. The soldiers seemed to understand their fate as they raised their weapons. Their hands shook in fear. My face was calm and smiling wildly. I looked at the soldiers and analysed the situation. ¡¯16 warriors of around the third and fourth level. My speed will be reduced by the sword, but I should be quicker and more agile than them. I don¡¯t know any magic techniques that work on large groups of people so I will only use the sword.¡¯ I thought as I formulated a plan of attack. I placed my left hand below my right on the hilt of the sword and reinforced it with battle qi. I ran towards the soldier closest to me and I saw him raise his sword ready to attack, I considered clashing swords with him, but I probably didn¡¯t have the strength to slice through his sword like the commander did to mine. Seeing this I decided to use my height as my advantage, as I used my agility to narrowly avoid his sword attack. Mid jump I extended my arm, causing my sword to directly slice through his jugular vein. The soldier¡¯s face turned white as he collapsed, bleeding profusely. The other soldiers quickly reacted. This unit was still in its early stages of existence, but it at least knew some basic tactics. When faced with an opponent that is much stronger than you, then you must not fight as an individual, but as a group. The soldiers seemed to be on the same wavelength as they made a circle around me, leaving me no place to retreat, and vastly decreasing my room for movement. I smiled bitterly ¡®It seemed they know some army tactics. Luckily I prepared for this¡­¡¯ It was quite simple. I just had to single them out. I stabbed my sword into the ground and just started laughing. It was a maniacal laughter; it was unnerving and caught the soldiers off guard. Nobody moved for a while, until a soldier just couldn¡¯t take my laughter anymore. ¡°JUST SHUT UP!¡± he screamed as he swung his sword towards me. ¡®There we go¡¯ I thought. I was afraid they wouldn¡¯t take the bait, but fortunately this idiot was willing to sacrifice himself for the greater good. Because of the unnerving laughter his sword strike was sloppy, as I grabbed his defenceless, lunging arm and pulled. He fell flat on his face, and I grabbed my sword and stabbed him in the back of the neck. Not only had I now killed another soldier, but there was now also an opening in their formation. I jumped through out of their formation and managed to stab 2 soldiers in the back. The rest of the soldiers were shocked and pissed off, because of one idiot two others fell. They couldn¡¯t contain their anger as they rushed towards me wildly. Because of one move their entire formation fell apart. It was clear that these soldiers were amateurs. I whizzed through the soldiers, causing cut after cut, and wearing them down the already tired soldiers. They were eventually left with 9 soldiers still alive, with only 4 still standing. These four were all fourth level warriors. They were clearly seasoned warriors. They were panting heavily; to have been brought to such a state by a 6 year old child was disgraceful for soldiers of their status. Of the four that were still capable of fighting, two used spears and two used swords. They created a small formation where the two holding spears would stand behind those holding the swords. I ran towards them and decided that I wanted to end the quickly, so I tried something audacious. I jumped in between the strikes of the swords, narrowly dodging the attacks. I twisted in the air and my sword slit through the throats of the two sword wielders. At this point I decided to pull off the finishing move. The two spears were incredibly close to piercing my skin, so in a last ditch effort I sliced the spears in half. I then dropped my sword and punched both of the spear wielders in the Adams apple, causing the soldiers to asphyxiate. I then landed on the ground, completing my elegant manoeuvre. All the slave children watched the entire situation unfold, from the death of the commander to my final incapacitation of the soldiers. The slave children were full of fear and awe. They still could not comprehend the situation. Ignoring them I rounded up all the bodies. I sucked the life force from all the still living soldiers until they withered. I then started to cut off the arms and legs of the soldiers. The blood of the soldiers soaked into the ground. Counting up all the limbs I saw I had 64 limbs. I started to put them in a particular fashion on the ground, when I was finished you could see that it was a message, no, a proclamation. A proclamation to all of the current gods. Spelling out four simple words to sky: I AM GOD NOW. I looked up towards the heavens and pointed my middle fingers to the sky. Meanwhile the slave children were still watching in amazement, confusion, and disgust. They could not move, but just stare at the carnage of the lands. There was no longer a green patch of grass in sight; the world seemed to have been dyed red. They couldn¡¯t help but look at me, even though I was scary to these children, to them it seemed their lives were in my hands. Support creative writers by reading their stories on Royal Road, not stolen versions. I looked at the children with a scary smile. Just from this they all fell down and shivered in fear. I walked over to them and said ¡°Hey, I just saved your lives. Will you offer no compensation to your god?¡± These children were scared and in despair. What possibly could they possibly offer me? I was only asking just in case they had anything, I was going to let them go regardless of their answer. Then a small, skinny child appeared to want to say something. ¡°My grandfather¡­¡± he muttered. This piqued my interest a little, if one of these kids had powerful family, then they might have techniques for me to learn. ¡°Go on. What about your grandfather?¡± I asked in the least patronising voice I could muster. Hearing my interest the child quickly continued and said ¡°My dear lord. This grandfather of mine is quite powerful and he lives deep in the forest not too far from here. If this great lord could bring us worthless children to him he would surely give you a great reward.¡± I raised an eyebrow. This kid certainly had a way with words. It did seem like a good deal though, I merely had to escort some kids through a forest and then I could get a reward. It seemed simple and easy. Thus I quickly agreed by saying ¡°Ok, you¡¯re the navigator. We leave in the morning.¡± The slave children all sighed in relief as they looked towards the small and skinny child as their hero. I immediately started to meditate. I had expended too much energy when my power wasn¡¯t fully stable yet, this was not harmful, but it would take several hours to fully recover. Hence why we weren¡¯t leaving immediately. When I finished recovering I decided to get some sleep. I imagined both my father and mother¡¯s faces, yet I could not muster any emotion, not a single bit of anger or grief. What was even more shocking was that I could barely remember their faces. I felt nothing towards them, as if they were just strangers. The next morning we set on or journey to the skinny and short child¡¯s grandfather. It was only an hour after we had left that I realised how difficult this trip would be. I had to take care of a bunch of weak, emotionally unstable children for several days, as I escorted them through a forest filled with beasts and terrible terrain. After hearing the skinny and short kid say how to get there and how far away it was I estimated it would take us a day to get there, but now after seeing the state of these children I had to change my estimate to three days. The biggest problem was not the time it would take, but it was that a bunch of defenceless children pretty much looked like a picnic to beasts. I was able to handle them, but it was horrible for the children emotionally. Nobody likes feeling vulnerable, so they all huddled in a group as they waddled forward at an incredibly slow pace. There was constant crying and everyone just felt like shit. I realised that this pace was absolutely dreadful and that I had to find a way to make the trip go faster and safer. The main problem was the beasts constantly attacking us, this caused the morale of the group to be low and it caused our pace to slow down a significant amount. I could of course solve this by releasing my deathly aura, but that would terrify the children to a point of them being unable to move. I realised that there was one way to make everyone move quicker. ¡°If you don¡¯t move faster I¡¯ll leave you alone here to die.¡± I said with an icy cold voice The children¡¯s faces turned pale as they thought of how they would turn out if they didn¡¯t have my help. I looked at them, my red eyes piercing into their very essence. The short and skinny kid then said ¡°Ok then! Everybody, form two lines and let¡¯s pick up the pace!¡± I saw how the children obeyed him and was surprised by his ability to face his fears and lead the children confidently. That night we set up camp, we still had a couple tents from the soldiers so we had some shelter. I then saw the short and skinny kid try to light a fire. I quickly rushed over and lightly slapped his face. ¡°What!? Oh, I¡¯m very sorry sir, but what have I done wrong to deserve that?¡± He asked, with his voice trembling slightly. ¡°Don¡¯t light a fire you idiot, that¡¯ll just make all the beasts come over here.¡± He seemed shocked as he realised his mistake, his face paled as he realised that he could have brought death to everyone. ¡°Anyway, what¡¯s your name? You did a good job as a leader.¡± I continued. ¡°Please forgive me for my insolence sir. This one¡¯s name is Trevor Hill.¡± He said, with his face still pale. I merely nodded and walked away. During the night I had to kill several beasts, but this was not a bad thing. I improved my cultivation by sucking the life force from creatures and plants, so this was really a big help to stabilising my qi. Two days passed, and due to our increased pace we managed to reach the deep part of the forest earlier than I had expected. The deep part of the forest looked very different from the rest of the forest. The trees were dark and there was barely any light that reached the ground. There was a mysterious aura surrounding the deep part of the forest. There seemed to be mysterious energy connecting the deep forest. It felt alive. Like it was breathing. The moment I stepped into the deep forest an old man jumped in front of me. With a murderous look in his eyes he spoke in a low voice ¡°Who are you? This is my territory.¡± Chapter 4: A true expert Chapter 4: A true expert The moment the old man appeared before me I was shocked by the power emanating from his body. I could barely stand, and all the children had immediately fallen down. My eyes widened looking at this man, and I realised that the people I had encountered so far were mere ants in front of this man. He was a true expert. I could see that he was a mage by his qi, and I projected him to be at around the 8th level of the mage realm. The old man looked at me and was surprised by me being able to stand. I concentrated and managed to protect myself from his qi. I then spoke ¡°Apologies for turning up uninvited, but we are here seeking for refuge.¡± The old man raised an eyebrow and stopped emitting the suffocating qi. ¡°What sort of idiot goes to the deep forest in order to seek for refuge, this is the most dangerous place for children to be. Honestly¡­¡± The old man was cut off by Trevor. When the children could stand, Trevor immediately ran over to the old man and gave him a big hug. ¡°Grandpa!¡± Trevor shouted gleefully ¡°Tr-Trevor¡­¡± The old man broke down ¡°I, I thought you were dead.¡± Eventually the situation calmed down and he led us to his house right in the centre of the deep forest. When we arrived we were all shocked by the sight. There was quite a large opening with no trees, causing the terrain to bask in sunlight. There was a cliff with a waterfall cascading into a large pool of water. Next to the large pool of water stood the house. Well, if you could even call it a house. It was massive, standing at an impressive four stories. The house had a massive courtyard, and it had a large farm with both animals and plants. The house was clearly built over the years, and was clearly built by an expert. The old man, who turned out to be called Wesley Hill gave the children a big banquet and then showed them to some rooms they could stay in. After the old man lovingly sent little Trevor off to bed he called for me. It was clear I was different from the other children. I didn¡¯t want to stay here very long anyway, so I just wanted some compensation and I would be on my way. Mr. Hill brought me to a cosy looking living room, where he sat me down in a chair and then sat across from me. ¡°What¡¯s your name?¡± he asked ¡°Gregory Wickham¡± I said concisely ¡°Now Gregory, you seem to be quite smart. You must have noticed that I can see right through you. Tell me, how on earth did you reach this strength at the age of six?¡± He asked, releasing some of his qi to pressure me I realised that this man would immediately recognise if I lied to him or tried to hide something from him. I also did not feel the need to hold any secrets, so I shared my story. From my happy life with my family to now. I withheld some information of course, like the fact that I had been reborn. Mr. Hill looked at me for a while and then said ¡°It¡¯s clear that you didn¡¯t help the children out of compassion, so tell me. What is it you want?¡± I gave a light smile as I said ¡°You seem to be a very experienced mage, so I was wondering if you had any magic techniques I could have?¡± He wasn¡¯t surprised. Mr. Hill could see that I was one that wanted power above all else. He looked me in the eyes and then said ¡°I¡¯ve got a good idea kid. How about you become my disciple? I would teach you everything I know.¡± I tilted my head slightly as I looked at him, and then said ¡°I refuse.¡± His eyes twitched a bit as he continued ¡°Why? I have many techniques that would make you very powerful. With your talent you could reach my level before you¡¯re 16, with my guidance of course.¡± ¡°This is the reason I can¡¯t accept your request.¡± I said ¡°I believe that even without your help I will reach your level of strength before I am 13, which would mean that after I am 13 you would be useless to me.¡± His eyes flashed with anger as he angrily spoke ¡°Fine! Here.¡± He threw 3 magic books on the table ¡°Now leave this place.¡± I calmly looked at the magic books and was very happy with them. They appeared to be of a very high quality. They all had large titles printed on them saying Air Step Martial Movement Technique, True Qi Manipulation Martial Technique, and Dark Wave Martial Technique. I excitedly picked them up and threw them in one of the bags I had looted off the soldiers and was on my way. I quickly left the deep forest, in fear the Mr. Hill would come after me in his rage. I then found a cosy little cave by a small pond one the edge of the forest. I then started to read the True Qi Manipulation book. The book explained how you could learn to control your qi to near perfection. Examples of the things you could do with high control qi is that you could directly break down qi barriers just by releasing your qi. You could even kill people and knock them out by penetrating their soul with your qi. It was quite terrifying and I was excited to see how the deathly qi would affect the strength of the original technique. Support the creativity of authors by visiting the original site for this novel and more. I read intently, trying to understand the profound meaning behind the words. I then started to very simply bend my qi, releasing it in different ways and just generally getting a feel for how it worked. However the very thing that I expected would make the technique stronger was holding me back. The deathly qi that I cultivated was tyrannically powerful, but this meant that it was very chaotic. I wanted to be able to fully control the deathly qi, but then it would be much less powerful. The deathly qi got its power from being so chaotic, and if it were organised and fully under control it would lose that profound power. I had to make a decision. To become weaker now and learn how to control the deathly qi, or to stay strong, but experience problems later on when I wouldn¡¯t be able to control my own qi. I really was a problem, but I figured that it would be better to drop in power now, and then rebuild the strength that I lost in other ways. One of the things I was afraid of was losing myself to power, I wanted to kill the gods, but still be sane and in control of myself. Having made my decision I started to tame the deathly qi. Due to my intelligence I was able to understand the meaning in the book very quickly, but it would take several weeks or even months for me to gain full control over my qi. I sat in a meditative state in the centre of the cave. I had already been sitting like this for a week. I realised I was able to fully replenish myself by sucking the life force out from my surroundings. Since the trees and plants came in large numbers it meant I had an almost unlimited energy source. Due to my quick advancement in qi control and cultivation I estimated that in three weeks I would advance to the fourth level of the battlemage realm, and that in four weeks I would have gained control over my deathly qi. The time passed quickly, and four weeks later I opened my eyes. Looking at my body I could tell that my actual strength stayed around the same. This was due to me losing power through controlling my qi and gaining power by advancing in level. Even though strength was the same my new actual battle strength had risen quite a lot. Because of my qi control I could directly penetrate someone¡¯s soul. I struggled to stand; after all I had been in the same position for 5 weeks. I stretched and stepped out of the cave. I was shocked by what I saw. The forest within a 50 meter radius had completely withered. It looked horrible and I could see little dead animals that could not avoid my life force suction. I felt the ground and saw how it had pretty much turned into sand. Trees would not grow here for years. I did not feel sad or guilty looking at this site, but I did not like it when things had to unnecessarily die. I did have a slight sense of justice after all. Due to this I made a conscious decision to only such the life force from evil people who had wronged me or other people. This would make them deserve death, which I would gladly give to them. I thought how I had very much become like a vampire. I started to walk out of the forest. I wanted to test my new qi manipulation technique. It shouldn¡¯t be that hard to find an evil person or beast to test the technique I thought as I ran through the lands. Something was strange however. How come there were no predators anywhere? In fact there were basically no beasts anywhere, predator or not. ¡®This must be the work of a powerful human or beast.¡¯ I thought. I investigated a bit more and found some massive footsteps, they looked like paw prints. I followed the footsteps to a large valley. In the middle of the valley I saw a massive tiger. It looked to be around 20 meters tall and almost 40 meters long. It was truly a massive and majestic beast. Its fur was white and it was striped black. I inched closer, shocked by the beauty and size of the majestic creature. I kept inching closer until I was only a hundred meters away from the tiger, a distance it could probably cover within 3 seconds. Suddenly the tiger¡¯s heavy eyelids opened. Its beautiful blue eyes were revealed as it slowly turned its head. I suddenly felt fear come over me. Its eyes stared directly into mine for what felt like an eternity. It then started to stand up. Chapter 5: Tiger queen Chapter 5: Tiger Queen The moment the gargantuan and elegant tiger stood up I could feel an aura of such unfathomable power pressure me. The tiger¡¯s eyes seemed so intelligent and profound. It was as if it could see right through me. It seemed to have very human like emotions as it seemed to raise its eyebrow when it looked at me. I couldn¡¯t move at all under the pressure the look from the tiger. Suddenly I heard a female voice in my head ¡°I do not wish to hurt you human child, but I am being chased, and I cannot afford to have you running around having seen me.¡± I was shocked. Only the most powerful of beasts were capable of communicating with humans. Before I could respond however, my sight turned black. When I woke up I couldn¡¯t see anything. My face felt strangely numb. I reached to touch my face and tried to rub my eyes only to find out that there were no eyes to rub. I felt again, only to be met with the numbing feeling of empty eye sockets. I started to panic ¡®What is going on!? Where are my eyes? Did that tiger take my eyes?¡¯ It seemed like the only logical reason for my eyes having disappeared. She was afraid that I had seen her, and thus took my eyes. If I wasn¡¯t nearly emotionless, it would have been impossible for me to think this rationally about the situation. Unfortunately I realised that she not only took my eyes, but it seemed she took my very perception of the world visually. I couldn¡¯t remember what colour looked like which. The world I remembered just seemed like smudges of physical objects. I started to feel the ground around me and realised that I was still in the valley. I felt the ground and felt indents in the ground, after feeling around a bit more I realised that these were her footsteps. I tried to follow the footsteps, but I kept bumping into objects. After 2 more hours of trying to track the tiger I decided I needed a new method. Over the last 2 hours I had only walked a couple hundred metres, and I wasn¡¯t really making much progress. I sat down and started to cultivate, I decided that if I had nothing to do then I might as well try to become stronger so I could fight the tiger. I then realised something, when I was emitting and absorbing qi I could feel the world around me. I could recognise where things were and how they were shaped. It wasn¡¯t even remotely close to sight, but it worked for walking around. It also made my other senses more powerful. I decided to try and track the footprints again. This time it was much easier. I could clearly acknowledge the footprints in front of me and after just 1 hour I had already travelled several times further than the last time. I didn¡¯t know whether it was night or day, but I wasn¡¯t particularly worried either. Since I was releasing my qi all the beasts would naturally avoid me, as my qi was stronger than theirs. Eventually I appeared in front of a cave, I found the cave to be massive, and stretching to an astonishing 40 meters tall and it seemed to be almost endless in length. I walked inside and immediately recognised the massive aura of the tiger. Due to my intense focus I could see that there were also smaller auras. Three of them to be exact and they were incredibly similar to the large tiger¡¯s aura. An evil smile appeared across my face as I suddenly realised the situation. ¡®The reason she didn¡¯t want anyone to find her was due to her children. I can imagine that powerful cultivators would probably want a tiger cub, so that¡¯s why she was running, and wouldn¡¯t let me see her.¡¯ Unfortunately she had made a grave mistake, she left me alive. I knew I couldn¡¯t contend with her, but her children should be simple enough. To repay her for what she did to me I shall take the eyes of one of her children. I laughed at my plan. She was in a weak state right now, so she had to sleep a lot. I had learned to control my qi even better now so I should be able to hide my presence in front of her. I couldn¡¯t last time, because I was too entranced by her beauty. I hid my qi; unfortunately this made me almost completely blind again. I inched forward for an hour, before finally reaching her. I unsheathed my sword, making as little noise as possible as I tried to find one of the cubs. I noticed that the cubs were lying with their mother. This made it a little more difficult to continue with my plan, as she would notice me if I started to touch her. I then thought of a new tactic. I could bribe one of the cubs out of the cave. An hour later I had prepared everything, I had created an incredibly powerful aroma of meat just outside the cave. The author''s tale has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon. I waited for hours, but nothing seemed to happen. Just when I was about to give up felt movement. A little aura was approaching the exit of the cave. I quickly jumped onto the tiger cub. I precisely cut out an eye mid jump and one beautiful blue eye fell on the ground. The cub immediately started to scream, I could already feel the aura of the large tiger waking up. Getting slightly nervous I quickly increased the speed of my procedure, cleanly cutting out the other eye. I quickly picked up the eyes and ran out of there. Hiding my aura I ran blindly through the forest. I felt my spine shiver as I heard the angry roars of the tiger and the screeches of the cub. I heard the terrifying and heavy footsteps of the tiger. I realised that there was no way I was getting away without sight, so as a last resort I stuck the tiger eyes in my sockets and focused on healing my vision. The chances of this working were very little, but it was either I would die or I could attempt something crazy. The moment I put the tiger eyes in I felt a pain in my head. It was excruciatingly painful; it was similar to having ten thousand migraines at the same time. I felt the inside of my head changing slightly. For some reason it seemed to even affect my ears, as I couldn¡¯t hear for a while. Around a minute later I opened my eyes and saw a whole new world. The beautiful blue eyes saw the world so differently. I could see the qi behind everything. I could see the very essence of the world. ¡®Is this how tigers see the world?¡¯ I thought. It felt that my hearing had also increased as I could hear the tiger roars much more clearly, and it was if it was saying something. I realised there was meaning behind the roars of the tiger. I listened intently and heard ¡°I AM THE TIGER QUEEN! EVERY BEAST MUST OBEY ME! EVERYONE ATTACK THE HUMAN CHILD!¡± ¡®Tiger queen?¡¯ I thought. It seemed I had stolen the eyes of a very special cub. However I did not have time to dwell on these thoughts. The tiger queen appeared to have assembled a small army of all the strongest beasts in the area. I decided it would be good if I would leave as quickly as I could. I barely managed to escape from the area and I ran for two days and two nights in fear that the tiger queen would follow me. Eventually I deemed it safe to stop and rest for a few days. I still had two skill books which I had to learn from. I immediately decided that I would learn the Air Step Martial Movement Technique. After having experienced a chase from many beasts I thought that it would be a good idea to train in a movement technique. I stopped in a fairly mountainous region. There were many clouds everywhere and it seemed like a hard place to find anyone or anything. This was good, because I didn¡¯t want to be found by anyone. I found a nice mountain which had a flat mountaintop. I immediately started to meditate and was shocked by how much the tiger eyes had helped me. I could quite literally see the world in a different light. My qi control had definitely improved due to this. I could ¡®see¡¯ a fly with qi even when I was a hundred meters away. After I had taken in the beautiful new world I decided to start reading and comprehending the Air Step Martial Movement Technique. As I read it I became increasingly more excited. The concept behind the technique was that you could bend the wind to your advantage when moving. According to the book you can increase your normal movement by 2 or 3 times its current speed and your fastest speed can be increased to almost 10 times as quick. The best part of the technique was that the faster you went the better the technique would become, meaning that it will always have a use even when you are at a much higher level with a much higher base speed. I was really excited by the prospects of this. Since I was at a high altitude in the mountains there would be even better results. This was because of the high amount of wind around there. I would also be improving my physical body. This would naturally happen, due to the higher altitude it was slightly harder to breathe, causing even standard workouts to become much more tiring and cause greater increase in strength. That evening I started my practicing of the air step movement technique. I estimated that this time it would take me several months minimum to master the technique. Thus began my longest training session yet.