AWL | A Way of Life [UPDATED: CHAPTER 14.1 - THE MIGHT OF A MAGICAL BEAST]

Hello, I'm writing a story called 'A Way of Life', you can also read this story at www.auroranovels.com

Title:
A Way of Life

Author:
MysticalSilence

Synopsis:
Kyril was once a man who once sought for the complete understanding of the Universe. But sadly, before he could even grasp any sort of understanding, death had arrived at his doorstep to drag him back to the netherworld. However, in a turn of events, the Heavens seemed to play with him.

Have I died? No. Between myself and my goal, not even death can stop me from achieving my goal!

This is Kyril. He is a man who is reborn and steps into the world of Martial Arts. A world of Practitioners. A world of Gods.

Join him in his adventures, and watch him succeed in his goal!


Genre:
Fantasy, Martial Arts, Romance, Ranking System


Table of Contents:

• Chapter 1
• Chapter 2
• Chapter 3
• Chapter 4
• Chapter 5
• Chapter 6
• Chapter 7
• Chapter 8
• Chapter 9.1
• Chapter 9.2
• Chapter 10.1
• Chapter 10.2
• Chapter 11.1
• Chapter 11.2
• Chapter 12.1
• Chapter 12.2
• Chapter 13.1
• Chapter 13.2
• Chapter 14.1

Schedule:
Since school has started, I will be releasing each chapter in parts. Each part will be ~1000 words.

Monday – 1 Chapter Part

Thursday – 1 Chapter Part

Saturday – 1 Chapter Part

 

Chapter 1 - A Small Insight

Spoiler: Open Chapter

Beep…Beep…Beep…


On earth, within a room where the walls were coloured white and without stain like the clouds in the sky, an old man with white hair lay down on a bed. Beside him was a similarly aged woman who, contrary to the open eyes and rising and lowering chest of the man, had her eyes closed and a chest that neither rose or fell.


“I’ll see you on the other side soon, my wife…”




The old man gripped the woman’s slightly cold hands before turning his head to give her one last look. Although to others the woman would seem plain and ragged, to the old man, she was the most beautiful woman in the world. The smile she showed when she was happy or the pouting face she revealed when she was angry, everything about her the old man saw as an irreplaceable gem.


“I wonder what death will be like…? Do I go towards a light or maybe I’ll simply disappear?”


As the old man talked to himself he slowly closed his eyes and from the corner of his eyes a small ball of water slid down his cheek. There was a tinge of regret that welled up from within his heart. It was the feeling of a life long goal, which one spent all their breathing years on, never being accomplished. And to the old man, this meant the failure to understand the Universe.


“All my life was spent trying to understand the Universe, yet why does it feel like I haven’t even scratched the surface of understanding it? What is the Universe? Why do we exist? Was there anything that existed before the Universe? Because if there is something then there will also be nothing, just like where there is light there is also darkness…”


To others this old man would seem to have gone insane. How could a mere mortal understand something so divine? Yet this old man still pursued this goal.


“Where there is something, there is nothing, but how could something come from nothing…?”


Suddenly, a flash of nearly transparent light appeared in the air above the old man’s body which then spread open like a net, enveloping the old man. Strand after strand, the mysterious light entered the old man’s body. To this event, the old man was completely oblivious. Instead, what he felt was some sort of revelation of the Universe. Unknown to him was that each strand of light that entered his body contained the principles and energy of the Universe.


As the strands of light entered the old man’s body, his mind became calm like the seas under the quiet sky. All that remained in his mind were the principles of the Universe.


“Where there is something, there is nothing. This is how the Universe came into existence. The Universe is simply an existence of nothingness…”


The old man pressed his eyebrows together followed by a faint smile.


“Haha… To think that I’d finally scratch the surface of understanding the Universe on my deathbed. A pity it is only this much, but… at last I’ve accomplished my life’s goal,” the old man said with a voice filled with emotion.


Slowly, the old man relaxed himself and let his body go into a deep slumber as he patiently waited for nature to take its course. His consciousness faded away by the ticking of the clock. At this point the light that initially enveloped him slowly descended onto him before finally condensing and entering the middle area of his chest.


Whoosh!


A rush of mysterious energy suddenly entered the old man.


“What? Is this what death is supposed to feel like?”


The mysterious energy caused the old man to immediately open his eyes and stare at his body. But what he saw astonished him. Within his sight he saw two identical bodies. One was definite, yet the other body was almost totally transparent. Quickly checking himself, he raised his hand only to be surprised yet again. The hand that moved was not of the body which was solid and defined, but of the transparent body.


“This… What is this?”


Before the old man fully understood what was going on, the transparent body began moving upwards from the other body until the transparent body was at a distance of about a metre from the other body. In front of the old man he could clearly see the body of an identical old man laid on the bed and to his side was the woman the old man’s heart could never forget, as if he was a completely different person looking at his own body. But as the old man looked at the woman, the transparent body started to rise once more. At first the rise was unnoticeable, but after a few seconds the surroundings turned into a blur as his body passed through the walls and into the sky, just like a ghost. To this, the old man stayed abnormally calm as if he had witnessed this countless of times, but in actuality, he was already too shocked to register any emotion on his face.


The body rose faster until it reached the very ends of the sky. This time the surroundings was no longer a blur but a scene of numerous coloured lights that weaved around the old man. As the old man travelled through this, a searing pain started emanating throughout his transparent body, originating from the middle of his chest.


“Gyaa!”


A horrifying scream escaped the mouth of the old man followed by involuntary writhing. Immense pressure came down onto the old man’s body with a weight comparable to that of a large mountain. Along with the pain bursts of violent heat and a coldness that seemed to be able to freeze the seas spread throughout his body, creating a feeling of needles stabbing every single cell.


Crack… crack… crack…


The old man felt his body tearing apart. Lines of uneven bright white lines ran up and down his body like lightning. Where every white line was located, the old man’s body started separating until finally his body was split apart into several tens of pieces.


Crack!


Each piece emitted a faint light, making it almost invisible, and slowly reformed into small spheres from its original irregular shape. As every piece turned spherical, the spheres started gathering together until a perfect circle was formed. After, the spheres paused for a short while it then started vibrating violently, crashing into one another. Looking at it, every time several spheres crashed into each other, only a single bigger sphere would remain…


bang… bang… bang…


The spheres were actually fusing together!


At this point the old man no longer let out a sound. If someone were to have seen what happened to the old man’s body, they would undoubtedly think that he had died an extremely painful death that would be utterly incomparable to being trampled by a thousand or even a million horses! Yet the old man had still not died. However, although he had not died, he already had half his body within his grave. The reason for remaining ever so silent was due to the fact that the pain he was feeling had already reached the point where he didn’t even have the power to let out a squeak never mind a scream.


When the spheres stopped vibrating, what was originally a transparent body was now a single and almost invisible white sphere the size of a watermelon which eventually started condensing to the size of a fist.


The surroundings continued to be brightened with numerous colours, but in the distance, a faint image could be seen wavering. As the sphere moved closer, the image split into countless projections containing moving images of unknown people and places which started gathering around the sphere. These projections flickered slightly and would then be swallowed by the sphere. But no matter how many projections there were, the sphere swallowed each and every one of them unceasingly.


As time went on, the amount of projections that the sphere swallowed entered the hundreds, closely approaching the thousands and when the sphere had swallowed its thousandth projection, another sphere was revealed in the distance. This sphere had a radiant golden white colour to it compared to the sort of invisible white colour the opposing sphere had. The two spheres got closer and at the same time sped up, reaching speeds that could cover tens of kilometers within a second.


Boom!


When the spheres made contact, a reverberating sound travelled far and wide, and the old man who was already on the verge of dying, blacked out. The colour rich surroundings was no longer. All that remained was a vast void that was filled with darkness…

 

Chapter 2 - Reborn

Spoiler: Open Chapter

“He-hey… you're seriously not going to do this are you?”


“Y-yeah Kyril, we were just joking. That's right joking!”


Puchi…


Somewhere unknown, a young boy by the age of twelve, was surrounded by two panicking boys and several other onlookers. This young boy went by the name of Kyril. He had disheveled long hair and scruffy attire that appeared to have not been washed for days. His face was exceedingly pale and filled with soot and on it, a pained expression that grew uglier by the second was present.


“I'm tired of it all…”


The surrounding onlookers creased their brows and stared at Kyril. They were filled with mixed emotions at the words said by Kyril. Some were pitying him and others felt glad while others showed no expression at all.


Looking at the onlookers, it was easy to tell that what they were looking at was not the face of Kyril, but his hands. Both his hands held a rusted knife that was so blunt that seemed to not even be able to cut butter. Yet with this rusted knife, Kyril had embedded it several centimetres deep into his lower abdomen.


drip… drip… drip...


A deep red liquid escaped through the wound and ran along the blade of the rusted knife before falling to the ground.


“If this continues won’t he really die?” said a woman, who was watching nearby, anxiously.


Not too far from the woman, a bulky man sharply retorted, “Hmph! So what? Previously we had to offer him our best quality products in order to try and nurture him and this is how he repays us? This is just what he deserves!”


Upon hearing the conversation of the two, the majority of onlookers made a slight nod. On the other hand, the two boys, who were slightly older than Kyril, that Kyril was facing fell to their knees and stared at Kyril with trembling bodies. Nervousness plagued their minds.


“I-I’m not taking any responsibility for this!”


One of the boys who seemed to be totally shaken said out loud before he forcefully stood up and ran through the other people in an attempt to disassociate himself from the current event. As for the other boy, as soon as he saw his friend run away, he too regained a bit of himself and quickly crawled past the people. His legs were shaking so hard that he had to use his knees and arms to get out. After all, how can two boys who have barely made it past their youth withstand the guilt of pressuring someone into suicide?


“Those two have really gone too far…”


When the two boys left, several other onlookers still stayed. Murmurings could be heard between them.


“Look! He's swaying!”


A person from the crowd pointed at Kyril’s figure. At this moment, it seemed that even a gust of wind could blow Kyril off his feet.


Kyril had already lost a large amount of blood. The ground beneath him, perhaps fish could swim in it if they could survive in blood. His face had lost all colour, turning pure white. If one said that he was a ghost, then many others would believe it. Kyril could no longer make sense of what was happening around him. All he could see was a gradual darkening of his surroundings and then finally…


Thud!


Kyril's body dropped to the ground, his face towards the sky and his vision engulfed by darkness.


An audible sigh was released and the onlookers shook their heads gently.


“Hmph. Serves you right,” said the bulky man who turned around to leave. Although his voice wasn't loud, it was loud enough for everyone present to hear it clearly.


The onlookers watched this man leave with a slight sense of disgust. They thought that even if Kyril was a ‘waste,’ it was not his fault for being born that way. That would be just like an Emperor blaming his daughter for being a girl, and not a boy! But alas, what could they do in front of this bulky man. To the bulky man, they were just like an ant standing before an elephant.


Following the bulky man’s lead, the remaining onlookers left as well. The only one who stayed was a middle aged hunched back woman wearing a simple yet clean robe. The wooden cane on her hand stood straight as if it could withstand the weight of a mountain on it. This hunched back woman simply stared at Kyril's motionless body. Her eyes displayed a shine and glow not befitting of her appearance.


tap…


Slowly, the hunched back woman lifted up her walking cane and neared Kyril. She drew her hand out from her robe and, under no one's gaze, she flicked her hand which sliced through the air like a sword in the grasp of a master swordsman.


whoosh…


Kyril's body moved. A layer of air continuously formed on his back as his body floated into the run down shack behind him, onto a bed. The woman gave a quick glance at Kyril before turning around to leave.


A day went by and the blood on Kyril's clothes dried up and stuck to the wound, acting as a barrier to stop anymore blood escaping. However, the amount of blood Kyril had lost was really too much. Even after a day, the paleness on his face had not subsided, rather it turned white like the hairs on an old man a step into his grave. His body stayed still without movement as a rock does on the road.


When the sky turned dark and the sun at rest, an unusual phenomena took place within the run down shack of Kyril. If there was a person present to see this scene, they would have wet their clothes or even fainted, as if they had seen a ghost! From Kyril's body, an identical transparent body rose up and hovered a metre above Kyril's body. The transparent body exuded a radiant light that covered the walls of the room and as soon as the light dimmed, the transparent body trembled and then shot up towards the stars…


…


Somewhere in a place of darkness, two spheres could be seen merging with each other. The golden light and the invisible white light that were emitted from the spheres intertwined like dragons becoming one. When the final strand of light came together, what was originally two spheres was now one, causing the surrounding darkness to be swept away. Instead, an endless crystal ocean appeared upon which the sphere descended from above to float on.


On the surface of the sphere, minor distortions formed that slowly grew over time. With each distortion, the old man who had only his head above the grave, started to be filled with life and youthful vigour, replacing the pain from earlier which had completely subsided as if it was only a dream.


After the time it takes to burn an incense stick, the distortions stopped, revealing a human figure.


Layers of light started circling the old man's body. With each revolution the human figure was gradually being refined and became less transparent. Each revolution lasted a few breaths and after several dozens of breaths, the human figure was now no different to an actual person about the age of twelve.


The body of the old man was filled to the brim with energy as a layer of light flowed around him.


“What really is happening here?”


The old man stared at the ocean that was beneath and around him. His lower mouth acted like it had no bones to keep it up.


However, before the old man could begin to move around, a strong suction force pulled on the old man from a distance. Without any chance for resistance, the old man was swept off his feet with a force that caused his entire body to become stiff. Not even his eyelids could open or his fingers move. This took only a few breaths, but it was enough to completely baffle the mind of the old man.


The old man felt himself in a completely different place. The air smelt foul and there was an eery silence that pervaded the area around him.


When the suction force disappeared, the old man felt a change in his body. He felt smaller yet full of energy and thinner but stronger. However, the most astonishing things was that within the old man's mind, he discovered there to be memories he could not recognise. The old man ignored the changes in his body and delved into the memories. The memories seemed to have been a part of the old man ever since birth and appeared very clear in his mind.


After an hour, the old man had finished looking over the unknown memorises within his mind.


“What is this? I'm called Kyril? I've never even heard of such a name. It even shows that I committed suicide! I clearly remember dying alongside my wife!”


Although the old man had understood what the memories showed him, these new found memories contradicted greatly with the memories he already had.


“These memories are so mysterious. They appear to have been a part of me ever since I was born, but at the same time it appears like memories of someone else! ...Forget it. Forcefully thinking of an answer won't get me anywhere.”


With that said, the old man stopped thinking of the memories and proceeded to feel the changes in his body.


“Strange. This is really too strange. I don't know what death feels like, but it certainly can't be something like this!”


The feeling he had of his body seemed totally foreign, as if he was a completely different person.


The old man's eyes opened and a place completely unknown to him entered his vision.


“Wha-”


The old man froze for a while and with an empty gaze, stared at the walls and ceiling of the run down shack. Shock and confusion covered his face. Afterwards, he lifted his body up into a seating position. But once his body got up, an intense pain rippled through his body from his lower abdomen followed by a wave of dizziness. Everything around the old man seemed to spin around. Gritting his teeth, the old man endured the pain, he lowered his head to look at the knife that was embedded into his stomach.


Although the old man’s head was full of questions, he had no time for pondering. If the blade of the knife was not removed, his body might become poisoned due to the rust on the blade.


Without hesitation, the rusted knife was pulled out and blood rushed through the wound. A length of cloth, at about the length of two arms, was then cut from the old man's clothes with the rusted knife. Throwing the knife aside, the old man wrapped around the wound tightly before tying a knot. After a few minutes, the blood finally stopped seeping out.


Seeing this, the old man heaved out a heavy sigh. Although the bleeding had stopped, the old man knew he had lost far too much blood. The dizziness in his head was becoming too overbearing.


In an attempt to deal with the dizziness in his head, the old man paused for a bit and massaged his temples to reduce the dizziness surging through him. When the dizziness subsided to a manageable level, the old man closed his eyes, recalling the new memories in his head. After some time passed, a crease formed in the old man's brows. The knife that he removed was exactly the same as the knife that boy used to stab himself with! Thinking of this, the old man took a deep breath to ready himself for what he was about to see. He already had some thoughts of what had happened.


Opening his eyes, the old man observed every detail he could see. Even though he prepared himself, there was still some shock and confusion that could be seen all over his face.


Around the old man, there were four walls that seemed to be made out of rotting wood. Pieces of wood had already fallen to the ground, leaving holes as big as two fists. Above him, a cloth held by sticks blocked out the sky. This was a place that could not even be compared to a shelter of a dog or a pig.


As the old man's eyes moved around, everything he saw he was able to identify with the memories he had unknowingly acquired. And every time he recognized something, he started tirelessly connecting all the previous events together. It seemed that the thoughts he had before, was becoming a reality.


The old man pulled his hand up to his face, making the pupils on the old man's eyes shrink to the size of the head of a needle and his heartbeat to become erratic. The hand in front of him was not covered in veins or had skin that wrinkled, but a hand that had skin with no marks or creases.


“This… How can this be!”


Hurriedly dragging himself towards the pail of water at the corner of the room to the left side of the entrance, the old man looked hard into the water.


A light skinned face adorned with sharp, deep black eyes and a pair of eyebrows as sharp as knives reflected off of the surface of the water. Long hair as dark as the night flowed down the person's shoulders and drooped down and touched the water, sending ripples across the reflection.


The reflection on the water caused the old man to freeze with his mouth wide open. Without knowing any details, to an outsider this old man would seem like a person who hasn't seen water for days. His mouth was so wide open that he may as well fit the pail along with the water in his mouth!


Minutes passed and the old man finally moved. He staggered back to the bed with a heart that was pumping violently that you could faintly hear it through the air.


Thud


The old man's backside hit the bed and eyes wide open that held a gaze filled with shock.


“I… I've actually been reborn!”

 

Chapter 3 - Crippled

Spoiler: Open Chapter

A week had past from the time the old man realized he had been reborn. By this point, the old man had already come to accept the fact that he did not die like he expected.


“My wife, although I haven’t followed you to other side, that time will definitely come. But right now, I’ve been given another chance to pursue my dreams and this time I will absolutely succeed!”


The old man was currently lying down with a scruffy grey robe around his body on a bed that could hardly be considered a bed at all. It was a simple plank of wood that had dried leaves and grass spread on top of it to add a bit of cushion. Currently, aside from the metal pail situated beside the entrance to the shack, which was occasionally used in place of a chair, the bed was the most luxurious thing the old man had.


The old man had his eyes fixed on the cloth ceiling as he fell into deep thought. During the past week, the old man had been able to connect everything that happened and found out a bit about himself thanks to the memories he obtained.


“According to my memories, at the time I died, this body’s original owner also died from blood loss, and when my body became transparent, the same thing also happened to this body. If I’m correct, then when my body turned transparent, then I was probably in some sort of soul form and travelled through a mysterious space before I eventually merged with this body’s original owner’s soul, causing our memories and personalities to fuse.”


The old man had realized that after he was reborn, due to the merging of his soul with the other person’s, some conflicting personalities had arisen which caused him to feel as if something foreign was controlling his body. So before going out, he spent the time to recuperate from the self inflicted wound on his body and to familiarise himself with his new self. Going out with a wound that would open from the slightest force or with a body that he was unfamiliar with, would only result in unwanted accidents. It was also due to the conflicting personalities that the old man had realized that he was now a totally different person from his previous life.


“It seems that from now on, my life will be drastically different than before. This world I’ve been reborn into is called the Hundred Sky World and currently I’m living in a town called ‘Vale Town’ within the Flowing Cloud Continent. Furthermore, I no longer have the same name. From now, I go by the name ‘Kyril Reyva’ and I am no longer the person I was before… but this is fine. Since I was reborn into this body, then naturally I am a completely new person. Starting from now on, I live as Kyril Reyva.”


Kyril made sure to set in stone his identity. Being reborn, he considered his biggest secret. If someone were to find out that he was leading two lives then who knows what sort of trouble would come looking for him. Thus, before he did anything in this world, he had to make sure that he wouldn’t confuse his past self with who he was now.


“However, the previous Kyril has suffered quite a bit. He’s been shunned by the other townsfolk and has been living alone all his life. The only person he appears to have relations with is a young girl called Airyn who’s apparently left for an academy a year ago. But what’s even worse, is that the previous Kyril was actually born a cripple at cultivation…”


As Kyril contemplated this, his brows furrowed and slightly shook his head as he sighed.


After being reborn, Kyril learnt that power was everything in this world. There is only one law in this world, and that law is absolute.


This law is survival of the fittest.


Only those with power can survive in this world and the only way to attain power is through cultivation.


Kyril had learnt various things about this new world and out of all the things he learnt, what excited him was the concept of cultivation. When Kyril learnt of cultivation, flames could be seen burning from within his eyes.


By searching through his memories, Kyril understood the basics of cultivation. Cultivation was a way of life in which everyone in this world followed. Those who cultivated were called Practitioners.


Cultivation is essentially the strengthening of one’s body, mind, and soul through the absorption and refining of an energy called Martial Essence. By absorbing and refining Martial Essence, Practitioners are able to crush rocks with their bare hands, while the more powerful Practitioners are able to uproot trees with a single punch from their fist! To Kyril, this would be a power that belonged to only the Gods in his previous life, but in his new life, it was actually as common as clouds!


But alas, some things just are not meant to be. With his body crippled, Kyril’s hopes of cultivation was shattered.


While some people cultivated for power, Kyril did not have such a thing in mind. Kyril believed that cultivation was an opportunity that was able to allow Kyril to grasp an understanding of the Universe more thoroughly. This belief was due to the fact that this world seemed entirely magical. Through cultivation, Practitioners in the Hundred Sky World were able to achieve things that were deemed impossible on Earth.


Although this seemed like naive thinking, to the point where people would scoff at it, to Kyril who has the experience of two lives, this idea was completely plausible. After all, if one cultivated themselves to a level where breaking rocks became possible with a mere hand, then should it not be possible to cultivate to the point where one could create rocks with their hands instead? If one could destroy then one should also be able to create. But the process of creating required an understanding of what it is that is going to be made. After all, one cannot cook food without understanding how to cook food. It was this idea that sparked his desire to cultivate.


“This probably means that I, too, am a cripple…”


Kyril descended into silence.


Previously, when Kyril went through his memories, he became aware of how essential cultivation was. Science and technology was non-existent in the Hundred Sky World since all the benefits science and technology brought to people could be achieved through cultivation. Practitioners could even surpass the limitations that science and technology could not achieve. Thus the importance of cultivation grew more.


The Hundred Sky World is a very hostile place, comparing Earth to the Hundred Sky World is like comparing a cat to a dragon. The Hundred Sky World is a place filled with dangers. As far as the previous Kyril’s memories go, the current Kyril was able to find out that aside from humans, there were a lot of other existences. But the most terrifying existence were said to be the Magical Beasts.


From what Kyril found out, Magical Beasts were beasts that could cultivate and had bodies that were exceedingly tough. In addition to this, they also had senses that were superior to those of humans, giving Magical Beasts’ an overall advantage.


Thus, Kyril knew how disadvantageous his situation was. But what could he do? Since he was reborn like this, all he could do was accept it.


Kyril sighed, “...It does no good to want things that I can never have. Although with cultivation I may be able to speed up my understanding of the Universe, some things are just not meant to be… Perhaps this is the price I have to pay for being reborn.”


Perhaps it was because of his past life, but Kyril was not a person who would drown himself in regret or depression if he could not get what he wanted. After accepting that cultivation was something he was not able to do, he chose to forget about it and move on.


…


Like this, a week passed by once more and the situation about Kyril’s body had long gone. Instead it was replaced by a determination and curiosity, like a young child exploring their new home, to live his new life and to achieve his ultimate goal of understanding the Universe.


Right now it was early morning and Kyril was left with food that was not enough to feed even a mouse. The pail of water the previous Kyril collected had also already been emptied in Kyril's body.


In reality, the food that Kyril ate couldn't be considered food at all. The food that had been left behind consisted of long thin pieces of grass called ‘yellow grass’ which were dried and then crushed and mixed with water to form a thick soup. There were also several potato shaped foods called ‘earth nut’ that did not taste like potato at all. It was dried to preserve it for longer, but it was this that caused the earth nuts to become dry and hard. Eating it was like feeding on stones.


“...I can't believe the previous Kyril actually ate something like this. It’s no different to eating stones! After I recover, I'm definitely going to get better food.”


While Kyril was never too picky about food, but he was still accustomed to the food he ate back on earth. The sudden switch to food that appeared to have been picked off the streets made Kyril reluctant to eat it. However what could he do when there was nothing else to eat?


Kyril knew that the Kyril before him scraped by by doing small jobs such as picking herbs from the nearby mountains or cleaning the houses of the nobler families around town. Luckily, the amount of food that was stockpiled was enough to last until Kyril had recovered to the point at which he can move.


“Well, I guess it’s about time I explore this place.”


Kyril got up from his bed and made his way to the upside-down pail by the side of the door. From it, Kyril picked up a grey length of cloth about the size of two arms and began wrapping it tightly around the wound on his lower abdomen. With that set and the pail handle in his hand, he opened the door of his shack for the very first time ever since being reborn.


shua…


When the door opened, cool air that carried a fresh scent drifted into Kyril’s nose and entered his body. As it entered his body, it seemed like the air was cleansing every part of his body.


“Such fresh air! Air of this quality could never be found on Earth!”


Taking a few steps forward, a scenery that could never be found on Earth presented itself in front of Kyril. To the sides of his shack, trees and grasses with flowers bloomed and on the front, a slightly obscure path wide enough to fit the height of an adult man was carved out of the ground which led to a wider street that connected other houses. There were several trees that exceeded the fifty metre mark which stood over him. Its leaves swayed gently by the wind. The grass and flowers that covered the ground danced along with the leaves of the trees, emitting a calming fragrance as its scent was carried by the wind.


Before going anywhere, he first inspected the area around his shack. Like the sides, the back was also adorned with plants. As he inspected further, Kyril found out that his shack was located relatively near to the edge of a cliff, about ten metres. And below the cliff, there was a drop of about ten metres to a ground that was similarly covered in grass and flowers. But to this, Kyril paid no attention to. In fact Kyril liked it. With this, Kyril would be able to gaze out into the Universe at night without having any trees blocking his field of view.

 

Chapter 4 - Picking Herbs

Spoiler: Open Chapter

After checking the back of the shack, Kyril proceeded along the path in front of his shack. This path was abnormally long, at twenty metres, compared to the paths which were around three to five metres that connected the other houses to the main street. Apart from this, Kyril also realized that his shack was the only shack he could see. The houses in the distance, although they were far inferior to the quality of houses on earth, they were still a hundred times better than Kyril’s shack! If Kyril’s shack could be considered a house, then the houses in front of him were mansions! To this, Kyril only smiled lightly. He knew the reason why it was like this, but could not be bothered to waste any energy complaining about it.


As Kyril neared the main street, he started to see other people walking along the middle of the street and men and women chatting normally by the side. Occasionally horse driven carriages carrying baskets and barrels of goods would drive by, causing all the people to spread to the sides and stare at it with curious eyes. It was an atmosphere that seemed to be from a fairy tale. However, when their eyes landed on Kyril’s body, the atmosphere from before instantly turned tense. The people stopped talking and some of the people’s eyes showed signs of disgust and loathing, and when Kyril turned to look at these people in the eye, the signs of disgust and loathing intensified.


“Look! That boy Kyril actually didn’t die!” someone among the people cried out, drawing even more attention towards Kyril.


There were also some people who expressed astonishment at the fact that Kyril was still alive. These people had seen the state Kyril was in and so everyone assumed that the stab would undoubtedly have killed him, especially since he could not cultivate. Never did they expect him to stand upright again.


“What! How could he still walk with such a wound! He's also a cripple, there's no way his injuries could have healed so fast!” someone shouted.


When Kyril heard this, he too felt a little surprised at how fast he recovered. Never mind the deep stab wound, the rust on the knife should have been enough to kill him or at least keep him bedridden until his death. The only answer he could think of was that it was due to him being reborn.


Not thinking about it any longer, Kyril ignored the shouts of the people around him and continued to walk along the street. Unlike, the orderliness often found in towns on Earth, Vale Town was quite disordered. The streets were not uniform, resulting in a parts of the streets wider or bumpier than the rest of the street.


As Kyril's sight drifted into the distance, he noticed a distinct change in the houses. The houses around him were quite plain and boring, but the houses in the distance had beautiful designs. There were steel gates that surrounded some of the distant houses and reflected the sunlight like mirror, while the gardens the gates guarded let out a sense of tranquility.


Seeing this, Kyril knew the reason for this change.


“That must be where the wealthier people live and the place I'm in right now should be where the common townsfolk would reside.”


As Kyril looked at the distant houses, a mocking voice entered his ears.


“Ha! Do you think you're qualified to enter that place, you, a cripple? Dream on!”


Turning his head, Kyril looked at the source of the sound. When his eyes landed on the person, Kyril only shook his head. These people were the two boys who previously drove the Kyril before himself into attempting suicide.


“These boys… After nearly sending someone to their death, they still dare to speak like this? They were clearly shaking on the ground when the previous Kyril stabbed himself and now here they are trying to act tough.”


Kyril had recalled that the two boys were close to wetting themselves after realising what they had done before. But now they were acting like this, as if they had completely forgotten about it. This was a sign of being extremely thick headed!


Not bothering to waste his time, Kyril simply ignored them and continued walking onwards. When the two boys saw this, their face turned red and gnashed their teeth. Thinking back to how they were near wetting themselves on the ground, humiliation welled up in them.


“You! You'll regret this you trash!” the two boys shouted at Kyril while looking at the metal pail in his hand. A strange glint flashed within their eyes before they began running away.


Kyril just walked on unaffected, reverting back to the curious gaze, he started looking around once again. Even though he knew what everything looked like from his memories, seeing it in person was a completely new experience.


…


Once the sun had reached its peak in the sky, Kyril finally stopped walking around aimlessly. He didn’t try entering the wealthier area since he knew that the people there did not welcome him.


Turning his head to look at one end of the street, he walked towards it with the metal pail swinging in his hand.


“Now that I've explored the place, it’s time to earn some money.”


The place Kyril was heading to was the Grassy Mountains. The Grassy Mountains grew various types of herbs and plants, getting its name from the abundance of plants that covered it. Different animals also roamed the perimeter of the Grassy Mountains and as one went deeper, Magical Beasts would also start appearing. Of course, the previous Kyril never dared to venture too deep into the Grassy Mountains. With his strength, it would simply be courting death.


Fifteen minutes later, Kyril had entered one hundred metres into the Grassy Mountains. The Grassy Mountains were filled with different coloured flowers with each of them having its own unique fragrance. But so far, Kyril had not found a single herb.


“Let's see… The previous Kyril would usually manage to gather three or four herbs every week, enough to feed him for a day. But that’s just for food. I also need a new set of clothes and possibly a new knife. This knife looks like it’ll break when even cutting butter. So if I can at least pick up ten herbs per day, then I should have some left over money for other necessities as well as emergencies.”


In order to identify herbs from normal plants, one must look for the tiny crystals of Martial Essence embedded on their leaves and stem. This is the most common way to identify Herbs, but this required the person to check each herb individually. It was also the way Kyril previously gathered Herbs.


“This method is too inefficient. No wonder Kyril would only manage to obtain very little Herbs within a week. With such a huge area this mountain covers, there's bound to be enough Herbs to gather more than even five a week. Perhaps I just don’t know where to look.”


Kyril believed that there was a more efficient way of gathering herbs that he didn't know about.


“I should go to the library to research later. I might be able to find out other efficient ways of gathering herbs. Also, I might learn something beneficial there too.”


The further Kyril walked deeper into the Grassy Mountains, he started noticing a growing number of footsteps imprinted on the grass.


“Strange. There shouldn’t be this many people gathering herbs,” Kyril said to himself. “Aside from myself, only around three other people would collect herbs, but by the looks of it there are at least ten people present.”


Kyril began following the footsteps.


…


Not too far away from Kyril, a group of twelve boys were moving hurriedly amongst each other. Each boy carried a pouch bag by their hand and were vigorously pulling plants from the ground and stuffing it into their pouches.


“Alek, don’t you think this is enough? We’ve been running around here for several hours already. We’ve never even picked herbs before!” complained one of the boys.


“Yeah, our feet and knees already hurt from walking…”


“Shut up! This is what the boss says! Or do you plan on going against the boss!”


While Kyril followed the footsteps through the different plants and trees that grew on the Grassy Mountains, a series of shouting could be heard near him.


“Huh? This voice sounds familiar…”


Narrowing his eyes, Kril looked around him.


Roughly a hundred metres away from him, he spotted the twelve boys that were pulling plants from the grounds and placing it into their pouches.


“So they're the ones who are taking all the herbs…” Kyril said softly.


As Kyril moved closer, he immediately recognised one of the boys.


“It's that boy again. It seems like he hasn't given up on me.”


Kyril stopped moving and silently listened in on them.


“But Alek, from what we’ve found, that cripple is only able to find at most four herbs a day. We've already scavenged the whole place, if he's lucky he'd only be able to find one herb!”


“Did you not hear me! This is what the boss wants us to do! If you don't want to do it, go tell the boss that! Before Kyril manages to find herbs, we must pick them all up so there is nothing left!”


Hearing this conversation, Kyril managed to understand who the boy was and and the reason for the lack of herbs.


“So that boy who nearly wet his pants is called Alek and the leader of this group. As for the others around him, they appear to be like dogs under him.”


Kyril shook his head and turned back around.


“Those boys should have been sent by this ‘boss’ character. For him to be able to control a group of twelve boys, he should be quite powerful.”


Thinking this, a hint of sadness appeared in Kyril's eyes before immediately disappearing.


“I guess if I want to pick up herbs by tonight, I'll have to go deeper into the Grassy Mountains.”


After another fifteen minutes of walking, Kyril arrived two hundred metres deep into the Grassy Mountains. If this was the previous Kyril, then he would already be trembling in fear, but due to the merging of personalities, this fear was replaced with curiosity.


Kyril slowed down his walking pace and once again looked at everything around him very carefully, like an animal seeking its prey.


Suddenly, in the corner of his eye a slight sparkling could be seen. Turning to look at it, a light smile formed on Kyril's face.


“Finally found one!”


Kyril immediately rushed to the herb and then stopped to observe it in great detail. Wonder and shock had filled him. Even though he knew what it look like from memory, looking at it in person he still couldn't help but be taken aback.


The herb was covered in small crystals that were similar in size to grains of sand. These crystals were spread out on the leaves and the stem, and emitted a yellow glow.


“This world is really too exotic! It's just like something from one's dreams!” Kyril said in awe of the world.


After calming himself, Kyril carefully picked up the herb, ensuring that the roots were still intact.


“Hopefully by leaving roots, the herbs can grow again.”


Once that was said, Kyril got up and began looking for more herbs…


By the time the sun had almost disappeared and the sky tinted red and orange, Kyril was able to collect five herbs in his metal pail. Although he had not obtained ten herbs like he wanted to, he was still satisfied. After all, this was his first time doing something like this.

 

Chapter 5 - Importance of Power

Spoiler: Open Chapter

“Now all that’s left is to exchange these herbs for money.”


Running back to the entrance of Grassy Mountains, Kyril made sure to stay vigilant of the group of boys. Only when Kyril arrived at the entrance and entered back into the town did Kyril relax.


“Perhaps they left earlier. If I encountered them I might have lost all the herbs I picked up,” said Kyril. He remembered how in the past there were some incidences where Alek and his group would bully Kyril and take his herbs.


Though as Kyril said this to himself, he didn't notice that several of the twelve boys were standing looking at him from afar.


“He's back! Quick! Go tell Alek! He’s heading for the store!” one of the boys shouted amongst themselves.


Kyril did not notice the actions of the boys and just continued hurrying towards the shop he would usually exchange the herbs with.


The store Kyril was headed for was a nameless store that would never have stalls outside. Kyril found it weird for such a store to exist. If this was earth, then there would have been no doubt that the store would have already been closed due to a lack of awareness from the people, but surprisingly in Town Vale, the store was still quite popular. And the reason why came from the owner of the place.


Upon arriving at the front door of the shop, just as Kyril was about to knock, an oddly sweet mature voice called out to him.


“Come in.”


“Cultivation sure is amazing…” Kyril thought to himself as he opened the door. Kyril remembered how Practitioners were able to sense someone’s presence from far away. But given Kyril’s constitution, Kyril could only admire it.


In front of Kyril an old hunched back woman was sitting behind a plain wooden counter.


“You're quite late today,” the old hunched back woman said with a voice barely audible to the ears, yet this voice contained a very sweet tone to it.


The voice of the old hunched back lady stunned Kyril.


“For an old lady to have such a sweet voice, it's really unexpected. Only by experiencing it can one believe a woman like her would have such a voice.”


Quickly regaining himself Kyril replied back respectfully, “I encountered some problems along the way which caused me to arrive late.”


This old hunched back woman seemed ordinary on the outside, but after being a regular customer for some time, Kyril knew that she was anything but ordinary. She was able to sense things that others could not and despite being old and having a hunchback, her movement was swift and nimble, like a monkey.


To the previous Kyril, apart from Airyn, this old hunched back woman was a person he respected because unlike the other townsfolk, this woman treated him like a normal person. She showed no signs of pity or hate towards him.


“Mmm… Was it Alek?” the old hunched back woman questioned.


“You knew?”


“He exchanged thirty two herbs for about twenty copper coins earlier. Since he’s never picked herbs before and there’s also some conflicts between you two, I was naturally able to guess.”


“Twenty copper coins… that’s enough for roughly five days worth of food…” thought Kyril. But he quickly dispelled this thought, he was not the type of person to fawn over someone else’s belongings.


In the Hundred Sky World, copper coins were the lowest value of coins available. One thousand copper coins is the equivalent of one silver coin. To Kyril, if he was able to obtain a silver coin, then it would be enough for him to survive for several months without working. If one had one thousand silver coins, then it could be exchanged for a gold coin. Gold coins were a symbol of wealth in Vale Town, but this was only what he heard from others since he had never seen one himself. If Kyril had a even a single gold coin, then he would be able to spend the rest of his life without working. Of course, after being reborn, Kyril did not have that sort of lifestyle in mind. All he wanted was to accomplish his goal of understanding the Universe! There was also a coin called ‘Platinum Coin,’ but Kyril did not even try to imagine it right now. It was too far from his reach. He could only dream of having it.


Seeing Kyril becoming silent, the old hunched back woman asked him another question, “How’s your wound? You’ve healed pretty fast if you’re now able to run around to pick herbs. Usually people with low cultivation have to rest for two weeks before returning to their peak state, never mind a person who can’t cultivate.”


Kyril looked at the woman for a while and then began placing the herbs on the counter as he replied dryly, “I… I don’t know how my wound has healed this fast either. Right now, the wound has already closed. I just need to make sure I don’t apply too much force on it for now.”


Kyril made sure to hide any details that could lead to suspicion. If people knew about his rebirth, who knows what could happen? People might even think that Kyril might have a legendary treasure which would cause nations to fight over or he cultivated a mysterious technique which would attract endless numbers of Practitioners.


Perhaps due to the old hunchback woman’s questioning, Kyril’s actions subconsciously quickened. He picked the five herbs from the metal pail and placed it on the counter.


“How much can I exchange for this?”


The old hunched back woman picked up the herbs and inspected them carefully.


“...Usually this would only be enough for three or four copper coins, but since you’re still recovering I’ll give you six copper coins,” the old hunched back woman said.


Hearing this, Kyril was slightly surprised. Even with his experience from his past life, Kyril had never met a person so generous to a person who was generally hated by everyone else.


“Is she not afraid that people might turn on her?” thought Kyril.


Humans, in nature, were people who became easily influenced by the majority. If the majority favoured someone, then other people would also favour that person. It was the same with hating someone.


“Thank you very much.”


Kyril bowed and expressed his thanks. Although Kyril seemed like a beggar on the outside, he still maintained his manners.


When the old hunched back woman saw the actions of Kyril, she was slightly startled and gave a contemplative look at Kyril, her brows slightly furrowed.


Under this look, Kyril became confused and as soon as the old hunched back woman saw this, her face relaxed back to its original tranquil state and she let out a sigh.


“Haa… You seem like a completely different person,” smiled the woman.


Kyril froze for a bit before managing to smile back at her, “Perhaps it’s because I’ve nearly experienced death…”


After saying that, Kyril took his leave.


“It seems that he’s matured…” thought the old woman. Somehow, this caused her to feel relieved and happy at the same time.


…


Under the night sky, several boys could be seen running across the street. The boy leading them had creases all over his forehead and eyes filled with fury.


“You’re saying that cripple managed to gather herbs? Impossible! How can that cripple gather any herbs, we already picked all the herbs within one hundred metres!”


“Alek, I’m not lying! We really did see him heading off to exchange the herbs for money!”


The sky was now dark, painted with black and blue colours. And spread all over the night sky, tiny dots of sparkling stars glowed like fireflies.


“Alek, there he is! And look! He’s holding copper coins in his hand!”


Just as Kyril was about to walk away from the old hunched back woman’s store, the several boys who were running started shouting loudly. This caused the residents of the nearby houses to fling their door open, ready to shout at whoever was causing the ruckus. However when they saw who it was that was shouting, they immediately shut their mouths.


“Hmph!”


Alek sneered at the angry residents and just continued running.


“If it wasn’t for that man’s son, this Alek kid wouldn’t have the guts to act like this!”


Some of the residents let out disgruntled voices and shut their doors.


Soon enough, Alek and his group in front of Kyril. There was a brief moment of silence between the two sides. Kyril just stood their with an expressionless face and an aura of tranquility like still water. On the other hand, Alek looked at Kyril with flaming eyes.


“You… Did you pick up any herbs?” Alek said with a twitching face.


Kyril still retained his calm and said, “Yeah, I picked them up here and there.”


Hearing such a nonchalant reply, Alek’s whole face creased to the point that he looked just like an old man.


“This cripple actually humiliated me and now he speaks to me as if I’m some sort of ant!”


“Bastard! Do you think humiliating me comes for free!?”


Kyril let out a mischievous smile and said, “Humiliate you? Since when did I humiliate you? Tell me, what is it that I did that caused myself to unintentionally humiliate you?”


Towards Alek, Kyril felt like it was a waste to bother arguing with a mere twelve year old. His old mindset didn't allow it.


“Let's see… if he doesn't accept that it's his fault for being humiliated, then I'll just continue playing with him.”


“How? You were the one who-”


“Stop brother.”


Just then, a hand was placed on Alek’s shoulder and then a person from behind walked to the side of Alek.


“Brother Silas.”


“Brother Alek, don't speak anymore.”


“This cripple is trying to get Alek to admit his own fault. If Alek talks anymore, he’ll just humiliate himself even more…”


Silas turned to face Kyril with an air of arrogance, “You cripple. Hand over the coins and we'll let you go. You've made us waste quite a bit of our time.”


“All I did was pick up some herbs. I don't recall wasting your time.” Kyril said while smiling. Like Alek, Silas was also the other person who forced the previous Kyril into suicide.


“It seems that I'll have to play with you too.”


Unlike Alek, Silas appeared rather calm at Kyril's nonchalant reply, but underneath his skin, fury was coursing through his veins.


“It seems like you don't understand. We couldn't find any herbs in the Grassy Mountains because of you.”


“Changing the story huh…” Kyril inwardly snickered to himself.


“Because of me?If I recall correctly, no one owns the Grassy Mountains so if you couldn't find any herbs, is the person to blame not yourself for your lack of ability?” Kyril laughed.


“You-”


Unable to withstand it anymore, Alek pulled Silas back and stepped forward, shooting his finger outwards to point at Kyril.


“You piece of trash! Do I have to smack your head for you to remember! You clearly…”


“Alek stop!” Silas hurriedly called out quietly as he tried pulling Alek back, but he was too late. Alek had suddenly became quiet and after a few breaths of time his face began twisting with his eyes locked on Kyril.


“Ah… Looks like he realised.”


“You bastard!!”


Veins popped up on Alek's forehead and his eyes turned a shade of red.


“Whoa… A twelve year old child has actually managed to form a vein on his forehead from anger? This is amusing…”


Kyril began laughing inside, but on the outside he still showed calmness.


However, this laugh didn't last long. Shortly after Alek began cursing, he launched towards Kyril with open palms.


“If you're not going to hand over the coins, then don't blame me for taking them!” Alek shouted.


Around Alek’s hands, the air started warping.


sou!


Suddenly, Alek's body disappeared from sight and after not even a second, he reappeared like light at arms length from Kyril.


In response to this, Kyril's pupils shrunk. He tried to jump back, but with his crippled body, his body was just too slow. Even though Kyril's mind could react to it, Kyril's body couldn't.


Alek drew his palms to his waist and then pushed forward with a force that appeared to contain the weight of a small mountain. The warped air around his hands began condensing within his palms until it glowed softly with a white light.


But before Alek's palms made contact with Kyril's body, a reverberating sound entered everyone's ears.


“Audacious! You dare to rob a person in front of my store!”


Boom!


The door behind Kyril crashed open and an overbearing pressure flew out the door causing Alek to be blown back while the other boys took several steps backwards before collapsing to their knees. The onlookers who came out of their houses and were watching the events unfold further away also felt the pressure and had to exert their utmost effort just to keep standing. Only Kyril remained standing in the same spot.


“Who!” Silas shouted out while looking into the store.


“Who? Scram before I make you!”


Walking out the store, the old hunched back woman appeared into view. The onlookers and the several boys all narrowed their eyes at this sight. Everything became dead silent. If a needle were to drop on the ground, it would be heard by everyone present.


One of the onlookers whispered, “Who would have thought that this old woman was actually very powerful…”


Although it was a whisper, everyone present heard it. Surprise covered their eyes. The only people that showed did not show surprise were the Alek and Silas along with the several other boys behind them. Instead, dread filled their eyes.


“I said scram!”


A threatening voice came out the old hunched back woman's mouth.


Not daring to hesitate any longer, the group of boys ran away, and in the distance, Alek shouted, “I’ll make you pay for this!”


“Hmph! Just you try it!” shouted back the old woman, causing Alek’s face to turn white.


“Who really is this woman? And why is she protecting someone like that cripple…?”


“Her background is so mysterious. No one even knows where she came from.”


“Yeah… Apparently she came from another village, but there's not a single village near here!”


The onlookers broke into discussion, but when the old hunched back woman began to move, their mouths quickly shut.


The old hunched back woman approached Kyril and gave him a conflicting look as she held onto both of Kyril's shoulders. Due to her hunched back, she was a little smaller compared to Kyril who had a height of about one and a half metres.


“Kyril, are you hurt anywhere?”


Kyril looked at the old hunched back woman's face and replied, “No. Thank you for helping me, miss”


Hearing this, the old hunched back woman relaxed her face.


“Stop with the miss, just call me Zalea.”


“Then… Grandma Zalea” Kyril said with face that was turning red.


“Calling someone who's younger than my actual age Grandma. It's quite… weird,” thought Kyril, “It appears that I still have to adapt to being a twelve year old.” Kyril continued.


“Just Zalea is fine. I'm not actually as old as I look haha…” laughed the the old hunched back woman. In her eyes a wisp of sadness flashed by.


The onlookers were dumbfounded.


“Not as old as she looks!? She's clearly as old as my Grandma!” someone from the onlookers shouted. However as soon as he realised what he said, he immediately turned pale.


“Idiot she’s heard you…” someone else said.


But as if she never heard what was being said, Zalea still looked at Kyril.


With a serious tone she said, “I know that you might be a cripple, but as you've experienced earlier, you will not be able to survive in this world if you don't have power.”


Zalea paused for a bit and then continued, “Perhaps in the future you may be able to find a way to cultivate, but it doesn't have to be cultivation, however, you need some sort of power to protect yourself. This is the importance of power!”

 

Chapter 6 - A Ferocious Encounter

Spoiler: Open Chapter

The next day, Kyril woke up before the sun had risen - a habit he picked up from his previous life. After fixing up his clothes, he took a small handful of dried yellow grass and crushed them before mixing them with water to form the thick soup he usually ate.


Last night, after obtaining the six copper coins from Zalea, he directly exchanged all the copper coins for two handfuls of dried yellow grass and three earth nuts.


Five minutes later, Kyril finished the soup and headed outside to the back of his shack with the metal pail in his hands. Flipping the metal pail upside-down, Kyril sat on it and stared into the vast blue sky.


“The importance of power… If I want to achieve my goal of understanding the universe, then I need to survive in this world…” Kyril said quietly.


Reclining back a little, Kyril recalled what had happened last night and how we was close to being severely injured by Alek.


“If it weren’t for Zalea protecting me, my lack of power would have sent me straight back to my grave,” Kyril said with a sigh, “if I want to survive I need to somehow become stronger.”


Kyril closed his eyes and folded his arms.


“Back on earth, the most obvious meaning of power was by having high personal strength. But there are also many other meanings. One can obtain power from being extremely wealthy or by connections with a vast number of people…”


However thinking of money and connections, Kyril quickly dispelled this thought. Kyril did not want to survive off of having an abundance of materialistic items, but even if he did, Kyril did not have the means to gather enough money. Similarly, Kyril knew that forming a vast network of connections with other people was but a dream. With his body crippled, there would not be many people who would lend helping hands to him.


“I guess the only way I can survive is by finding out a way to fix my crippled body.”


Previously, Kyril did not think too much of not being able to cultivate, although he was saddened by it a little, he saw it as something he didn’t need. He survived on earth without cultivating, why should it be different here?


But that was just wishful thinking.


Kyril had only known the power of Practitioners through words. He had never actually seen any demonstration of the power of Practitioners in person, and when he eventually experienced it first hand last night, it forced him to broadened his outlook on the world.


“I’ve been too naive. In the Hundred Sky World, cultivation is basically synonymous with survival. If I want to survive, I need to find a way to fix my crippled body quickly,” Kyril said as he opened his eyes and unfolded his arms.


Kyril picked up the pail from the ground, which left a circular imprint on the ground, and headed off into the street of Vale Town. Since it was still early morning, it was still a bit cold from the night. Despite this, around the streets, men and women were coming in and out of their stores, setting up stalls in the front to prepare for the day to come. Occasionally children were helping as well.


“First, I need to go to the library. Before picking up herbs again, I need to know where to find them, otherwise I would end up just wasting my time unknowingly looking at places where herbs can’t grow,” Kyril said, “I might also be able to find something about my body.”


Around twenty metres in front of Kyril, there stood a building that was bigger than most of the other houses around it and was located between the houses of the wealthy people and commoners’ houses. The library was a building that was decorated like the wealthy houses around it. It had designs carved into the stone pillars that supported it and a door that appeared impenetrable, yet despite the design, it still gave out the air of a humble man.


It was a rule set by the Town Head that the library was open to all people and that any form of discrimination was banned within the library. The library was a place of knowledge, banning people people from entering it just because of status would be the equivalent of preventing someone from learning. This would be extremely shameful!


Because of this, Kyril viewed the Town Head in a new light. Kyril held the same view as the Town Head. Even on earth, there were not many people who valued learning as much as Kyril did.


When Kyril arrived in front of the library door, two guards dressed in pads of leather armour blocked Kyril from entering. Looking at these guards, Kyril felt a pressure coming down on his body. The guards stood firm and straight, as if a pole was stuck to their backs, with arms that were exposed and looked almost as thick as Kyril's thigh!


“If you want to enter the library hand over the metal pail!” the guard to the left said with an imposing manner.


Furrowing his brows, Kyril looked at the guard with a confused face, but didn’t say anything.


“Kid, don’t you know the rules? Anything that can carry items are forbidden in the library. Weapons are also forbidden!” the guard to the left said, slightly annoyed.


“Hey, relax,” the guard to the right said to his partner, “I haven’t seen this kid before so he probably doesn’t know the existence of the rules never mind knowing what they are.”


Both guards then looked at Kyril. The guard to the right said, “Kid, the reason why we take those items is to prevent anyone from hiddenly stealing books from the library. As for weapons, it’s obvious. Sometimes youngsters would end up arguing over Martial Scrolls which would lead to disputes. We don’t want anything serious happening in the library.”


“Martial Scrolls…” thought Kyril.


From his memories, Kyril knew that Martial Scrolls contained techniques used by Practitioners. To Practitioners, Martial Scrolls were extremely important. It not only provided ways for Practitioners to use their strength, but also acted as a guide to help them cultivate.


Kyril gave the metal pail to the guards and then took out the rusted knife out of his inner pocket. When the guards saw the rusted knife, they both raised an eyebrow. Kyril noticed this, but as he was already expecting it, his mood didn't fluctuate. Furthermore, he has already seen all the reactions of others towards him so he was practically numb to it all.


The guards took another look at Kyril and saw just how poorly dressed he was. Only then did they realise who this boy in front of them was, but they said nothing of it.


The two guards pushed the door open. Veins appeared on their thigh thick arms. Just from seeing this Kyril was able to get an idea of how heavy this door was. It might be as heavy as an elephant!


“You may enter. When you're done you can collect your things from us,” said the guard as he gestured his hand to point at Kyril's belongings.


The guard continued, “And since this is your first time in the library, I'll explain it's layout. There are five floors in the library. The first three floors are open to everyone and only contain general knowledge books. The fourth and fifth floor are open to only those who have passed the Cultivation Admission Test. The fourth floor contains basic Martial Scrolls while the fifth floor has advanced Martial Scrolls. There is an additional test required to enter the fifth floor. This is to stop overly confident youngsters from wasting their time by overreaching themselves.”


Kyril nodded at the guard’s explanation and then walked into the library. With regards to the Cultivation Admission Test, Kyril did not bother with it for now. He wanted to be able to cultivate first before taking any sort of test.


The first thing Kyril wanted to find was information about herbs. He followed the labels on the shelves which led him to the second floor where he finally found several books about herbs.


Taking the first book, titled ‘General Information of Herbs,’ Kyril began reading through it. There was an obvious excitement in his eyes.


“Herbs, unlike other types of plants, are a type of plant that survives by absorbing Martial Essence. By absorbing Martial Essence, herbs are able to live longer and may also develop the ability to move on it's own. Upon further growth, herbs may be used to help Practitioners cultivate or to treat injuries for faster healing…


Compounded herbs. Several herbs can be mixed together to create a single herb which has higher quality effects than normal herbs. Compounded herbs do not appear in nature and so it has to be specially made by alchemists. However there are risks of creating a compounded herb. If done incorrectly, the final result may end up being worse than its ingredients…


Grades. Herbs and compounded herbs are classified into different grades based on the quality and amount of Martial Essence the herb has absorbed. For compounded herbs, it is based on the amount of martial essence the compounded herb has in it. There are only two grades of herbs: gradeless and Earth grade. Herbs with no grade have not absorbed enough Martial Essence to form crystals beneficial for Practitioners, they can only be used to treat minor wounds. Earth grade herbs are able to aid cultivation and treat deeper wounds, but are very rare to find. Grades are further split into three different levels: low, medium, and high…”


Kyril’s eyes were glued to the book and every single word was read by him. It was as if missing a word would cause him to lose his life.


…


In a large room that was filled with gold and silver decorations, two boys were kneeling on their knees in front of another boy of similar age.


“Alek and Silas… You're telling me that that cripple was able to pick up herbs even though there were twelve of you who scavenged the Mountains for herbs?” the boy asked as he twisted a bronze ring on his finger.


“Ye-Yes boss,” Silas stuttered, “But it wasn't that we weren't able to pick up all the herbs, it was just that Kyril had gone deeper than we expected…”


“Oh?” the boy raised an eyebrow, “how deep?”


“Two hundred metres boss…” Silas said.


“Two hundred metres?” the boy furrowed his brows, “before he goes to pick up any herbs, go and gather all the herbs within two hundred metres. This time take fifteen people with you.”


“Yes, boss!” Alek and Silas said together and then rushed out of the room.


Back in the room, the boy stayed standing and watched Alek and Silas rushing from the window. The boy's face gradually distorted and his fists clenched. A faint grinding sound filled the room.


“Kyril… I really don't know what Airyn sees in you, but I'll make sure she never sees you again…”


…


In the library, a pile of six books were stacked neatly on top of each other.


“I’ve really made the right decision to come here. With the information I’ve gathered from these six books, I should be able to manage to gather around ten herbs. If I’m lucky, I might be able to gather more! Other than that, I’ve also been able to learn more about this world. Before, I thought that this world was similar in size to earth, but now I know that it’s actually a hundred times bigger!” said Kyril.


Picking up the books, Kyril put them back into their respective shelves.


“Today has really been an eye opener for me…” Kyril said with a smile.


After putting the books back, Kyril went to collect his belongings from the two guards


“Kid, you’ve finally come out. There’s never been anyone your age stay in the library for as long as you did! You’d only see those old bag of bones staying in the library for several hours. If you came out any sooner, we would have thought you’d fallen asleep!” The guard to the right said.


“Haha…” Kyril laughed and rubbed the back of his head. Seeing these guards’ reactions made him feel quite amused because in reality, he actually was one of those ‘old bag of bones!’


“Alright kid,” the guard to the right said, “here’s your stuff. Next time you come here, you know what to do.”


The guards handed Kyril his belongings and after expressing his thanks, Kyril walked away from the library and began heading for the Grassy Mountains.


“It’s already past noon, so if I start picking up herbs now, I should be able to finish by sundown.” Kyril said to himself. He was looking forward to the number of herbs he was going to gather.


However, as he entered the Grassy Mountains, in the distance he noticed almost twenty people rushing back and forth. And upon closer inspection, Kyril knew who these people were.


“Alek and Silas again… And they’ve brought more people with them, there’s a total of seventeen of them. Moreover, it looks like they’re going deeper into the Grassy Mountains as well. They must have found out that I went deeper into the mountains yesterday in order to gather herbs. I may have to go deeper into the Grassy Mountains now if I want to gather herbs without being discovered,” Kyril said as he furrowed his brows, “but if I go in too deep, I may encounter a wild beast…”


From the new information he picked up in the library, Kyril knew that if one went too deep into the Grassy Mountains, they would mostly encounter wild beasts and perhaps even magical beasts. According to the books that he read, wild beasts were beasts that could not cultivate. Magical beasts on the other hand were beasts capable of cultivating just like Practitioners.


“If I analogise it, then wild beasts are like the wolves and tigers of earth, while magical beasts are like dragons and mythical creatures. If I were to accidentally encounter a wild beast, then there’s some hope of running away and even possibly injuring it. At least wild beasts have regular bodies. But I were to encounter a magical beast, then I’m dead for sure. With their bodies being as hard as steel, I’ve got no hope. Luckily Magical Beasts only appear roughly after five hundred metres so I should be safe by two hundred metres if I enter three hundred metres in.” said Kyril.


With light steps to make as little sound as possible, Kyril started running in between the trees to hide himself from Alek and Silas. During his run, he was listening in on the barely audible conversations between the several boys in the distance.


“Alek and Silas are making us go deeper into the Grassy Mountains, don’t they know that there’s been rumours of a beast roaming around these parts of the Grassy Mountains.”


“Mmm… We don’t even know if it is a magical beast or not! Hopefully it’s just a wild beast, but if it’s a magical beast then how can we deal with it? We might end up dying!” one of the boys shouted.


“Beast?”


Kyril stopped running. He looked into the distance with a complicated look.


“If there really is a beast, then today is going to be quite difficult…” thought Kyril.


“Hey!” Kyril saw Alek pointing at the several boys who were talking, “Stop talking and get moving!”


As if a cold bucket of water was poured over them, the group of boys immediately started running in all directions, some even ran towards the direction of Kyril.


Seeing this, Kyril immediately started running as lightly as possible again between the trees.


After around ten minutes of running, Kyril finally was able to reach a safe distance of about three hundred metres away from Alek and Silas.


At the three hundred metres mark, the number of trees started increasing, making the ground somewhat dark by blocking the sunlight. The colour of the grass also changed from a light green to a dark, almost black green colour.


Changing to a walking pace, Kyril began treading carefully. Due to the rumours of the beast, Kyril made sure to stay vigilant of his surroundings.


As he walked, Kyril remembered what he read in the library.


“According to the books, the deeper one goes into the Grassy Mountains the more herbs they’d find. It also said that more herbs are found in areas where there are lots of plants surrounding it since herbs tend to also absorb the innate martial essence from other plants,” Kyril said to himself, “in that case, then I’ll have to look for concentrated areas of plants.”


Walking for a few breaths of time, Kyril saw an unusual amount of trees gathered together. But unlike the healthy trees that were a few metres away from the gathered trees, the gathered trees’ leaves were slightly yellow and one by one fell to the ground. Kyril instantly realized this as a sign for a growing herb.


“There must be a herb growing somewhere here!”


Once again, Kyril ran towards the gathering trees and just like he expected, a sparkling herb much brighter than those he previously found appeared.


“Such a pure glow…” Kyril said, but as he looked closer his eyes suddenly widened.


“This… This is an Earth Grade Low Quality herb!”


Kyril’s body trembled. Unlike gradeless herbs Earth Grade herbs were purer and had richer Martial Essence within the crystals. Kyril never had the chance to obtain an Earth Grade herbs ever in his life. They were just too rare!


“Earth Grade herb can aid cultivation… Perhaps with this I can fix my crippled body!” Kyril said. A surge of excitement rushed through his body.


But before Kyril approached the herb, a vicious growl resounded in the air.


Growl!


Kyril’s pupil shrank to the size of a pinhead as he looked at the source of the sound.


thump thump thump!


Kyril’s heartbeat became erratic. A sense of urgency rushed through his veins.


“There really is a beast roaming around!”

 

Chapter 7 - Black Wolf

Spoiler: Open Chapter

Kyril took several steps back from the herb and focused his eyes on the wild beast in front of him.


“This is a Black Wolf!”


A cold chill ran through his spine.


Black Wolves were not like ordinary wolves from earth. They had pitch black fur and blood red eyes that showed endless bloodthirst. Although their bodies were not any harder than wolves from earth, their bodies had formidable defences which they could use in order to survive. Their tails had fur that was thin and sharpened into spikes capable of piercing through flesh and bone, and a set of teeth which were as sharp as knives, capable of cutting straight through wood!


Kyril remembered the encyclopaedia of Magical Beasts and Wild Beasts he read in the library. He had skimmed through the encyclopaedia but still managed to remember some information and luckily, Black Wolves were one of them.


Hou!


The Black Wolf roared.


The surrounding trees began shaking and some of the leaves were blown away. Kyril who was standing twenty metres away also felt a sharp pain ringing from his ear drums.


The roar echoed throughout the Grassy Mountains and gained the attention of some of the boys who Alek and Silas brought.


“I-It’s the roar of the beast! The rumoured beast is near us!” said one of the boys. All the blood had drained from his face.


“Run! Or else we’ll die!” the several boys shouted together.


Further away from the boys, Alek and Silas also paled from the roar.


“Shit! There's actually a beast here? I thought that was a rumour!” Alek screamed.


Alek and Silas both looked at each other before they threw the hoard of herbs in their hands to the ground and began running to the exit.


When all the boys finally exited the Grassy Mountains, it was as if a huge boulder was rolled off their shoulders and they immediately flopped to their knees.


After a few breaths of resting, Alek got up and furiously looked at the fifteen boys.


“Who was the bastard that provoked the beast!”


But none of the boys responded. The fear from the beast had been ingrained deep into their minds, how could they still think about answering Alek? This caused Alek to become more furious. He walked to the closest boy to him and grabbed him by the shoulders.


“Ason, was it you!” Alek looked at him with eyes that could kill.


Ason blanked. He was opening his mouth, but no words came out.


“Speak!” Alek howled as he shook Ason.


“N-no!” Ason hurriedly said and lowered his head, “I-I was picking herbs within one hundred metres, there's no way I'd dare to go deeper than that…”


Seeing that Ason was on the verge of breaking into tears, Silas said, “Alek, leave him be. There's no way he'd outrun the beast if he provoked it.”


On the surface Silas put on a sincere tone, but to those who knew him well, he was actually mocking Ason.


“Si-Silas, what if it was Kyril who provoked the beast…” one of the boys said.


Hearing this, Alek and Silas’ eyes suddenly brightened.


“That's right! It might have been that cripple!” Silas jumped up to his feet and pointed at one of the boys, “You there! Go check that cripple’s shack to see if he's there. If he's not, then it truly might be him whose encountered the beast heh heh…” Silas laughed with a distasteful sound.


Without hesitation, the boy Silas referred to hurriedly ran towards Kyril's shack and after about ten minutes, he could be seen running back waving his arms in the air.


“Silas! He's not there!” shouted the boy. Although he was already panting like a dog, his face instead showed a smile, “It must be him who's provoked the beast!”


Alek and Silas became instantly delighted upon hearing this.


“Alek, come on! We must report this to the boss!” Silas excitedly said. He was already on the verge of jumping and hopping all over the place.


…


In front of the Black Wolf, Kyril maintained a calm appearance, but if one looked closely, sweat could be seen sliding off of his forehead. His eyes darted around trying to think of ways to escape.


Hou… hou…


The Black Wolf let out soft roars and started walking towards Kyril. Volumes of saliva dripped down from the Black Wolf's mouth like a waterfall.


“This is bad… If it were any other Wild Beast, then I may have had a chance of outrunning them, but definitely not a Black Wolf!”


Out of all the wild beasts, Black Wolves were one of the fastest! With his crippled body, there was no chance of outrunning one!


When the Black Wolf was ten metres away from Kyril, a pungent smell which came from the Black Wolf’s mouth invaded his nose. This smell carried the scent of blood and rotting flesh.


When Kyril smelt this, his sense of urgency was aroused even more. If he could not think of something quick, then he would die!


The Black Wolf was just like a mirror in front of Kyril. Whenever Kyril stepped to the right, the Black Wolf would follow and when he stepped to the left, the Black Wolf would jump to the left.


At a mere five metres away from Kyril, the Black Wolf began licking its lips. It already had thoughts of ripping this human child up into shreds.


“...The only option I have now is to fight…” Kyril thought.


Behind his back, with his index finger and thumb he felt up and down the blade of the rusted knife which he hiddenly took out from his inner pocket.


“This rusted knife will at most only be able to endure one strike. If I can’t do it in one strike, I’m surely dead.” Kyril began forming a plan in his mind, “...I’ll have to go with this.”


Once the Black Wolf was a mere two metres away from Kyril, Kyril slammed his foot backwards and turned his back to the Black Wolf.


Looking at how its prey began running away from it, the Black Wolf let out an enraged howl.


Hou!


The Black Wolf flexed its legs and then immediately straightened them.


boom… boom… boom…


Sounds of joints popping from the Black Wolf’s legs were heard by Kyril as the Black Wolf lunged itself into the air.


“Three… two… one…” Kyril counted down.


“Now!”


Kyril suddenly stopped and turned around. With his right hand gripping tightly onto the rusted knife, he hurled his right arm into the air.


Pii…


The rusted knife whistled through the air, slicing it in half.


Puchi…


The blade of the rusted knife tore skin and ripped flesh.


Finally, after the rusted knife embedded itself four inches deep into the Black Wolf’s chest, the blade broke away from the handle.


But when Kyril’s right hand made contact with the Black Wolf’s body, the jumping force from the Black Wolf’s body transferred into Kyril’s body, flinging Kyril’s body back by several metres until his back smashed into a tree trunk.


Bang!


Hou! Hou! Hou!


The Black Wolf let out a series of painful roars as it staggered back and looked at its chest. Blood was gushing out from the deep wound.


Kyril stared at the Black Wolf struggling.


“Did it work? No, I clearly felt that I had accurately stabbed the heart, it has to work!” Kyril consoled himself.


Stabbing the heart was only one part of his plan. The other part was that he needed it be a surprise! If did not manage to stab the Black Wolf by surprise, then there would be now way that the Black Wolf would have allowed it to be stabbed by Kyril!


The Black Wolf raised its head and stared angrily at Kyril with bloodshot eyes. Blood had already started dripping out of its mouth, staining its fur into a deep dark red colour.


It was utterly furious!


A mere human child had actually managed to take it by surprise and even deal a death strike at its heart! The Black Wolf felt totally humiliated!


Hou!!!


The Black Wolf charged at Kyril with all its remaining strength and leaped into the air. If it was going to die, then his human child will have to die with it!


“What! It still has the strength to try and kill me!” Kyril broke into nervousness.


The Black Wolf had spread out its claws and slashed at Kyril’s body.


Swish!


Kyril raised his arms into a cross and guarded his face and body.


“Let us see who shall die today!” Kyril screamed. He tensed his body and hardened his face.


Sha!


The Black Wolf’s claws split apart Kyril’s clothes and tore his flesh open.


“Gyaaaa!”


Kyril let out a blood-curdling scream which spread throughout the Grassy Mountains, to the point that even the residents of Vale Town heard it!


Boom!


The Black Wolf’s body collided with Kyril’s body. Kyril’s body was already leaning against the tree trunk, but when the Black Wolf’s body smashed into Kyril’s body, the tree trunk broke in half instantly and fell to the ground behind Kyril.


Due to the impact, Kyril’s vision turned black and all sense of feeling had left his body…


…


“Is what you’re saying true? How sure are you that that cripple was the one who encountered the rumoured beast?”


“Boss, what we’re saying is absolutely true! We even checked his shack and he wasn’t there! The only other place he would go to is the Grassy Mountains!” Silas said respectfully as he kneeled down on to the floor.


“Have you checked the library?” the boy in front of Silas asked.


“The library?” Silas said questioningly and gave Alek beside him a confused look.


“You pieces of trash!” the boy said, “that cripple has recently started going to the library and you’re telling me you didn’t even know!”


Having their boss shout at them, Alek and Silas turned slightly pale.


“B-boss we’ll go check now!” Silas said.


At the same time, a loud commotion could be heard in the distance.


“What’s happening?” the boy said and looked out the window. In the distance, he could see several Turning his head back to look at Alek and Silas, he said, “go ask those men what’s happening. How can there be such a large gathering of men at this time.”


But before Alek and Silas could respond, a knocking could be heard from the room’s door.


“Seth, it’s me.” a deep voice said.


“Father.”


The door opened and a bulky man entered the room. He looked a Seth, and then swept his eyes across Alek and Silas, causing shivers to run down their spines.


“Seth, there’s been multiple load roars coming from the Grassy Mountains. It might be that beast that’s been rumoured to be roaming around. Do you want to come?” the bulky man said cooly, yet it was obvious that this bulky man spoiled Seth very much.


Seth looked at Alek and Silas, and said, “Hmph. It seems that we’ll be able to find out if what you said is true or not.”


“It’s true boss. It’s definitely true!” Alek and Silas hurriedly said.


Kyril going to the library? Why should Kyril go to the library? He was not capable of cultivating! Aside from looking at Martial Scrolls, what point is there in the library? This was what Alek and Silas had ingrained in their minds.


…


An hour passed and the sun was still high up in the sky.


Kyril’s body which was originally motionless started showing signs of movement.


After another thirty minutes passed by, Kyril finally opened his eyes. A wave of pain and nausea swept through him.


“Urgh…”


Kyril groaned. He was on the verge of vomiting, but forced himself to hold it in. When he tried to move, he found that there was a heavy weight sprawled all over his body which was preventing him from moving


Kyril looked at this body and became delighted.


“So it died…” said Kyril with a sigh of relief, “it must have used up all its strength during that last attack.”


Kyril struggled to push the Black Wolf’s body aside and stood up. Aching pains spread all over his body. There were cuts on his upper body and arms, including his face, that felt like thousands of needles piercing through his skin. The bruise on his back he received from flying into the tree trunk was as if a large boulder had rolled all over him.


Gritting his teeth, Kyril forcibly ignored the pain and began walking towards the herb which the Black Wolf was protecting.


“An Earth Grade herb hahaha!” Kyril said as he laughed, “I’ve really struck gold this time!”


Even though his body was about to fall apart, the only reason he could ignore the pain was due to the attraction of the Earth Grade herb!


If it were any herb, Kyril’s fight against the Black Wolf would not have been worth it!


Kyril bent down and sliced the stem of the herb. Like before, he did not uproot the whole herb, leaving the roots still intact with the earth.


sha… sha…


“Who’s there!”


A voice from behind Kyril suddenly called out…

 

Chapter 8 - We Are Powerless

Spoiler: Open Chapter

“So it was you!”


Kyril heard a familiar voice behind him. He turned his head around and hurriedly placed the Earth Grade herb into his inner pocket.


Just behind the fallen tree, Alek and Silas appeared and stared at Kyril.


“Boss, I told you it was Kyril who provoked the rumoured beast!” Silas said relieved. If in the end Kyril was not the one who provoked the beast, then Seth would think that he was lying. He could not have that or else he might get punished! If that were to happen, then his relationship with Seth could be damaged and Silas would not have the qualifications to act as he pleased anymore!


Following behind Alek and Silas, Kyril saw two figures walking to the side of the two boys. The one on the left was a bulky man, about the same size as the two guards Kyril saw outside the library, but instead of wearing padded leather armour, the bulky man wore a thick silvery robe that was made from animal fur.


“This man… The previous Kyril suffered a lot of injustices by the hands of this man…” Kyril thought for a moment before shifting his eyes to the smaller figure beside the bulky man.


This smaller figure was Seth. He had a similar face to the bulky man and also wore a similar silver robe. His face displayed a pair of eyes that looked at the world with a gaze which held everything as beneath him. Below the eyes, Seth let out a contemptuous smirk that showed an overflowing amount of arrogance.


“Heh, so it really was that cripple who provoked the beast,” Seth sneered, “Looks like you were lucky this time,” Seth said as he looked at Alek and Silas.


“This boy should be who Alek and Silas refer to as ‘boss,’ Kyril thought, “judging from the similarities in appearance, this boy should be that bulky man's son…”


Kyril thought back to when he overheard Alek and Silas referring to their boss when trying to hoard all the herbs from Kyril.


“It also seems that this pair of father and son both hold grudges against me…” thought Kyril as he scanned the pair, “moreover, from their expensive looking robes, they appear to be quite wealthy. Dealing with them might become quite troublesome…”


Seth threw his gaze at Kyril and said sarcastically, “Heh… It looks like that rumoured beast let you off quite easily.”


Seth looked at the blood drenched body of Kyril. The smile on his face widened.


“Yes. Quite easily…”


But to this, Kyril only let out his own mocking smile and signalled his hand to the Black Wolf’s body a few metres away from them.


Seth stared at the Black Wolf’s carcass in shock. The two boys beside him held similar expressions, except that their jaws seemed to have lost all its bones and just hung down by the skin.


“You… You… How can this be?” Seth said with eyes wide open, “Impossible! A cripple like you couldn't possibly defeat a Black Wolf!”


Seth could not believe that Kyril managed to kill the Black Wolf with his crippled body. Even a Practitioner like himself would have a hard time dealing with a Black Wolf. They were just too fiercesome!


But what Seth didn’t know was that Kyril did not fight the Black Wolf head on, if he did this then Kyril would have surely lost! The only reason Kyril defeated the Black wolf was that he managed to take it by surprise! However, Kyril did not bother explaining the methods he used to Seth. To Kyril, Seth was just one of the many obstacles preventing him from achieving his goal. Against people like that, Kyril felt that it was a waste of energy to argue against them.


While Seth was still shocked, the bulky man beside him had recovered.


“Why would a Black Wolf appear away from the deeper parts of the Grassy Mountains…” the bulky man thought and then transferred his eyes onto Kyril, “Could it be that there was something in this area?”


The bulky man found it odd that a Black Wolf would come away into the outskirts of the Grassy Mountains. Usually, Black Wolves reside deeper in the Grassy Mountains as a pack. Only something of major attraction would cause wild or magical beasts to come away from their territory.


While the bulky man was staring at Kyril, Kyril immediately felt that something was wrong. From his inner pocket, Kyril felt streams of an invisible force coming out from the herb which began twirling around his body.


“Crap. Is the Martial Essence leaking out?”


Although Kyril didn't know what exactly was going on, he had a vague idea.


With each stream of invisible force that twirled around Kyril's body, a sinister light twinkled in his eyes followed by greed.


“Boy,” the bulky man said in a cold voice, “hand it over.”


The bulky man set his eyes firmly on Kyril’s body.


Hearing this, Kyril’s forehead creased.


“So he did find out…”


“Boy, no use trying to hide it. A cripple like you may not know it, but to us Practitioners, we can clearly feel that there’s an abundance of Martial Essence around your body. Since it’s impossible for you to cultivate then the only other explanation is that you’re holding onto some treasure!”


Hearing this, Alek and Silas’ eyes filled with greed, but when they looked at the bulky man, they could only shrink back.


“Father, is this true? There’s a treasure on his body?” Seth asked while rubbing his palms together and locked his eyes on to Kyril's body.


“Of course it’s true! Do you think that I could possibly make a mistake! With a cultivation base like mine, I can clearly feel the Martial Essence from Kyril’s body. Unless he’s holding onto a treasure, how could there be such pure Martial Essence around his body!” the bulky man said, “now boy, hand it over or I’ll have to take it myself!”


However before anything happened, a large number of almost thirty men rushed around Kyril and the bulky man. These men all carried swords and axes, and wore similar clothing of leather armour or cloth robes.


“Shit…” the bulky man cursed softly as he looked at the men, “obtaining the treasure on Kyril’s body is going to become troublesome…”


The men looked wide eyed at the Black Wolf’s carcass and then at Kyril’s body.


“This…” one of the men muttered and looked at the bulky man, “...did senior Garren defeat that Black Wolf?”


“Hmph,” the bulky man looked at the man with disdain, “do you think that I, Garren Kairo, would bother with such a trivial Wild Beast?”


The cold response of Garren made the man’s face twitch, but he said nothing of it. This man called Garren Kairo was someone he could not offend!


On the other hand, the rest of the men fell into shock when they heard Garren’s response.


“Then does this means that Kyril defeated the Black Wolf?” another man said aloud.


“No chance! He’s a cripple! How can a cripple defeat a Black Wolf!”


“But… Then who defeated it?” one man said hesitatingly, “Senior Garren said he didn’t do it…”


The men quietened. A cripple defeating a Black Wolf? They have never heard of it!


Could he really have killed the Black Wolf?” a man started muttering to themselves.


The men looked at Kyril with wide eyes. If they widened their eyes any further, their eyeballs might just roll off!


One should know that without cultivation, then the person would have the strength of an ant! If it weren’t for Garren confirming the men’s suspicions, then they would only laugh at Kyril if he claimed to kill the Black Wolf. Among the Wild Beasts, Black Wolves were among the strongest due to their tail! With a swing of its tail, it would be able to cause trees to come crashing down!


“Wait!” one of the men shouted, interrupting the other men. “Do you feel that? There’s Martial Essence coming out from the cripple’s body!”


As that was said, silence immediately dawned onto the surroundings once again. The men focused their senses on Kyril and like the man said, there was indeed Martial Essence around Kyril's body.


“Heavens! What is happening today! First he unexpectedly kills a Black Wolf and now Martial Essence is gathering around him. Could it be that today is the day he can start cultivating!” shouted one man.


“That’s impossible! Even the doctors who the Town Head hired couldn't find a cure for him, how can he fix his crippled body so easily!” another man retorted.


“Then how can their be Martial Essence around his body…?” the men fell into confusion.


“...! It might be a treasure!” blurted out a man.


Hearing this, Garren’s face changed.


“This idiot! Now everyone knows about the treasure!”


Out from Garren’s body, a pressure started pressing down on all the men, causing the other men’s face to harden.


“That boy's treasure is mine. If anyone wants it, then they'll be making me their enemy.”


Garden swept his eyes across the men. A slight killing intent emanated from his body. He could not let anyone else take the treasure.


“Your treasure?” Kyril who had been watching the events unfold, said, “let me ask you, was it you who killed this Black Wolf? Was it you who found this treasure? Since it wasn’t you, then it doesn’t belong to you!”


Kyril shouted sharply at Garren.


“Hmph. What of it! What does a powerless cripple like you know?” Garren sneered.


“Hahaha!” Kyril laughed out loud.


“Garren, since you to want to steal from me, then I'll play with you!” Kyril thought.


Turning his head towards the men, Kyril shouted, “Men! Am I or am I not powerless against this man called Garren!”


Kyril's voice echoed throughout the Grassy Mountains. The questions he asked had dumbfounded the men.


“What sort of stupid question is this cripple spouting? Of course he's powerless! Has he lost his mind?” all of the men thought.


Seeing the men look at him as if he was as dumb as a rock, Kyril continued, “I shall take your silence as a yes!”


Kyril walked to the middle, where every man could see him.


“Then I shall ask another question!”


To the men, even though they thought that this cripple had turned insane, they could not help but feel some charisma in the way he spoke.


“Are you or are you not powerless against this man called Garren!”


Once again, the men were rendered speechless. But out of these men, some had realised what Kyril was trying to say.


“What bullshit are you saying you cripple! Of course these flies can't compare to my father!” Seth exploded.


But when Garren heard his son, his face formed a mountain range! Creases and crumples appeared all over his face as he looked at Seth!


Seth saw this and was somewhat perplexed.


“What's wrong? What I've said is true!” Seth thought and took a few steps back.


“Hahaha!” Kyril laughed once more, “so you men are powerless as well! That makes us both powerless!”


More men started realising what Kyril was doing. Some of the men showed amused smiles while some of them stared at Kyril with raised eyebrows.


Ignoring the reactions, Kyril continued, “Then since we're both powerless and Garren is trying to rob me, who says that Garren will not steal from you!”


Bang!


All the men now understood Kyril's point and some even began looking at Garren with distant eyes, as if he was a person who was one thousand kilometres away! But when they looked at Kyril, he seemed like a child who played with words like an old man! Only one word about this child appeared in their minds. Cunning!


At this point, Seth finally realised what he had done. His face turned red and the pupils within his pair of eyes looked at Kyril as if trying to pierce his heart.


Kyril saw this and simply laughed at it. Towards Seth, Kyril showed a tranquil face.


“This is a world where the powerful eats the strong! There is no place for the weak in this world,” Kyril's tone turned severe as he continued to look at Seth, “but even if I am weak, I will not be eaten! Even if the Heavens want me dead, I will make the Heavens fall!”


It was as if Kyril had been possessed by a God. Such a domineering tone had actually been said by a mere twelve year old child and even a cripple at that!


The surrounding men looked at Kyril with a mixture of faces. Some men looked at Kyril with a hint of respect. The words Kyril spoke were words these men would never dare to say in their entire lives! However some other men thought that Kyril's words were as empty as a bag of air, spoken to hide that he was actually frightened of Garren.


“Hahahaha! Such bold words!” a man’s voice boomed throughout the air, “but… I like it!”

 

Chapter 9.1 - Affinity With Space

Spoiler: Open Chapter

Hum…


Fifty metres away from Kyril, an extremely faint silhouette of a man appeared. The silhouette glowed with a transparent light, but because of the trees which shaded the sunlight, the silhouette could be seen clearly by everyone.


Kyril looked at the silhouette. He felt an overflowing amount of power coming from the silhouette. The space around it seemed to warp like ripples on the surface of water.


In the distance, the silhouette started moving towards Kyril. Every step it took covered roughly five metres at a time. It was swift and unhindered by the obstacles in its way, weaving through it like a ghost.


In a flash the silhouette arrived by the side of Kyril. It had covered the fifty metres like it was a mere five metres.


Now that the silhouette was very close to them, everyone present could see what exactly this silhouette was. Being the person closest, Kyril could see that the silhouette was an old man who had more wrinkles and whiter hair than Kyril did in his past life. Yet, despite being old, the old man displayed an imposing pose and let out an aura that even Garren could not compare too. But what seemed strange to Kyril was the faint glow and transparency that covered the old man's body, causing him to look more like a ghost than an actual person.


All the men around Kyril noticed the same thing and were extremely frightened by it!


“Thi-this is a soul projection! How c-can such a thing appear here!” Garren carelessly let out.


Seeing his father in shock, Seth tugged on Garren’s sleeve and asked, “Father, what's happening? What exactly is a Soul Projection?”


“Soul projection… I've only heard of soul projections by word of mouth during my travels around the continent but…” Garren began tensing up, “those who can form a Soul Projection are said to be peerless experts capable of bringing down mountains with a single wave of their hand or creating winds enough to blow down trees with just a breath…”


Although it seemed unbelievable, since the men had heard it from Garren, they had become terrified of the old man. Some even backed away in case a strand of hair from their heads would be blown by the wind and end up touching the old man.


“Hoh,” the old man suddenly let out and looked at Garren with an expressionless face, “you praise me too much.”


Saying this, the old man moved his finger slightly.


Boom…


The space around the men crashed onto their bodies. It was as if it was trying to condense and create meat balls out of them.


“Argh!” All the men howled out in pain. Even Garren let out a small moan. As for Seth and his two lackeys, they were already on the ground. However only Kyril remained unaffected, or rather, the fluctuations of the space around him seemed quite relaxing!


The old man looked at the men who started falling to their knees, “Hmph, even if you try and flatter me, to actually dare try to steal from my disciple, you all are simply looking to die!”


The men instantly paled.


“This cripple is a disciple of this monster!?” All the men thought in unison. Shock covered their faces. Seth, on the other hand, showed extreme jealousy.


“What! Disciple! Why can that cripple become the disciple of an expert!” Seth said in shock, “I am the son of the most powerful person in Vale Town! How can he compare to me! He can’t even cultivate!”


Seth could not keep his calm anymore.


To become the disciple of such a peerless expert? Who wouldn't want that! When Seth heard from his father that the old man was a peerless expert, he was ready to kowtow tens, even hundreds of times, to beg the old man to take him as a disciple! But before he could do that, who would have thought that not only would the old man send his face to the floor, but the old man also claimed Kyril as his disciple!


Seth felt wronged. Is this old man stupid? Why did he pick a cripple over him?


“Old man are you blind! He's clearly a cripple who can't use a sliver of Martial Essence and yet you choose him to be your disciple!” Seth shouted at the old man.


“Blind?” the old man looked at Seth, “I do not care whether or not he is a cripple. Look around. Do you see anyone else apart from this junior who can withstand my powers?”


Indeed, when Seth looked around, he couldn't find anyone other than Kyril standing. All the others were either kneeling or lying on the ground. To this, Seth could say nothing.


Seeing that Seth had resigned back, the old man turned to Kyril and said, “Child, what is your name?”


“This junior is called Kyril!” Kyril firmly said.


“Good!” the old man said. He then looked earnestly at Kyril and asked, “Are you willing to become my disciple?”


Although the old man had claimed Kyril to be his disciple, right now it was only one sided. A teacher-disciple relationship was one that required both sides to be willing, otherwise how would the relationship hold? If the teacher wanted to teach, but the disciple did not want to learn, then it is simply wasted efforts for the teacher!


Kyril hesitated for a while as he was lost in thought.


“Why would this person want to take me in as a disciple?” Kyril thought.


In life, nothing comes for free. There is no such thing as a free lunch. But at this moment, a peerless expert had suddenly asked Kyril to be their disciple. This lead to many questions forming within Kyril's mind.


“Senior, why do you want to take me in as a disciple? You can clearly see that I am a cripple,” Kyril asked the old man. Kyril's words may have sounded as if he was trying to humble himself, but looking at his face, there was instead an expression of sincere curiosity.


“Hmm…” the old man gave a deep look into Kyril, “if you want to know…”


The old man flicked his wrist though the air and the space became even more constricted.


“Buargh…”


Some of the men spat out blood from their mouths. Their faces turned white like paper and showed terrified expressions.


“This is why,” the old man gestured his hand to all the men on the ground, “Of all people here, only you can withstand my power of space,” the old man said.


“Power of space?”

 

Chapter 9.2 - Affinity With Space

Spoiler: Open Chapter

Under the old man's power, Kyril really could not feel any sort of harm from it.


As if the old man could read his mind, he said, “The power of space is something only very few people can use. It is something only those with affinity with the Universe can understand!”


“The Universe!” Kyril almost blurted out.


Kyril's one goal in life was the complete understanding of the universe. It was the thing he yearned for the most! Previously, Kyril regretted that he only gained a small insight on the universe before his death in his first life, but never would Kyril have thought that right after dying he would be reborn! Now with a new life, Kyril was determined to achieve his goal!


Kyril’s body trembled slightly as he looked at the old man, “Senior… You said affinity with the universe…?”


“Affinity with the universe is whether one is compatible with the universe and whether one can understand the universe,” the old man said.


“Understand the universe…” Kyril repeated. His body was filled with excitement. “Then… do I have an affinity with the universe?” Kyril anxiously asked.


This question was perhaps the most important questions he has ever asked in his entire life! If he had an affinity with the universe, then that means that he is truly capable of understanding the universe and it is not just a dream which he can only see when he sleeps! But… if he does not have an affinity with it then his goal of understanding the universe would be crushed…


Seeing the anxious look all over Kyril's face, the old man smiled, “of course you do. I've said it already, since you can withstand my power of space, then naturally you have an affinity with Space.”


Kyril was overjoyed. Today not only did he find an Earth Grade Herb, but he also found a teacher that could lead him to understanding the Universe!


“This junior pays his respects to teacher!”


Without even waiting for the old man to ask again, Kyril bowed down deeply to show that he was willing to have this old man as a teacher.


When the men saw Kyril perform such a deep bow, they became filled with envy. Seth’s hands were already drenched with blood due to his nails stabbing through his skin as he clenched his fist.


“That cripple actually became his disciple!” Seth roared to himself.


But the old man and Kyril could not be bothered to pay attention to these people.


Looking at Kyril, the old man said seriously, “Kyril, although I've said that you have an affinity with the universe, you're comprehension of it is still too weak and therefore I cannot teach you anything yet.”


The old man observed Kyril's reaction and continued, “the path of understanding the universe is a way of life that is completely dependant on the individual, thus I cannot help you.


For now, go. All you can do is build your understanding. When your understanding reaches a certain point, then you will be able to come back again and find me.”


With that, the old man disappeared and the space around the men returned back to normal. At the same time, Kyril didn't hesitate to leave the Grassy Mountains. Although the men on the ground were injured, Kyril did not want to take any risks and be near them any longer. Who knows? There might be someone who still wanted to steal the Earth Grade Herb from Kyril.


But unexpectedly, as Kyril walked past the men, none of them showed signs of movement. They just watched Kyril walk past them as if they were nothing but air.


“They must be scared of my teacher haha…” Kyril laughed to himself and walked on.


…


After finally exiting the Grassy Mountains, Kyril immediately headed for Zalea’s store.


As Kyril walked through the street, he noticed weird glances being thrown at him from the townsfolk. The people near Kyril also covered their noses and turned away.


Kyril was slightly confused. He looked at their eyes and followed their line of sight.


“...! Crap!”


Kyril looked at his body and discovered that his clothes were covered in blood and filled with holes. He was practically half naked!


Kyril began walking faster. Letting others see him half naked was not something he enjoyed!


Upon arrival at Zalea’s store, Kyril hurriedly opened the door and entered, closing the door behind him as fast as he blinked.


“What happened to you?”


As soon as Kyril entered Zalea’s store, Zalea immediately asked. She furrowed her brows as she looked at Kyril's wounds and blood drenched clothes.


“Where did you get those injuries?” Zalea asked again.


Kyril looked at Zalea with an awkward smile, “I… fought with a Black Wolf.”


“A black wolf?” Zalea raised an eyebrow but then shook her head, “we’ll discuss that later. First we need to fix you up.”


Zalea walked to the back of her store and returned back with several crushed up herbs and plain clothes in her hands. She then signaled her hand to a chair she pulled in front of her, “come here.”


Kyril walked over to the stool and sat down. Zalea began removing the torn pieces of cloth with on his upper body and started massaging the crushed up herbs onto his upper body.


“Argh…”


Kyril let out a small cry.


A stinging sensation erupted from the wounds, but Kyril endured it and forcibly shut his mouth.


This process took nearly an hour. Zalea had made sure not to miss even a single scratch on Kyril’s body.


“Now you just have to rest. Make sure not to move so much or else the wounds might open up again,” Zalea said and then she looked at the stab wound on Kyril’s abdomen, “You’re lucky that wound didn’t open up again…”


Kyril subconsciously rubbed his hand across the stab wound and moved his head up to look at Zalea…


“... Why do you help me?” Kyril asked, “are you not afraid that other people might start hating you too?”


Kyril was truly curious as to why Zalea would help him.


Zalea gave Kyril a complex look. There were conflicting expressions on her face, but the one that was most obvious was an expression of immense sadness.


“Because… we are similar…”

 

Chapter 10.1 - To laugh or to cry?

Spoiler: Open Chapter

The sky turned black and the bright, yellow stars appeared like millions of flaming candles that twinkled in the deep dark ocean known as space. Occasionally, wisps of clouds would gently drift by, blocking the silver full moon that hung above the ground as its strands of light illuminated the cracks of shadows that blanketed the soils.


Watching this scene of nature, Kyril sat on top of his metal pail at the back of his shack and gazed into the endless night sky with unblinking eyes.


“Because we are similar…”


Kyril thought of the mysterious words Zalea said to him when he questioned her.


“What did she mean by that…?” Kyril asked himself as confusion covered his face, but as he tried thinking of what she meant, he remembered the sad eyes she revealed to him when she answered him. Thinking back to it, although Kyril could not understand what she meant, he could guess that whatever he asked brought upon her great pain. The eyes she showed were like the eyes of someone who lost everything they had in the world; it was the feeling of being stripped of everything you ever worked for. Lost. Empty.


“Forget it. Perhaps there are some things that are just not meant to be known. If she wants to say it, then I will naturally listen, but as for now, I should not meddle with things I know nothing of,” Kyril said and shook his head gently.


As someone who Kyril was close to, Kyril did not want to pry into Zalea’s secrets. Kyril, with his past life, had already developed a mature mind and outlook with regards to others’ personal affairs, thus Kyril was able to control himself from his curiosity.


Pushing that to the back of his mind, Kyril began to clear his mind and focused his eyes on the boundless star-lit sky before him.


In front of sights like this, Kyril found an unusual sense of serenity which was something he felt even during his previous life. And due to the words of his teacher, Kyril also became more confident that this sense of serenity was truly an indication of his affinity with the universe.


“Universe…” Kyril mumbled as he fell into a trancelike state facing the night sky. Slowly, Kyril adopted a meditative state and the only thing left in his mind was the image of the universe and its mysteries, until finally Kyril had lost his sense of self. His mind and body became empty and pure.


Unknowingly, as Kyril entered this state, strands of transparent light started condensing out of thin air and formed beside him. As the strands appeared, it began circulating around Kyril’s body a few times and then entered directly into his soul.


Each strand of transparent light brought an inexplicable feeling of freshness and comfort, like entering a cool bath after walking through the scorching desert. Accompanying this feeling, information stored within the strands of light also filled Kyril’s originally empty mind.


From these strands of light, Kyril did not feel alarmed or distracted. Instead, he felt a sense of familiarity from the strands of light.


“...This is the same feeling as the time before I died…”


Everytime information from the strands of light entered his mind, Kyril did not let out a hint of resistance and just allowed it to enter.


This continued until the moon had set and the sun started rising. Only when the drops of dew from the leaves of the trees above him splashed onto his body did Kyril sober up from his meditative state. But with such important information he gained from night, how could Kyril think of doing anything else other than trying to comprehend the information?


After filling up his stomach with soup he quickly made from yellow grass, Kyril immediately calmed his mind again and started comprehending the insight he had gained from the night.


As Kyril looked at the information, he discovered that every piece of information contained deep insights on space, to the point where even just looking at it would cause the minds of the most genius people to be overwhelmed. But as for Kyril, he was undaunted. These pieces of information were like gold to him. In fact, if someone right now offered Kyril all the treasures of the world in exchange for these insights, Kyril would toss the treasures away as if it were mud!


Compared to treasures, these insights would allow him to get nearer to his goal! So to Kyril, the insights he gained were simply priceless! More priceless than any treasure he could ever find!


“Space is but a container filled with nothingness. Yet without this container, stars, planets, and beings would cease to exist… If space, didn’t exist then the idea of nothingness cannot exist…” thought Kyril. “Thus, without nothingness, the idea of something cannot exist…”


Each time Kyril comprehended a piece of information, profound bits of insight ingrained itself into his mind. It was like an old man teaching a young child about the world except this time, it was the Universe which has existed for trillions of years providing insight into a man who had not even lived a fraction of its age!


Kyril’s mind took in all the information and spared no effort to comprehend it. To Kyril, missing a single piece of information would be like death. He would not be able to bear it if he missed a piece of information!


However, in addition to gaining a better understanding of the Universe, what Kyril did not notice was that every time Kyril comprehended a piece of information, the gained insight would not only enlighten his mind, but also strengthen his body! Impurities from within the body would be secreted out of his pores as a foul, black ooze that could knock down several horses just from its smell! But with Kyril fully focused on comprehending the pieces of information, he did not know of the existence of the black ooze coming out from his body.


Every time the black ooze left his body, Kyril’s body started appearing much fuller and healthier. His skin which was originally dry and filled with cracking lines, started recovering to show smoothness and firmness. The muscles of Kyril also recovered from its usual sagginess and formed under his skin to show a sense of robustness.


Time went by and Kyril had stayed in this position without moving for three days straight. The only thing that indicated that he was still alive was the regular breathing pattern that escaped from his body every few seconds.


However, compared to Kyril’s calm state, in a not too distant place, an old hunched back woman had a slight frown on her face.


“Has something happened to Kyril?” Zalea said.


Currently, Zalea was sitting in her nameless store behind the wooden counter with her hands clasped together.


“How come Kyril hasn’t come to exchange herbs these past few days…” Zalea said to herself. “Usually Kyril would come to exchange herbs everyday. Very rarely would he miss a day of picking herbs, but to not come here for three days straight, something must have happened...”


Zalea pushed herself up from her seated position and headed towards the door. But just as she touched the doorknob, a wave of hesitation covered her. This hesitation stemmed from her unusual amount of concern towards Kyril.


“This Kyril is special… Ever since almost dying from his attempted suicide, I’ve felt an unusual strength coming from him… Could he be the one I’ve been looking for…?”

 

I dont want to read it right now, but the synopsys sounds good, and it seems really well written , so I am clicking on watch mark!

 

Laziness is calling. I will give this a read later. Good luck with school and the rest of this novel

 

i Just read the first half chapter and there are 2 things i want to say. First: The starting sentece was a bit hard to understand at first glance.

Second: I read all the genres, half a chap, and synopsis, yet i didnt get a clear pictur of what this is. Usaully in supernatural world, like xianxias, you are interested in understanding the univers. Is this going to have any sort of supernatural powers? I didnt want to read more because i had no idea where this was going (felt lost) nor did i have something to look forward to.

a good Ex. is STR http://www.novelupdates.com/series/sovereign-of-the-three-realms/

First of all: ubicasion myself. I know this is a xuanhuan, i have read some before and know more of less how it works and what kind of story im going to get.

Second:get something to look ahead for. He is a reborn son of a celestial emperor with huge amount of knowledge in a small duke somewhere. ( My imaginations is just running wild here of all the amazing posibilities)

You obviouly should know this as you are tying to write, But if the MC is succesfull, i will feel good. But if he fails and somebody dies. I will get slightly depressed.feeling.

if dont know any of the 2 things above, i will feel lost and not motivated to read your story. I hope this helps you. Normaly i would read more. But i feel so tired my eyes are closing themself. If it wheren't for me also wanting to write someday i would have ignored this today. At least i tried.

 

Thank you for the feedback.

Yes, I have also realised that my story starts a bit slow which would cause the goal of my story to take longer than usual to understand. Perhaps it is slower than even the slowest Chinese Novels around, but I am trying to increase the pace of my story so that it does not get boring and remain stagnant.

Although I can't really change the starting few chapters, if I have the time, I will try to edit them to create a clearer goal.

So if you can pick it up again and read through the first five or so chapters you might be able to get an understanding of where everything is headed.

 

Chapter 10.2 - To laugh or to cry?

Spoiler: Open Chapter

Zalea tightened her grip on the doorknob.


“I should go check on him… Who knows… He might really be the one… ”


After saying this, Zalea loosened her grip on the doorknob and went outside. But before any townsfolk could see her, her body disappeared like the wind… And when not even several breaths passed, Zalea had already crossed tens of metres to arrive at Kyril’s shack.


But with regards to Zalea’s sudden arrival, Kyril took no notice of it. His face still retained the usual calmness hardly seen by children of his age.


When Zalea arrived at Kyril’s shack, the foul smell that came from the black ooze attacked Zalea’s nose.


“Impurity cleansing? Who’s cleansing their bodies of impurities here? Moreover, there’s such a large amount of it too…” Zalea said.


Despite the foul smell of the black ooze, Zalea was not too disgusted by it and only wafted her hand in front of her nose to dispel the smell. Rather, she appeared to be quite used to it, as if she had dealt with the smell hundred of times already.


“Is there someone other than Kyril here?” Zalea asked herself. Immediately, she moved to the source of the foul smell which brought her to the back of Kyril’s shack.


Zalea’s eyes landed on Kyril’s ooze covered body, causing her to be momentarily startled. This was because contrary to her expectations, other than Kyril, there was no one else around. The foul smell she smelt earlier did not come from anyone else, but from Kyril!


Zalea did not care about what the black ooze on Kyril’s body was, but what it meant for it to be coming out from Kyril’s body!


“Kyril is actually undergoing impurity cleansing! Has the heavens finally took pity on him?” Zalea became thoroughly shocked within her heart when she saw this.


What did impurity cleansing mean? It was the process of purifying the body! The dirt and waste that accumulated in Kyril’s body was being thrown out to leave only the ‘good’ material!


Such a process was an indication of achieving a breakthrough and ascending through into another realm!


“Has Kyril finally escaped the chains of being a cripple? Looking at him now, there’s clearly a huge increase in his strength… He should be in the Normal Realm, Third Stage right now! Although he is just in the lowest realm of cultivation, to jump three stages from being a cripple… And he even seems to have received some enlightenment! This is quite extraordinary…”


The shocked eyes of Zalea only held for a few minutes before being replaced with happiness for Kyril, yet at the same time concern.


“With this, Kyril has stepped into the world of Practitioner’s. But whether or not he gets far depends entirely on him. However with his attitude, he should definitely get far… ay… if only I could do the same…“ Zalea sighed to herself before her body disappeared once again into the surroundings.


The process of comprehending information gained from enlightenment was a difficult one. Those who received enlightenment could not afford to be distracted from anything otherwise they might risk losing valuable insight. Thus, although Zalea disappeared, she did not actually leave. She simply blended her presence with the environment and spread her senses to detect for anything that might distract Kyril.


…


Just like this, ten full days had gone by and Kyril began to show signs of awakening from his cultivation. During this time, Zalea had been keeping watch over him from a distance ensuring that there were no distractions approaching him. And when Kyril awoke from his cultivation, only then did Zalea relax a bit.


“Normal Realm, Sixth Stage… He actually jumped six stages… Amongst all the people I’ve seen, never have I seen person jump Six Stages of a realm from just one case of enlightenment…” thought Zalea as she watched Kyril finally start moving.


As Kyril got up, only then did he notice the black ooze all over his body.


“What is this?” Kyril muttered to himself, but then he suddenly remembered one of the books he read from the library. “Could this be impurity cleansing!?” Kyril involuntarily shouted out. He scraped his finger along his arm, and looked at the black ooze on the tip of his finger with eyes like an eagle that was looking for it's prey on the ground.


Rubbing his fingers together in circles and then taking small sample to nose to smell it, Kyril inspected every bit of it.


After doing this for more than five minutes, Kyril was sure that this black ooze were indeed impurities that came from his body.


“Hahaha! This means I can cultivate! I can really cultivate! Hahaha!” Kyril laughed. His mouth spread open and he threw his arms in the air as he started jumping up and down in the same spot.


Zalea who was watching this also felt glad for Kyril, but also could not help but snicker at Kyril’s current actions. The sight of him jumping up and down like a child was a complete contradiction of his normal calm attitude. But it was understandable. Zalea knew how much Kyril had suffered from not being able to cultivate, and now that he was able to, it was akin to the feeling of one receiving everything they ever wanted.


As Kyril slowly calmed down from his excitement, he focused his mind on his body and started feeling the changes that had happened to him. Gradually, he felt surges of energy and vitality erupt from within his body. It was as if Kyril’s body was a volcano filled with fiery lava that wanted to shoot up and explode into the air!


Immersing himself into this feeling, Kyril did not need to look at a reflection of his body. He could already feel that his body had become a lot stronger and more flexible!


Right now, Kyril felt like his body had the strength of a tiger with the flexibility and ferociousness of a coiling dragon!


“With this, I’m one more step closer to my goal!”


Kyril took off all his clothes and grabbed a few leaves from a tree beside him. “I need to test out my strength whenever I get back to the Grassy Mountains. Who knows? I might even be able to defeat two or even three black wolves with just my bare hands!”


Kyril was truly elated. From today onwards, his life would be drastically different!


“After this I should go to the library to learn a bit more about cultivation. Now that I can cultivate, those books about cultivation are no longer just storybooks to satisfy my curiosity, but books that are useful in helping me achieve my goal! I would also need to go and pick up some more herbs to exchange it for more coins. Meager foods like yellow grass and earth nuts just won’t be able to provide the right nutrients to supply healthy growth for a Practitioner. After all, you are what you eat!” Kyril said to himself as he planned his next course of action.


With leaves in both hands, Kyril rubbed all over his body in an effort to remove the black ooze from his body.


“If only there was a source of water nearby and a disposable cloth to wash my body…” Kyril said to himself. But what could he do? If he went to the Grassy Mountains to look for a river, he would have to go through the Town. Doing this would just attract unnecessary trouble, furthermore, he did not want to expose the fact that he could cultivate. This was a hidden surprise which could be his life saver!


“I should keep the townsfolk thinking that I am still a cripple. That way I would not attract unnecessary trouble from people who are overly curious about how I recovered. It is, after all, related to the fact that I have lived two lives! Although I don’t know if it’s true or not, I should have been able to cultivate since being reborn into this world because aside from being reborn, what else could have made major changes to my body? I just didn’t try it under the assumption that I was still a cripple due to being in the body of the previous Kyril who was crippled ever since he could remember…” Kyril thought.


“Wait! Wait! Take this and wipe yourself!”


Suddenly a figure flashed from above the trees and arrived in front of Kyril holding a pail of water on one hand and a small piece of cloth on the other.


“Zalea?” Kyril looked at the figure in front of him. “Why are you here?” Kyril continued, seemingly unaware of the situation.


“Ahh…” But instead of answering Kyril, Zalea’s eyes stared, with a face that changed several times, straight at Kyril’s bare upper body which had just been purified before her gaze lowered down to his equally naked legs…


Looking at Zalea’s weird facial expressions and following her gaze, Kyril was struck with the sudden realisation of the situation he was in. Currently, Kyril’s hands were wrapped around his shoulders trying to remove the black ooze. Thus, there was nothing hiding his ‘little brother’ down below…


“Ah uh… Here… I brought this pail of water and piece of cloth for you…”


However, before this Zalea could hand over the pail of water, her shaking hand had dropped the pail onto the ground spilling all the water.


“S-sorry!” Zalea quickly said. Her shaking figure was like a flustered young girl. “I-I’ll go get another pail of water!” Zalea said with a reddening face. Her face at this moment looked much like a tomato!


Although Kyril had, quite literally, his everything seen, he did not mind it too much. He was an old man in reality, what did it matter if his ‘little brother’ was seen? Not only that, he was also just a mere twelve year old child! How could Kyril be bothered with it? But what made him quite confused was Zalea’s reaction!


“What was with that reaction?” Kyril involuntarily let out as Zalea disappeared from view.


An old hunched back woman who looked older than he did in his previous life was acting like a teenage girl! What is this? To this Kyril truly did not know whether to laugh or cry!

 

sure i can do that. I was aslo very tired last time. So it maybe was not that slow. Just me falling asleep.

 

Please, but don't force yourself to change your opinion. After all, I am really in need for honest readers and opinions!

 

This chapter was quite hard to write (explaining things so it won't get boring etc.) so please understand... XD

Anyway, here you go:
Chapter 11.1 - Advancement of learning

Spoiler: Open Chapter

“Here’s the water…” ZAlea said with her head turned away from Kyril. She held the pail of water towards him. Due to the previous ‘accident’, a layer of light red covered the wrinkled cheeks of Zalea.


Kyril took the pail and couldn’t help but push his eyebrows together to form what looked like two sloping sides of a mountain. “Well this is a first… never have I seen an old woman blush like a teenage girl! She’s at least five or six times older than me right now, has she never seen ‘that’ before??”


Whatever it was, such a reaction from an old woman was totally unexpected.


As if realising what Kyril was thinking, once Kyril took the pail from her hand Zalea turned around and with a jerk from her legs, she vanished from view, throwing two or three leaves into the air.


“What…” Watching Zalea’s sudden disappearance startled Kyril, making him forget the out-of-character expression of Zalea from before. Instead, his eyes pinned straight ahead like an arrow, unblinking and wide open. “...Is this what cultivation can do?”


Coming and going like the wind, such inconceivable speeds were nothing short of extraordinary to the mind of Kyril!


“If cultivation can enable Practitioners to move like the wind, who knows what other abilities cultivation can grant Practitioners! Breathe under water? Walk through the pits of burning lava? Or maybe it can even allow people to withstand the dangers of outer space! If that’s the case, achieving my goal would no longer just be something that will depend on my luck, but as long as I work hard I can achieve it!”


The hands by the side of Kyril balled into fists and a crescent grin that spread from ear to ear formed on his now purified and handsome face. Within his eyes, a glint of burning fire set alight and shot rays into the world.


To understand the Universe completely was previously just a life goal that Kyril aimed for to satisfy his curiosity. But to Kyril now, understanding the Universe was no longer just a goal, it became a part of him, an inseparable piece of his heart that could not be taken away. For Kyril, understanding the Universe was now a path he was determined to follow.


From the insights he got earlier, Kyril gained a depth of understanding for the Universe that was incomparable to the depth of insight he got from his past life. It was like taking the contents of a profound, million year old book and copying the contents directly into his mind!


If the insight from the thirteen days he spent sitting down was just a drop in the ocean, then the insight from his entire past life would simply be nonexistent. It would be too small to even exist!


When he finished cleaning himself of the black ooze on his body, Kyril walked to the entrance of his shack, exhaled green, rotten air composed entirely of impurities, and then took in a deep breath of fresh air. With a metal pail in each hand, Kyril proceeded to walk towards Zalea’s nameless store.


After fifteen minutes of walking, Kyril arrived in front of the nameless store and entered. And like before, Zalea sat behind the wooden counter looking at the opening and closing of her store door as Kyril entered.


“You could sense me?” Kyril asked to avoid a silent atmosphere.


Although he already knew the answer, thinking of the incident that happened earlier and Zalea’s reaction, Kyril could tell that coming here would, in the end, be quite awkward.


“Mmm…” Zalea said with a youthful voice unbefitting of an old woman and she lowered her head to reveal the mountain on her back.


Hearing Zalea's unenthused response, Kyril could only smile wryly as he placed one of the metal pails he held on to the wooden counter.


“Ahem… Here's your metal pail. Thanks for watching over me while I was undergoing enlightenment,” Kyril said.


Having read several books on cultivation from the library, Kyril knew the importance of not being distracted when receiving enlightenment. Thus, to Zalea who looked over Kyril out of her own will, Kyril naturally expressed his sincerities.


After Zalea took the metal pail from Kyril, silence once again dawned upon them.


As if the silence were arrows that threatened to shoot at them if one of them did not speak, despite her embarrassment, Zalea raised her head and asked quietly, “Um… H-how does cultivation feel…? To be able to jump six stages is quite astonishing, after all…”


“Six stages? Uh… Yeah… About that… now that I've fixed my crippled body, can you explain to me more about the path of cultivation? I currently know very little about cultivation,” Kyril replied embarrassedly.


If Kyril were to ignorantly walk on the path of cultivation, then he could suffer some major setbacks in the future. This was something he did not want! Additionally, there was also the display of power Zalea previously showed. Judging from this, Kyril concluded that this old hunched back woman was quite likely a wolf in sheep's clothing who had an abundance of experience on the path of cultivation. Except, sometimes she was sometimes also like a docile sheep...


“It’s better to ask Zalea about cultivation while I have the chance than reading books first,” Kyril thought to himself. “While it is possible to learn of cultivation from books alone, all books can do is provide knowledge and not experience! Without experience, knowledge is nothing! That is to say, if a swordsman with the experience of a hundred battles fights against a swordsman who has studied a hundred books of sword techniques, then the swordsman who has fought a hundred battles would surely win!”


As a person who has lived for decades Kyril knew how important experience was.


Raising her head to look at Kyril’s serious face, Zalea backed a few centimetres away.


“Ah… Um… Well, exactly how little do you know? I’ll start from there.”


“Probably next to nothing I guess? So just from the start,” Kyril said as he rubbed the back of his head.


If someone other than Zalea, who knew about Kyril being crippled, heard that Kyril knew next to nothing about cultivation, then they would think he had been living under a rock his whole life! Cultivation meant survival in the Hundred Sky World, how could one not know about it?


“Well… He did have a crippled body so it makes sense for him to know nothing about cultivation…” Zalea thought.


Slapping her cheeks lightly twice to calm herself, Zalea said, “since you didn’t understand what I meant by stages, I’ll start from there.”


Zalea's face changed. The shy and timid attitude from before were completely blown away now that she was about to talk about cultivation.


“The world of Practitioners is split into five different realms: Normal, Grand, King, Emperor, and Arcane. Each of these realms are then further split into nine stages. Entering a higher stage of a realm is mainly dependent on how stable your cultivation is and how strong your body is.


To strengthen the body, Practitioner's would usually absorb and refine, or cultivate, Martial Essence which can be obtained from the Elemental Nuclei of Magical Beasts or Energy Gems, Herbs, and World Qi that come from the world itself. You can read about these things from the library so I won’t talk about it too much.


However, unlike entering higher stages, to enter a new realm is called ‘ascension’ and requires an advancement of understanding of the attributes of a Practitioner’s Martial Pneuma rather than simply strengthening the body or stabilizing one’s cultivation. As such, things like herbs would not be able to aid in ascending a realm as understanding the attributes of one’s Martial Pneuma is like learning. No matter how much the teacher spoon feeds the student with information, if the student cannot understand anything, then it is simply useless and the student will not be able to learn anything!”