by Tinalynge
Xue Wei read through the entire technique, not skipping even a word. He read it time and time again until he understood it by heart, and it was only then that he closed his eyes and took a deep breath.
He sat down in a lotus position and closed his eyes. Breathing heavily, he absorbed the surrounding energy into his body. He could feel a slight golden wisp of energy enter his body, and he instantly started to rotate it in accordance with the way the book had described.
As he rotated it through his body, he felt how pure energy was, but moments after, as the energy reached his dantian, it all dissipated through his body as if his dantian could not accommodate it.
Shock, disappointment, and disbelief filled Xue Wei's face. He had read that the amount of the energy that stayed in one’s dantian depended on how talented they were, but to have all of it leave and not even a tiny bit remain truly left Xue Wei dumbfounded.
Thinking that he might have done it wrong, Xue Wei decided to try once more. But after trying time and time again, he obtained the same result.
"I better ask father!" he said to himself as he went towards the front of the shop. As he walked out of his room, his heart was trembling from shock. He felt how his dreams were on the verge of shattering, and he was tearing up but forced the tears to stay in his eyes and not overflow.
Xue Wei was only ten years old. He had expected to be a talent only seen once a generation. He expected that he was a true master and would become a real martial artist! But he could see the truth before him! So far it seemed as if he was worse than trash at cultivating. He could see that his talents were so poor that he still might be a once in a generation cultivator, just not in the way he wished!
Grumbling and feeling down, Xue Wei went towards the front of their store, but a frown took hold on his face on the way over. He was almost at the front, and as he reached it, a metallic scent filled his nostrils.
"Is father dealing with corpse grass or blood ginseng?" he wondered as he opened the door. But the moment he opened it, he froze.
In front of him was his father, but he seemed strange. Something was impaled through his chest. The more Xue Wei looked, the more horrified he became. He dropped the cultivation technique to the floor, his eyes widened in shock, and his mouth opened and closed, but no sound came out.
Right now, a long arm covered with azure scales and spikes had been thrust through his father's chest; the metallic scent came from the blood which was oozing out like water from a broken fountain. The azure-scaled hand had small streams of blood flowing off the scales, giving the otherwise beautiful scales a menacing appearance.
The moment Xue Wei opened the door, his father turned his head. His eyes misted over, and a trail of blood could be seen running down the corner of his mouth. Blood frothed at his mouth as he opened it.
"Run... Little Wei... Run!" he whispered with what little strength he had left before his eyes were completely devoid of all life.
"Father! Father!" Although he had been told to run, Xue Wei's legs went soft, and they collapsed beneath him. Tears streamed down his cheeks, and he started bawling out loud as he slowly climbed towards his father's corpse that was still hanging on the scaled arm.
The arm was suddenly swung to the side, and the corpse of his father was flung into the wall. Blood sprayed everywhere and the sound of bones breaking made Xue Wei scream out and feel nauseous. As he reached his father's side, he saw a large hole on his chest where he had been impaled. With trembling fingers, he touched his father's still warm face that was splashed with blood and frozen in fear.
A sound came from footsteps that moved towards him, and finally, Xue Wei looked at the arm that had impaled his father and would most likely impale him soon as well.
The arm that was covered in azure scales and spikes slowly changed from the arm of a demon to the arm of a normal human. Even the sleeve of a robe appeared on this arm, a robe that seemed very familiar to the young child. His eyes followed up the rest of the robe till his eyes landed on the face of the handsome young man he had seen earlier that day.
"Why?! Why did you kill father?!" he cried out, and suddenly strength came back to his legs as he charged at the handsome man.
Not only him, but the noise had also caused others outside to notice that something was happening within the medicinal shop.
A group of mercenaries broke inside, and they were instantly met by the scent of blood, and their faces turned pale when they looked around.
The person the whole village looked to when they were wounded, the one who provided them with pills and pastes, laid dead upon the ground, and he had died a miserable death.
The only two people left was a handsome man and the apothecary's child. A child who had tears all over his face; his eyes were listless, and his body was trembling as he was being held softly in the embrace of the unknown man.
"You!" the first mercenary called out before he brandished his weapon and rushed into the store, but the unknown man did not as much as look at him. All he did was look at Xue Wei, whom he had captured in his arms, and he said something which no one could hear.
Moments after, the child collapsed. His eyes were closed, and his body limp as he lost consciousness.
A soft expression was in the man’s eyes as he looked down at the collapsed child in his arms, while the woman who had previously followed behind him appeared at the door, her entire body covered in blood.
"Oh, there are a few survivors!" she exclaimed excitedly as she saw the mercenaries charge at the unknown man. Moments after, their bodies exploded from the sheer pressure the woman released. Blood sprayed everywhere, but when it was about to hit the handsome man and the child, it was blocked by an invisible force.
"Did you have to kill everyone?" the man asked with a sigh, and the icy woman nodded her head. Her laughter that was as cold as a winter night rang through the town. "You should be happy. Now the Primordial Beasts from the Northern Taiga will be blamed, and no one will notice that a small child has vanished."
"Have you not followed me for long enough?" the man asked, but the woman just laughed once more, ignoring the question, so all he could do was sigh.
"Although I did not get what I was looking for, I did manage to find something just as precious." A doting expression was evident in the eyes of the handsome man as he looked at the child in his arms, but his expression quickly turned dark as he looked at the woman once more.
"I will return to the family five years from now," he said with cold eyes and a voice filled with hostility. "But if anyone tries to interfere with me in the next five years, I will kill them without hesitation, even if they are from my family," he sneered, and the woman bowed deeply before the space around her twisted slightly. She took a step forward, vanishing the very moment she did so. Had any of the martial artists of Lingyun Town seen this, they would have been unable to comprehend what had just happened.
The handsome man took a glance at the town once more and sighed. Everywhere he looked, blood flowed in rivulets down the streets. The people living here had all died. Their bodies had exploded, and no one was left with a complete body.
Not only had the grown-ups died extremely tragically, but every single child suffered the same fate as well. Seeing this, the man's face turned dark with anger. But he could do nothing to save them; instead, he just shook his head before he too caused ripples to appear around him before vanishing without a trace.
Not long after, a group of mercenaries appeared on the outskirts of town. All of them were joking with one another about the bountiful harvest they had gained from their trip to the outskirts of the Northern Taiga.
Their ecstatic expressions all changed the moment they noticed a distinctive scent. A scent that these mercenaries were all too familiar with – the scent of blood!
As they entered the city, their eyes turned lifeless and fearful. They all had family within Lingyun Town, and when they saw the scenes in front of them, all of them rushed to see if their own family had survived, but th
e further into the town they went, the more horrified they became.
The entire town had been destroyed. Every single being was dead, and no matter how much they searched, they found no survivors.
The mercenaries were filled with sadness. Their loved ones had died, their families had been slaughtered, and they quickly rushed out of the town and hurried to the closest city with the information. A short while later, the Town of Lingyun was considered a town of the dead.
The authorities all assumed that this mass slaughter was just the work of Primordial Beasts from deep within the taiga that had decided to come out of the depths of the forest for a stroll. Meanwhile, the common folk spread rumor that the Primordial Beasts had just happened to come across the small Town of Lingyun and killed everyone in sight.
It was known as one of the most devastating attacks in the proximity of the Northern Taiga in recent times, and the rumor about Lingyun Town started to spread throughout the entire continent of Chang'an. It was simply too rare that the Primordial Beasts struck so violently.
While the rumors about Lingyun spread everywhere, far away from the Northern Taiga, in the southern area of the Kingdom of Heping, a handsome young man with a child in his arms appeared.
Chapter 1 - A Whole New World
Trying to pry open his eyes, Xue Wei woke up with a thundering headache. He could not help but groan slightly as his head throbbed heavily, making him feel as if his entire body was floating and weightless. This was while his head, on the other hand, felt as if hundreds of Primordial Beasts were gnawing on it at the same time.
Xue Wei laid still, trying to overcome the throbbing pain in his head, but it seemed that the headache was stubborn. An unknown amount of time passed before he managed to overcome the pain and slightly open his eyes.
He only managed to open his eyes slightly before a bright light forced him to shut them again. He tried to open his eyes once more, yet the same result occurred. Every time he tried, the world outside shone so strongly that he closed them out of reflex, and it took a lot of energy to force them open once more.
The shining light was like daggers that shot into his head, making his headache erupt with pain once more. And after every attempt, he needed to calm down before he once more tried opening his eyes.
Sighing, Xue Wei could not think clearly. His mind was a muddled mess, and his body was wracked with pain. The only thing he knew was that he needed to open his eyes, and only after gathering every last shred of energy available to him from his frail body did he pry his eyes open.
A sharp pain erupted in his head once more as the rays of light shone down on him, but Xue Wei used his willpower to force his eyes to stay open, causing tears to stream down his cheeks.
"Where am I?" Xue Wei muttered to himself, confused, as he looked around the room in which he had awakened.
The room was pretty big. It was beautifully adorned with blue silken curtains and chairs with embroidered cushions. Xue Wei laid on a large soft bed with blue embroidered linen and pillows, and against the wall was a desk made from some sort of wood that he had never seen before.
Xue Wei's eyes roamed across the room, and he could not help but frown, as his messy thoughts slowly straightened out.
"Nothing here looks familiar," he said to himself, but as more and more of his memories became clearer, his face paled, and he suddenly lifted his hands and checked his body.
He was sitting in the bed, wearing a white robe with blue embroidery of dragons. These colors matched the room and all of them were of the finest quality. Upon touching the fabric that the robe was made off, he could feel that it was the finest silk he had ever held in his hands, but when he tried to remember how he knew that this was much finer than anything else that he had ever touched, he felt a sharp pain in his head.
Xue Wei doubled over and held his head in his hands as he grit his teeth, refusing to let out a scream. The more he tried to remember, the more the pain increased.
"Who... Who am I?" Xue Wei stopped trying to remember, and instead, he went through the memories he had in his mind, but he was severely shocked.
He found that he could speak a certain language. He remembered the daily life of the continent he lived on, and he knew about the fight between the humans and the Primordial Beasts. He knew that every expert had the duty to fight these beasts when they turned sixteen, and he was aware that he was from the Kingdom of Heping.
He knew that he was born on the Continent of Chang'an and in the Kingdom of Heping. The Kingdom of Heping was split into the administrative regions of the northern, eastern, western and southern territories.
Apart from the Kingdom of Heping, there were plenty of other kingdoms and empires on the Chang'an Continent, but none of them were at war with one another as all human resources went into fighting the Primordial Beasts.
The more he remembered, the more memories flooded his mind, but he frowned. He could not remember anything about himself, and when he tried to think about his past, a searing pain burned in his mind, alongside a single image of a small village that was located in the Northern Taiga. It was filled with snow, and he had a faint feeling of belonging to this village, but there were no people, no names, and no family connections.
Xue Wei staggered to his feet and scoured the entire room. Everything he came across was new to him, and the light was also different from what he was used to.
Although he was unaware of who he was, he was completely sure that everything around him was foreign. This was not his home, nor was it somewhere he belonged. Once again, the image of the snowy village appeared in his mind, and he started panicking. Xue Wei had the impression that if he wished to get his memory back, then he had to find the village that kept appearing in his mind.
Xue Wei was only a ten year old child, and he was suddenly in the middle of an unknown world. His heart burned with anxiety. He did not know who he was, and he was terrified as to why he did not remember anything.
Although he knew that remembering things would cause him to suffer pain, he still sat down in the middle of the room and covered his ears with his hands. He closed his eyes and tried to think very hard. He was trying to remember even the slightest clue as to who he was.
The more he thought about it, the more intense the pain became, but he did not give up. Yet after trying for a full half hour where his body had been constantly wrecked with pain, he gave up. The only thing that had come to mind was the picture of the tranquil town covered in snow.
Although he felt that this town was familiar, filling him with the feeling of inexplicable attachment to this snowy place, he had no memories of it. No matter how deep within his mind he searched, he had no memories at all - everything was blank, yet he had plenty of knowledge in his mind.
None of this knowledge was about himself though. His curiosity stirred as he moved towards a mirror that was leaning against the wall in a corner of the room.
As he looked at himself, he instantly guessed that he was no younger than nine, but he could not be older than twelve either.
He tried once more to remember, but the result was the same as before. All he got was a vague image of a snowy town.
"That town has to be in the Northern Territory somewhere," Xue Wei mumbled to himself as he started to fully examine himself in the mirror.
While he wouldn’t call himself a pretty boy, he was relatively handsome. He had long black hair that scattered down his back, and it also framed his delicate face. His eyes were as dark as the moonless night, and his lips had a healthy, rosy color to them. His body was neither tall nor short for a person his age. He was not very muscular, but he still had some muscle on his body, which made him seem healthy and well-proportioned.
After looking at himself in the mirror, Xue Wei calmed down somewhat. He had been given a room with every necessity that one could need. He was wearing luxurious clothes, and he seemed as if he had been well-fed and treated with care.
"I am being treated very well here," Xue Wei mumbled to himsel
f as he stopped looking at the mirror and instead moved towards the window that took up quite a bit of space in one of the walls.
The window had a set of curtains covering them, and although they were translucent and did not block the light, they ensured that no one could look in or out. Lifting the curtains, Xue Wei looked outside. He found that he was within a beautiful old building in a large city. The noises from the bustling streets in the city were drifting through the window now that the curtains had been lifted, and the scents of all kinds of foods wafted through the air.
In the sky above the city hung the sun, throwing ray after ray of scorching hot sunlight down on this city that laid beneath it, but although the sun was scorching hot and Xue Wei had a hard time dealing with the heat, he saw that the citizens down on the street were not even breaking a sweat, even while hard at work under the sun. Clearly, they were all used to this kind of climate.
Xue Wei could see the city that lay outside the walls of the mansion he was within, but he was astonished by the sheer size of the mansion itself. It was large and had a beautiful garden surrounding it. There was a lake and even guards were patrolling the area.
