Kael awoke to find himself back in his own room. Looking out the window he could only see the off grey twilight skyline framing the forest. Rolling out of his bed he gave himself a once over. Seeing no blood, gore, or other anomalies he was relieved. I have to stop blacking out. Kael thought as he headed down the stairs.

Seeing his parents eating dinner he came to two conclusions. First, it was dusk, probably the same day. Second, the smell of meat made him want to vomit.

Seeing her son come down the stairs Alavarah rushed over to hug him. “I can’t believe that brute knocked you out, don’t worry, your mother will take revenge for you.”

Smiling at his mom’s overprotective ridiculousness he said, “It’s ok mom, I’m fine, let’s just say the first step of dad’s glutton skill is way too gross.“

Lifting him up while returning to her seat she said, “As long as you are safe. Now join your parents for dinner. Look your father brought home a ton of hog.”

Attempting not to barf, Kael passed on the meat. Electing for some weird almost thorny fruit. Staring down at it seeking more information he found it to be named Mother’s Thorn, a chefs ingredient. Chomping down on it, he half listened to his mother outline his life.

“Until you are 6 you will be practicing with weapons in the morning for 2 hours. After that, I will teach you about the world. Following lunch, you will be collecting information on the local flora and fauna. Once a week your father will bring home beast meat for you. You cannot start cultivating yet, but the energy will store up in your flesh and bones. At night you are free to do what you want. Except for 2 nights a week you will practice your forestry and hunting skills with your dad.”

Nodding, Kael accepted his grueling life without even realizing it.

Time flies, in the blink of an eye it was three months later. Alavarah shared Kael’s hard work as her own to stop the villager's suspicion. She began reading from the books for a few hours every Sunday when all of the families were around to hear. In a place where knowledge can draw the line between life or death, Alavarah’s status in the village grew quickly.

Life fell back into a routine and suddenly it was only a week before the new year. Kael knew that turning 6 would officially start his life in the world, but also would bring its own problems. Sitting at dinner one night he decided to bring up his issues.

“Mom, you know Grandfather Grey told me something, that I was worried about telling you for a while.”

“Oh, and what is that honey?”

“He said that my body’s physique is severely Qi deficiency and that I will have problems cultivating until I reach the xiantian stage.”

Shocked both of his parents shouted, “What!?” simultaneously. Alavarah gave Kael a stern look and continued. “How could you hide something so important from your parents?”

“I just did not want you to worry, mom. He said I have exceptional talent and perception, it will just be a lot harder for me to get through to xiantian. Once I am there life will be smooth though.”

Hiding her sorrow she told her son, “Ok honey, you just have to practice extra hard.”

After eating dinner and heading to his room, Kael could hear his mother quietly sobbing downstairs. He knew his parents thought he was a cripple, but that would not stop him from fulfilling the promise he made himself to help his parents.

The day of the new year was not really celebrated in the village. The only exception being when a child had turned 6. Kael and his parents walked through the town towards the village heads house in the center of the town. They could already see all of the villagers were crowded around the central house. A few of the men and women were off to the side cooking giant vats of food for the celebration. As the trio approached the crowd parted, making a pathway to the village head. Alavarah patted Kael's back, “Go ahead, honey.”

Kael walked through the parted crowd, feeling all of the people's eyes on him. With sweaty palms, he approached the village chief, a middle-aged man, who was holding two crystals in his hands. Coming to stop in front of the man, Kael bowed to him. The man solemnly handed Kael the first crystal. Accepting the crystal Kael thought, Hey it’s the same size as a beer bottle, just pretend you're getting a beer, no one will know of your problems.

Taking the crystal in his hands it immediately lit up with a bright red light. Following that, the right side lit up with a green, taking up 20% of the crystal. As the green became steady a golden color lit up the left side, taking up 10% of the crystal. Looking up at the old man, Kael waited for confirmation of what he already knew. The village head said, “A tripartite split, normally not auspicious, but he will do fine as an alchemist if he can find training, or as the village blacksmith if not.”

Listening to the polite applause from the crowd, Kael handed back the crystal while accepting the new one. Holding the new crystal in both hands while concentrating on it he thought, Don’t betray me, I refuse to accept that my fate is to be stuck in the middle of boonies shouting, “You got a purdy mouth boy”.

Slowly the crystal lit up. First red, then to orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, violet, and finally the violet transformed into a deep purple. Shocking gasps and comments of, “Impossible” and “No way” spread through the crowd. Alavarah, seeing her sons talent that denoted his ability to step into the so-called nobility was slightly relieved. She thought if her son could really make it to the saint rank and establish his foundation he may really have a shocking future ahead of him.

The village head took the crystal back from Kael, asking him, “Do you want to study the villages cultivation, or does your family have its own?”

“Thank you for the kind offer but I will study with my parents” was Kael’s reply as he looked back to his parents for confirmation. Seeing his father nod to him, Kael bowed to the village chief before retreating.

His parents were swarmed by well-wishers isolating him. Standing around like a wallflower for a few minutes, finally one of the village children approached him. Kael stood there as he watched Raen, the 8-year-old daughter of the blacksmith walking over. Unlike typical girls of her age, she had black smudge marks all over. Her hands were rough from hard work and had small burn marks running up to her elbows. Smiling, he waved to her in greeting. When Raen arrived she punched Kael in the shoulder saying, “Kid, you have amazing talent, don’t let it go to waste. Come by and I’ll teach you how to smith.”

Pretending to grimace in pain, he agreed to her request and awkwardly excused himself. After sneaking his way back home, Kael willed his character sheet to appear.

Group A

Base

Mod

Total

Group B

Base

Mod

Total

Group C

Base

Mod

Total

Group D

Base

Mod

Total

Strength

14

0

14

Agility

7

0

7

Reflex

14

1

15

Talent

8

0

8

Body

7

0

7

Stamina

9

0

9

Endurance

13

2

15

Perception

8

0

8

Intelligence

10

0

10

Willpower

11

0

11

Spirit

16

3

19

Luck

3

0

3

Items: Spatial Ring; Save a Life Talisman x2; Fruit + 1 Attribute; Fruit + 1 Talent; Fruit + 2 strength, +10 Bloodlines. (Items packaged into Spatial Ring)

Blessing of Nuwa: Each time your cultivation progresses you gain an additional 10% spiritual growth. Your willpower increases by a flat 1 point during reincarnation.

Artisan Saint: Easier to enter into professions, increased learning rate by 100% while in the mortal rank of the profession. The difficulty in creating anything is reduced by 20%.

Artisans are blessed with an ancient recipe each time they advance to a new tier.

Bloodline: Titan(10%), +2 Strength, +1 Body, +1 Stamina, Increases control over metal.

Bloodline: Fae(20%), Fire/Wood +2 Intelligence, +2 Agility, +2 Willpower, Increase control over fire/wood. Fire might increased by 10%, Fire consumption reduced by 10%.

Negative Quality: Qi Deficiency, May not create a dantian until new body achieves Xantian.

Profession(s):

Chef: Mortal, Tier 3. No special recipes or equipment.

Thinking to himself, Slaughtering all the animals for a year built up some serious experience. Too bad the exp dropped when repeated on the same creatures. Snort, that little girl wants to teach me blacksmithing, I could totally blow her away. Wait why do I want to argue with an 8-year-old?

Eventually, Kael’s parents came home and they were immediately jumped on by him.

“Dad, mom, you have to teach me cultivating now, no more excuses.”

Sighing, his mom said, “Speak to your father, his body cultivation method is better than mine, come see me when you are going to refine qi.”

“Ok, mom! Dad, no delaying come show me!”

Chuckling at his son, Iradin directed him to sit cross-legged in the center of the room. Once Kael was situated Iradin said, “Before activating the energy stored in your body you will need to read the families Mountain Forging Technique. Read it thoroughly and ask if you have any questions. Once you are ready to start I will help you activate the energy locked within. Your mother and I will supervise your first session just to be sure you are ok.” When he was done speaking, Iradin once again pulled out his interspatial bag and took an old book from within.

Looking at the book, Kael saw the depiction of a mountain being smashed with a hammer from above while roasted from fire underneath. Before when he heard the name of the skill he thought of an old hermit on a mountain making swords or something. Only now did he understand the grandiose concept behind the name.

Taking the book from his father, Kael quickly read the first three chapters before being stopped. “Kael, go back and carefully read everything, do not get so far ahead of yourself.”

“No problem dad, I remembered it all, I told you, I have an awesome perception.”

Looking at his son in doubt he asked, “Do you have any questions then?”

“Yeah, I thought it would be like the Internal Furnace where you run Qi through the meridians, but this just wants me to drag all of the energy into my heart then explode it out through the body, why?”

“Kael, the first stage is to clear your body of impurities. Cultivation techniques do this at the first, fourth, and seventh ranks of body refinement. Although being cleared of impurities is immensely helpful for later cultivation; most techniques give no other benefits during those stages. The Mountain Forging technique will increase your strength as well as clear the impurities.”

“Ok then, dad” Kael replied, “I am good to start, activate the energy stored in me.”

Iradin came over and placed his hand on his son’s back. Injecting Qi into him, Iradin released the seal he had placed on the Internal Furnace Technique. Telling Kael, “Ok son, you can start” Iradin backed off.

The moment Iradin released the seal in his body, Kael felt like the marrow of his bones had been swapped with magma. The worst part was as the heat in his bones intensified he could feel his muscles heating up. Hearing his father's words he closed his eyes and began concentrating on the technique he just learned.

Slowly he began to will the magma-like substance in his bones to travel to his heart. As the energy in his bones moved the same thing happened with the energy in his muscles. The extreme pain made him flash back to being tortured in the underworld. Clenching his teeth he thought, Hell could not break me, I can beat this shit too.

As seconds turned into minutes, and minutes turned into hours, Kael finally got all of the energy into his heart. As he compressed the energy, unbeknownst to him, he began sweating blood. Alavarah wanted to awaken him when she saw what was happening, but she was held back by Iradin. “Varah, if we interrupt him now we may do more harm than good. The same thing happened to me when cultivating to the critical point of rank 1. I just did not expect our son to reach this point in three hours.”

As the energy in his heart compressed into a white-hot ball of pain, Kael finally released it. Willing it to explode outwards in hopes of relieving the pain he was sorely disappointed. As the energy traveled outward through his body, Kael felt like millions of red-hot blades were shredding every part of him.

Alavarah began to cry once she saw her son scream out in pain, fall backward, and begin to thrash and roll about. Beating on Iradin's chest and calling him a bastard, she tried to break free just to be restrained. A few moments later a horrid stench swept over everyone in the house. A thick black sludge began to seep from Kael’s pours, making him look like he took a dip in tar.

In just a few minutes time, the pain in Kael’s body vanished to be replaced by the most gag-worthy smell he had ever come across. Opening his eyes and seeing the black sludge covering him, he immediately ran to the small pond on the outskirts of town. Jumping in the water, he began scrubbing himself with a vengeance. The black gunk quickly melted away along with the smell. Calming down, Kael remembered back to the point where the pain was the worst. He had heard a voice say his strength increased by 1.

Climbing out of the water he heard his father laughing at him. “Congratulations on your first step into cultivation and becoming a rank 1 spirit disciple. Probably the fastest advancement I have ever seen or heard of. You will want to take a few days to rest before continuing. Also, most people think there are only 9 ranks in each tier of cultivation, but after the great success stage, there is the perfection realm. It is assumed a person can only be in that rank if their cultivation has fallen down to it. That, however, is not true though. With your talent, I can tell you that you will be able to reach it. The final step from rank 9 to 10 is the same as the one you just experienced. It is dangerous so it is not in the book.”

“Thanks for the confidence dad, I’m going home to change now though, it’s cold out here.”