Chapter 3

When I woke up the first thing I noticed was the intense headache. Second was relief that I was finally out of the dark nothingness I had been trapped in. Suddenly a wave of memories slammed into my mind.

Suddenly I knew what Angelos had meant by a lesser cultivation world. This was a violent world filled with monsters and dangerous people. Most of those monsters could rip a man apart easier than any lion or bear from Earth. Some of them were powerful enough that they would make a tank look like a toy.

In some ways the people were worse. Cultivators were people that had managed to harness energy in order to become far stronger than the average human. They were practically super heroes compared to the average person. Sadly the majority had personalities more in line with super villains. Even the ones that were considered good would have been viewed as reprehensible on Earth.

Anyone that didn’t have the talent to be a cultivator was viewed as nearly worthless. Most of them were enslaved or lived as peasants in a type of feudal system. If one of them upset a cultivator it was the same as committing suicide.

It seemed like the only good thing that the cultivators did was fight the monsters that inhabited this world. That probably made up for some of the bad things that cultivators did. Otherwise even the cities would be overrun. Given the choice between being a slave or being eaten alive by monsters I was sure most people would pick being a slave.

Eventually what I would call background memories finished flowing through my mind and sunk into my subconscious. I was relieved to realize that included the ability to speak and read the local language. As a noble I had a fairly decent education. Although the sciences were a bit lacking. The average person on the planet would have been considered illiterate on Earth.

What flowed through my mind next were more personal memories. They seemed to flow chronologically. I was one of the many sons of the head of a mighty clan of cultivators. I had also been lucky enough to inherit most of my parents' talent for cultivation. Although I wasn’t the most talented cultivator in the family I was in the top ten for my generation.

Of course that meant that I had been spoiled as a child. I shuddered to think of what type of monster I would have become when I grew up. Even as a teenager some of the things I had done disgusted me. The best thing I could say is that luckily I hadn’t been a sadist. I had just been raised with a profound lack of awareness and empathy towards those of a lower station. So much so that I had regarded myself as practically a god in comparison to non-cultivators.

Things had changed when my clan lost a war against an enemy clan. Unfortunately we had lost decisively and the enemy clan wasn’t merciful. The less talented members of the clan became war slaves. Those with more talent such as myself suffered fates that were almost as terrible. My core was shattered. Which meant I lost all my cultivation progress and would no longer be able to cultivate in the future.

As Angelos had said I had an adverse reaction to the shattering of my core. At first it was barely noticeable. Quickly that reaction had grown worse. Prior to me passing out and my soul leaving my body for it’s next life I had been traded to one of the border clans.

After having my core shattered I had been traded away to one of the border clans. They lived on the borders between the wild lands and civilization. Generally they avoided the fighting among the human factions. Instead they focused on fighting the monsters that lived in the wilderness.

The clans living in more civilized areas looked down on the clans that lived on the edge of civilization. Clans that lived on the border of humanity were weaker and less talented than the central clans. They would have been conquered by the central clans if they hadn’t served as a buffer between their territories and the monsters. None of the other clans wanted to guard the borders against monsters.

Besides protecting civilization from monsters the border clans served one other important purpose. The remains of those monsters were valuable. Many of them had a core that was useful for magic. Their pelts could be used to make valuable clothing and armor. Even the meat of the beasts was filled with energy and eating it would assist with cultivation.

Which meant that the central clans often traded with the border clans. However, the border clans didn’t value gold and silver. Instead they valued anything that could make their clans stronger. Often that came in the form of weapons, armor, cultivation techniques, and battle techniques. Sometimes it came in the form of someone like me that could pass on inherited cultivation talent. The hope of every border clan was that eventually they would become strong enough to secure a place among the central clans.

Cultivators with high talent were desperately sought after by the border clans. Even more than cultivation techniques and weapons. Talented cultivators could cultivate faster and were stronger than someone without talent. For a clan that fought monsters on a nearly daily basis this was invaluable.

It was very rare that someone as talented as I was would be traded to the border clans. Usually they traded significantly less talented cultivators. The difference was that I had had an adverse reaction to having my core shattered. I’m sure the enemy clan had assumed that I would die soon. In which case there was no reason for them not to get some valuable goods from the border clans.

The border clan that bought me was taking a risk. They had likely done their research and realized just how talented I was. If I survived I’d be one of the most talented cultivators ever traded to a border clan. Within a few generations they would be able to secure a place in the central regions.

Being traded in such a way may have seemed terrible but my life would have been quite good. My captors were smart enough not to mistreat me. If my children did become powerful cultivators the last thing they wanted to do was give my children a reason to avenge me. So my days would be lived in luxury and my nights would be spent with a variety of different women.

With a bit of relief I felt the memories finally settle into my mind. It was interesting since I now had memories of two totally different lives. I knew my life was the one spent on Earth. Yet the new memories actually felt more real. Thinking about it I realized it was likely because of how long I had spent in the dark void. It seemed like my memories of Earth had been dimmed by time at least a bit.

I opened my eyes and started to look around the room. It looked like something you would find in the medieval ages. Stone walls and wooden furniture. Pelts of various monsters covered the floors and various trophies taken from those same monsters decorated the walls. Part of me was disturbed by the decor. I had never really understood using taxidermy as decoration. Another part knew that this was what passed as luxury among the border clans.

Suddenly words appeared in front of me. Reaching out my hand went right through them. It only took me a second to realize that this must be part of the tutorial that Angelos had created.

Memories have been integrated. Please find a source of energy to absorb.