After sleeping poorly, I awoke early and watched the dawn break over the ocean. I was still annoyed with the turtle so I decided to console myself with some shopping. Ditching the sleeping princess, I wandered the markets eating anything that looked good while buying anything that looked useful. Plants, materials, potions, mana crystals, I bought it all spending thousands of gold in under an hour. For the first time since I got reborn, I just did whatever I wanted splurging on things that were cool without caring if they were useful.

The way I saw it, I had just made several months worth of progress raiding the pirates and a day off never hurt anyone. The only problem was I was wrong. Spending that amount would always bring attention of the unwanted kind and soon a group of punks rose to the task of ruining my day.

"OI, lookie here we got a rich boy with no guards" A leather wearing brown scaled dracon called out.

"Guess you better pay for our protection then." Replied a shabbily dressed elf leading another three.

Looking at the low-level fools I couldn't help but get annoyed with that trashy cliche, telling them to "Fuck off!" before wandering into a nearby alley. The morons followed and attempted to assault me with daggers the second we were out of view. Sicking my ratel on the dracon which went straight for his testicles, I proceeded to beat the elves senseless as if the weapons they were holding were children's toys. After witnessing the result of my retaliation including broken arms, legs or nuts, I quickly cooled off. Deciding that I didn't want these fuckwits attacking others, I whispered, "I will kill you if I ever see you pulling this shit again." Before changing my appearance in front of them and wandering off. The looks on their face as I left the alley was that of meeting a monster hopefully branding this event in their minds.

I continued shopping in a more sensible manner after this event, frequently disguising myself as someone different after every major purchase. Seeing the sun reach midday, I headed towards the last place on my list, the adventurers guild. I was not going to join, in fact, I would be the one posting the quests. As I entered I found it to be not unlike a common pub, there was no gathering of burly shirtless men rather those who I could see were well-armed and armoured. Approaching the front desk, I enquired about placing a task and it was a relatively simple affair. Just name what you want dead and they would tell you the cost.

They also had a shop containing materials that adventurers had gathered in the process of completing a quest and sold to the guild for extra money. Being the largest guild and being next to the wild lands they had a vast supply of materials actually allowing me to gather what I needed for the first hell cultivation. Waiting for the materials to be prepared I noticed a party come in through the door carrying a few injured people, namely the thugs I had beaten unconscious. Apparently these guys were members of a hunting party and after leaving them in the guilds medical bay to be healed they placed an open call for more members. Normally in a story, this is where the main character joins them for their adventure but I just collected my shit and left.

Arriving back at the hotel at dusk, I was relaxed and refreshed. The princess was waiting in the common room and I shut her up with a glass flower before she could say anything to spoil my mood before ordering us both the most expensive food. After devouring the roasted monster meat seasoned with rare fruits and decorated with gold, I went to bed early.

Sleeping in the next morning until the sun crept above the buildings, I got out of bed and sought the aid of the proprietor. I needed a small personal bathroom and the innkeeper was happy to point me to a public bath with such facilities. The room was a little expensive though that didn’t really matter any more so I hired it for the entire day. Turning down the offer of washing wenches, I entered the area and set up the two rituals before calling the princess over. The bath manager gave me a thumbs up when he saw me enter with an elf, which in turn earned me a disproving stare form the princess. Clearing out two entire one metre cubed crates of materials, the princess produced the needed potions and we each got dressed in living plant clothing behind the provided curtains.

"So what is it this time?" she asked as she stepped into the circle.

"Well, last time we strengthened the bones, this one strengthens the muscles, "I replied while staring at her a bikini. After a silence that lasted a little too long, I continued, "It's also going to hurt more."

Unlike the chakra cultivation in which the pain came from the bones, the samsara cultivation felt like being flayed alive with added salt for flavour. The process was also different, replacing the colourful water sphere with a pitch-black cube that sealed all external senses. They were still similar in how they collapsed into themselves forging the body in the process and expelling impurities.

Two hours of pain later and we were both covered in black sludge, the only difference being it did not smell as bad seeing as it was only a few months of accumulated impurities this time.

After washing myself off and staring at myself in the mirror, I noticed some red tribal tattoos on my shoulders. These were the stigma of the first hell and proved the cultivation had been successful. Due to the fact the first hell could grant additional abilities, I pulled up my status page to check if I had gotten lucky and also check my rewards from consuming the greater elementals heart.

Name

Jack

Age

1

Level

34

Statistics

Strength

216.6

Dexterity

113.8

Constitution

113.8

Mana Sense

109.8

Mana Control

109.8

Magic Resistance

198.6

Ki Sense

109.8

Ki control

109.8

Physical Resistance

198.6

Healing Affinity

109.8

Space Affinity

109.8

Time Affinity

1

Storm Affinity

3

Luck

297.6

Status

Health

1138

Stamina

1138

Mana

1098

Ki

1098

Alignments

None

Class

Resurrection Seed

34

Rebirth of a myth

Class Skills

Proto-Dragon Skin

Passive - Doubles stat gain on Resistance

Active – invalidate one magic attack every 24 hours

Proto-Phoenix Wings

Active – Flight, Doubles spell potency while active

Dragons Blessing

Doubles stat gain on Strength

Phoenix Blessing

Gain bonus Affinity for each 25 levels

Cultivation

Seven Chakras Scripture

1st Chakra - Root

+2 strength, dexterity and constitution

Samsara Rebirth Scripture

Hell Realm

+2 strength, dexterity and constitution

Cultivation Skills

Strengthened Skeleton

1

Increase the strength of bones (Iron rank)

Strengthened Muscles

1

Increase the strength of muscles (Iron rank)

Skills

Offensive Casting

x

Increases the damage of all spells by 100%

Energy Drain

1

Draws any available energy from the area increasing regeneration

Doubles when stationary

Triggered Spells

1

Allows spells to be stored at the cost of 1 level of damage

Fusion Spells

1

Allows for advanced spells to be cast through fusions.

Natural Regeneration

3

Increase natural health regeneration can be boosted with energy

Origin of Potential

x

Increases stat gain on levelling [2.0] and doubled skill point gain.

Child of luck

x

Doubles stat gain on luck

False Life

x

Convert health into overhealth, health converted this way can not be recovered until the skill is cancelled

Magical Might

x

Convert physical strength into mana control or affinities with 150% bonus

Titan Transformation

x

Doubles strength stat for ten minutes with a one-hour cooldown

Familiars

Mirage Turtle

26

Active – magic reduction sphere every 24 hours

Active – sensory shrouding every 24 hours

Silver Blooded Ratel

6

Passive – increase strength and physical resistance by 1% for each 1% of health lost.

Passive – all fire attacks upgraded to void fire

Titles

Reborn Human

Reborn through a magical ritual

Bonus skill experience

Behemoth Hunter

Gain stat points for consuming the heart of boss monsters

Stats gained - Storm Affinity[3],

Realm Breaker

Reach the standards of a higher layer

Ascension possible

I was somewhat disappointed that I did not gain an extra skill from hell realm but I could not help but smile when I saw that I did not gain mana control or some other basic stat from the heart but instead picked up an affinity. Not just any affinity but the triple element Storm Affinity which was not available on my human list and encompassed the water, wind and lightning elements.

The princess burst my happy bubble when she revealed that she had gained the best possible secondary ability of hell realm, penance stare. This karmic fire attack did damage based on one's sins as judged by the morality of the user and bypassed health shielding. It was literally the power to be judge, jury and executioner. The counter to this incredibly powerful technique is two-fold firstly you must maintain eye contact to use it and secondly it drains both mana and stamina at an incredible rate so if the target survives you are left exhausted.

Resting at a cafe near the baths, I went over my list goals to achieve before ascending. I still needed the life pearls and a vast sum of bio-armour from the tower dungeon. I needed to consume four more monster hearts before ascending and losing the title. I had chosen the master of the wild lands as a suitable target along with that old dragon-turtle but neither would be easy to kill. I had to help the princess regain her country and lastly find my final familiar. Why not look for a familiar in a higher layer? Because familiars have a chance to be strengthened during ascension and any chance to grant an additional mutation was worth taking.

Unfortunately, my best last choice would not be found on this planet. It was a monster from space called a Void Tardigrade and the ability it would provide me is extremophile, the ability to survive in almost any environment. Considering the ridiculous places I would need to go to gather resources on the higher layers, this was the only possible option. Luckily, I could essentially bait these creatures into appearing using the same frequency of space mana they use to attract mates. The hard part was surviving outside the atmosphere long enough for them to show up.

What you thought they were blue, human-sized and could teleport? No, they are the size of your thumb, gloss black with silver dots and travel around using tiny solar sail flaps located between their legs.

After finalising my plans I decided to hire a small workshop and do some crafting. Ever since being reborn, I had found the process of creating artefacts interesting and having the strength to play with soft metals as if they were clay was a constant reminder of what I had become. Using some of the gold, I created a small locket, the kind you wear that contains a photo but instead of a piece of paper, I enchanted it to hold a holographic display of the last memory of my family. Despite having already missed the anniversary of my rebirth and thus the death of my parents, I conducted a small ceremony with the incense found in my storage.

Picking up the materials I had ordered the day before, I remembered the rumours that some of the summoned humans with special abilities were kept by the Narith dynasty so I added another thing to my list, save whoever remained. Now some of you might be wondering why saving these people was not my first priority, my family might be amongst them? The truth is all those near me during the apocalypse were doomed to death. The pheonixian remnant was surrounded by eldrich old ones, meaning while I was lucky enough to directly collide with it and to have been protected by its energy, anyone near me during the event would not have been so lucky, resulting in becoming tainted and thus killed. If there was even the smallest hope that my family was alive, it would have been my first port of call but the scales of luck must be balanced as it took something very precious from me in order to gift me a future.