As the melody drew to a close, everybody regained their wits. Gonin kept staring at the young man with suspicious eyes. Ryan and Rose had stopped their useless bickering.

“Remarkable! Absolutely remarkable! What is your name?” asked Gonin.

“My name is Hezron. Who are you people? And Where am I?”

“We found you three days ago collapsed near the cottage”, answered Rose. She continued, “Where are you coming from? You seemed to be having a nightmare.”

“I was asleep for three days?” replied Hezron, with surprise evident on his face.

“Yes. What happened to you?” asked Ryan.

“Our village... Everyone’s dead...We were attacked by a pack of direwolves”, spoke Hezron. Then he went on to narrate everything that had happened, leaving out the bits about talking to a ten tailed, flying and talking tiger. Who would be stupid enough to believe something like that?

“So how did survive this attack?” asked Ryan, with suspicion plastered across his face.

Hezron was silent for some time, while his head was dropped down. He looked quite dejected.

“You do not have to answer if you do not want to. I take it, that flute has something to do with your survival?” spoke Gonin.

“How did you know?”

“I can feel something from it. It seems to be leaking some qi.”

“Some what?”

“Qi. It is--”

“I’m sure we have time to be explaining all of this! If he’s alive and everyone else is dead, doesn’t that mean we’re in danger here?” asked Rose, cutting off Gonin, who was about to engage in a lengthy lecture of the Dao.

Everyone turned to look at Hezron, who shrugged his shoulders, shaking his head.

“There you go. Satisfied now?” asked Gonin, standing up from his sitting position.

“I’m taking a walk!” declared Ryan.

“Oh no you don’t! You were out just now! Someone needs to go fetch some firewood!” snapped Rose.

“Why me?” asked Ryan, puzzled.

“Who else?”

“There’s--”

“Ryan, let us go and fetch the firewood...” advised Gonin.

“I’ll join you guys as well”, spoke Hezron.

The three young men left the cottage and headed towards the backyard. The backyard was much closer to the forest. At this time, the sun was fully up, and despite the backyard being dimly lit, the heat spread out.

************

Myra appeared at a cliff, quite a distance away from the cottage. He looked at the sun shining in the sky, and then sat down cross-legged. There are different types of qi, depending on which environment a person is. Mostly, martial artists use Heaven and Earth qi to cultivate and break through realms.

However, there are also some people with innate constitutions that allow them to use a different type of qi for cultivation. For example, Celestial gods use Celestial Qi and Myra uses Sun Qi.

The Qi that comes from the sun helps Myra to cultivate and breakthrough realms. By absorbing and refining it, he is able to enhance his metallic body, and make it much more stronger and durable. However, it also limits his cultivation to the time during the day.

The Immortal Realm is made up of three major levels. The difference between each of the levels is like the difference between the heavens and the earth! The first level is called the Earth Step level. When a martial artist breaks through to the Immortal Realm, they will condense their spirit core into a spirit lake. In the Earth Step level, the spirit lake will be essentially smaller, and breaking through from the early Earth Step to mid Earth Step, requires pushing the boundaries of the spirit lake inside the martial artist’s dantian.

After the Earth Step level, there is the Mystic Step level. To break through to the Mystic Step level, the martial artist has to expand their spirit lake into a spirit sea. After breaking through, the martial artist has to nurture their spirit sea and expand its boundaries as well.

Finally, after the Mystic Step level, there is the Heaven Step level. To break through to this level, the martial artist has to expand their spirit sea into a spirit ocean. After consolidating their realm, the martial artist can store more qi in their dantian.

The difference in the power between the levels is due to the abilities that can be used by the martial artists. A martial artist at the Mystic Step level can store more qi in their dantian than all of the other levels. Therefore, the high level martial skills they can use are not limited by the amount of qi in their dantian. This is the reason why Mystic Step levels are much stronger than Heaven Step and Earth Step Immortals.

Currently, Myra is an Earth Step Immortal, who, after arriving on earth, cultivated a lot. After cultivating for a year on planet earth, he broke through from the early Earth Step into the mid Earth Step and finally the late Earth Step. The reason for his speed is due to the planet being closer to the sun than Khami. Therefore he could cultivate on planet earth with twice the results.

The sun was shining brightly in the sky, bringing light and heat to the world. Myra could feel the spirit lake in his dantian expanding, as he absorbed the qi from the sun’s rays, refining it slowly. Cultivation is a laborious, time-consuming process that brings strength to those who endure with consistency.

Ever since he was repaired, he hadn’t cultivated, so his spirit lake didn’t have any qi. When they were attacked, he couldn’t fight back at all! For an immortal, being that powerless is extremely humiliating. However, now he had a chance to not only break through, but also learning very highly valuable martial skills.

Kakakaka!

Cracking sounds permeated through the air, as Myra concentrated and focused on refining the qi he was absorbing, and using it to bombard the limits of his spirit lake. The boundaries kept expanding, and the qi that was being refined started churning like waves.

Kakakaka! Booom! Boooooom!

Sounds of explosions could be heard as the barriers completely broke, and the spirit lake grew into a spirit sea, which was a lot bigger than the spirit lake! Inside Myra’s head, a small video clip began to play. This was a recording done by the Azure Immortal! Myra’s eye sockets brightened as the video clip ended.

Now, the martial skills that Myra practices were custom made by the elders who once advised the Azure Immortal, and they are all based on his legacy! This means that the cultivation manual that Myra uses is a variant of the one that Rogarth was teaching Ryan!

As Myra sat cross-legged, a symbol for Void started floating in front of him. He started meditating upon the symbol, seeking to gain enlightenment. He soon forgot the passage of time, as he immersed himself into meditation. The sun rose and was about to set when something unexpected happened!

A small black hole suddenly appeared in front of Myra, where the Void symbol was floating earlier! When it appeared, it started devouring everything around Myra. In a matter of seconds, the land that was filled with green grass, small bushes and shrubs, was bare, devoid of any sign of life! Myra snapped his eyes open, and as they glowed with an eerie purple glow, the black hole vanished into thin air!

If not for the bare vegetation, one would think the black hole never appeared. The purple glow in Myra’s eyes didn’t diminish, but became more and more pronounced. It kept on getting brighter and brighter. As Myra focused, the black hole appeared again, but this time it was slightly bigger than last time! It kept floating in front of him.

WHOOOOSSSHHHH! WHOOOOSHH!!

A strong suction force developed that pulled everything around Myra into the black hole! Only Myra was safe from the force of the black hole, as he stood there. If he had a mouth, a wide grin would be plastered on his face, while small rocks and stones were being sucked into the black hole!

He then extended his hand, and the black hole flew into his palm. He closed the palm and the black hole vanished. When he opened his palm again, there was nothing, not even a trace of damage!

As Myra was experimenting with his black hole, atop Mount Sun, the Beast King suddenly opened its eyes, and then started sweating profusely. The nine-tailed bear approached from the side and then prostrated itself before the Beast King.

“Your Majesty is something wrong?” it asked, with a hint of confusion.

“You don’t feel that?” asked the Beast King.

“Feel what?”

“This power! Whatever is causing this, it is powerful! It is also a threat! We need to get rid of it!” spoke the Beast King, as it gathered the courage to face up to the anxiety it was feeling.

“Are you sure you are alright your Majesty?”

“Gather everyone; we need to attack whatever entity is causing this feeling! It must be more powerful than me, but I am confident that the three of us can take it on!”

“Yes your majesty!” said the bear, as it left the summit.

The ten-tailed tiger looked really flustered, as if it had heard the call of the gods. Never mind that it thought it was the king of the jungle! The sweating hadn’t stopped at all.

“What is this? Is it fear? I do not remember the last time I was afraid... I guess whatever is leaking this power must be very strong! However, it is going to be one against three! Unless...” the voice trailed off as the Beast King closed its eyes and tried to sense something.

After what seemed like ages, but was really five minutes, it opened its eyes and roared! “That ungrateful human! He is involved in this somehow! Did he go and look for help to turn against us? No; where would he find someone this powerful? Well, it does not matter anymore! If I find out he is somehow involved in this, I am going to rip him to shreds myself!”

The ten-tailed tiger descended from the summit of Mount sun, onto the base of the mountain range. All the tailed beasts were waiting for it, some with eager faces that were expecting something, while others were looking anxious. As the Beast King arrived, it roared and every other beast prostrated itself before it. This was a real demonstration of power!

“My friends, I have called you here because something threatens our home! Should we leave the threat alive and suffer as it destroys us and our children?” spoke the Beast King, in a language that only the other tailed beasts could hear and understand.

There were roars that sounded like cheers from the rest of the tailed beasts, which were gathered below.

“No! We will defend our home! And we will defend our children! We will not let humans destroy what we have built for ourselves! We have already reduced all human settlements surrounding the mountain range into mountains of corpses! Whatever weapon they might have this time, it is time we showed them why we are on top of the food chain!” roared the Beast King, in eloquent overtones that would have left every human who heard it in shock, wondering if this beast was a resurrected ancient tyrant!