Chapter Two - The Sacred Blessings part 1

Lucky Riot and Capp Blacc once again walked through that abandoned alley on the outskirts of the private sector. Hovercrafts, Sudanjets, and even the occasional automobile were zooming back and forth on the streets and in the sky. The city was crowded and noisy at all times, but for some reason, this particular alleyway was rarely occupied and oddly quiet. Even though every other alley, including the one across the street, was usually full of miscreants or the homeless.

There were rumors of a murderous spirit existing in this place, but the two young men had never encountered such a thing.

"Yo Luck, how do you know how to speak their language? That was crazy back there," Capp had been wondering about this since the moment it happened.

"What are you talking about?" Lucky Riot suddenly stopped, causing Capp to walk into him and grunt in pain. Capp realized Lucky was oddly sturdy for a second level hard body.

"Those girls, they spoke in a different language, and then you used that same language to talk to them! Don't pretend, fool," Capp replied indignantly.

"What?!" Lucky exclaimed in shock. He had no idea any of this even happened. However, now that he thought about it carefully, Lucky realized that was indeed the case. He shrugged and said, "I don't know, maybe I'm like a natural translator. Does that count as a bloodline power?"

"The hell is wrong with you, Kasino? You know that like the time when we were eight and you..." Capp got lost in reminiscing over their childhood adventures, while Lucky fearlessly led them deeper into the dark alley.

He occasionally gazed straight up into the scarlet sky, before his gaze lowered again, looking at the enormous county wall in the distance and the altered sunlight that passed through it.

"It was pure madness, right? First, we're running from Bravo, Tony, and Maggie, and then the five of us end up falling through some hole that lands us dozens of miles away…how wild is that? Not only that, but there was that weird dead nigga with the golden blood, remember? You touched it, dude, like what the fuck," Capp shivered at the thought of the corpse they found that day.

The dead man had long legs and broad shoulders carrying an incredibly majestic air, with long ruby red hair. Capital always thought that the face of this man looked surprisingly like Kasino the instant he saw them next to each other. Of course, this was a thought he kept to himself, "I'm telling you, man, you never should've touched that guy or his blood."

"Eh..." Lucky Riot could be seen rubbing his nose in the front. Capp wasn't aware that this man wasn't dead when Lucky initially encountered him, so Lucky just thought of a quick response, "Well, it's worked out rather well, in my opinion."

For the essence warriors who specialized in mystic arts, cultivating the body was essential. Without a sturdy frame, how could they withstand beast essence or elemental essence and successfully integrate with it? Although this was the dream of all commoner essence warriors, the Profound Orb Mystic Stage, it still eluded the vast majority of the warriors in Nibiru City. As far as the public knew, the number Profound Orb Stage essence warriors in the city didn't exceed 30.

Cultivation of the body started from the foundation stage of the Mystic Realm, the Hardbody Stage. This stage was about developing a Hard Body reinforced with origin power and continuously refining that Hardbody with origin power to produce essence qi, making the body stronger and more robust. The number one reason for this was so the body could withstand the energies of different cultivation paths. No path was suitable to be traversed before one's hard body reached a certain level. Many people were unable to achieve this in their lifetimes.

After all, those who had not started developing their body early would miss the best opportunity to do so by the time they were in-between 16 to 25-years-old. Unless one broke through to the eighth level of the Hardbody stage, the age of 25 was where talent would start to dwindle drastically. The Hardbody Stage of the Mystic Realm was divided into ten levels, starting at the lowest level one. The body's physical attributes increase after each successive level, and this increase was not simple at all. A level one hard body had a strength of up to 200 pounds and could move at speeds of up to 50 miles per hour on average. However, for a fifth level hard body, the strength would reach up to 6,400 pounds and 800 mph.

That was faster than the speed of sound!

Reaching the eighth level even gave you an extra ten to fifteen-year lease on life! The vitality and lifeblood would be tempered and improved, and the physical strength would exceed 10,000 pounds. The ninth level offered enough vitality to promote another 25 years of life for the same reason. Ninth level hard bodies were capable of devastating things. Most top fighters in Nibiru City were at this level.

The annual mystic art competitions were always insane in nature. Fierce mystic artists competed against each other for glory and wonderful prizes relating to essence hunting and magic refining. At competitions such as these, the fights above the seventh level Hard Body Stage were something only aristocrats and nobles could attend. Commoners were not allowed to witness these events.

In fact, in Nibiru City commoners were rarely allowed to associate with those above the sixth level of the Hard Body Stage. Lucky always found this strange, as things were vastly different back in Acadia. In Lucky's hometown, even the commoners were at the seventh or eighth level Hard Body Stage. There was no need for such secrecy with these geezers.

After reaching the tenth level, your life potential would reach up to 200 years.

This was already double that of a normal man. Therefore, the majority of the population in Acadia had existed far longer than the clans of Nibiru City.

"Worked out well, my ass!" Capp kicked at Lucky's legs from behind, and Lucky almost tripped out of his thoughts, "It's only working out because no one pays attention to you right now! What if you get a blessing that improves your hard body, which has somehow stagnated? You'll have to be much more low-profile!"

"Pah," Lucky spat at the term 'low-profile.' He didn't even know how to spell such a thing, "Since entering Thoth Academy, I have been low-profile enough for one lifetime."

When Lucky and Capp were seven years old, they were always harassed by three bullies. These kids had broken through to develop their hard bodies early, and they were relentlessly petty. Lucky would still fight back, but the Capp at the time was just too weak to survive a battle. Plus, Capp was more peaceful in nature. Thus, they often decided to escape rather than fight to the bitter end.

However, during a particular incident when Capp tried to force Lucky into a dumpster to evade their pursuers, the latter somehow fell into a sort of wormhole and landed in another alley.

In this alley, a dying man was leaning against the wall. He was bleeding out slowly, but to Lucky's shock, the man's blood was completely golden. It also released high levels of heat qi and looked similar to molten gold.

On the walls of either side of the alley, there was a gang of hieroglyphics made up of tiny little runes that shined in multiple colors. Hieroglyphs were an ancient language that Lucky's mother had taught him since infancy. However, he simply couldn't decode the meaning of the symbols he saw at that moment. Lucky could remember that, at the time when he was marveling over the glowing glyphs on the walls, he felt a resonance that seemed to come from deep within his blood.

Before he knew what was happening, Lucky was drawn to the bloodied man's side. As he leaned down and looked this man in his scarlet-golden eyes, Capp crash-landed into the alley. However, before Capp had time to marvel over the same scene, he paled when he saw his best friend's action of reaching out to touch the dying man's face. Capp called out to stop Lucky, but then a blinding light appeared, forcing the young boy to cover his eyes in retreat.

By the time Capp could see again, three other kids had already crash-landed on top of him, making his head spin terribly.

"Hey Kasino... what made you touch that guy anyway?" asked Capp suddenly. He had already asked this question many times, but his best friend had never answered him before. However, Capp surprisingly received a response this time.

"Fate," Lucky Riot said casually as he stopped in front of that old dumpster.

Without thinking much, he lifted the lid and disappeared within.

"Wicked!" Capp was excited and hurried to join Lucky in the dumpster. Capp never told his best friend this, but whenever he went through this dumpster wormhole, he would suddenly feel really energetic. It was a nostalgic feeling, similar to visiting an old home.

Two minutes later, the two youths crash-landed in front of two boys and a girl seated in meditation. These youths were in an alleyway that smelled and looked far worse than the one the two boys were in previously. However, the air in this alley permeated a strange, mighty, and majestic atmosphere.

"About damn time. How dare you make this princess wait for such an excessive amount of time, Capp?" This loud-mouthed miss was none other than the beautiful Margot Frenzy. Lucky and the rest of her friends called her Maggie.

Maggie was wearing skin-tight pink clothes that showed off her body, which she felt was growing curvier lately. However, her fiery voice suddenly became as gentle as a kitten when she looked at Lucky Riot, "Hey, Kasino… you look really handsome today. I've missed you so much."

Even Lucky who rarely took an interest in the opposite sex had complimented her body recently, making Maggie's confidence shoot through the roof. He was 90% of the reason she was dressing more feminine now. The god knew how much she abhorred doing so before. The way men ogle her made her sick.

Maggie was 15-years-old this year, and even though her crystal blue eyes displayed the epitome of innocence, she was the local tyrant of their group. The original reason she bullied Lucky was that she thought he was cute, but ultimately she was too shy to talk to him. Thus, she chose to make fun of him by saying the exact opposite of whatever she was thinking.

Unfortunately, Lucky was completely unyielding towards those who targeted him and challenged her to a duel immediately. Back then, Lucky didn't have a hard body, so he was weaker than Maggie. He should have been nothing before her, but he fought her to a draw twice in a row. This was in spite of Lucky, not even being in the Hard Body Mystic Stage. Maggie also had the feeling that he could have defeated her at that time!

Lucky had obviously shown mercy.

Though she was secretly happy about this, she still ran and complained to her older brother Bravo Frenzy. She was embarrassed about not being able to defeat someone younger and weaker than herself.

Bravo and his best friend Antonio Bazaar III, or Tony as they all called him, both beat Lucky up the next day.

However, the day after that, Lucky challenged Antonio three times in succession.

Unfortunately, Lucky lost each time.

The day after he tested Bravo five times back to back!

He still lost each time.

However, no matter how much they beat Lucky, he would crawl back after them like an immortal cockroach. After a while, it became them avoiding him as if Lucky were a walking plague. This lasted until they grasped his weakness. Back then, Lucky's best friend, Capital Blacc, was far more frail and timid than himself.

The day they targeted Capp was the same day they all landed in this strange alleyway.

The strangest part about this alley was that they seemed to be the only ones who could find this place. Anyone who came with them would end up getting lost, and no one else was able to use the wormhole in the dumpster. Bravo had personally escorted elders of his Frenzy Family here to investigate in secret. In the end, Bravo couldn't only be punished because no one believed his tale about a wormhole appearing in a seemingly ordinary dumpster. If anyone else hopped in the dumpster, they would merely fall into the trash instead of a magical alleyway.