The moon was at its full in the night. The light illuminating a great number of plants and trees, swaying along with a gentle breeze cascading under the eternal moonlight. The shadows cast with an impetuous flair bowing to no one under the sky, there sat a child outside a small cottage.

The cottage was located outside the academy on the edges of the nine stone mountains. That child was of course Azreth. Having left his home nearly one year ago on a path towards transcendence of the body and mind, he was meditating outside under the guise of the full moon.

Channelling his Qi throughout his meridians, refining them in the process then storing the purified Qi in his dantian seemed like an easy process but it was the most difficult one.

Cultivators who absorbed Qi from their surroundings were an absolute rarity, more like one in a hundred. This was because this method requires an extreme amount of determination and patience for barely a tenth of the result. Most of the cultivators increase their cultivation using pills.

Pills are separated into three grades:

· Earth grade

· Heaven grade

· Divine grade

Each grade is divided into ten levels. Earth realm pills are the most common throughout the kingdom and the continent. These pills have no restrictions, meaning they are accessible to cultivators from all species be it humans, demons, fallen angels etc.

The cheapest and mass produced is the level-1 pill. All the subsequent levels have higher effectiveness but the price rises significantly with each level. For example a level-1 pill costs at a fixed price of two coppers which is accessible to people from all walks of life. Subsequently a level-2 pill costs 50 coppers and every further increase in level increases the price exponentially.

This is the main reason why alchemists have a god like status. Not everyone can become an alchemist as the requirements are extremely stringent. Most of the aspirants are stuck at the apprentice stage for their entire lifetimes. All apprentices can produce a level-1 pill. An apprentice is truly considered as an alchemist when he/she can produce a level-2 pill.

The refining process for an alchemist is directly related with one’s cultivation level. The higher one’s cultivation, the greater the amount of pills one can produce without exhausting all their Qi. An average alchemist cultivator being at the Qi condensation stage can at maximum refine a level-2 pill. One who has reached the Marrow cleansing stage can refine a level-3 pill. A Mortal Realm cultivator can refine pills up to level-5, a Lord Realm cultivator can refine up to level-8 and a King Realm cultivator can refine up to level-10 possibly even level-1 Heaven grade depending upon his/her cultivation level.

An average alchemist who can eke out level-2 pills can live comfortably with respect for the rest of their lives. The currency system is as follows:

· 1 copper coin

· 1 silver coin (1000 copper coins)

· 1 gold coin (1000 silver coins)

· 1 diamond coin (1000 gold coins)

An average family for one year can live comfortably with one gold.

Many people want optimum results with the least amount of effort; this has led to people becoming over reliant on pills for their cultivation growth.

There are side effects to using pills to grow one’s cultivation. Each pill taken and refined by a cultivator leads to an accumulation of impurities in the meridians. The impurities cause no direct harm to the body per se but they stunt the growth of one’s cultivation. This is the primary reason why most of the people are stuck in the early stages for the rest of their mortal lives.

The true path of cultivation is an extremely difficult and torturous one. Azreth realises that taking pills will cause him many problems later on in life.

Azreth has been stuck in the Qi gathering stage for the last one year. Since he found that he had directly broken into the Qi gathering stage skipping the Qi sensing stage entirely, he was not entirely sure how that happened. He came to the conclusion that it happened because of the black smoke.

Over the last one year Azreth has tried his level best in controlling the black smoke with minimum results to show for it. At best he can form thin strands of smoke on the tip of his fingers for a few seconds. The result of these strands on barks of trees is that they slowly wither and die completely.

Azreth realises that this technique can be a life saver in the most critical times. This will be his most prominent trump card.

He has tried multiple times to indirectly ask the headmaster regarding the black smoke but to no avail. It seems that ordinary cultivators are not able to see the black smoke. The previous time when he was tested by the headmaster he released a bit of it and the headmaster was not able to sense or see it. The headmaster being a Lord Realm expert still was not powerful enough to see the black smoke. Azreth came to the conclusion that his best bet on finding more answers will be at the second level of the library back home. In order for him to access certain things, he guessed he must in the very least be a Mortal Realm expert.

Other than training the entire time he reads books brought by the headmaster to his cottage. Since he living there is a secret, he cannot talk to the other children or anyone else in the academy.

Since he was in the Qi gathering stage, he was eligible to learn some fighting techniques. The headmaster gave him a common technique called star fist. This technique basically involves the coagulation of Qi onto the fists increasing the attack strength by leaps and bounds.

Since the Qi refined by Azreth was extremely pure compared to pill cultivators, his strength in theory was at least two times more powerful than a person in the same stage. His punches were equivalent to those in the skeletal manipulation stage. This was the major advantage for natural Qi cultivators.

His punches were currently strong enough to destroy a normal tree. That for a six year old is a never before heard accomplishment.

Azreth was meditating calmly, when suddenly he could sense an unnerving presence not far from the cottage. Over the past year, Azreth had grown accustomed to the sound of nature as he usually always meditated outside the cottage. His perception had grown to the stage where he could sense something or someone unusual compared to the normal surroundings.

Azreth quickly opens his eyes and runs towards the forest overlooking the cottage; he had grown quite nimble this past year. A few moments later he hides behind a large tree on the edge of the forest.

He calm’s his breathing in tandem with the wind, slowly peering towards the cottage.

There was a black shadow or something akin to a man dressed in all black floating towards the cottage. Azreth when thinking about it assumes it to be some sort of movement or agility technique.

The man enters the cottage and moves out of Azreth’s view.

After what seemed like a good fifteen minutes, the man reappears again and like the way he floated in, he disappears into the night again.

Azreth starts racking his brains on who it could be. There was nothing in his possession worth stealing for or it could be someone from the Targ sect. He realised whoever it was, he was not here for a chat.

“This place might not be safe anymore. The next time the headmaster comes around I must ask him for a new place to live.” Azreth mutters to himself.

Over the past year after moving within the confines of the academy, the headmaster usually visited Azreth only about twice a month to check on his progress. The food was delivered everyday via a teleportation array built inside the cottage.

The very next day the headmaster arrives to pay Azreth a visit.

“There seem to be some unusual characters moving within the confines of the academy. I recommend you to stay alert towards any possibility.”

The headmaster speaks with a stern voice.

“Nice of you to mention that, just last night a man dressed in all blacks came floating towards the cottage. Luckily for me I sensed him earlier and hid inside the forest until he left. I’m pretty sure he was not here just for a chat.”

Azreth replies with a great deal of sarcasm in his voice.

“Wait…What? The man floated? What’s with the sarcasm in your voice…Clearly you are still alive or are you some sort of ghost?”

The headmaster had an annoyed expression on his face. Clearly he was not amused at the tone of Azreth.

“Oh, so I must praise you for me managing to stay alive. Anyways, isn’t it your responsibility to look for intruders in the academy?”

The sarcasm was not lost in Azreth’s voice.

“Brat, you should be bowing down in front of me every day for taking you in. Such a useless brat you are.”

Every meeting between these two would usually start at these two bickering at each other for a while.

“Hmm, anyways this place is no longer safe for you to stay.”

Azreth felt a bit worried looking at the not-so-subtle evil grin on the headmaster’s face.

The headmaster grabs Azreth by the scruff of his neck and then flies away along with him.