Boar Meat Village

Old man Anton lumbered to his stall, and on his back, he carried boar carcasses to be prepared for butchering.

He was a huge man, towering over the masses at 6 ft and a half. Despite his white hair and wrinkled face, meaty thick arms could be seen from his slightly bloody rough spun shirt. On his belt, an old butcher's knife could be seen hanging down, its tip almost reaching his knees.

Everyone in the village knew about old man Anton. He was an outsider, a crippled cultivator that had found himself at death's door but had been coincidentally found and saved by the village chief.

With his prospect for cultivation cut off, Anton ended up living the remainder of his mortal life in the chief’s village as a butcher and occasionally teaching the men in the village techniques to strengthen their bodies.

He may have been crippled in his cultivation, but his bodily strength is leaps and bounds stronger compared to the average mortal. One could only imagine his strength if he was at his peak.

Tevial watched as old man Anton started preparing the boars before walking towards the stall.

In his past life, Anton was his first master. He was a lone heart cultivator, crippled as he was. His experience created Tevial's foundation for becoming an immortal in his previous life. Too bad his apprenticeship ended shortly after Anton's death. Leaving Tevial his sole artifact, an old cleaver.

Through a mortal’s eyes, it was nothing special, but Anton had told him the secrets of the old butcher’s knife in his hands. Enlightening him about artifacts that exist in the world that are more than meets the eyes.

Tevial rapped his fists on the stall’s counter. In his mind, he was a bit nervous, it’s been a thousand years since he last interacted with his master, and he wasn’t confident if he had fully grasped his master’s personality.

In the first place, their first meeting included him being half-starved and passed out by the dirt road after getting beaten up by the local bullies. That should be a few weeks from when he had first transmigrated to this world.

He wasn’t about to wait until that time. He was too slow and lax in his cultivation in his past life. His mind and personality weren’t as developed as it is now. And his most significant advantage is time. And he would e

“What can I get you, son?” Anton asked, seeing a stick-thin boy waiting by his stall.

“Good day, elder. I am looking for an apprenticeship. I am hard working and willing to be paid in scraps” Tevial said, showing a resolute face as he bowed his head.

“Where are your parents, boy?” Anton harrumphed. “Hmph If this is a joke, I-”

“They are dead, elder, they went out into the forests but never got out” Tevial cut him off, his voice shaking “I have no one to rely on but myself, so I am asking for an apprenticeship under you so I could feed myself, elder”

Anton’s expression softened and showed pity as he looked at the boy still bowing, he was less than half his height but was putting up a front as steady as a mountain. He shook his head before sighing deeply.

Truly, the lives of mortals are as cheap as dirt.

“What’s your name?”

“It’s is Tevial, elder”

“Alright, Tevial. Call me Master Anton, or master” Anton said as he shook his head, “I’ll take you in for now but dont get it in your head that this is going to be easy. If i find out that your slacking, i’ll kick you back out to the streets. “We’ll start today, now go at the back, there’s a basin there where you can wash your hands.”

“Thank you, elder! I will not disappoint you” Tevial said gratefully, bowing his head lower for a few more seconds for full effect before taking off. It was not easy to act his age, good thing the old man has a righteous heart and a soft spot for kids.

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Tevial was the same once a upon a time but countless years polished his heart to that of a jaded old demon. The only rule is that there are no rules, only benefits and the ends matter, whatever the means.

He can only admire his master for his righteous heart that he will take to his grave. What’s important to Tevial is to capitalize on this resource as much as he can and have an earlier start on his road to cultivation.

As he washed his hands, he went back to where Anton was working on the boars for butchering. No time should be wasted, something both he and Anton both agree upon.

“Watch clearly, Tevial” Anton said as the Tevial sat near where he was about to butcher the boars, showing an earnest and ready-to-learn expression

Anton went through the motions, preparing the boar, taking a bucket of warm water to wash the pig before taking out his cleaver and slowly scraping off the hair. Anton half-expected a disgusted expression from Tevial as he went through the process of beheading the pig and cutting straight down the belly to take out the innards.

There was only an expectant glint in his dark abyss-like eyes. Anton approved in his mind; hopefully, his unexpected apprentice is not all for show and actually learning from him.

Time passed, and Anton skillfully separated the parts with his cleaver as he went through the boar. Each cut was clean, each movement had meaning, and not one was wasted as he butchered.

Tevial could only appreciate it now with his own level of attainment in using the cleaver. The movement of his past and present master. It was an art of it own in Anton’s hands.

It seems that Anton’s level of cultivation or at least his attainment in the cleaver arts wasn’t low at all before he was crippled, it was only a few levels below his own most likely before he transmigrated back to the past. Tevial’s curiosity peaked; Anton never shared his past with Tevial, even when he was teaching him heart cultivation.

Master shouldn’t be a simple person at all. He thought before waving it away that it wasn’t necessary to him before, and it wouldn’t take away his attention to his goals now.

“Now, Show me what you’ve learned. What are the steps that I did?” Anton asked after finishing up the boar and placing the parts on his stall.

Tevial answered, recalling every step and movement that Anton showed.

“Good, good, good!” Anton praised more than satisfied with the answer. His good impression deepens with each word coming out of the Tevial’s mouth.

“You have a good head, Tevial. You are wasted as a butcher; unfortunately, there are no scholars in a village as small as ours. You’ve got a bright future ahead of you” Anton said, a bit sadly, before taking out some of the scraps from the butchered boar.

“I’d have let you butcher the next boar yourself, but I don’t think those stick-like arms of yours could even carry a butcher’s blade. Just take a watch of the stall for now. I’ll get you something to put some meat into your arms.”

“Thank you, master Anton” Tevial said, his stomach growling at the thought of meat. He hadn’t had breakfast and had headed straight here to start his plans. It was not like there was something fulfilling to eat back at his place. There was some cheap gran that was stored before his body’s parents died, it filled his stomach, but it wasn’t enough for him to survive.

The streets were empty, save for a few people getting ready to start their day. Mostly servants and farmers. There was still some time before customers would come to visit the stall for meat, housewives, and some servants in the wee hours of the morning to get fresh goods.

The smell of roasting meat wafted over from where Tevia sat. Anton called him over to eat before returning to butcher the remaining boar carcasses.

The day passed quickly, with Anton teaching Tevial the prices and how to interact with their customers. A few of them had asked about Tevial manning the stall and Anton declaring him as his apprentice despite just having met on this day. It seems that he really made a good impression on Anton.

There were a few older kids that tried to make trouble at the weak-looking Tevial. Some of them were children whose families knew his body’s parents. He ignored them, he was more than a thousand years old. It would be incredibly foolish to stoop down and fight with someone a hundred times younger than him mentally.

Some of the more unreasonable ones were shooed off by Anton himself. Thinking about it, people are suspiciously ready to make trouble with Tevial all his life. It could be a coincidence, but still, he saved the thought for later.

Back at his home, Tevial, with some nourishment in his body, started readying a bowl of watered gran. Using mortal techniques to acclimate his body took energy, he didn’t have qi yet so his body’s energy was the alternative.

He had to concentrate on allowing his body to efficiently spread the energy from the food he had eaten on this day. This would help him in developing a more healthy body suited for cultivation. This was a technique he had acquired from one of the sword sect treasuries he had shamelessly robbed in his past life.

The technique had no specific name, but it was part of the preparatory techniques taught to mortal children to allow their bodies to become a bit better than average for heart cultivation. It only has a slight effect but the benefits are cumulative until the mortal starts cultivating his core, which would lessen the damages when they make a mistake.

In this instance, he concentrated most of his energy on his head before allowing it to spread to his heart and then to his blood which would allow the energy to spread throughout his upper and lower body evenly.

After half an hour, Tevial breathed out a wispy smoke from his lungs. His stomach growled and that was the signal for him to consume the bowl of watered gran. It wouldn’t help much when it comes to nourishing his body, but it would allow him get better sleep compared to sleeping with an empty stomach.

But he wasn’t about to sleep yet, he still had to create and practice the mind palace technique to keep up his most significant advantage- his memories. This action took about an hour. It would have been better if he could spend days on end using the technique, but his weak mortal body was still his greatest limiting factor despite partitioning a significant amount of energy to his brain.

But he was already working on that front. With his apprenticeship with Anton, getting food was no longer a problem. With his plundered techniques, he would create the most stable foundation possible for his mortal body.

Slowly, he would accumulate all these benefits and reap the rewards in the end. Tevial had big ambitions, he would allow no one to get in his way.

If a person wanted to block him from his path, he would kill that person. If a mountain blocked him from his path, he would uproot the mountain, if the seas would blocked him from his path, he would part the seas and even if heaven itself would block his path, he would bring down the heavens.

This is Tevial’s way. The honest truth of his old jaded heart.

He wasn’t only looking to create a core for his heart like he previously did in the past. With his experience, it wouldn’t be out of his reach to create two cores or possibly even all three. For his mind, his heart, and dantian.

It was heaven-defying and would most likely attract heavenly tribulations to smite him, but he isn’t without means. It might take a bit longer, but it was not impossible given his knowledge.

With his planning and scheming out of the way. Tevial walked towards his bed and slept, he dreamt no dreams. Just the deep blackness of the abyss.