A desolate area known as the Wastelands existed in the southernmost part of the Northern Regions.
Although it sounded arbitrary, the term Wastelands was quite fitting. This was because it was littered with despairing amounts of impurities mixed with Essence that spread over the entire region.
What was Essence?
Essence was life itself, the light that gave ordinary humans a chance to leave their mortal shells and understand the World's truth.
Every Area had its Essence Density and the Impurities mixed within. It was hard to classify what would count as an impurity; however, ancient scholars believed that everything else in the World was impure apart from Essence.
As one can imagine, this explanation was rather vague. Still, the consensus was that Impurities existed everywhere Essence was, and they increased when more humans were in the Area.
It was estimated that one out of ten thousand random people could absorb Essence and store it in their bodies; these people were known as Essence gatherers.
Essence brought many benefits. Humans became stronger, faster, more sensitive to the natural World, and lived longer. However, the most important aspect was that every Essence gatherer had the prerequisite to learn the Essence arts.
These were Complex, Intricate, and beautiful ways to use Essence and interfere with the natural environment with the subsequent release of tremendous amounts of energy. When people can perform this feat, they are no longer known as Essence gatherers. Instead, they are referred to as Essence Artists.
If Essence was life itself, then the Essence Artists were the controllers of life.
They could not be described as humans anymore; instead, they were some form of higher beings constantly seeking out the truth and secrets of the World.
Ju was not an Essence Artist, nor was he interested in any of the so-called secrets of this World. Like everyone in the Wastelands, he just wanted to survive to see the next day.
It was a very cold night, as it usually was this time of the year in the Wastelands, a chilling wind biting through the air like a living thing. The pallor of his skin, almost ghostly white, appeared even more stark against the backdrop of snow clinging desperately to the ground.
The teenager was swathed in oversized clothing that swayed loosely around his spindly frame, the fabric looking ill-fitting and far too large on his slender body. The garments, an ashen grey, are worn and frayed at the edges, offering minimal protection against the piercing cold that envelops him. Ju's breath created clouds of vapour as he exhaled; each puff quickly dissipated into the biting chill.
Ju's face was partly covered with a piece of cloth over his left eye, while his right eye astonishingly had an iris that was a brilliant shade of purple, making it seem less of an organ and more like a rare gemstone. However, this was not noticeable in the night.
Ironically, Ju's hair also seemed just like the snow around him: white, cropped short, tousled, and unruly, that glinted faintly even in the gloom of the impending twilight, a stark contrast to the deepening shadows around him.
"It is really cold." He thought grimly
Each gust of wind sent a tremor through him, but his resolve remained firm as he gripped the rusted dagger tightly in his hand—a weapon barely worthy of the name, its blade dulled and marred by time. Despite its condition, it glimmers with a hint of defiance and blood.
He had killed two of his pursuers already.
The remaining three scavengers were about seventy meters away.
The group seemed to be arguing about something; eventually, after a few minutes, they gave up the chase and dispersed.
It was not worth it to continue chasing that small fiend, they all decided.
However, a cold wolf-like gaze shone from Ju's right eye when he saw this. The teenager then did something shocking: He turned back and trailed the scavengers.
Stolen novel; please report.
They had attacked him with the intent to kill; he was never going to let them off in the first place.
Leaving an enemy alive was like having an invisible blade aimed at your neck, and many in the Wastelands have fallen to this kind of blade.
Ju blended with the darkness as he carefully followed, finally when the scavengers had gone their separate ways.
He saw his chance.
Ju first aimed for the one that went to the extreme left, like a hunter stalking his prey. His white hair moved softly as he carefully trailed his target for a few minutes, and then, in an instant, Ju struck ruthlessly with no opportunity for his opponent to react.
This scavenger was tall and wiry, almost six feet in height, with a gaunt build that seemed ill-fitted to the scrappy armour he wore, stitched together from mismatched scraps of leather and fabric. His distinctive feature was a jagged scar running down the left side of his face—a grim reminder of a life lived on the edge. His dark hair, wild and unkempt, was peppered with snow, mimicking the barren landscape around him.
A flash of light appeared for a brief moment behind the scavenger before Ju moved at a shocking speed. The dagger in his left hand moved even faster. Meanwhile, Ju's right hand gleamed with Essence as he struck at the scavenger's spine.
"You bastard…"
A sound of horror rang out. The man could have never predicted that the small boy they chased would actually follow them after they had left.
Although he was an Essence gatherer like Ju and perhaps even more powerful, the tall scavenger was caught entirely off guard. The force behind Ju's punch caused the man to arch backward, which exposed his neck reflexively. With natural grace, the teenager rushed over the scavenger's back, twisted and turned, as Ju's rusty dagger slashed across the cervical region in one precise stroke, like a painter on his canvas, demonstrating that this was an action the youth had performed many times.
The scavenger let out incomprehensible sounds as blood gushed through his mouth and exposed neck, and then soundlessly, he fell on the ground unmoving. These sets of actions and reactions took less than 5 seconds.
Ju's partly covered face was devoid of emotion as he quickly searched through the man's body; this scavenger didn't have many items on him, just a few gold coins and a small substance wrapped with a black cloth. When the teenager opened the black cloth, a small white pill was exposed, and then a brief look of excitement appeared on his face.
"What luck, with this, I can cleanse the impurities a bit," Ju muttered to himself.
Although Ju was not an essence artist, as a gatherer, he could still absorb Essence, albeit poorly, and it was challenging to store even average amounts in his body for an extended period because of the Impurities. The scavengers that chased him and almost everyone in the Wastelands that could use Essence had the same problem: for every bit of Essence they kept in their bodies, there was a corresponding amount of impurities that followed.
Too many impurities and the Essence gatherer would suffer a black lash and be overwhelmed. Death was practically inescapable at this point.
However, without the additional power boost Essence provided, people like Ju, who lived in Wastelands, would be as helpless as Ants, so they had no choice but to take Essence in willingly.
The white pill was a drug that Alchemists from outside the Wastelands developed; the drug was capable of cleansing the body of some amounts of Impurities based on the quality.
Its production, sale, and distribution were tightly regulated.
Even the lowest-quality white pill was challenging to obtain.
The Wastelands were not attractive to Essence Artists; the region lacked truly valuable resources.
However, due to the vast impurities that existed here, mutated spiritual beasts and plants were common.
To Essence Artists who delved into Alchemy and potion making, such mutation could bring astonishing effects when the items were used as ingredients in the lab. Because of this, Powerful Forces from the much more prosperous parts of the Continent had small branches in Wastelands that engaged in research.
Naturally, they could not bother with menial affairs like hunting spiritual beasts or picking plants; instead, tasks such as these were given to the natives of the Wasteland in the form of bounties.
So, as a form of encouragement, incentives such as the White pill were brought forward, and low-level spells were also distributed.
However, these were not the most attractive benefits that made inhabitants of the Wastelands struggle so much for the forces of the Other regions.
Absorbing Essence without impurities entering the body was practically impossible even for the most privileged Essence artists; however, there were unique ways, stances, and meditations one could adopt that reduced the amount of impurities that were absorbed.
Collectively, they were known as Essence Cultivation techniques.
Obviously, the Essence Artists from other regions would not bring top-notch essence cultivation techniques to the Wastelands. Still, even the very low-level ones were enough for the People in the Wastelands to risk their lives repeatedly to hunt spiritual beats and plants from dangerous places.
After about three years of strife and countless life-or-death dangers, Ju was able to exchange enough resources to get the most common and cheapest Essence-gathering technique that was circulated.
Tempering Formula.