Heat walked from house to house finding not even one building intact. When he finally got to Fang Lest's home, there was only half the house standing. The top half seemed to have been blown away.
The surroundings were eerie but Heat still decided to go inside Fang Lest's home as he needed to find out what happened.
Inside, Heat saw Fang Lest's dead body missing his arms and legs. It appears to be the work of humans because the cuts are smooth, if his body was mauled apart by wild beasts it would look more ragged.
"What should I do now?" Confused and slightly saddened by the sight of Fang Lest, Heat felt lost.
With no one left alive to explain what happened to the village and fatigue assaulting his body, Heat decided to go back to his half standing bamboo shack to rest for the night.
When morning came, Heat noticed that all the wounds he had seemed to have magically healed fully leaving no scar. Heat found a shovel in Fang Lest's home and buried Fang Lest as well as Min Lest in the rice field.
Standing in front of their graves, Heat took out the map that Min Lest gave him and departed from the village toward Mo Hung Di's inheritance.
Following the directed path on the map, Heat reached Mo Hung Di's inheritance in a few hours. The inheritance is located in a cave, halfway up the mountain, and is hidden by vines that naturally camouflage the entrance.
Heat pushed the vines aside and entered while carefully placing the vines back. The first thing Heat saw was a stone door that was closed. Etched into the stone door were the words "Mo Hung Di"
Heat pushed the stone doors open easily; they did not offer much resistance. Behind the stone doors was a small room that was about 4x4x4 meters.
In the middle of the room were a stone table and a stone stool. On the table were three ancient looking books made of brown paper.
Heat picked up the middle one and saw that the cover was labeled "Blood Corruption Fog - Low tier Earth skill"
"This must be what Min Lest was talking about" Heat muttered as he sighed.
The other two books were labeled "Man, Sword, Beast" and "Herya Empire." Heat took a seat on the stone stool and began reading all three books.
The "Herya Empire" book detailed information regarding the Zinnoth continent that Heat is in.
The Zinnoth continent is divided into four empires. Heat's currently in the Herya Empire that's located in the eastern region of Zinnoth. Further east of the Herya Empire is the Endless Forest that humans have not fully explored yet due to the heavy population of powerful Demonic Beasts located inside.
The Herya Empire is further divided into ten territories. Each territory is governed by a Duke and must pay an annual tax to the King of Herya. The life one lives in the empire is dictated by their status. The lives of peasants are worth as much as grass and offending nobility almost always results in death. Nobility is granted by either the king or inherited from parent to legitimate child.
The "Man, Sword, Beast" book contained information regarding the unique human power known as "energy," the different ranks that humans can achieve, human skills, energy equipment, and Demonic Beasts.
All humans are able to regenerate, absorb, and expend energy. By increasing a person's energy capacity, humans are able to break through to different power realms. Once a person breaks past the human realm and is able to control their energy, they are commonly referred to as "energized humans".
The different energized human ranks are Mortal Warrior < Earth Knight< Saint Monarch. The Mortal Warrior realm is further classified into different levels from 1-9. Once a person reaches Earth Knight, the different levels are then classified into tiers, Low < Mid < High < Top.
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Even though all humans are able to regenerate, absorb, and expend energy, the difference between normal humans and level 1 of Mortal Warrior is about 100x the energy capacity. Thus, most people are just ordinary people since they are unable to afford the resources needed to raise their energy capacity to Mortal Warrior level 1.
The higher your rank, the more energy you are able to store and use. The difference between an entire realm is about 100x the energy capacity. An Earth Knight would have about 100x more energy than a Mortal warrior and would, therefore, be about 100x stronger.
Energy can be used to fuel different skills. Skills are divided into Mortal < Earth < Saint levels with further tiers of Low < Mid < High. There are Top tier skills as well but they are extremely rare and have only appeared in the legends of the ancients. Since more powerful skills require more energy to use, a skill's level is usually only used by its correspondent realm or above.
In other words, usually, an Earth Knight can use a Mortal skill or an Earth skill but a Mortal Warrior cannot use an Earth skill.
Energy equipment are powerful weapons that are fueled by energy. Their ranks are the same as skills being Mortal < Earth < Saint further split into Low < Mid < High < Top tier. Just like skills, energy equipment usually requires the correspondent human realm to be refined.
Storage rings are a type of energy equipment. They require the use of energy to activate, but once dormant they don't require any fuel. Their purpose is to provide a different dimensional space to store non-living things. Storage rings can instantly store any non-living thing as long as it is smaller than the space within the storage ring. Higher ranked storage rings contain more space for storage.
"Min Lest said that this is a storage ring" Heat looked at his left hand as he rubbed the black ring on his index finger.
Once a storage ring is refined by an owner, it can only be removed if the owner wills it or if the owner is dead.
"So that's why Min Lest tried to kill me" Heat contemplated as he finally understood why Min Lest attacked him. "But why didn't he just kill me while I was unconscious and instead help me recover first before trying to attack me?"
Maybe it was because Min Lest did not want to arouse suspicion by killing Heat in the village, maybe Min Lest did not realize Heat's storage ring until after he woke up. Regardless of what the reason, Min Lest was dead and Heat would never find out.
Putting his focus back on "Man, Sword, Beast" Heat read the final parts of the book.
Demonic Beasts roam throughout the continent. The most powerful beasts are rumored to be densely packed in the areas outside of the four empires. The Frozen Tundra of the north, the Endless Forest of the east, the Lost Ruins of the south, and the Demonic Sea of the west.
Demonic Beasts are also ranked based on their power with Mortal < Earth < Saint. Just like human realms, the Mortal realm Demonic Beasts are further divided into classes ranked 1-9. Past the Mortal realm, Demonic Beasts are then divided into Low < Mid < High < Top tiers.
Demonic Beasts, just like humans, use energy for power. Once a Demonic Beast dies there is a 10% chance that there will be a Demonic Beast core condensed inside their brain. These beast cores contain all the Demonic Beast's energy and can be absorbed to further the energy capacity of a person.
Picking up the final book, Heat read "Blood Corruption Fog - Low tier Earth skill." It was a Low tier Earth skill that enables the user to control their blood into a misty fog that spreads towards the target. Once inside, if a Demonic Beast breathes, they would be invaded by the user's poisonous blood and become their servant.
It's a powerful skill that enables the user to control Demonic Beasts as long as the user is stronger than the target. The only problem is that the requirements to practice the skill are to have a Low tier Earth Knight's energy capacity and a water affinity energy core.
This skill has two special conditions though; if the user were to devour the heart of another person related to them by blood they are able to minimize the energy usage of the skill down to the energy capacity of a level 1 Mortal Warrior. That means that even a level 1 Mortal Warrior can use the skill as long as they have a water affinity energy core and devour the heart of their kin.
The other special condition is that the more hearts of their kin that the user devours, the stronger their control will become.
"This must be why Min Lest killed his parents and even wanted to kill Fang Lest" Heat was impressed by the usage of this skill and even with the requirements, Heat didn't seem disturbed. "It's too bad I don't know anyone related to me by blood"
As Heat finished reading the last book, his eyelids drooped. "I'll look into my storage ring tomorrow when I learn how to control energy," Heat thought as he closed his eyes and laid down on the hard stone floor. Thinking of all that's happened since he woke up in Fang Lest's shack, he thought about what he should do next with his only contacts in this world being
The next day Heat woke up to the rumbling of his stomach. It's been almost two full days since he last ate.
Heat took the "Blood Corruption Fog - Low tier Earth skill" and the "Man, Sword, Beast" books with him while leaving the "Herya Empire" on the stone table because keeping three books under his shirt felt uncomfortable.
Exiting the cave, Heat thought of whether he should hunt for food in the forest or find food elsewhere. Ultimately Heat endured his hunger and decided that it would be best to leave this area since the village's destruction was too odd.