Meridian, Mississippi.
In an ordinary two-story house. A middle-aged woman was playing piano. She stares at the music sheets as she presses the keys. The melody echoes in the house.
Just upstairs, there is a room that is decorated with pink and frilly curtains. The corners of the room were adorned with artificial flowers, creating a vibrant feeling. The room is oozing a very feminine image. It was a girl's room.
On one side of a room, there's an image of the whole map of North America. The map occupies a big portion of the wall. It was adorned by pictures of different places, most likely tourist spots. The pictures were connected by a thread, appearing as a pattern for a journey.
A girl's slender hand was tracing the thread. She points at a picture of a waterfalls and murmurs,
"The Niagara Falls, up… to the Canadian Rockies and then…" (The girl)
She stopped, turned around and looked at the boy lying on her bed.
"It will be an adventure." (The girl)
The girl smiles beautifully. She appeared to be a 17 years old girl. Her auburn hair flows straightly at her back. The color of her eyes' is an unusual color of green. The chest department is especially not lacking, measuring approximately D-cup or so. The sun from outside the windows bathes her figure, highlighting her devilish waist more.
The boy she's talking to chuckled.
"Now when're you gonna do this?" (The boy)
He asked.
The girl lies on the bed, next to the boy. She turned to face him and said,
"I don't know… after high school? Before college?" (The girl)
She replied in uncertainty. The two looked at each other's faces and locked their gazes.
Then, the boy slowly brought his head closer to the girl's.
The girl, knowing what will happen next, closed her eyes.
The two's lips connected.
The kiss signified their feelings for each other. They just stayed like that, enjoying the moment. Then…
Blood vessels started to appear in the face of the boy. His face slowly lost the color of red; starting to look pale. The boy widens his eyes, petrified. The girl, noticing something was amiss, opened her eyes.
She gasped. She was shocked to see the appearance of the boy.
She hurriedly parted from him and the boy collapses on the bed; he spasmed and fell unconscious.
"Kyaaaaaaa-!" (The girl)
Downstairs, the middle-aged woman playing the piano was interrupted by a scream. There was also a man past his primes who's fixing something. They both looked up and hurried upstairs.
The girl in the room cried and cuddled herself into a corner. She continued to wail loudly until her parents came up. The father, upon seeing the state of the room;
"Marie!... David?" (The father)
He checked to see the status of the boy, while the mother turned to face her daughter.
"Call an ambulance!" (The father)
"I don't know what happened to him… I just… I just touched him… I didn't mean to... to"
The girl continues to cry.
The mother, seeing her daughter like this, approached her and tried to hug the girl.
"Calm down, honey." (The mother)
But,
"Don't touch me…" (The girl)
The girl sobbed, inching away from her closing mother. The mother tried to embrace her daughter.
"Just calm…" (The mother)
"Don't… Just, JUST GET AWAY FROM ME!" (The girl)
The mother stopped. Not knowing what to do, she just followed her husband and went downstairs to call an ambulance.
Shortly after, an ambulance came and brought the boy to the hospital. The police asked several questions to the still shaking girl. The girl desperately avoided any physical contact from anyone.
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Later that night, the girl, wearing a hooded jacket, escaped from her room. Covered in darkness, she makes her way out of the house; out of the house she's been living for 17 years. She knows that she awakened, and her powers will only bring harm to those around her. Thus, she walked the path where no one gets hurt; where she is alone. She abandoned the name Anna Marie D'Ancanto, and went rogue.
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I can continue to cultivate.
I was surprised to realize this fact as I continued to look at my surroundings, now noticing the white phosphorous lights in the air. Back in the cultivation world, these white phosphorous lights are what we call "Essence".
Essence is the root of everything. It is inside of every living creature. The trees, the animals and the surroundings; all of them contains the Essence. In the cultivation world, these Essences are the foundation of everything. The reason why is because Essences are needed to transcend human capacity. The human genes contain a lock that greatly stopped our evolution. With this lock, early humans found it hard to coexist with the wild beast.
Then, during the darkest age, one human found a way to unleash the capacity of the genes. This man was honored as the founding father of the cultivation world, as he was the one to introduce cultivation. He stated that to unlock the genes, humans needed to access their 'dantian'. The dantian is located in the lower belly, and it is the natural center for the body's energy. But, the dantian alone cannot unlock the genes. Aside from it, humans also need help from the external environment. The help they need is the energies in nature.
They called it the 'Essence'; short for 'the essences of nature'. With the Essence entering the body, the dantian will circulate it around the human body in the passage of the blood vessels, and then it flows back to the dantian to coagulate, shrink, and solidify the energy. This process continues to happen until the locks on the genes weaken, eventually disappearing. This is the start of cultivation.
With this newfound way, the humans in that world managed to rise from the bottom of the food chain and dominated the beasts. They continued to explore the nature of the Essence and its endless possibilities. The humans in that world eventually created tools and techniques that make use of the Essences. They focused on researching and developing the Essence, that's why that world lacks technologies and machines, despite their history of thousands of years. They heavily relied on nature.
Back in my sect, the practitioners taught us the way to unlock the genes by giving us a manual. Then, it was up to us whether we work hard to cultivate or not. But one thing is always sure—you will get eaten if you're weak. That's why I desperately cultivated, as if my life's on the line; which is actually true, in a sense. I cultivated day and night, learned many techniques from different manuals, and managed to control the elements. I used all my abilities to fight the strong and clawed my way up to the top. Because I know that if I slack one bit, it will cost me my life later down the road.
It was that kind of world.
The survival of the fittest.
Now that I'm in this world, I can finally relax in peace and maybe take my time cultivating. But, now that I know that there are mutants lurking in the world, I, once again, regained the instincts that are instilled in me. I can't tolerate the fact that my life can be threatened anytime.
Thus, I made my resolve.
I will cultivate again, from scratch.
Then, I will try to enjoy this peaceful world as long as I can.
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Although I did finish setting up my objectives, what I need to do first is to cope with this world.
Firstly, I am still wearing the chángshān I wore during my days in the previous world. In a place like New York, you will most likely get stared at if you wear something like this on a normal day in the middle of the street.
Secondly, I need to establish my lifestyle quickly. For that, what I intend to do first is to find a source of money. Without money, I can't buy a house or rent an apartment for me to stay in. Although I got accustomed to sleeping outside back in the forest, I don't want to sleep in the streets of New York, especially if I have a choice. In this modern world, I will choose to live as comfortable as possible; something I did not experience in my past two worlds.
Not just housing, I will also need to procure my daily necessities. Food, water, household items and, like I said, clothes. Food and water must come first, and then I will slowly collect items that I will need in my daily activities.
All of that requires one thing in common—money.
I thought up to that point and slowly focused my gaze on my left hand.
On my ring finger lays a jade ring.
It was a simple, circular loop. Made from the finest jade, it shines with a mysterious shade of green. The jade ring was also adorned by runic patterns. And as the pattern implies, it is not an ordinary ring. It was a space storage ring. It was capable of storing things into a different dimension, made possible by the use of the Space Element—a special attribute of the Essence. It was the fruit of continuous studies of the practitioners in the cultivation world. Its space was boundless; the only thing limiting the space was the capacity of the user's Essence. Once a practitioner wore a jade ring, it will forever be bound to the user's dantian. So when the user dies, the items within it will naturally be destroyed.
In short, since I am transported here and—most possibly the case—did not die; I am assuming that the items within it are still there.
I took a deep breath, and slowly poured my consciousness inside the storage ring.
I released a relieved sigh.
The items and treasures I've amassed in the previous world are still there. The talismans, medicines, cultivation pills, magical weapons, manuals, and my most treasured precious minerals are still there.
Although I was not the best, I can at least say that I have the ability to make a normal to a unique magical weapon of that world. All practitioners in that world requires a second profession, aside from cultivation, that they can focus their time to. Instead of pill making, or beast taming, and any other jobs, I especially chose the blacksmithing profession. The reason why is because, naturally, to create my desired weapons.
Although I can't sell the pills, weapons and most of the minerals, I think that I can at least sell the silver stock I have left. Thinking it like this, maybe my goals are not that far from the future, after all. But there was a little bit of problem—my lack of Essence.
In order to use the storage ring, I need to inject my Essence to the patterns on the ring. The patterns will then resonate with each other, and convert the Essence into the Space Element. I can then access the different dimension in which my items are stored into. But as I have returned to the beginning of cultivation, my Essence naturally scattered across space, maybe during the world transfer.
I sighed as I check the amount of silver I can draw out with my current Essence. 1 kilogram. That was my limit. Naturally, just that amount won't be enough to fund my needs.
I think that I might need to continuously accumulate Essence enough to draw out a sufficient amount of silver.
I found a deserted back alley and started to do my work. I sat cross-legged and tried to focus my consciousness in my dantian. The Essence inside is stimulated and slowly circulated around my body, then flows back in my dantian. This created a whirlpool of Essence, slowly manifesting a suction force. When the suction force was sufficient enough, I slowly stretched out my consciousness to my surroundings. The white phosphorous lights appeared again; slowly approached my body. Then, it was sucked in my dantian, joined the whirlpool and then flowed inside my body.
I repeated that process until the signs of dusk appeared.