“T-the fight is c-concluded. The winner is O-Orion. P-p-p-please come see me to receive your reward. Ev-everyone, thank y-you for c-c-coming.” The crowd dispersed silently while Orion walked over to the host.
“Hey, host, I’m here for my reward.” He said cheerily, as if oblivious to the events of the fight and the host’s near-fainted state.
“Of-of course, sir.” The host took out 6 gold coins and dropped them into Orion’s outstretched hand, who put the coins in his satchel and turned away. As soon as his eyes left the host, the poor man sprinted away at full speed, slamming the back door behind him. Orion now left the secret room and headed out of the brothel, sneaking a few glances at the surrounding beauties.
He headed to the nearest bar to get a drink and plan out his next steps. He opened his quest menu and took a swig of some magical drink. It tasted surprisingly sweet and wasn’t that intense, but he immediately felt a soothing warmth spreading through his limbs. He gave an approving nod and looked at his quest.
Main quest
Step 1/3: take over Rane
Stage 2/7: Become a guard in the royal palace, earn 75 gold coins in one week, take control of a zone’s black market, reach level 4 cultivation, gain clansmen.
timeframe: one year
punishment for failure: removal of system and cultivation
rewards: 200000 exp, level 4 or lower skill of choice, low-tier physique of choice, cultivation method of choice, lower aspect of choice.
Side quests:
“Hey, system, what are clansmen?” Orion’s holographic clone appeared in the air.
[Oh right, my bad. I forgot to tell you. So the system has a function similar to parties. Initiating a clansman basically makes them your teammate, although you still stand above them. You both will get benefits from this deal, although again, yours are greater. You will absorb the entirety of their cultivation talent, all of their physiques, aspects and skills. And this isn’t a one time thing, whenever they get new skills, aspects or physiques or whenever their cultivation talent somehow improves, you will get them. You can also choose to take their bloodline if you want. All clansmen are bound to each other, so they can always sense each other’s location, send each other mental messages, and share life force with each other if someone is dying. Their benefits include half of your cultivation talent, your race, although they can reject that one, a random skill of yours and a random physique of yours. Since you don’t currently have aspects or physiques, they will get the one you get when you get one. Oh, and your clansmen can make other people clansmen too.]
“How the fuck did you forget to tell me that?”
[Hey, I’m human too. I forget things sometimes.]
“Yeah, whatever. How do I get a clansman?”
[You both have to cut open your palms and shake hands.]
“Alright, you can fuck off now.”
[Hey, come on. I said I’m sorry already, what more do you want?]
“Can we not do this right now? I’ve had a long day.”
This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.
[That’s what you always say.]
“Shut the hell up.”
[You know, I don’t actually have to help you.]
“Okay, sorry. I actually do need your help. I can’t go around slaughtering everyone to get to level 4 and normal cultivation will take too long. Do you have any ideas on how to get there?”
[Well, you’re right that you can’t keep killing in this zone in the sense that that would draw attention. However, you can bear that. Thanks to your cloak, no one actually knows who you are, so you could just slaughter everyone you come across until the authorities show up, and then fly to another zone and repeat. Eventually, you can just leave the capital and go to other cities.]
“Oh yeah. Those are good ideas. Thank."
[Of course. Good luck.] As far as he knew, the slums only had one level 2 fighter, the most powerful drug lord of this zone. If Orion managed to kill him, the rest of the slums would be easy prey, but Orion still felt bad about killing the people who took care of him, even if the care had been very, very lousy. He couldn’t touch the wealthy habitation district as that contained some people with access to decent resources, so they had a pretty high cultivation average. Attacking the bazaar was also not a great option as it would completely cripple the zone. That left only the pleasure district, but after having experienced it, he decided that that was also unacceptable. He sadly realised his only option was the slums. He estimated that including the leader, he would have to kill 10 or 11 cultivators to get to level 3. He decided to first complete the clansmen part, then cultivation, then the black market and finally become a guard. He downed the rest of his drink and headed to the bazaar. His little dagger had served him well, but he wanted to buy a more serious weapon, like a katana or a bow, since he thought that reinforced arrows could do some serious damage.
He soon reached the bazaar and headed to the weapons and armor section. He still had 6 gold coins and 9 silver left, so he could spring for the most expensive one since he would probably be using it for a while. He first headed to the armor division to look for a mask. Although his cloak did a fine job concealing his face, he wanted complete anonymity. On top of that, the mask was still armor and could protect him. After walking around for a bit, he stumbled upon an incredibly unlikely treasure: an intelligence-enchanted mask. It was a smooth, porcelain white mask with a simple face-like design: lips, a nose and holes for the eyes. The mask started at his neck in order to protect him from attacks to his throat and went all the way up to the top of his forehead, perfectly covering his face. It was made of a very hard material that could probably take blows from a level 4 fighter with minimal damage. This was a treasure he would have killed countless men for, but it only cost… 2 gold!? He immediately purchased it and threw it in his satchel. In a jubilant mood, he headed to the weapons division.
After looking around for just a few minutes, he fell to his knees in shock and pure joy. He had found a katana with a sharpening, durability, and most importantly, dexterity enchantment. Enchanted gear was incredibly rare since it took a high level craftsman and a might cultivator to create one, and he had found not one, but two enchanted items that fit his needs perfectly. Although his luck stat wasn’t prominent enough yet to be consistently useful in battle, he thought it was obvious he had made the right choice putting all his points into it. He purchased the sword for 3 gold coins, which was an incredible bargain. He strapped it on his back under the cloak and headed to his hideout.
Although it was fairly early, Orion was extremely hungry, and since he needed very little sleep anyway, time of day meant very little to him. He dropped down into his hideout and took out the food he had bought the other day. He used his telekinesis to suspend it in the air and slowly turn it while heating with a fireball in his hand. Soon, the food was ready and he devoured it like a starved wolf. His belly full, Orion lay down on his bed to think. Just two days ago, he was a normal, completely average teenager on Earth, and now he was a magical being with superpowers and incredible talent. He had killed dozens of people without batting an eyelid and even tortured a man. Such change in under 48 hours was simply insane.
With that thought in mind, he decided to test the limits of his new body. First, he tried seeing how long he could plank for. After 20 minutes, he didn’t feel the slightest bit of difficulty. He tried various calisthenics skills like a planche and a handstand pushup and found he could do them all with ease. Finally, he tested how high he could jump and found it was about 8 meters with a runup. Night had now fallen, and even though he planned his big murder spree for after he got clansmen, he could still look around for any easy targets. He climbed out of his hideout and lifted the wooden planks and carpet. He climbed all the way out and was about to exit through the crack in the wall when a cold knife was placed against his throat.