Chapter 1: Light and Happiness

The sun’s rays penetrated through the curtains and landed directly on my face. A smile appeared across my face, as I felt the warmth caress my smooth and spotless skin. My eyes opened, displaying two beautiful blue eyes filled with life and happiness. My slightly chubby and cute round face displayed such life and excitement. I was happy, today was my fourth birthday after all.

My parents were fairly well off, and we lived in a rather large town full of sunlight. After four years in this world I realised how beautiful life could be. The pure simplistic happiness of chasing a butterfly for hours was something that I had never experienced before. In this world I developed a fascination of reading and I became very studious and intelligent. I learned how to speak very quickly and had already finished reading all the books in the library.

This world was truly much simpler than the one I lived in previously. People here had a technology level similar to people in the middle ages in my previous world, but there was something in this world that my previous world did not have. Magic. There was so much magic in this world. People could cultivate in this world through meditation, they could gather qi and train martial techniques in order to get powerful and live as immortals. It truly was a magical thing.

In this world there were two different types of qi, battle qi and mana qi. Battle qi would be used by the warriors of this world. The more one trained battle qi the stronger ones physical strength would become. Warriors also had many techniques for swords and many other types of weapons. Mana qi would be used by mages. Mages could learn many long distance techniques. While mages would lack the physical strength that warriors would have they could make up for it with more their strength in long distance battles.

Personally, I wanted to become a mage. I did not like getting hurt very much, so I decided that the path of the warrior was not for me. Admittedly I was not a very hard worker, but I still liked to imagine myself standing at the top of the world, holding beautiful women in my arms with the whole world admiring me. As unrealistic as it was, it was a dream. I never had a dream in my previous life, so it was very special to me.

After several minutes I stopped daydreaming about possible future accomplishments and went on downstairs. My parents sat there waiting for me. I gave each of them a hug as they sang me the happy birthday song. It was a happy day, and my father seemed very excited.

He pulled out a wooden sword and said, “Alright Wickham. This is your first sword. Take care of it every day, practice every day, and one day you might end up as strong as me!” The smile on my father’s face was so full of love and expectation.

I couldn’t bear to tell him that I didn’t want to become a warrior so I thanked him with a bright smile “Wow! Thanks dad! I love it. I can’t wait to start practicing!”

Seeing the bright and proud smile on my father’s face made me feel that changing my dream a bit wouldn’t really matter as long as I could make my family happy.

“Oh, Wickham! Your mother also has a present for you!” my mother suddenly exclaimed, she was rather forgetful, but she surprisingly remembered to get me a gift “Here! It’s a book on mana qi. I saw that you were really interested in it when you were studying in the library so I got an basic instructions book for you!”

Hearing this, my father raised an eyebrow, as if to say: My son will become a warrior. To which my mother simply smiled, but the look in her eye said: My son will become a mage!

Being very attentive I noticed this and quickly said “Wow thanks mom, now I can be a mage and a warrior!”

Both my parents were shocked for a while after hearing this, but then they laughed a little, realising that I said this in order to avoid any familial conflicts.

I ran outside with my sword. I looked at the estate that we lived in. It was truly a beautiful sight as it basked in the sunlight. 

Taking out my new wooden sword I looked towards the beautiful blue sky and swung the sword, only for me to fall over on my behind. It was much heavier than I thought when swinging it.

This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.

I heard the laughter of my father as he said “Haha, looks like you’re going to need some training. What do you say? Think your old man could teach you?”

My eyes lit up and I ran up to my father and said “Yes please!”

And so my sword training began. My father taught me the essence of the sword. The sword was not a weapon, but an extension of your arm. You were the weapon. I was very confused by this, but mastering the sword could clearly not be done overnight. For the first several weeks of training my father would not allow to drop the sword, I was to use it a replacement for my previous hand. I would hold the sword out in front of me for hours upon end, until my eyes turned bloodshot and my arms felt numb.

While I endured this torturous training I would also practice magic in the evenings. My body was still too young to gather qi, but I was able to learn the basic concepts behind magic. I looked and learned all the techniques in the book. I could not perform any, but this meant that once I would be able to cultivate I would already know exactly what to do.

My parents were very happy with my hard work, and considering how quickly I learned the sword they immediately thought I was a genius. Seeing my parents being so happy was such an indescribable feeling, and because of my previous life I knew that I had to treasure these moments. I trained with the intent to protect my family.

Two years passed and I became 6 years old. I reached the second level of the warrior realm, as a warrior, when one reached the peak of the second level of the warrior realm would one start to cultivate battle qi. I was now at the peak of the second level of the warrior realm and I was ready to cultivate battle qi. I was also old enough to start cultivating mana qi. I was slightly hesitant to cultivate however, as when I started to cultivate my parents would send me off to a school. I’m not sure if I wanted this yet. I was still very much enjoying my life at the moment and I didn’t want to be separated from my parents just yet.

Several days after I turned 6 years old my father went on a journey to the capital. My father was quite a skilled swordsman and he had been called up by the military for service. Later I realised this was because we were in the middle of a war we couldn’t win. Our kingdom of Lyuh was being attacked from both sides, and we were cornered.

A month later we got a letter. Within it was a lot of money and a letter. Before my mother could read it I had a quick peak to see what it said.

‘Dear Mrs Gregory,

     We regret to inform you of the death of Gareth Gregory. He fought valiantly against the invading nations. He took many lives and died with no regrets.

There is money within the letter; this is compensation for your loss.

Apologies for your loss,

Renly Turing – Great general of Lyuh’

After reading this I fell on my knees. My father was dead. Just one question rang through my head ‘Why!? WHY!? PLEASE, JUST TELL ME WHY!?’ I started crying and screaming loudly, unable to contain my emotions. I couldn’t describe what I was feeling at this point, a mix of every negative emotion one could think of. At this point my mother ran into the room and saw me on the ground with an open letter in front of me.

My mother picked up the letter and it seemed that her face suddenly aged by 10 years. Tears streamed down her face as she hugged me trying to reassure me that everything would be alright. But we both knew that it wouldn’t be alright. My father was gone. I had failed my wish of protecting my family. I felt so guilty, almost as if I was the one who killed him. What was even more hopeless was that our country was just days from being overthrown, meaning that our town would probably get attacked soon.