Aiden sat alone in the bedchamber of his cave. After an uneventful evening, he had cleaned a corner for himself. From the window moonlight peered in the room, exposing the dust and dirty room, but Aiden had enough on his plate that he kept his OCD at bay and sat in the clean corner with his character sheet open in front of him.
A feathered bird arrived on the rough edge of the open window, its melodic call echoing in a steady beat. It reminded him of the guitar-driven acoustic music he used to enjoy back on Earth. A gust of wind crashed on the wall of the cave, prompting the visitor to fly away. The cave was built around the edge of the mountain, so the winds were ever present.
As per the senior brother who managed cave allocation, this was the most beautiful cave because of the scenery visible through the windows, but after inspecting it Aiden knew someone had pushed an undesirable dwelling on him. Well, he didn’t have to guess it was someone from the Wang Renmei’s group, trying to suppress him in the ground.
For anyone else, the continuous whistling sound of the raging winds would make it impossible to sleep, and the birds and insects coming through the open window would add oil to the fire. But it wasn’t a concern for him. The cave gave him enough privacy. Others might hate the sound, but he loved it. After spending ten years in prison, the silence had other meanings. It brought danger and rape. Sound meant peace and safety. He could sleep in the middle of a roaring crowd, but sleeping in the silence was difficult.
Although this was a different world, different time, some habits rarely died.
One more thing. He wouldn’t stay in this cave for long. The secret cave had more safety, and he liked it there. The darkness was welcoming. However, to reach the secret cave, he had to pass through the outer sect disciple caves and labor disciple huts. The more eyes that saw him, the higher the risk of someone finding out his secret hideout.
Retrieving a dry ration, Aiden munched on it as he went through the character sheet. The dry ration tasted bitter and chewy, but he couldn’t barge into an outer sect disciple cave and steal their dinner as he did with labor disciples. The outer sect disciple caves had a small formation to warn of the intruders.
Anyway, he had more problems in front of him that he had to solve.
Once more, glancing at the character sheet, he pondered deeply. With his new title, his health and other aspects had improved, including stamina and charisma, but he wasn’t happy with everything. Despite having Gold Grade skills, he was unhappy.
Tapping on his knees, he went through old man Li’s memories about the skills and grades.
This world ran on RPG like system, and every skills were divided into quality and grade. Quality was the same as rarity. It went from Common, Uncommon, Rare, Epic, Legendary. Those were basic types, but there were more. Grade defined the power of the skill. Bronze, Silver and Gold were basic grades the skills were classified into. There were more grades, but old man Li didn’t know about them. Like an RPG game, the higher the quality or grade rarer the skill one could get. So having a Gold Grade skill meant winning a lottery in this world. Only a few people could get Gold Grade skills. Heck, everyone around him had basic Common or Uncommon Bronze Grade skills. That too low-tier or mid-tier.
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Considering this, he could call himself one of the richest person in outer sect disciples, but it wasn’t useful. Out of all Gold, Silver and Bronze Grade skills, he had no battle skill.
Not a single one.
“This won’t work. I’ve to kill people for my weekly quest, and if I can’t kill a single person, how would I survive? The quest is in two days. I've to get a battle skill.” For the last few hours he had spent combing through old man Li’s memories, and he had read about the weekly quest to understand more about this world, and what he learned alerted him to a deep level.
This world had a system. Everyone had character sheets, and everyone got quests like he got himself. There were two realms in this world, Holy and Dark and they were separated by a giant sea and people couldn’t cross it easily. Those two realms had a deep enmity between them, and there had been wars to conquer the other realms throughout the history of the Holy Realm. As far as the old man Li’s memories stretched, the system was always present, and it had a unique way of controlling the enmity between two realms.
Every realm cultivator got a weekly quest where they would get teleported to a different place called Outerworld Battlefield. In this quest, they had to kill five people from the enemy realm and they would get a Cultivation Potion which could increase their cultivation through essence infusion. The quest time limit was seven days, or five kills whichever comes earlier. One couldn’t kill their own realm people else they would be sent out. Although it was a weekly quest, one had to take one out of ten quests. People normally only participated once every two and a half months.
Getting up, he moved to the window. The high moon had spread its ethereal light over the valley opposite. For mortals, the moon meant peace and comfort, but for him, it only brought fear and anxiety. The prison days had left a deep mark on him, and he would have to get over it one day.
Coming to his own circumstances, he had two weekly quests. Being a cultivator of two cores, he had to kill five from each realm, which would be difficult. The cultivators would be sent to different places on the outerworld battlefield based on their cultivation level, so he would be meeting other layer nine cultivators, and he couldn’t kill them with his fists and punches.
There was a solution. Old man Li always used it. The sect was divided into three main factions. Alchemy Hall, Sword Hall and Refinement Hall. Whenever Alchemy Hall and Refinement Hall people had to complete their weekly quest, they would team up with the Sword Hall people and take their help. In return, Alchemy Hall and Refinement Hall would provide resources to Sword Hall.
However, with his feud with Wang Renmei, she would make sure no one would help him. In fact, he didn’t want to take other’s help, and he only trusted his own powers.
“Damn it. I need to get a battle skill quickly.” He rubbed his temple as he combed through more memories of old man Li. Old Man Li’s memories was scattered inside his mind and he couldn’t just command and access the required memory out of it. Old man Li had reached Marrow Cleansing Realm, so he should have learned at least a few battle skills?
Suddenly he realized he had accessed old man Li’s character sheet and there was no battle skill in that character sheet.
“Fuck! How did old man Li survive?”
Aiden went back to his cleaned corner and opened a water skin and drank fresh water to ease his nerves. This would not work because he had another glaring issue. His D grade aptitude. How was he going to solve it? For D grade aptitude, Foundation Realm was a hard stop. Heck, in fact, reaching Foundation Realm was next to impossible. When Sho Ta said one needed ten Foundation Breakthrough Pills, that was for B grade aptitude. For a D grade aptitude, one would need at least a hundred Foundation Breakthrough Pills to breakthrough into Foundation Realm.
He was royally fucked up.