As I am lifted into the air by some force controlled by the dragon I look at the person who changed everything... a man who looks to be about 30, athletic build, with brown hair and eyes. He currently has a very self-satisfied smug grin on his face. I can’t really blame him for making a face like that; he did after all help me a lot. He uncovered the truth about the events that led to my father’s death, he punished those that were directly involved and he is even giving me the opportunity to take revenge personally in the future.
I’m not so sure about whether or not I should personally take revenge though, they all had their cultivations halted, and they were kicked out. I’m guessing that those are probably bad things. I think when I get back from wherever he is sending me to learn I’ll track down the people who wronged me, if they are living happy lives perhaps I’ll act...
As I land on the back of the dragon the space surrounding us changes and we appear in a place with many buildings surrounding us. We appeared in the centre of a huge square filled people who are appearing and disappearing at random locations. The buildings vary in height but some of them must have at least 10 floors. All of them in different shapes and forms, very different from the uniform and apparently very little village we came from. Off in the distance see a group of people screaming at each other; appearing as if they are going to tear each other apart any second, they look remarkably familiar.
Before I could properly observe everything around Shen flies away with me on his back at a speed faster than I believed possible. We are travelling way too fast for me to see anything interesting, less than 10 seconds of flight later we halt. We came to a stop in front of very plain looking shop, 2 large windows on the sides of a plain wooden double door, and a signboard above the bore with a simple ‘The Enterprise’. The surrounding buildings are far more majestic than this shabby looking thing. Shen moves into the shop at a leisurely pace before stopping in front of the counter. The shopkeeper having finally having noticed us stares wide-eyed as we slowly make our way to the front of the counter.
“Call Jerry, tell her The Hunter has a request.” The man starts sweating when he hears Shen’s request but still quickly nods, he then taps a couple of places on the shining symbols in front of him on the counter.
A moment later a middle aged woman appears out of thin air as her eyes swiftly pass over me a shiver runs down my spine as those calculating eyes pass over me before landing on Shen. A second later her head swirls right back to me, wide eyed she turns to the shopkeeper then says to him “Take the day off.” After which she moves to the centre of the counter passing by the shopkeeper who bows then moves to the place she appeared from after which he disappears.
The moment the shopkeeper disappears she leaps forward and places her hand on my head and drags me off of Shen, carefully placing me on my feet she stands motionlessly in front of me while focussing on something with her hand on my forehead, the same way the ancestor did.
“Jerry, I’ve been sent to deliver the boy to you for training, The Hunter said that you have to teach the boy everything you know. He also mentioned that you owe him a favour.” Shen says as a he flicks the ring at the middle aged woman.
The woman spectacularly ignores Shen, she is just motionlessly staring at me with one hand on my forehead while with her other hand she catches the ring without looking. “This is wonderful, a supreme affinity for space and an exceptional affinity for ice. Luckily that fool hasn’t taught him anything otherwise it would’ve been a bit problematic AND MY NAME ISN’T JERRY IT IS GERALDINE! OFF WITH YOU, YOU OVERGROWN LIZZARD!”
The ancestor had to use the orb to determine the grade of my affinity; apparently this woman is better than him at whatever they did. Shen doesn’t hesitate for a second before he disappears, all I could see was a shadow shooting out of the shop, leaving me behind with the woman with a somewhat fanatic look in her eyes. She doesn’t say anything and simply grips my arms then she drags me to the circle of shining blue symbols, the moment we step onto the circle we appear in a vast square in a different town? The square is at least ten times the size of the one me and Shen appeared in, the weather is different too. The entire square is littered with shining blue circles with odd symbols in them, I can’t determine whether or they have any specific arrangement or not. She continues dragging me by my arm in a specific direction.
The woman; whom I only now take a closer look at is about 1.5 meters tall, purple hair and eye, and looks normal? There is nothing out of the ordinary except for her purple hair and eyes that seem to shine with an ever present radiance. “Will you perhaps explain to me what is going on? The ancestor and Shen didn’t really explain anything to me at all, nothing.”
“He calls himself ‘The Ancestor’? Fool. I’m taking you to the headquarters of my enterprise in the Alpha world. Then once you have settled in and gained a sufficient amount of power and knowledge I would consider teaching you everything I know as your ancestor requested. If you do not prove yourself to be sufficiently determined I won’t bother. Oh and you can forget about getting this ring, I’m taking this as apprenticeship fees.” She finishes as we arrive in front of a specific shining circle, pulling me into it. The moment both of us are on the circle we disappear and reappear behind a counter in a small dusty shop? This shop has a remarkably similar design to the one we just came from.
The front of the shop consist of two dusty glass windows which you can’t see anything through with a double door in the centre. There is about a 3 metre gap between the front door and the counter that spans from wall to wall. The counter is about 10 metres in length all together. About 4 metres behind the counter is open space then there is a wall with a single door. Other than a couple of empty shelves on the wall behind the counter it is all very plain, wooden floors, wooden walls, wooden doors. Considering the lack of cleanliness you would think the wood would be rotting?
She pulls me away from to the other side of the shop behind the counter, away from the shining circle whilst speaking absentmindedly “This will be your home from now on; I will send someone over with all the necessary resources to get you started and explain everything to you. Before I leave though, you need to take your first step into the world of cultivators. Sit down on the floor in a comfortable position.” I do as she asks and she moves around my placing small blue crystals all around me in some kind of formation, when she has placed around 100 around me she pushed her hand on down on the floor after which blue lines start connecting the crystals together, when they are all connected she lifts her hand up only to reveal a weird shining blue symbol. A shining blue bubble forms around me...
“Your ancestor really splurged with the amount of superior mana crystals he put in the inter-spatial ring he sent, the fool hasn’t had enough contact with the mortal world for too long apparently. This formation will increase the purity and density of mana in the formation when you sit there and meditate, it should last about 50 years depending on your natural talent. If you can deplete it before then I guess you would be qualified to be my apprentice. “She says offhandedly after finishing her work before standing up and preparing to leave?
“Wait, wait, wait, aren’t you forgetting something? You haven’t actually told me how to cultivate! Never mind everything else you haven’t told me.” She freezes momentarily after hearing me after which she lifts her hand up palm facing upward; a book appears in her hand which she promptly throws at me, afterwards she quickly moves to the teleportation circle and disappear... I could’ve sworn her ears were just a bit red before she left.
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As I reappear in at the teleportation hub at the headquarters I feel like I need to kick myself, I was so close to perfectly playing it cool with my new little apprentice, it was a rookie mistake, definitely a rookie mistake. The excitement just got to me; I hope I gave him the right book! I quickly check only to release a breath I didn’t realise I was holding when I am sure I gave him the right book.
A supreme space affinity and an exceptional ice affinity, it has been hundreds of years since I last saw someone with a space affinity, never mind a supreme level. Never mind the fact that the wunderkind has a bloody exceptional affinity for ice as well. Supreme affinities are the stuff of legend; you can go for thousands of years without encountering a mortal with a supreme affinity, never mind a supreme affinity for one of the greater elements. A person with a supreme affinity for a greater element and an exceptional affinity for a fusion element occurs maybe once in a couple hundred thousand years.
Affinities are categorized as minor, intermediate, upper, exceptional, and supreme level affinities. Naturally this is just a way of assigning rank, there can be a slight difference between the strength of the affinities of two people with upper affinities, one person can be closer to an intermediate level whilst the another person can be closer to an exceptional level but the difference would be fairly small. Greater elements include life, death, light, darkness, space, and time. Fusion elements are elements created out of the combination of two normal elements which are wind, fire, water, and earth. The fusion elements are wood, magma, ice, thunder, sand, and steam.
I am positively giddy with the idea of him being my apprentice; immortality is a certainty if he survives long enough with that technique. As this thought occurs to me I immediately increase my speed by a factor of a couple thousand...
As I arrive at the centre of the teleportation hub I immediately step onto it teleporting out of the teleportation hub and into the main offices of my enterprise. As fast as possible I track down the general manager. A short stubborn little Halfling immortal that has been trying to get people to call him ‘The Manager’, though his title of ‘The Goblin’ has just about been set in stone due to his miserly nature.
Immortals are given titles from fellow immortals based on their identifying traits or habits, my little apprentice’s ancestor’s title is ‘The Hunter’ because of his habit of trophy hunting, I still remember how shocked I was when he showed me his absolutely vast collection of trophies... but nowadays even most immortals have forgotten about his existence, difficult to find new trophies to hunt I suppose thus he has turned into a bit of a recluse. My title is... ‘Jerry’, The Hunter thought it would be funny to call me Jerry at an immortal gathering... everyone else thought so too. It has been thousands of years since then and they are still at it, bastards.
“Goblin, I just received a wonderful gift from that old fart The Hunter! He sent one of his descendants to become my apprentice! I’ll leave all of the arrangements you; I dropped him off in the Hope Town shop to keep him away from everyone else, I don’t want him getting all arrogant and full of himself like the rest of those bratty little shits that call themselves geniuses with their laughable elemental affinities. Just remember, if he dies I doubt The Hunter would be very forgiving...” He just stares at me, grinding his teeth... must’ve been because I called him Goblin, what did he expect? He always calls me Jerry. Hastily I turn around and run away, I have much work to do and so little time in order to prepare everything needed by my little apprentice.
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I open the book ‘Geraldine’ threw at me before she left, only to see big bold words literally slapping me in the face. Ignoring the ‘GERALDINE’S SELF CREATED BEST IN THE WORLD CULTIVATION TECHNIQUE’ I immediately flip the page. To summarize what the rest of the book says which is a grand total of the first page with her grand claim, the second page with 3 instructions, and a third page densely clustered with very small text. The rest of the book consist of blank pages... this hardly necessitates a hard cover; why not simply make it into a pamphlet?
The first instruction tells you to sit down in a comfortable position, the second tells you to meditate until you feel an itching sensation on your skin. The third and final instruction tells you to resist the natural mana seeping into your body which caused the itching sensation. After reading the instructions it felt like something was off... I began reading the 3rd and final page hoping to get a proper explanation.
The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.
Apparently the cultivation technique is only possible with the formation she created with the blue crystals which are apparently mana crystals. The formation consists of a mana concentration formation which extracts the mana from the mana crystals, which is covered by a mana purification formation that decreases the amount of impurities in the mana. These two formations are then enclosed with a mana isolation formation which is the blue bubble that prevents the purified mana from leaking or being mixed with the ambient mana.
The itching sensation referred to in step 2 of the cultivation technique is the mana seeping into your body, after it enters your body it will naturally gravitate to your dantian, whether or not you are a warrior or a mage doesn’t matter.
Step 3 of the cultivation technique is referred to as ‘a revolutionary discovery by the greatest mage of all time’ because as long as you cultivate accordingly you are virtually guaranteed to achieve immortality. During the process of resisting the mana seeping into your body and subsequently your dantian you actually utilise your consciousness to strain the mana, this adds another layer of minor purification which in the long term makes a drastic difference in the success rate of breaking through from the 3-star champion realm or the 3-star sage realm into the immortal realm.
The so-called impurities that this cultivation technique makes every effort to get rid of are essentially elemental manas. Once mana has been naturally or artificially converted to an elemental mana it can’t be used to breakthrough to the immortal realm, you can apparently still use it to cast spells and use skills of the specific element the mana has been changed to but when attempting to breakthrough to the immortal realm the impure mana essentially becomes useless. This is also why most people who have arrived just one step away from immortality wait as long as possible before attempting to break through, they try to remove as many impurities from their dantians as physically possible before the end of their life spans then one step away from death they try and breakthrough to immortality. The ambient elemental mana would with time revert to normal mana but the time span makes this knowledge only useful to immortals.
Almost like an after note the 3rd page notes in even smaller text at the bottom of the page that as long as you follow the instructions all future cultivation will be bottleneck free and all level advancements will occur naturally. It also mentions something along the lines of if you don’t have at least an exceptional elemental affinity your training speed would be to slow and you would die long before reaching a point in your cultivation that would allow you to attempt achieving immortality.
I shouldn’t have bothered reading the 3rd page... I should’ve just followed the instructions and kept my nose down. As I throw the book out of the formation I change the position I am from sitting cross-legged to lying down on my side with my head leaning on my hand with my elbow propping up my head. Before I get to close my eyes and start meditating a miniature person appears on the teleportation formation. The miniature person wears a black robe that goes down to his feet and long long sleeves, he has a bald head, a black moustache twisted upwards at the ends, and verdant green eyes?
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As I arrive at the shop in Hope Town I am treated to a blatantly suspicious stare from Jerry’s new apprentice who appears be preparing to start training, as my eyes wander around the dusty shop my eyes stop on a book with a plain brown hardcover. Walking over it I pick it up and flip it open to the first page to see what it is, ‘GERALDINE’S SELF CREATED BEST IN THE WORLD CULTIVATION TECHNIQUE’.
“Off course she gave you this technique.” Sighing as I see the formation the boy is lying in, the boy who I might add is still giving me his best suspicious glare. At this time I notice the boy’s suspiciously purple eyes and hair, finally I realise why Jerry was so giddy with her new disciple. Walking over to the boy I place my hand on his forehead in order to determine his exact affinity... affinities?
He has a supreme space affinity and an exceptional ice affinity, now I understand why she has dropped him off here away from the so-called geniuses. Perhaps it wasn’t just for him; if those geniuses knew of his existence they would be crushed. The warning regarding his safety makes a lot more sense now, I can think of quite a couple of people that would try to kill him the moment they find out about his existence, even though the list is a lot longer because of the number of people that would kill him out of pure jealousy.
Breaking out of my stupor I step away from the boy, “Your name?” I ask him, wondering to myself whether or not Jerry ever actually asked him. “Robert, what is your name?” he asks me with narrowed eyes.
Immediately I realise I can make him call me the manager! Ha! “My name is The Manager. A pleasure to meat you Robert. I am the general manager of The Enterprise; I am here to give you a brief introduction. This is your shop from now on. I’ll have someone come and install a messenger in the centre of the counter and connect it with the teleportation formation to get your shop ready for business. Do you have any questions?”
Robert just stares at me as if I’m a fool, “What is The Enterprise? What is a messenger? Where are we? What are you? What does my shop sell? Where can I get food? What are formations? How does teleportation work?” He finishes his tirade of questions but it looks like he still trying to think of more... does he know nothing? The Image of Jerry laughing at me appears in my mind.
“Ah yes, all of those questions will be answered in the tutorial provided to new employees on the messenger and if not the information should be available... somewhere. Ahem if that is all I’ll be going now, time is money after all.” Hurriedly I walk to the teleportation circle and leave.
Appearing at the teleportation hub I quickly move to the teleportation circle that sends me to the main offices of The Enterprise. I immediately go to my office and promptly call the assistant general manager. As I wait for her I quietly sit behind my desk thinking about the disaster Robert will cause when his existence is inevitably discovered by the rest of The Enterprise, clans, guilds, and sects.
After Jerry invented the messenger and teleportation formations it took many years for people to realise that trying to deconstruct the formations has certain very specific requirements the most important one being that at the very least you need a space affinity to be able to truly see the formations that make up the messenger... never mind the enigma that is the teleportation formation that only functions when teleporting to and away from Jerry’s teleportation hub which is an indecipherable mess to anyone but Jerry. Every single messenger consists of a ‘black box’ which is simply a small low grade mana crystal with formations etched onto it and inside of it with a trick or two off course.
In the past there were a couple of brave immortals who thought they could break into the teleportation hub in order to decipher it only realise the complexity. Naturally they tried running away but every single one was either killed on sight or systematically hunted down. Jerry had to make some concessions thus she disseminated the formations involved in creating the messenger but to this day only she is capable of making a teleportation formation that works. Naturally others have tried copying the plain teleportation circle in the shops but without its connection to the teleportation hub it is useless. Naturally the messengers without access to the teleportation hub have to be physically connected.
There will be quite a number of people that will try and use Robert to recreate the teleportation hub, as they have been trying for thousands of years. Immortal mages with an affinity for space are beyond rare, the others out won’t dare to interfere with Jerry as she is the only one with a
Just in time Ashley arrives bringing me out of my morose thoughts. She crawls into my office on all fours due to the size of the door and height of the ceiling; I had this done a couple hundred years ago. I got tired of the big chairs, the big tables, the door handles I had to stretch to reach, thus I had my office remodelled. Much to my delight I get to see my visitors suffering a similar injustice I have to suffer when I visit them in their offices.
Ashley arrives in front of me and sits down in the chair that is clearly too small for her. She is a freshly minted immortal, not more than a couple thousand years old. The only reason she is still working for the enterprise, the same with a sizable number of other immortals, is for certain resources we have access to that would be very useful in the development of their microcosms.
“Jerry accepted a new apprentice; he has a supreme space affinity and an exceptional ice affinity. She dropped him off in Hope Town, that little frontier town. I need you go and install a messenger, teach him how to use it, and just in general answer his questions. The boy is a bit ignorant and Jerry wants to keep it that way for as long as possible. I also need you to organise a group of general employees, definitely not crafters, to move into and take over important positions in Hope Town in order to provide the boy with a layer of protection. He is a descendant of the hunter, if he dies you die. Also alter the teleportation formation to Hope Town that gives you full control over it, we don’t want just anybody discovering Robert.” I feel almost giddy dropping this mess in Ashley’s lap. She narrows her eyes at me as if telling me she knows Jerry ordered me to do this before she can say anything I say “Naturally you and all the guards will be more than fairly compensated.” I definitely do not want Jerry knowing I pawned the boy off to Ashley.
Ashley slowly moves out of the chair then... leisurely starts crawling out of my office.
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I watch as the miniature person squirrels back to the teleportation formation, disappearing. Why couldn’t he just answer my questions? Closing my eyes I start meditating, whatever that is. I just lie here and think about something, nothing?
As I contemplate exactly what meditation is, I relax my body and let my mind wander about the events that has occurred today. I’m still not quite sure what happened but it would appear I’ve had a bit of luck when taking into consideration my current situation; at least I get the opportunity to cultivate. As my mind wanders and my body is relaxed ever so slowly my skin starts itching, first here and there, slowly increasing in concentration until the itching sensation covers the entirety of my body. Slowly it seeps deeper and deeper beyond my skin and into my body.
This is when I’m supposed to resist the itching sensation, thereby using my consciousness in order to further purify the mana. How exactly do I do that though? First I’ll start small; I choose to start on my nose. As I concentrate on the itch on my nose I try imagining pushing it away in my mind, the effect is absolutely minimal but there definitely is an ever so slight decrease in the severity of the itch. That was... simple?
I slowly increase the size of the area that I am resisting the itching sensation on, first my face, then my entire head, I continue increasing the size until I am resisting the itching sensation on my entire body. My efforts reward me with a slight decrease in itching sensation I’m experiencing. I figure I’ll continue until I feel hungry or thirsty then I’ll try and find a way to sustain myself... considering my circumstances I’ll probably end up having to beg.
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As I leave the goblin’s office I’m still reeling at the shock I received, a supreme space affinity AND an exceptional ice affinity! Though I think his concerns about safety is a bit out of proportion, wait; The Hunter? Isn’t that the person that was the main force behind Jerry’s systematic slaughter of everyone who tried to steal her design for the messenger?
I quickly sent out a message to all my trusted subordinates to gather in the meeting room adjoined to my office. I immediately inform Jerry of my plans for Hope Town in light of its new resident, the plan boils down to transforming the town into a hunting outpost of The Enterprise. All current residents will be paid off to leave after which we will quickly occupy the entire town with trusted employees that will at least be partially informed of the boy’s identity in order to ensure there are no slip ups.
Within minutes of informing Jerry via my messenger she gives me the go ahead as well as authorizing access to the necessary funds to get it all done. At this time the first of my trusted employees arrive in the meeting room, I make an agenda for the next couple of days while I wait another couple of minutes for the rest of them to arrive.
As I walk into the meeting room it quietens down as all eyes fall on me, the room is filled to the brim with people, and the scant 20 chairs aren’t even a fifth of the amount of people. “A task has been assigned to me by Jerry herself; this task requires me to gather a number of employees who would be willing to relocate to a certain town for the foreseeable future. The crux of the mission is the high level of secrecy, thus if you participate we would prefer for you to have your families relocate along with you as leaving the town will be very difficult once you have settled into your new positions. Everyone who wants to join just stay, the rest of you go to the Goblin’s office for reassignment. I will be participating too. Keep in mind that participating means resigning from your current positions.”
As I finish the silence continues until the first person decides to leave, after which 80% of the people rush out. With me and the left-over people effectively resigning our positions it will create a nice thank you gift mess for that ratty goblin to fix.
There are all together 27 people left excluding me, 5 mages whom are all in the sage realm and 22 warriors who consist of 18 people in the champion realm 4 people in the journeyman realm. All together there are 9 people at the peak 3-star champion or sage realm.
Sending them off, I gather everything I need and permanently leave for Hope Town. The reason I decided to make Hope Town into an ‘outpost’ of The Enterprise is mainly to get away from the organisation, this way I’ll be able to gain the resources I need, I’ll be able to build a relationship with a possible future immortal with a supreme space affinity, and I’ll get a town so far away from all other civilization that life would finally be peaceful.
As I appear in the dusty little shop, we’ll have to change that, I notice an eight year old boy meditating in a formation. My eyes almost fall out when I see the mana crystals powering the formation. What an absolute glutton!
What is that formation? It is a combination of a mana isolation formation, a mana purification formation, and a mana concentrating formation? I spot a book lackadaisically lying on the floor near the formation. I walk over and open it... ‘GERALDINE’S SELF CREATED BEST IN THE WORLD CULTIVATION TECHNIQUE’... after I finished reading it I’m left frozen.
Does Jerry have any idea how much it would cost to cultivate with this technique? The success rating of achieving immortality vastly increases but at the cost of slowing down the cultivation speed dramatically, never mind the cost of the necessary resources in the later stages would probably cost a couple years worth of profits of the entirety of The Enterprise. Why would she spend so much on this boy? It can’t be to simply test out this cultivation technique or affection for a disciple, there is more to this.
Noticing that the boy is not going to finish cultivating any time soon I start installing the messenger and connect it to the teleportation device. Immediately I message the other that will join me in Hope Town to quickly come before the boy wakes up, this will make it a lot easier to keep him from knowing the lengths we are going to in order to protect him.
Over the next couple of hours the boy continues to quietly cultivate as everyone arrives with their families and move into town. I quickly take over the mayoral position of town which allows me to organise everything else without any hindrances. When everyone is organised, the town taken over, the nosy people kicked out, I head back to the boy’s store and wait for him to finish.
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As I continue meditating the passage of time seems to fuse together as I lose myself in simply resisting the itch, I haven’t gotten any better at it from the start but it still requires constant conscious effort to resist the itch. After I don’t know how long my I start feeling a warm sensation in my brain, not a burning sensation but a nurturing one. It is concentrated right behind my forehead and radiates out.
As time flows by the nurturing sensation becomes stronger and stronger, my mind starts feeling fresher and faster. I can literally feel my thoughts speeding up. I start having that my mind is slowly expanding, growing into something more. This must be the consciousness that the book referred to? Tentatively I try and take control of my consciousness, the moment I do I jolted out of my relaxed meditative state.
“Congratulations on officially becoming a make, you are now officially a 1-star acolyte.” I hear a bemused voice when I wake up. I open my eyes and see a very attractive red haired blue eyed woman sitting leisurely on the counter a couple of metres away from me observing me closely.
“I’m a mage?”