I put away my petty thoughts and then left Tzast along with Sasha who was still cultivating as hard as possible.

Several months of this had not dampened her enthusiasm in the slightest, but it had dampened mine.

God damn it, both literally and figuratively. I slapped my cheeks a few times and then thought 'Positive thoughts'.

Like that was so easily achievable.

I felt like that annoying ass hat who always came and told you that the cure to your problems was to think 'positively'.

If that bullshit didn't work when others were telling me, why would it work when I was telling myself.

But I had to pull myself out of this depressive stupor otherwise I knew I'd fuck up soon and I doubt Zoras would let me go even if I died.

If he could eat my soul, I'm sure he could bring me back from hell or heaven, or wherever I went when I died.

So I couldn't die.

My salvation lied with fulfilling Zoras's goals and being a cynical, depressed bastard wasn't going to help me.

In the end, as me and Sasha travelled, I also attempted to enlighten myself and grow without the usage of pills.

Of course in the next month and a half it took for me and Sasha to go from Tzast to Szatsz, I went from being a Rank 3 to a Rank 4 Spirit Practitioner, but I did that thanks to pills and not my power.

I had grown overly cautious and I also begun to believe in myself, so I had begun to use pills less and less while I attempted to cultivate.

It wasn't going well, but being negative wouldn't get me anywhere at all.

Sasha had of course in that single month a half gone from being 5 times as strong, to 6 and a half.

But I had somehow, miraculously, overcome my depression.

I don't know how or why, but I did it.

Maybe it was after I began to see Sasha as my own fully fledged child, or grand child since I had fake my age, that I began to turn my depression into a positive energy.

Sasha had now started to cultivate near me instead of a distance away from me since she said that she felt it was easier to cultivate near me nowadays.

I realised that it was probably from the overly positive attitude of mine.

But there was also another positive effect of this new found change of mine.

Now that Sasha cultivated near me, I had begun to be able to leech off of her.

She wasted mana like I used to waste thought process on being depressed, so I simply took her mana inside of me.

It wasn't the fastest way to cultivate nor was it the most effective, but it was the best I knew.

I had accomplished something I thought impossible.

I had managed to learn how to cultivate. Without the aid of that ass hat of a god.

Proud with myself, I didn't stay in the village of Szatsz for very long.

I stayed there for 3 days and moved on because the place had a very creepy atmosphere and it was cramping up my 'style'.

The villagers at Szatsz looked less human and more, mannequinnish. That wasn't even a real world, but it sort of described how I saw these villagers.

It looked like they had no will of their own. They were platonic and flat, but extremely polite.

I knew there were darker forces at play here and that was the reason I wanted to leave.

The only reason I spent 3 days here was because it took me 3 days to realise how unrealistic the atmosphere was.

Sasha didn't seem to really notice and she was quite sad we had to leave the, as she called it, 'Nice Village'.

I didn't explain it to her as I didn't want to scare her but I high tailed out of her there soon enough and continued my journey.

I took us another 2 months to go from Szatsz to Zetdx, which was one step closer to our destination, the City of Gilleghan.

With each new village we discovered, the more pissed I became towards this worlds residents.

What was up with these ridiculous names.

It was like they gave a child a keyboard and said 'press any button you like'.

The names were the most random sounding things I had ever heard.

There was no rhythm to them.

Well maybe they looked alright towards Eastern Europeans, but since I don't speak any Eastern European tongue, I could not verify that information.

Not like it mattered when I looked at the bigger picture of all these completely different villages.

Each and every single one was completely different form one another.

They went from struggling to survive, to fake and flattery, to controlled by evil beings, to completely fine and normal.

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It was like the fate of a village was completely random and if you were lucky your village would not be bothered at all, but if you were unlucky, then you'd be fucked.

Anyway, Zetdx was a completely normal village.

It was medium sized, had a lively atmosphere, it was like those little happy villages out of movies.

The day was nice and sunny, they had their small shops outside in the open, and the happiness of the villagers pretty much oozed out.

I felt like this would be a nice place for me and Sasha to relax for awhile seeing as how we had been travelling for well over 6 months now.

Sasha was thrilled to no longer have to sleep in the open.

When me and Sasha entered the village, the villagers were only a bit shaken up by our sudden arrival.

They looked at us curiously, but not in fear.

It seems like these people had no practitioners whatsoever. I knew this because every single practitioner I met till date almost shat themselves at the sight of me.

The man who I assume to be the village chief walked up towards me in a somewhat cocky manner.

I see now. No wonder this village was so jovial. They had the protection of someone powerful.

The village chief wore a nice wool clothes over his thickset body. He looked like a stereotypical lumberjack, without the axe of course, and with black hair. He took out a little gold brooch and showed it to us as he walked over to us.

Roman: “Welcome to our humble abode Practitioner” the man said with no fear in his voice “My name be Roman, how can we, Zetdx village, owned by Lord Geghl, help you today” he said with a smirk.

Upon seeing me have absolutely no reaction to the name he declared, he looked taken aback.

Roman: “You don't know Lord Geghl?” he asked in fear now, seeing that he had been disrespectful before and since I didn't this Lord Geghl, he was afraid I'd retaliate now.

I just silently smirked at his justified fear.

I simply shrugged, since I had never heard of Lord Geghl before, he could be some City Lord, or something similar to that, offering these villagers protection for resources.

Roman: “Well you see great practitioner” he said adding a 'great' to my name this time “He is the heir to Clan Ulbram” he said hoping to elicit a reaction out of me, but I sadly disappointed the man once more, and now he seemed to be very fearful for his life “Clan Ulbram, one of the 3 major clans of Mount Gellen” he now began to give more information, but I still had no idea who these people he was naming were.

The man and the other villagers appeared to be very fearful of me and they had all lost their cocky expressions by this point.

Roman: “Mount Gellen, one of the great powers of the Region?” he continued to name me things I didn't know. I wonder why Doven didn't explain any of this, or did he think they were not a power worth mentioning. “Mount Gellen, home of the City of Gilleghan, ruled by Lord Gill?!” the man said in fear as he spoke rapidly.

I kept my passive look on my face as he now mentioned somebody that I knew.

I didn't reveal that I knew anything and the man looked like he would shit himself at any moment, but I didn't come here to torment villagers, no matter how cocky they were.

Zev: “I have heard of Gill” I stated calmly to which they breathed a minor breath of relief “He is one of the Monster Lords in this province” I stated which made the villagers stiffen “I'm heading there anyway, so I simply came to ask if I may rest here for a few days” I acted as if it was no big deal.

I couldn't show them that I was scared now that I heard this place was protected by Gill.

What if he was a honourable monster who would fight me, no matter how strong I acted, simply because I bothered the villagers, but I couldn't act weak now either because I had an act to keep up.

God damn it.

I should have known that these villagers had themselves a powerful backer to have been acting so cockily.

---

Hey Guys, Old Man Here.

I hope you enjoyed this shortish chapter.

The plot will probably start thickening after another 20 to 30 chapters, but till then I hope you enjoy the novel!

Anyway, thanks for the support and advice given to me, it means a lot.

Also please do review my novel if you can. Also jot down all criticism you may have. It all helps me grow.

Peace, Love and Thanks,

-Old Man