A young boy was resting his back against a tree, his expression a relaxed look.

This boy was obviously, Alex, who is going to reach five years of age in a few weeks from now.

At his side, a pile of books lay open without any care.

Suddenly, sensing a bad premonition, Alex eyes opened revealing the image of a woman dressed in a maid costume.

"Nio! Why are you lazing around here?"

Nio, or Nioo in its original version, was the best name she could come up with for him, taking the first syllable of each number that represented Alex.

This maid is the one who has been taking care of Alex for a long time. Someone, whom he had grown to see, as his mother.

"I was reading the manual but it was so boring to read it again so I decided to take a nap."

According to the System, Alex had the Android physique, so technically he shouldn't feel tired due to Infinite Stamina, but that was not true at all.

"You are supposed to read it fully so you can answer the question the instructor asks you!"

"But I already read this book before, can't I read something more, advanced?"

"No. Read that, and make sure you engrave the knowledge deep inside your brain, okay? You don't want to fail the instructor, right?"

Although her voice was stern, it slowly changed to worry at the end of her sentence.

That was natural, after all, if he failed the test he would be discarded.

"No worries."

"But the test is really hard, are you not afraid of failing?"

"Nah, I'd pass."

Dropping a famous line from his past life, with a little modification, Alex tried to ease his mother's worries.

*Sigh* "Alright, just make sure you pass. I know you study a lot, but I'm afraid you were focusing on stuff that would not be beneficial for you."

"I undestand."

Considering that his system was in a five year pause because he bought the sharingan, Alex imposed on himself the mission to gather as much information as possible from this world.

Unauthorized duplication: this narrative has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

First, there are three continents in this world. The Western Continent, the place he was now, the Eastern Continent, the origin of martial arts and place that owns a gate to the spiritual world, the Spirit Gate. And finally, the Central Continent, mostly a battlefield, is the basic definition that the books give, not explaining the reason why.

The Western and Eastern Continents were of a C shape, both facing each other and almost making a full circle. The Central Continent stood in the middle of them.

His second discovery was, the power system of this world. In the past, namely four hundred years ago, there were two distinct energies existing in the atmosphere, Mana and the so-called Heaven and Earth energies.

These two new energy systems were prevalent in certain locations around the globe. In the Western Continent, mana was the most common, while Heaven and Earth energy were much more present in the Eastern Continent. This shaped the armed forces of each continent. While the west had mages and magic knights, who drew mana into their bodies and formed magic circles, the east, on the other hand, had cultivators, who absorbed the Heaven and Earth energy and refined it into Qi.

However, most books, when talking about mana, always talk about the era four hundred years ago.

The reason is The Storm.

The Storm, or Divine Wrath, depending of the version was a cataclismic event that ocurred during those times and resulted in the complete disapearence of mana from this world.

This caused a great power imbalance between the west and east. Without mana, the westerners were defenseless against eastern forces.

In the end, the West lost in a matter of days.

Nowadays, most of the countries of the Western Continent were more puppet states of several different countries and organizations from the Eastern Continent.

Naturally, after four hundred years, due to the lack of mana, the inhabitants of the Western Continent turned towards the power of cultivators.

In the past, cultivation was already seen as the apex of power in the world. The reason why the Eastern Continent never defeated the Western forces out of their own territory was because of numbers.

Cultivation was much more complicated than Magic, mostly because it heavily relies on innate talents while magic relies on self-study and hard-work.

In cultivation, if one was not born with a Dantian and meridians, such a person would be seen as useless.

While in magic, one only needed to feel the ambient's mana, which was achievable if one spent a good amount of time just meditating.

Anyway, because of the inferior density and quantity of Heaven and Earth energy on the Western Continent, most eastern cultivators didn't spend their time in the west, unless they were sent to supervise business or punishment.

Being in this world, Alex would be most probably be educated to become a cultivator, just like everyone, he had been tested to see if he was born with the conditions necessary.

He had acquired more information, but most of it was about outside places and several historic places that could be used to improve one's cultivation.

Naturally, he made sure to engrave every single one of them in his brain. Once he got out of this stupid clan, he was going to tackle these places to grow stronger and go to the next world. It wasn't a stretch to say that Alex knew every single one of them by heart. These included legends that told of century-old treasures.

"Hey! I'm being serious, you know?"

"Relax~! There is no one at nursery 9 that surpasses me in cultural knowledge, if I don't pass, who will?"

"Oh~, you are quite confident, huh?"

"Naturally."

"Well, I know at least that you will pass, even if barely."

"No sweat, I will pass with flying colors."

"If you say so."

She was really a good mother figure.

'Wait a minute! What's her name? How could I not know her name after five years? This is what I get after calling her mom all this time.'