Chapter 9: A New Land
Shura opened his eyes. Greens filled his sight. He felt the grass and dirt on the ground. He saw grasses everywhere. Bright sunlight illuminated the surrounding.
There were many trees in the distance. This was either a clearing in a forest or the periphery of a forest.
Shura stood up. He was surprised to find out that he was completely naked. And not only that, but he didn't feel any pain at all. His wounds had disappeared. There were no visible signs of a single wound on his body. But even so, he knew that the picture was different inside. His core and meridians were destroyed. He could feel a familiar sensation, it felt lacking compared to the feeling of power he was used to. He was back to where he had been a year before—a normal person.
But that didn't mean anything to him. He would not remain as a normal or a crippled person. With the supreme being's vast knowledge, there were countless ways of reforging the meridians and core, there were even different ways of strengthening the body or even the soul.
He was not worried. He would be able to recover his strength eventually. But before that, there was a more pressing matter, a mild issue that he had to deal with. Shura looked around at his surroundings, then on the ground, and finally he looked up at the sky.
He was absolutely certain that he was not on Aggradise Continent anymore. The symbols of the teleportation array were ones that denoted super-long distance. This was the kind of distance that would bridge the solely known continent by its inhabitant through the endless oceans many times more vast than the continent itself.
If he was not on an entirely different planet, he was on some other side of it, within a completely unknown piece of land. The probability of it being the latter was very high.
He thought this way because from what he knew of the Great Destruction, such a clear blue sky and peaceful scene of vegetations did not exist on Aggradise Continent anymore. Demonic energy had changed everything. The sky was forever dark and cloudy, the ground was perpetually dead save for some rare exceptions, and most vegetations and wildlife and had undergone a massive transformation that no longer resembled what it was before the Great Destruction.
"Haaa…" Shura let out a long sigh.
He was a fish out of the water. A stranger in a completely unknown land. It was quite disheartening. There was no information to go on. He'd have to think and start from scratch.
His goal was to recover his capability of strengthening himself and then increase in power. Once he became strong enough, he would be able to return to Aggradise Continent. Although Shura didn't care about where he was, Claira was still back there. He had to go back for her and find out what happened to her.
Shura spent a long time traveling until he finally found signs of human habitation. As he was now a normal person, his speed and endurance were limited. He didn't know how long he had spent in total, but it was a long and boring period of travel. He was thankful that he had not encountered any dangers.
Then he reached Fragrance City. By that time he was no longer naked, or he'd have more problems to deal with.
He spent time there collecting information. The language, architecture, culture, and even the people themselves were familiar to him. They were identical to his continent.
After a month later he had finally had a basic grasp of the situation.
He was in a continent called Short Continent. He was in the northern part of the continent, in a nation called the Heaven Empire. Fragrance Town was one out of many small towns and cities within the Seventh Province of the empire.
People on Short Continent had another common point with the inhabitants of the former Aggradise Continent: they were cultivators! The atmosphere of the continent contained an invisible cultivation resource that people and animals could absorb. It was similar to the heaven and earth qi in Aggradise Continent. It was called Spirit Energy in Short Continent, and it had different properties from qi.
Time passed and the seasons changed. After a great deal of hard work and exertion that reminded him of his woodchopping days, together with no lesser amount of thinking, Shura finally managed to gather enough resources to repair his body. Now he could finally cultivate again.
As if it was long accustomed to strengthening itself, Shura's body immediately absorbed spiritual energy as soon as his core and meridians were reformed. He felt his body immediately change. The spirit energy made him stronger and he felt what the people of this continent called the Spirit Acolyte rank.
In Short Continent, a person's strength was graded into seven ranks: Spirit Acolyte, Spirit Master, Spirit Grandmaster, Spirit Lord, Spirit King, Spirit Emperor, and Spirit Sovereign.
Each rank was subdivided into first layer, second layer, and third layer.
Shura estimated that he needed to at least become a Spirit Emperor in order to get back to Aggradise continent. He had to become a Spirit Emperor. That was all he was thinking about now.
People who weren't familiar with him gave him odd glances. It was very odd for a twenty-year old to be a first layer Spirit Acolyte. Most children became a Spirit Acolyte at the age of 16. Some geniuses were already third layer Spirit Acolytes at that age.
Shura was now a Spirit Acolyte. It was not much different than a cultivator running on demonic energy being in the Fiend Warrior level. One's physical ability increased.
"A journey of a thousand kilometers begins with but a single step," Shura reminded himself. Although he had taken a lot of steps back with the regression of his cultivation, he would steadily take steps forward now.
This continent's spirit energy was vibrant and clear, uncontaminated by demonic energy. It was very suitable to cultivate normally by absorbing the spirit energy in the atmosphere.
Shura's meridians and core had been strengthened vigorously by Wrathfire Refinement. Now that it was reformed, his meridians were wider and his core larger. He was able to absorb three times the spirit energy of an average person and refine it into his own energy three times faster.
His current cultivation talent was not worse than so-called geniuses, in fact, he might even be better than them.
He spent a day and broke through from the first layer to the third layer of the Spirit Acolyte rank.
He took another day and became a Spirit Master.
Another week passed and he moved to the second layer of the Spirit Master Rank.
It took Shura another month for him to finally reach the third layer. While this wasn't considered slow at all, he wanted it to be faster. It would take him too long to reach the level of a Spirit Emperor like this. He needed a vast amount of resource to supplement his cultivation.
It was at this point that Shura began to think of joining a cultivation faction. As long as he showed his talent and did some stuff for them, he would be provided resources to quickly help him increase his power.
Although that was his intention, there was no way for Shura to realize it.
Fragrance Town was but a small town. The strongest person was a Spirit Grandmaster. There were no cultivation factions to speak of. There were no rich families or powerful forces within the city. He could not join any influential or powerful cultivation faction.
Not only was there no opportunity within the town itself, but he had not found a single piece of information about any factions that he could join. He had heard stories of families with thousands of years of history and aloof sects, but they were only hearsay and nobody in Fragrance Town had encountered such entities.
Shura was helpless. He could only look up at the sky. Since he was in Heaven Empire, he should seek out larger cities and maybe work join the army or work for the authorities. He was certain that the powerful wouldn't be treated too badly.
The only place of any importance that the people of Fragrance Town knew about was Violetwood City. It was a fairly large city in Seventh Province, only the provincial capital was larger. It had hundreds of thousand of people. Fragrance Town with a few thousand inhabitants was like a small village compared to it. It was at least three month's journey away from Fragrance Town, even with the speed of a Spirit Master.
That was how far away it was, and how small and isolated Fragrance Town was.
Shura had never felt a goal being so distant before. He felt like everything in the world was conspiring to hold him back from becoming a Spirit Emperor.
Shura immediately set out on foot. While mounts that were faster than a Spirit Master's running speed existed, there weren't any in Fragrance Town. The journey to the distant Violet City had him traverse through many terrains. He traveled through plains, forests, rivers, lakes, and over mountains.
He didn't know whether it was because Fragrance Town was in a very isolated place or if the area he was in was one in where people barely traversed, but he did not find many travelling people at all.
Finally after three months had passed he had reached Violetwood City. Now no matter where he went he saw people.
The first thing he did when he entered the city was to search for information. The process was tedious and very banal. After four days of asking around and observing, he finally found a piece of clue that would lead him to his next destination.
There was going to be a tournament held within a month. The winners and outstanding contestants would be able to join a nearby powerful sect. They were only beneath the national sects in power. The name of the sect was the Long Stream Sect.
This was the opportunity that Shura had waited for. He would spend all of his remaining time until the tournament to increase his power as much as he could.
But before that, he would rest for a few days. The constant activity had tired him mentally. Even cultivators needed to be mindful of their mental health. He was in a new place without anybody to rely on, and he had done everything in a frenzy just to increase his cultivation. He was in much need of rest and relaxation.
He missed Claira.
Weekly Power Status
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