章 2: It can't be true!
Cherry awoke the next morning to sunlight streaming in from the window. She got out of bed and looked around the room. There wasn't much to it. There were some wooden toys, a full length mirror, a small desk on top of which were scatter sheets of paper with scribbles that in some places reminded her of simple inscriptions.
She walked over to the mirror to get a look at her new self. She had an unruly head of raven black hair, her mouth seems to frown slightly at rest, and perhaps her most striking feature were her piercing, scarlet eyes that gave the impression of a hawk seeking its prey.
'I guess they named me Cherry because of my eyes? Seems a bit too... sweet, considering how intimidating despite being only 5 years old.'
Her full name was 'Harpin D. Cherry'. She had asked what the D. stood for yesterday, but Grandma didn't know. Just that her Grandfather had insisted both she and her mother had the name and that it's a 'family tradition'.
Now that she's had a look at herself, she decided try her celestial energy cultivation method. She was excited about this, it's said the younger you start cultivating celestial energy, the greater the results. Normally a 5 year old child wouldn't possess the mental faculties to take advantage of this, but she already had a great deal of experience in cultivation.
She sat down in the position most comfortable and started to reach out to the celestial energy around her. And nothing.
'That's strange...' She furrowed her brow and concentrated harder and harder. However, no matter what she tried there was nothing. No celestial energy whatsoever, not even the smallest iota.
"Impossible!" She shouted, then covered her mouth and looked towards the door. 'This can't be possible. I'd understand if it was thin, but for there to be nothing at all? Life shouldn't even be sustainable without celestial energy...'
A thought occurred to her then. What if she wasn't on one of the many worlds she knew in her previous life? What if this world operated with different rules?
'Not all hope is lost, even if that's the case. I still have the divine body cultivation method I acquired from an ancient inheritance. I never practiced it since my vital energy was too measly in my previous life, but now I have a new body. Perhaps this body is suitable.'
Cherry slowly turned her senses inward, towards the seat of vital energy in the body, her heart.
What she found shocked her to the core.
'Am I really a little, human girl and not some ancient dragon hatchling?! How can a human possess this much vital energy, this is absurd?! No, perhaps it wasn't that crazy, there's no celestial energy here. Perhaps the humans adapted to the hostile environment by developing a ridiculous amount of vitality?'
The door to her room slid open, revealed her Grandma. "Why are you shouting, Cherry? Since you're awake come eat breakfast." She said giving her granddaughter a gentle smile.
"Can we hold hands, Grandma?" Cherry asked, hesitantly. "Of course, Cherry." Grandma answered, her smile widening.
Cherry cautiously tried to sense her Grandma's vital energy through their clasped hands. She found that Grandma's vital energy was also strong, but not quite at her own level and obviously it was waning alongside her advancing age.
'Hm, I can't tell if this is because we're related or if this is a normal amount. I'll need to check other people to be sure.'
Cherry went around the dojo 'introducing herself' and shaking hands to check the vital energy of the various disciples.
'It seems I was half right. Most people seem to possess 3 or 4 times as much vital energy as the average mortal from my previous life, but there's a few monsters aside from myself and Grandma as well.' She smiled widely. 'I guess this means I'm a genius in terms of body cultivation in this life. Now there's only one problem, in order to reach perfection in each realm of body cultivation, I'll need miracle medicines or treasures containing lots of energy. I need to figure out if such things even exist in this world with no celestial energy.'
Cherry went to find her Grandma and bombarded her with seemingly random questions, a few of which were the ones she really wanted answers to. This didn't come across as odd to her Grandma, as she was very young and only just became able to speak and understand others and she answered the questions patiently.
What Cherry learned about was something called a 'Devil Fruit'. Apparently, when consumed they granted strange abilities in exchange for becoming extremely weakened when submerged in water. This seemed like it was exactly what she needed, but unfortunately there was no known ways to find devil fruits in the wild aside of good luck.
'Well, that's something to worry about later. It's best to wait until my natural vital energy level has reached it's peak before I begin cultivating it. That won't be until I'm around 15 years old. For now, I need to refine the impurities out of my body.' Cherry spent the rest of the day circulating her vital energy to purify her body.
The next day, Cherry took a break from her body refining to observe the courtyard where her Grandma was instructing the disciples in swordsmanship. Most were what she would expect of young mortals, though two of the disciples (whom she had learned to have abnormally high vital energy levels yesterday) proved to be surprisingly talented. However, when her Grandma gave a demonstration, her jaw dropped. She'd seen better swordsmanship, of course, but this wasn't a level that could be reached by a 'mere mortal' in her previous life.
'Perhaps, I've underestimated these people, this world. Grandma is just the master of some small dojo on an island with less than 10,000 people living on it. If she can reach this level, what sorts of experts are there in the outside world. Just what sort of monster was my deadbeat father that defeated my Grandfather, who was apparently much stronger than Grandma.'
A sense of urgency and excitement began to build with her. She could hardly wait to get around there. 'No, she must be patient.' she told herself. There was time for exploration later, right now she needed to build her foundation.
...
*One year later*
Cherry had finally finished removing the impurities from her body. She hadn't expected to finish so soon, but her enormous vital energy pool made the process proceed quickly. Grandma had asked her why she sits around for most of the day, every day. Cherry told her she was meditating to keep her mind clear, which she accepted and she encouraged her to continue, but not to go so overboard about it. Now Cherry only needs to spend 10 minutes every day to maintain this pure state. Much in the same way cleaning your home frequently makes cleaning easier, so too was body purifying.
Now she was ready to explore this island she lived on!
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