2 A New Beginning

I woke up in a daze. " Where am I... is this the afterlife?". My vision was still hazy as I thrashed about. My body felt heavy and a stinging hunger rose from the depth of my stomach. I tried to speak but found myself unable to control my tongue as only 'wu...wu' sound came out. After trying for some time, a strange feeling of helplessness welled from my heart as I began to cry loudly. It was an action that was like an instinct, like it was natural that I should cry. Normally I would be ashamed but strangely I was not. "Is this the Purgatory? But I have no lingering regrets or debts from my past life", was what I thought. Suddenly my body felt light as if I was being lifted and a soft feeling spread across my lips and subconsciously I began sucking.

My memories are hazy as I can't seem to remember things for long. I see various faces fleeting before my eyes but these faces seem to monstrously huge. Sometimes I cry but quickly consoled by a strangely warm feeling of being in an embrace. Most of my days pass by sleeping and crying.

Soon a year passes by as my senses are gradually getting stronger. Soon I realize a horrifying fact- I am in a baby's body !!!!!

After listening to the voices around me, I realize that language spoken is close to Sanskrit that I knew, but not exactly the same. I wonder where am I? After adjusting to the language I pick up the following facts - first, I am not Aleksei Ming anymore. From the looks of it, this body was born 13 months ago. No doubt my memory was weak, most people do not remember their early infancy period as well. Next, a perplexing question arose in my heart- who is Aleksei Ming? Is he some hallucination, where do these 39 years worth of memories come from? While going through these existential questions I try to gather knowledge about my surroundings. I recognize the faces of my mother and also numerous maids. From time to time a middle-aged guy with a strong and stern face would come to visit mother. "If this guy's my dad then he must be some sort of bigshot"... is the impression I get from him.

Three years have passed since my birth and I have gotten used to my new identity. It seems that heavens messed up this time and forgot to wipe my memory before my rebirth. Aleksei Ming is dead, the new me is Vidyut Vajra, the 13th prince of Vajra nation on the eastern corner of a continent called Seven Star Continent because its shape corresponds to the seven stars of Big Dipper constellation in the heavens. As a prince, I have various duties, mostly that of studying about the history and geography of Seven Star Continent and learning the manners befitting a royal. Well, I was curious about this new world so this seemingly cumbersome training doesn't seem too boring to me, much to the delight of my mother. I found out that the king has three wives, surprisingly all three are blood sisters with my mother being the youngest of them all. I heard rumours that the previous king was a despot and was slain and overthrown by my father who went on to take his three daughters as his wives.

As I gather more knowledge, I come across various facts. Firstly, this world is ruled over by martial artists. The main purpose of these martial artists is to break through the limitations of the human body and achieve immortality. These martial artists seemingly form sects. At the top of this pecking order are 7 sects with names corresponding to the seven colours of the rainbow. These sects are God-like existences that preside 'over' this continent. The various nations and its kings are called "Earthly Sovereigns" who seemingly preside over the mortals. While this may sound fancy, in reality, all these Sovereigns have to bow their heads before these sects due to their superior martial prowess. The sects form a sort of theocracy under which the nations pledge their alliance to certain sect for their protection for which they have to pay the respective sect with resources both human and in the form of land, gold, crops, cattle etc. Wars between nations still exist but under the tacit understanding of the 7 sects, unless the very existence of the nation is not threatened, the overload sects do not interfere with the mortal world's proceedings. But this does not mean that all is well between the sects, all seven of them continuously flex their muscles at each other so that they could pull more nations under their wing. Each of the 7 major sects has numerous affiliate sects underneath them which further have more sects underneath them. Skirmishes between these 2nd and 3rd tier sects are very natural.