1 Carnivorous Bud!

Across the vast sea of stars, a planet in its lonely path around a single yellow star was suddenly covered by a wave of primordial chaotic chi of fused Yin and Yang energy, words once said at the wake of existence again made themselves present and slowly brought to life a body that resembled those of the old gods, but there was something different about it.

There were no head wings like those of the winged elves, instead, the body born from the void had a pair of horns and two black wings that disappeared just a few seconds after they came into existence.

Then, runes carved in that body with the help of divine power slowly merged together before retracting into this new being sea of consciousness, when clothes made of the plants and trees nearby covered his body, he suddenly woke up and looked around in shock.

The sea of green extended as far as the eyes could see and there wasn't a single sign of civilization.

"Where the hell am I!?"

Minutes, if not seconds ago, Josh was sitting on his chair and preparing to play a new MMORPG, he was excited, just waiting to know how it would be, but a voice came out of nowhere, and he awakened in this mysterious forest, with green grass covering every patch of land and hills where big trees who cast shadows into the earth lived far away from each other.

Alone and scared, Josh gulped and walked aimlessly, hoping to find a river so that he could follow it, after all, if there was one thing he knew is that usually societies flourished around rivers, and if you could find London by following a river, maybe you could do the same here.

Some times from the corner of his eyes, he managed to see what looked like wolves and insects, the problem was that those wolves, despite their height, had a single horn protruding from their heads, and the insects seemed to have come out of the Paleozoic era.

The more time he spent here, the more worried he got, just what exactly was going on in this place? Where could such frightening creatures have come from? And what happened to his cool clothes? He was pretty sure he was wearing something else before awakening here.

As much as he wanted to ask questions, unfortunately, he had no time to waste with them, just as he passed by what seemed to be a giant reddish-purple flower yet to bloom, something grabbed his leg with strength and made him fall face-first to the ground.

"What!?" Josh turned back to look at what could have made him fall, and was greeted by the disgusting sight of a carnivorous plant, whose head was made of a single petal that had an oval mouth covered by sharp brownish teeth.

"Grrguhr!" The creature howled and used half of its tendrils to pull Josh towards it.

Desperate, he grabbed the earth with all his might, piercing the ground with his fingers, hoping to crawl back to safety, but he couldn't! No matter how much he flexed and contracted his muscles, they were no match to the green vines coming from the creature roots who soon after proved to be capable of moving.

"No! Let me go!" He shouted in fear. For every centimeter he managed to back away from it, the monster slid the triple towards him.

Having abandoned the idea of escaping, he sat down and started to tear apart the tendrils that entwined around his left leg, and as if it was capable of feeling pain, the monster opened its mouth and cried, making three more creatures of the same species appear out of nowhere from behind him.

Seeing the creatures approaching, his skin paled and tears started falling from his eyes, he was done for. There was no escape. Strengthened by his emotions, he started to break the tendrils twice as fast as before, but just after he managed to free his leg, vines came from the left and right, two of them grabbed his right arm, and one grabbed his left leg.

The new monsters were stronger than the first, their grip on his limbs got tighter with every second as the thorns on their tendrils seemed to tear the surface of his skin, he wasn't sure if they were venomous or not, but the drowsiness he started to feel soon after could only be attributed to this.

'So, this is the end? I did so little in my life, how come it will end like this?'

He had lost all hope, but fate was on his side, just before blacking out he heard an explosion after a bright bluish-white arrow flew above him.

...

"Honorable Guide Meng Juan, we found this outsider at the edge of the training grounds, he was very weak and disoriented." A tall boy pointed towards Josh who was sleeping on the bed.

Meng Juan, as her name suggested, was a gracious woman, her bright eyes alone filled with charm was enough to make every male in the room slightly uncomfortable, even then, none of the trainees had ever seen her in all her glory, when she used to work with Emperor Kuan every single one of her dresses were worthy of gods and goddess and that coupled with her hairstyle and makeup at the time, made her one of the most beautiful women in all of the empire.

A girl who had accompanied the scouting group in their quest, stepped forward as the Honorable Guide sat down on the bed beside the sleeping boy and touched his face with her smooth white hands.

"I was the one who found him first, he was being attacked by Carnivorous Buds, I managed to heal him in time, but I think the venom in their vines had already started affecting his bloodstream at the time, it's my fault that he's in comatose, I'll accept any punishments the Honorable Guide seems fit!" The girl with a childish face, wearing red linen light priestess cloth kneeled down in front of her and rested her head on the floor of the greenwood house.

Meng Juan shook her head and sighed. "Ever since the winged elves and humans managed to find peace between them, the newborns we trained became too attached to old traditions, our original birth purpose does not rule out the necessity of a single individual, and as such, you shouldn't lower yourself just because of a single mistake, especially when it concerns something so unrelated to the matters of our race."

"But... Honorable Guide said that our purpose is to act as protectors and helpers of the human race, that the old gods have created us with the objective of ensuring the survival of the Perfect World." The girl sat down, but the worried look on her face remained as she lowered her head in shame.

"My naive Meili... We don't even know if this boy is human, besides, you can't be blamed for something you didn't know was going on. Now, stop blaming yourself and get up, have some pride, you, like me, are a direct descendant of the ancient gods, even though it is our purpose to help humans, nothing says that they are above us, or have you forgotten who of all races was born as the natural rulers of the heavens?"

Hearing her words, both the boys and the girl smiled, she was right, something like that shouldn't affect them if he was indeed a human, it wasn't their fault that he was wandering alone the wilds, and the fact that they could easily defeat the creatures while he was hopeless in front of them, clearly depicted who was superior.

Noticing that she managed to increase their morale, Meng Juan smiled and turned to face the boy. She had never seen someone like him before, his features were extremely uncommon, be it his hair, eyes, face, mouth or ears, every single one of them seemed to have come out of a painting, it was her first time seeing someone so beautiful who wasn't a Winged Elf, the problem lied on the fact that he also wasn't a human, she had never seen one who had black horns protruding from their head at least.

Curious about this boy, she closed her eyes for a moment and a semi-transparent bubble covered them, shining dots of chi energy gathered around them, with a small amount forming such a heavy layer that it started to rotate around the bubble, at that moment, through her divine spirit she observed the spirit of the boy.

Chi paths, meridians, and dantian, everything was exceptionally abnormal, based on her knowledge the way they were built meant he had the worst possible physic for cultivating, he was pretty much a cripple as far she could tell, and that made no sense because energy could clearly flow through him without obstructions, and yet, it didn't remain there, meaning that even if she, an immortal of the Myriad Sage Stage wanted, it would be impossible to forcefully increase this boy's cultivation.

As if her privacy intrusion had switched on something in his head, Josh's eyes twitched for a moment. Feeling he was about to wake up, she stopped her actions and took away her hands from his face.