1 Prologue 1 - Mike Chen

Mike Chen was a half Chinese boy who grew up in a remote mountain in China. His birth was a very interesting string of encounters. His father, Luke Jones, was an unsuccessful UFC fighter. He was a good fighter and had a good physique, standing at 6'7" and weighing 79 kilos or 175 pounds. He fought in the welterweight division. But the problem was that he fought too mechanically. He would never taunt or showboat his opponent and wouldn't drag out a fight to the second round if he could finish it in the first. This made him unpopular and his fights never had a huge crowd. This made the organizers give him less and less fights. Some geniuses also rose in his era who were as good as in business as they were in fighting.

Eventually, it became hard for Luke to make ends meet. He was not interested in any other industry as fighting was the only time that he felt truly alive. Basically Luke was a fighting maniac. But Luke was not a muscle-head. In fact, he was very clever and never got into bad company nor got into fights. When he was down to the last couple thousand dollars of his savings, he made a decision that changed his life. He bought a one-way ticket to China and a self-study course for learning Chinese. He then converted every last dollar he had into Chinese yuan.

Three weeks later he somehow found himself in front of the gates of the Shaolin Monastery. The Shaolin Monastery was the most popular choice for foreigners like him to learn Chinese martial arts. But it was not easy to gain entry as a disciple, especially for people like him who was not proficient in Chinese. So he settled down in a nearby village that had many private schools teaching martial arts.

Since he was a former fighter, he already had a high level of flexibility and strength. In a few short months, he became proficient in 2 different styles of kung fu - the tiger style and the crane style. He also became sufficiently proficient in Chinese to recognize the most common characters. His teacher in the school he studied in had some connections with the Shaolin Temple. He saw that Luke was very serious about martial arts unlike most of the foreigners who only came just for the sake of experiencing something new. So he recommended him for direct tutelage under an experienced abbot within the temple. Luke was very excited about his new life as a trainee monk in the temple.

Fast forward 10 years and Luke had now become one of the strongest monks in the temple. He had a high learning capacity and had already learned many styles of armed and unarmed combat. He was so proficient in them that he could combine them and create new forms.

One day a mysterious stranger came to the temple. He had a private meeting with the head abbot. During their meeting, Luke was called and asked to perform his martial arts for this person. He did not know the reason but he obeyed the request anyway. The mysterious person was very impressed by Luke and checked his bones and meridians. During that time, Luke felt strange energy entering his body and spreading through it. He felt uncomfortable but kept his silence. After checking for 10 minutes, the man has a surprised and joyful look in his face.

This was the second turning point in Like's life. Turned out, the mysterious man was one of the last cultivators that still existed on Earth. Due to pollution and industrialization, Earth has been declining in spiritual energy for thousands of year. In the distant past, the multiple civilizations created methods to harness spiritual energy. Witches in Europe, shamans in Africa, onmyojis in Japan and Tantrics in India are but some of the examples of the legends lost in annals of time. Among them, the most preserved lineage is the Chinese system which combined martial arts, medicine and crafting techniques with the study of the supernatural.

Luke was very intrigued by this whole new world that opened before him. The mysterious man, whose name was Lu Chen, told him that the basis of any system of supernatural powers started from the opening of the third eye. It was an esoteric concept that came up again and again in most cultures. Some depicted it as a literal third eye in their deities while some described it as chakra or an invisible organ. Lu Chan described it as the mutation of the pineal gland which was an actual organ in the human body that controlled the secretion of some hormones like melatonin. This mutation was found in maybe one person per thousand in ancient times. Only some of these people were able to use this mutation to sense the spiritual energy that surrounds us and manipulate it and perform supernatural feats. Lu Chen then told Luke that he is one such person. Lu Chen was searching for a successor for his lineage but he only had a daughter. He offered that he will pass down every technique that he knew to Luke if he married his daughter and took his surname.

Being a modern man, Luke was somewhat averse to being forced into a sudden relationship with someone, but his curiosity got the better of him and he agreed to meet his daughter. When he met Yiyi Chen, Lu's daughter, it was love at first sight, for both of them. Any lingering resentment for the arranged marriage went up in smokes and Luke began a happy marital life as well as a new journey in the realms of the supernatural.

Three years later the couple has their first child. It was a boy and they named him Mike Chen. On the day of his birth, there were some auspicious signs that very rarely happened in the modern era. Lu Chen was very excited as this meant that his grandson could be a genius in the usage of supernatural powers. He took him away from his parents just after he turned one year old despite the strong opposition of Mike's parents. Lu Chen ignored his daughter's tears and went into seclusion in an unknown mountain range. Here Mike Chen grew, away from civilization and in the lap of nature, one of the places with the highest concentration of spiritual energy. He stayed there and trained in martial arts, Chinese medicine and crafting. His grandfather taught him every technique he could get his hands on. In two decades, Mike read almost 10,000 scriptures and mastered multiples supernatural skills like Iron Shirt, Ying-yang eyes, Iron Palm etc.

When he turned twenty years old, his grandfather passed away. Now that he had no reason to stay in the mountains, he decided to descend the mountains. Before his death, Lu Chen gave him an official identity and an obscene amount of money, enough for him to live the rest of his life. Mike has the option of returning to his parents but he chose not to as they were more like strangers to him now and he did not have any filial feeling towards them.

So Mike decided to travel the world. For the next twenty years, he travelled to the most remote corners of the Earth and met with various tribes and tracked any supernatural treasures that he heard rumours about. Most of them were hoaxes but there were many that were truly relics of supernatural beings. Meanwhile, he picked up the habit of reading martial art novels online. He was amused by the various Xianxia and Xuanhuan novels that tried to depict the lives of supernatural beings but were clearly written by normal people. He was very intrigued by the decisions that the protagonists made as ridiculous events one after another were forced upon them.

Our story begins on Mike's forty-first birthday. It was also Mike last day on Earth.