1 Chapter 1: Schild City
Schild City, a small city situated at the borders between Kingdom Walkiria and the anarchic land called Krieg Verwustet.
It was a peaceful city despite its location. The life of the people can be pretty much categorized as normal. Only a few people are living a luxurious life. Still, the people are happy because the governance of their city was in proper hands.
The sun shone brightly in the sky as the youth spilled in the Shield Hero's plaza as it's the most spacious place in Schild City. At its center, where the statue of the Shield Hero is standing, the children, who gathered around there to train, encircled while waiting for their instructor.
The noise of chatters started to escalate as the crowd got bigger. The children are talking among themselves to avoid getting bored while waiting for their instructor. The chattering stopped as soon as a muscular man, Stark, a practitioner of the Seishin Sage rank, appeared in front of the crowd.
"Let's get started little sprouts!" the man shouted.
With this shout, thousands of young men and women continued their journey to become a Seishin practitioner under the guidance of Stark. As one of the strongest seishin practitioners of the small city of Schild, second only to the head of the noble family that ruled the city, all the youths venerated Stark.
He was assigned by the earl of the territory to guide them toward the path of seishin cultivation. No one in the Schild City dared to disrespect this man because they knew that he was one of the most trusted by the earl himself.
Before starting any training session, Stark would always tell stories to inspire these youths under his tutelage. He wanted the youths that he is teaching to be inspired to enter the path of seishin cultivation.
"All those with power can attain anything they want to. But power can never be achieved without hard work. Even the most powerful practitioners at the rank of Seishin Overlord and Majestic Seishin Demigod worked very hard to reached their current stature today. All of them have the power to slaughter the majority of us living in the world."
This story amazed the youths but scared them at the same time. Their eyes were filled with wonder as they were listening to their instructor's wonderful stories.
After telling the story, the seishin training of the youths started. The children are divided into six groups. And they began training their inner energy which is known by everyone as the Seishin.
After the kids started to meditate, Stark started to tell them a lesson about seishin cultivation. "Seishin is everywhere, all lifeforms in this whole world have a seishin essence within them. Meditate, feel them and try to absorb them. Let them nourish the inner seishin within all of you."
The world of Nidriege Welt is a world controlled by seishin practitioners. In this world, power controls everything. That's the reason why the people who lead the world are only composed of supreme Seishin practitioners. Those people who are deemed as commoners can only serve those with great powers. Therefore, everyone in this world dreams of becoming a strong seishin practitioner.
Stark continued his lesson, "Only people with fearsome power can truly move with freedom in this world. That's why everyone needs to work their asses off. Anyone that are considered weak can only blame themselves for not working hard."
The children listened carefully to their instructor's advice. After all, all the things that Stark is telling them came from his deep wisdom as a seishin practitioner.
"Each of us has different elemental affinities, only half of the total population have elemental affinities. In most cases, people only have affinity in one element. But there are rare circumstances in which a person has multiple elements. But in recorded history, there is only one case of a person having affinities in all elements, that person is the first to reach the heavenly realm, the first to achieve the rank of a Venerated Heavenly Seishin God, The Seishin Elementalist Queen, Rosa Fraulein Wunderschonen, the first matriarch of the royal family Wunderschonen." Stark proudly told these stories to the children.
All these stories were all about the history of seishin cultivation itself. In the mind of the children, these stories became one of the main reasons why they are working hard. These stories inspire the children because it motivates them to work hard even more which is why Stark would always do this.
"Even our humanity's Venerated Heavenly Seishin God, The Seishin Warrior King, Verrater von Stolz, the forefather of the Stolz Royal Family, only have affinity in five out of six elements in existence," said Stark.
All the youth in the Shield Hero Plaza was impressed and determined. After this storytelling, Stark started announcing, "After three months, our town, Schild City, will have its annual elemental assessment. All five years old will have their elemental assessment and they will start training with us too. This also means that all qualified 18 years old will graduate and will go to the military."
A four-year-old kid, who was watching his seniors' training, stared at them with awe. With determination in his eyes, he vowed to himself, "When I reach the age of five and will have my own elemental assessment, I will see what elemental path I will take."
This boy is aspiring to become a great seishin practitioner as well. He is always coming in the morning to watch the other kids trained while dreaming that he would be able to join as well.
A couple of hours must have passed as the sun already lighted the whole plaza. A voice called the kid, "Kraftvoll! Breakfast is ready. Come home and let's eat." This was the kid's mom.
"Okay, mom. I'm coming." Kraftvoll replied.
Kraftvoll followed her mother after responding to her call. He was a kid with black hair. He has an eyelash longer than a normal boy. He has an eye color of mint green.
