Growing Up
Joseph, on the other hand, was crying as he saw his father on the ground unconscious.
Although the fight before made Ken exhausted, he still had his priorities and it was to create a safe environment for his child. The sacrifice that her wife, Jean, made for the well-being of himself and their child.
Even though he barely had enough strength to properly make a fist, he stood up and surveyed the area while taking care of Joseph. After searching for almost an hour, he saw a waterfall with an open area, this was the perfect place for them to rest.
After making a simple hut and scavenging for edible fruits, Ken fed Joseph and the latter fell asleep. After putting Joseph to sleep, Ken then laid down beside his child, this was the first actual rest he was going to get for the first time in this realm.
The hut they were staying in was simple enough for bedding but still had a clear view of the sky. Ken looked up the dark sky, "Tomorrow is the first day of our new lives." After an eventful day, Ken burst into tears as he hugged his child, he was holding it in for as long as he could for his child to feel relaxed. "Don't worry! I won't let anything happen to you! As long as I am here you will be as strong as I could possibly make you within this limited realm. Strong enough to protect those you love."
After 6 years, Ken was doing his daily routine of scavenging for resources in the woods and Joseph was playing with his the toys that his father gave him. After returning to the house, Joseph brought out a wooden sword and placed a scarecrow in the middle of the open area, "Son, you are old enough to learn to protect yourself! So that in the future you may protect those who you care about." Joseph, although still a kid, understood what his father had in mind.
The training session was 1 hour of running in the woods, 2 hours of lifting, 3 hours of sword practice, 3 hours of technical mastery and 3 hours of basic education such as language and writing. The intensity of the training increased as Joseph grew older and accumulated more and more training.
This amount of training kept on piling on top of each other making Joseph stronger day by day. Until it was time for him to learn techniques from his father.
When Joseph reached the age of 15 years old, he underwent his first trial to earn the rank of Infant Rank. Every person goes through their own specified trial and they get to choose what their trials are. The harder the trial the stronger you get at the end. Since he was just a kid, he chose his trial as to kill a few beasts and bring their meat to his father.
The strength a person gets after going through the trail depends on the difficulty based on the average populace and how difficult it is for the person personally. It is possible to get stronger without ranking up but it was a much slower process. The trials they do, cultivate their specialized area in the realm they are. For example, if one is at Spiritual Realm/ Beast Realm if they do their trial it needs to be something to revolves around the Soul.
If wants to be truly strong they will have to ask the 4 Original Ancient Deities for a trial to suit their strength and improve them in the shortest amount of time. Even though this was the case, there were only 10 recorded people who managed to survive these trials and all of them are at Supreme Overlord Rank right now.
The trial for breaking through to Infant Stage was to kill 20 Infant Rankers, 5 Adult Rankers, and 1 King Rankers while being unranked. This was essentially suicide due to the difficulty of the trials. If this was the difficulty in breaking through the first rank then how scary would the next one be.
Joseph's first trial was to kill beasts that were normal and this trial was basically suicide for anyone who attempts it. His father had expectations from his son but not this much.
At the age of 24, he then has undergone his second trial. This trial was to go to the city and take on 10 quests from anyone and succeed. At this point in time, he was recognized by the Adventurer's Guild: Bronze and was offered a special membership if he joined. Joseph didn't hesitate to join as this could help him later on.
At the age of 50, he secretly underwent his third trial. People usually stop at Adult Stage since they don't have any resources to continue or barely have the stats to be able to break through. Since Joseph had his father which was an Intent Ranker, he could learn the basics from him and certain techniques that could help him increase his strength.
A major tragedy struck Ken out of accumulative damage, while he was scavenging for food, the wounds he had 50 years ago manifested hidden injuries and these hidden injuries kept on whittling his life force away little by little. Ken didn't realize this, apparently, when the mage sent them back there was a chance of having their life force be unstable and cause it to slowly fade. This was the risk Jean took because she knew that even if that were to happen then their child would have had already grown big enough to sustain himself.
Joseph, on the other hand, was lucky and didn't receive the hidden injuries.
Ken didn't want his son to be anxious about his father's impending death so he hid it from him. He was going to hide this so that his son would be able to live as happily as he could.
At the age of 104, Joseph had reached the point where he could barely be able to do break through to get his next trial. Getting to Emperor Rank at such a relatively young age was already shocking even at Lien. Usually, people reach this stage once they get to around 200 years old and only then would they also be able to barely reach this trial.
Everything went quiet for a while since it would be a very long time before Joseph would reach another breakthrough. His father all this time only had been improving their house and to provide techniques that he could use.
A few years passed and Joseph was continuing to take more quests in order to increase his strength. His daily routine consisted of skimming through the quest board and taking quests where people's lives are in danger and since there aren't a lot of dangerous beasts around at purposely attack humans for no reason, he takes quests relating to bandits.
He fulfills his tasks perfectly since not a lot of people knew he was at Emperor Rank because of took the trial unbeknownst to the masses. Only a handful of people knew his true rank at that time, they were his father, the receptionist at the Guild named Rebecca and, his best friend named Rob.
Due to people underestimating his strength, he easily caught the majority of bandits by surprise as he didn't just have an advantage in rank but in techniques as well. He already learned Wisp Movement, Heal, Full Strike, Rock Hardening and a little bit of Wisp Swordsmanship.
This advantage of rank and skill set allowed him to defeat an entire sub-guild of the Hidden Bandit Guild. This feat earned him the Silver Rank in the Adventurer's Guild: Bronze. With this achievement, he went back to his father in the mountains with a gleeful expression as he was excited to show him what he had done.
When Joseph arrived at his home it was at the dead of night, he saw his father sitting in the chair looking through the window inside a dimly lit room. He waved his hand towards his father with a cheerful look, "Father! I managed to destroy a bandit sub-guild singlehandedly! People will now be safer than before due to my efforts, I thank you, father, for everything you have done to help me!"
His father was still sitting in the chair not moving at all Joseph noticed something was wrong, "F-Father? What wrong? Why aren't you saying anything? If you are sick then--" Joseph entered the house and looked at his father, he was sitting still with his eyes closed with a note in his hand.
It said, "Son, I am proud at the man you have become and you have achieved so many achievements that proves how strong you are. My only regret is not being able to teach you the entire Wisp Swordsmanship, the signature swordsmanship of our family that has been passed down for centuries. As for why I am dead, when we traveled to this realm there was a chance for a person's life force to be unstable and whittle away into nothing. I was merely unlucky, I am sorry that I kept this from you this entire time. About your mother, she sacrificed herself to save us and her grave lies in Lien."