Pay-to-Win Martial Emperor

Hallucinations?

"5 milligrams of Ice Bee Queen Honey, 12 milligrams of Ginseng Extract...

In a science laboratory in the basement of Sagittarius High School, a tall, thin young man stood hunched over a desk as he messed with various alchemy equipment, trying to accomplish his long-awaited goal.

However, just as his hopes got high, calamity struck, and the furnace he was using regurgitated every medicinal item he used back at him in the form of a thick cloud of smog, almost knocking him out.

"Cough, cough, cough." The boy quickly waved away all of the smoke as he tried to regain control of his lungs and respiratory system.

"I used too much Lava Essence Liquid," the boy mumbled as he pulled out a thick and beaten notepad before he scribbled down his words.

After he finished writing down his thoughts, the boy, instead of going back to his goal, sat down and looked at the time.

It was already 11:59, so even if he did manage to succeed on the next try, he wouldn't do it before the day changed.

So, grabbing his backpack, which wasn't far away, he carefully reached inside and pulled out a small white box as if it were a family heirloom.

Placing it on the desk next to him, he went into his pocket and pulled out a lighter before opening the small white box and revealing a miniature cake.

The cake wasn't big enough to be a normal cake fit for a family, and it wasn't small enough to be a cupcake, so it was just right for one person to get full from it.

While it was his birthday and it was common for one to have a whole cake and perhaps even a party with friends, the boy's financial situation laughed at tradition and forced him to get the small cake.

Thankfully, the cake was rather well made, and it even included his name on it, Adam.

"Happy birthday to me," Adam listlessly mumbled as he lit the candle and waited for the day to change.

But as he did, he felt melancholy and couldn't help but think about the past almost 18 years in this cruel world.

It all started 18 years ago, when Adam was living out his past life on Earth as a normal college student.

Yes, this wasn't his first life, but instead, his second.

Previously, he was a college student studying for his entrance exam into the medical school he wanted to go to, but after stepping out of the library from another all-nighter, he forgot to look both ways and was eternally plastered onto the pavement.

However, he didn't truly die that day, as after spending a few hours in what he called a "limbo state," he felt his skull being crushed, and before he could get used to the pain, he was born once again.

Born once again, Adam thought that maybe the Buddhists were the right ones and that reincarnation was indeed the correct path after death, but he quickly realized that his new birth wasn't all that simple.

After he was born, the doctor, instead of slapping him like any normal obstetrician would do, conjured a ball of green energy before forcing it down his throat!

At first, Adam, as any normal person would do in such a situation, wanted to yell out for help, but before he could, the green ball of energy smoothly went down his throat as if it were a liquid and not a 4-inch-wide ball.

Even more shocking, after he swallowed the green ball, Adam felt like he had transcended and that his baby body was full of power.

That was the only good moment of Adam's sad life, as following his birth, Adam's life was tragic, to say the least.

His parents abandoned him without even naming him, and he was then sent to live in one of the many government-funded orphanages around his planet. It was also because of this that Adam was able to gain the same name as in his previous life.

By using a book, he was able to influence the government worker at his orphanage into choosing his previous life name. The last name was a bit harder, but he eventually managed to persuade the caregiver to choose his last name.

Adam would also start to learn that the world he was in was, in fact, not the Earth he knew, or, as a matter of fact, he wasn't even in the same solar system as Earth. Instead, he was now living on an enormous planet, thousands of lightyears away, in the Sagittarius Arm!

Like some of the shows that were getting popularized on Earth before he died, the new universe that Adam was in now was full of powerful martial artists who could do many things that even Superman himself couldn't.

Traveling the cosmos, picking stars with their hands, and living until the end of time, nothing was out of reach for a powerful enough martial artist.

Finding out that he was reincarnated in such a place, Adam, spurred by a new youthful confidence, wanted to do all of those things and possibly more.

The reason he felt like this was because of the stories he read in the books in the orphanage.

Around 12,000 years ago, Spiritual Qi finally appeared on Earth and allowed the once mortal and weak humans to begin cultivating.

And cultivate they did. In less than ten thousand years, humans, who were once only living on one planet confined to one tiny solar system, conquered their entire galaxy!

Humans would then rename the Milky Way Galaxy the Federation of Humanity.

Why did they choose such a patriotic name?

Simple: While conquering the galaxy, they realized that they weren't alone in the universe.

Galaxies from beyond and even close by were inhabited by other human-like races from the fantasy books they once owned.

Elves, dwarfs, and even devils dominated the universe and were the true powerhouses.

Thankfully, because of a few extremely powerful and talented human cultivators, the powerful ancient races didn't manage to exterminate or enslave the humans.

It did, however, make humans fully unified.

Adam, who read that, also felt the same patriotism that the founders of the Federation of Humanity once felt and wanted to contribute by becoming another strong martial artist. The feeling lasted a long time as well, until his 12th birthday, when it all came crashing down and Adam was given a harsh lesson about reality.

While people did cultivate to become these powerful martial artists and control solar systems upon solar systems, it was by no means easy or even possible for almost all of the human population.

After his 12th birthday, the orphanage head finally decided to pour a cold bucket of water onto the young Adam.

Previously, Adam had been getting all of his worldly knowledge from the books scattered around the orphanage. However, he didn't know that the orphanage head left extremely important information out of those books.

Specifically, the fact that only a tiny percent of the population could even cultivate, and as for the legends that Adam passed his whole future around, not a single human had yet to reach that point, and they were only thought of as legends.

The universe that Adam lived in had something called Spiritual Qi.

Spiritual Qi was the origin of everything, and because of that, everything came from Spiritual Qi. So whenever someone absorbed some of that Qi, it stood to reason that they would become stronger from it.

Sadly, however, only a fraction of the population could absorb the Spiritual Qi that the universe created.

And the people who could absorb it were called "talent holders."

Talent was, other than Qi, the most important thing in the universe. Without talent, the mystical universe's building block, Spiritual Qi, could only stay mystical. One needed a talent for cultivation to be able to absorb and use the Spiritual Qi in the universe.

Other than the important cultivation talent that everyone needed to cultivate, there were, however, many others.

Talent for alchemy, talents that enhanced the physique in certain ways, i.e., speed, strength, and defense, and most crazily enough, talents that could give their user a way to control elements!

They also had a ranking system that Adam was forced to memorize, which went as follows: poor, low, middle, high, and the most legendary of them all, supreme.

However, talents only awakened at 12, so when Adam turned that age, the orphanage poured a bucket of cold water onto him before testing his talents.

Anxious couldn't even begin to describe what Adam felt at the talent testing center; thankfully, though, he did awaken a talent for cultivation and started his journey to become a strong martial artist.

That day, he awakened two talents: a middle-grade cultivation talent and a low-grade alchemy talent.

Following his awakening, Adam's life changed very much.

After he awakened, he was forcibly transferred from his middle school and, on a scholarship, was enrolled into his planet's finest cultivation school, a part of the alchemy division.

Alchemy talents were rare in the entire federation, apparently.

The rest of his years were now spent learning about cultivation, alchemy, and cultivation, and while this would've turned any kid his age crazy, it didn't happen to him.

Adam was a medical student in his past life and even held the campus record of staying awake for three and a half days studying.

How could cultivating and learning about medicine in a new world possibly drive him crazy? If anything, it was rather fun!

And that was how he spent the next four odd years of his life—bunkered down in an alchemy lab, trying to make something of himself in this cruel world.

And now, Adam was trying to make a rather low-grade pill named the Body Refining Pill.

The pill's effects were simple yet potent, to the point where they were the staple pill for anyone in his cultivation realm.

However, while simple, they were also wildly expensive, to the point where even if Adam didn't spend a dime for the entire year, he would only be able to buy one and a half Body Refining Pills.

So knowing this, Adam had been spending the last three months trying to refine the pill himself. After all, he had a low-grade alchemy talent himself, so why couldn't he make a simple pill?

That was three months ago, and at this point, Adam himself wished he could find his younger self and beat the arrogance out of him.

Sadly, only hindsight is 20/20, and now he had already gotten on the tiger, so getting off was impossible. That, along with his youthful pride, made it impossible for him to give up.

'I only need to make one damn Body Refining Pill! Once I do, I can advance to the 9th stage of the Body Refinement Realm, and by then, I will have no problems with the college exam. Other than the monsters at the half-step Martial Apprentice Realm, who can beat me?

With such a train of thought, Adam put down his half-eaten birthday cake and went back to his furnace to attempt another go.

However, as he did, something entered his line of sight, which made him question his sanity.

"Am I seeing things?"

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