Chapter 2

"If you are not going to open your eyes, do not blame me for playing dirty! You are wasting time that we do not have thanks to the endless wars occurring across the numerous sectors here!" 

Opening his eyes once more, Tim found himself now situated in a hellish looking place with countless spirits around him while a horned golem looking figure was directing the spirits like traffic in a small city. "Hey you, I do not care who you were in your past life but you better get moving or I will have to send you off to a torturous place for causing issues here!"

Listening to the golem, Tim had no choice but to follow the flow of other spirits through a corridor as an endless amount of new spirits began to emerge from behind him as they followed behind him. This was a truly frightening looking area that was filled with stone walls and many different powerful looking creatures that were both directing him and the other spirits and other creatures with full suits of armor.

After several hours of walking, Tim found himself faced with a child looking figure in silver robes holding a book and pen in its hands with a strange looking sword next to its very comfortable looking chair. Not even a king of a castle would be able to afford this chair from the looks of it with the king's entire net worth and castle included!

"Interesting, so you come from a planet called Earth. It seems like you were more or less a mercenary for the majority of your life? But at least you were smart enough to make some donations at times to different demigod and god temples. Because of that, you compiled a small bit of karma but it is enough for you to be reborn elsewhere."

The child with but a glance at the book was able to tell all of this from Tim's previous life which was shocking to him. "Alright, I will send you to a different planet but we can keep you in this realm since you have some potential. It is not every day that a random mercenary unleashes a kind of hell onto an entire planet but is able to keep some positive karma to their souls."

Tim was somewhat relieved since given his situation, he was almost certain that he would be thrown into the very pits of the netherworld and begin his campaign of eternal suffering due to his very obvious mistake. And so the child quickly pulled out a deck of cards, shuffled the deck, and pulled a card from a random spot within the deck. "Ah, the world of the Rain Dragons? I suppose that makes sense since it is difficult for a mortal to receive any level of real footing there. Very well, good luck and try not to come back so soon!"

With a flick of its hand, Tim's memory was completely wiped away by the child as his soul traveled into the body of a random baby in the new world he was about to embark on. However, during the memory wiping, a very small light was shined very dimly where not even the child could see it. And not a single individual would understand what this would mean until far later on.

Within a small estate in a somewhat remote region, a husband and wife along with several retainers and servants were present as the wife finally finished giving birth to a child. This estate was owned by the Petal sect and its current owner who was an elder within the sect was of course the very outspoken Barrett. 

Barrett was not a very outstanding member of the Petal sect and in truth fairly mediocre. It was only due to him remaining within the sect during a great war, that he was able to safely train much longer than his much more talented peers and was finally able to reach the height of a five star Warrior class figure which just barely earned him the title of elder.

There are two main classes of experts in this world and they were of course the Warrior class and the Mage class. Many experts who could train would of course try their hands at becoming a Mage class, but the majority of experts would find that they could only train as a Warrior class. This of course did not mean that a Warrior class of high ranking were looked down upon, but it did mean that comparatively speaking, it was harder to get ahead as a Warrior class if a Mage class was competing with said expert.

Being a five star Warrior class was of course good enough to become an elder of a small sect like Petal sect in the Maple Leaf Empire. However, someone like Barrett would be lucky to find any kind of work outside of the actual military that paid as well considering his rank and his age which limited his overall future potential. 

Still, this small family had grown from commoners to a small family within a small sect. This of course was a much higher standing and Barrett even had a small handful of personal disciples which added to their overall reputation and power. And now, he finally had an heir to his position as long as this child was strong enough in the future to take it.

Barrett was pleased that his wife allowed him to name the child and so the child's name was Ace and Ace was going to be given all of the resources at his father's disposal so that their bloodline could continue to remain in their new position within this world! However, time would tell just how many resources Barrett would be able to give to his now child.

Children in this world officially could start their training at the ripe age of eight years old and only then, would Barrett have a good indication with just how much he could assist his child. Until then, he would just continue on his tasks assigned by the sect and continue increasing his local prestige in Maplewood Township.

After roughly eight years, Ace was now able to begin his training but he was not very excited. Sure, he had already begun learning some basic techniques with different types of weapons but it was still unclear whether or not he could dive into becoming a Mage class or Warrior class. To become a Mage class, one had to be in tune with nature while to be a Warrior class, one just had to receive gains from a normal physical training regimen. 

"Do not worry son, once our Petal sect in two days gets ahold of another Mage Stone, we could test out and see if you have any real affinity with an element. Even if it is one that our sect does not specialize in like the fire or thunder element, with my connections and current reputation, it would not be difficult finding you some decent training manuals and the sect would be more than happy to invest in such things!"

It was very clear that Barrett had high hopes for Ace, but Ace was feeling a bit of pressure because his mother was mortal. Usually to become a Mage class expert, one parent of a child normally would also be of the Mage class. Sure there were many exceptions to this unspoken rule, but it was of course not a very common occurrence. For Ace, the chances of him being able to train in the Mage class in an element he had proper affinity with, were roughly one in ten thousand.

Even with all of this in mind, Ace, an eight year old child, had a rather firm heart. And so Ace was more focused on beginning his Warrior class training than to make even small gains in the meantime before the affinity test. This way, even if he could not train as a Mage class, he would not have fallen too far behind. 

The Petal sect was known to house the majority of their forces as the Warrior class and only four members of the sect were of the Mage class. These four did not have affinity for the fire or thunder element so the Petal sect had no reason to spend some of their resources on such training manuals. This would only change if a new member had some level of affinity for said element; otherwise, the sect would continue to invest in Warrior class training manuals, weapons, armor, and more.

"Dad, I already told you that I would do my best during the test but I really like this sword you gave me! Even if I can train as a Mage class, I really do not want to give up training with swords!"

Ace was only eight years old now and normally that was the age when children were finally able to begin training. And although his father really wanted him to end up being of the Mage class which focused on elemental type attacks, even Barrett had to admit that Ace seemed very natural while doing some of the training exercises he provided him for the sword.

This would be considered the best case scenario for Barrett because he finally had an heir and made sure to supply Ace with almost every type of weapon available in the sect to test out. As long as Ace seemed somewhat talented in even the weakest of weapons, it at least gave Barrett the idea that Ace had the potential to be just as strong one day as him or at the very least, strong enough to become an elder of the sect in the future during Barrett's remaining lifetime. 

It couldn't be helped, Barrett and his wife had Ace when they both reached over fifty years old. Sure, the average life expectancy for a mere mortal was one hundred and fifty years old, but not reaching a very high star rank meant that his wife would most likely die of old age around two hundred years while he himself was a little luckier and would perish of old age at about three hundred and fifty years old.

"Fine my child, if you want to train with the sword that badly, you are now going to be forced to! You must train a total of two full hours per day in the sword and one full hour per day in increasing the strength of your body. And if you are given the choice and choose to train as a Warrior class instead of a Mage class, if you at least reach the sixth star rank as a Warrior class expert, I will be able to die with a smile on my face!"

Barrett quickly assigned one of his honorary disciples to oversee Ace's training. Elder level figures of the Petal sect each had at least fifteen honorary disciples so to others, it did not seem like Barrett was using his own blood sweat and tears on behalf of his child. However, once Ace had a firm enough foundation with whichever training path was in front of him, at that point, Barrett would of course intervene and be much more hands on with him.

At the end of the day, Ace quickly went to go and visit his mother. After giving birth to him, Ace's mother was not fully crippled, but it took every bit of strength she had to give birth to Ace and so these days she would be found in their home resting rather than being out on a mission for the sect or personal training. 

"Mother, can I go over to the Flying Spear clan to hangout with Greg tomorrow? His uncle brought a cool object back from his last escort mission to Star City and he wanted me to see it before his uncle took it back. Apparently, it is a somewhat unique storage artifact that lets you store food and drinks in it without them spoiling!"

Ace had a best friend who was a member of the Flying Spear clan. Greg's family had a somewhat low rank politically speaking within the clan, but their foundation within the clan was in fact very stable thanks to Greg's father and uncle. The two were around the same level as Ace's father, but they were of course more talented and were able to train in the Flying Spear clan's signature training manuals and techniques for their spear techniques.

Maplewood Township had three types of organizations present. They had a handful of sects, clans, and of course some merchants. The difference between sects and clans was that clans usually had a much more solid foundation with secret techniques passed down by their ancestors. While when it came to a sect, a sect was more of a collective of different experts who joined together in order to accomplish a goal such as commoners who would rather be a higher ranked member of a sect instead of only a commoner. 

"Of course you can, dear. Just remember to behave and not get into a fight with one of the disciples of the Boulder sect. Last time, you stood up for yourself in the public area against one of their ordinary disciples, but your father could only make excuses and apologize so many times on your behalf until it causes trouble for all of us."