Town at last

I travelled through the forest for about two weeks, I honestly have no idea how I survived. I mostly ran away from everything, I saw those bunnies a few times, even a slightly bigger blue bunny as well. I also saw what I would describe as slimes, I saw red, blue, green, yellow, and even a black one. The slimes where probably more dangerous than the bunnies as the slimes were acidic, luckily I noticed that before one of them touched me.

I found a stream about an hour after I started walking and decided to follow it. The stream provided a very important water supply for me as I had nothing I could hold water in, although there were some dangers, such as the monsters I mentioned before.

I did try fighting some bunnies and slimes with some sticks I found but it was pointless. I figured that I would need a proper weapon before I could take them on.

I had no idea what was edible or not so everytime I tried I was gambling. Getting sick out here could mean my death. I tried at one point to make a fishing rod with a stick and my shoelace, that didn't work so well, I ended up losing my shoelace. I was lucky enough to not eat anything poisonous and managed to avoid getting any of my wounds infected by washing them. Overall I think I was very lucky.

After two weeks of travelling along the stream I left the forest, it opened out into a plains and in the distance I could see my first town. It didn't look very big to me but it did look pretty well built. It had a stone brick wall around it of about 10 to 15 feet, I could just barely see some houses beyond the wall. On top of the wall I could see people patrolling and at the large gate entrance I could see two more people standing outside. There was a line of four people that looked like they wanted to get in.

As I got closer I could see that the two people standing at the gate and the ones on the walls were guards, they were outfitted in some kind of metal armor, the only place not covered in armor was their face.

By the time I got to the back of the line there was only one other person in front of me. I saw one of the guards point a rock at the person for a moment and then nod and wave them through.

I walked up to the front of the line and said, "Hello good sirs, I am new to this area, can you tell me what the name of this town is?" I smiled at them and waited for their response. The guards looked at me with confusion written all over their faces. The guard with the rock wave it towards me, after a moment he just shrugged and waved me inside.

Wondering why he didn't talk to I headed towards the gate, as I was going through I heard one guard speak to the other one. I just realised why he didn't talk to me, their language was completely different, it sounded almost like rocks being smashed together and absolutely nothing like anything I have heard back home.

Shaking my head I entered the town, I realised that things here might be quite difficult for me. Well turns out I was right, I spent the next 10 years living in that town. Since I didn't know the language it was difficult, but I managed to get a job working as a labourer for one of the merchants. With the money I earned from that job I was able to learn the language and history of this world.

The money system was pretty simple, copper, silver and gold, 10 copper to a silver and 10 silver to a gold. My pay as a labourer was exactly 1 silver a week, it cost me 3 copper a week for my food and board. It wasn't a high paying job by no means, but at least it was enough.

It took me three years to learn the language properly, one year to read it and then a further two years before I could fully speak it. I did get promoted a couple of times, and by the time I could fully read and speak the language I was working directly with the merchant and selling goods. My pay had increased to 1 gold a week.

As for the world, they call this place Albion, I think I had heard that name several times before, but I couldn't think from where. The town was called Dalhurst, it's been here for around 5000 years. It is an independent town on the smaller side run by a local mayor by the name of Lucas Smith. There is a capital city about six months journey from here to the north, the capital is ruled by an emporer. I have no idea what the emporers name is because he is only referred to as the emporer, some kind of taboo apparently to say the emporers name.

This world is also only one of three major worlds, Albion is also referred to as the prime material plane, with the next one up called the Heavens. The last world is only known as the realm of gods. Cultivation is the main source of strength here and if you manage to cultivate to a certain level you can ascend to the Heavens. It is also said if you continue to cultivate you can eventually reach godhood and travel to the realm of gods, but for the past 500,000 years no one has managed to reach godhood.

Most of the rest of the information I found was hearsay, even that bit about godhood was hearsay but I found it interesting as these people seem to believe strongly in it. I finally got my cultivation talent tested on my 21st birthday, based on my entry to this world, and found out that I really should have been tested on my 16th birthday. I had no talent and was not suited to training.

I tried to train anyway and wasted 4 years and quite a lot of my income, which by this stage was up to 3 gold a week, on various herbs and recipes to help my training. The results were negligible, about the same as a body builder taking creatine, in other words, I got ripped and strong but not cultivator strong. I never even managed to step into the realm of a cultivator.

Since I had no talent in cultivation then it was dangerous for me to leave the town, the rabbits which were called Quillbits and slimes were at the Qi condensation level, basically the first stage. And the blue Quillbits were at least 5th level of Qi condensation, so I was extremely lucky to escape. This also explained why I wasnt able to beat any of the myself, as even a 1st stage Qi condensation fighter could beat the world's greatest fight back home with ease. Of course it's slightly different with animals because they aren't particularly intelligent, but there still isn't a lot a normal person can do against them.

I spent another 5 years being focused on my job, it was a pretty great time actually. I got to travel a little and visited a couple of close by towns, we had to hire some mercenaries to help us along though. Not long after my 30th birthday my boss announced that he was going to retire, he was turning 60 soon so he wanted to leave the stress of the business behind. He said that he would train his successor, me,over the nest 5 years, so he would retire at the age of 65.

During the next 5 years everything seemed to happen so fast. I met so many people wanting to make connections it was crazy. It turns out this business, Martin's Emporium, is just a side branch of a much larger business by the same name. It is actually the largest general goods merchant store in the world, it even has several auction halls in the larger cities.

I met the love of my life at my 33rd birthday party, her name was Rachel, funny I know. She had the same name as my old co-worker but she didn't look anything like her. She was the daughter of one of the nobles I met, Baron Theodore Poole. I was pretty sure that he was just trying to use her to get better deals from me but since I loved Rachel it was fine. We married just after my 35th birthday and not too long before I took over the merchant branch.

We stayed there for the next 20 years, with the both of us running the merchant branch we expanded rapidly. We did so well that we eventually got promoted to the main branch and eventually worked up to being in charge of everything. There was nothing we couldn't buy, so long as it existed in this world, we obviously couldn't buy anything from heaven realm, primarily because no one came back from there.

We ended up have three children, two boys and one girl, Sarah, Brad and Nick. Both Brad and Nick were talented in cultivation so we spared no expense with bringing them up, it was estimated that after 150 years they would both be able to ascend if they continued. As for Sarah, she had no talent like me, so we taught her everything she needed to know so she could take over the business in the future.

We spent another 20 years in the capital, building our empire, in some ways we were more like the true ruler of the country, even the emporer couldn't pull as many strings as we could. The only the we couldn't buy was more time.

Rachel and I eventually retired, we handed over the business to our daughter on her 35th birthday, she never married and we never forced her. I had no desire to try to use my daughter for political purposes and neither did my wife. We retired at the age of 75, well Rachel was only 72, but that's not much of a difference. My sons Brad and Nick were 40 and 42 respectively, and were going well with cultivation. They had both reached the core foundation 9th rank level a few years earlier then expected, at this pace they might reach the ascendent level before they turn 130.

Oh right, I haven't mentioned the cultivation ranks properly yet, each level consists of 9 ranks and then a peak, to there is, more or less, 10 stages to each level. There isn't a lot of difference between each stage but there is a massive difference between each level. Basically jumping stages to fight someone more powerful is possible, but it is very, very rare for someone to jump a level, so basically a Qi condensation fighter should lose 99% of the time versus a foundation establishment fighter, but it's not uncommon at all for a rank 1 fighter to defeat even a peak rank fighter of the same level.

Generally the higher rank you are the stronger you are, but with all the different methods and combat tactics around can mean the difference between a win and a loss.

The ranking system is as follows:

Qi condensation

Foundation establishment

Core formation

Nascent soul

Soul formation

Ascendent

Not much is known of the higher levels as no one has ever come back from the heaven realm. If a person chooses to stay in the world here then their cultivation will never become higher then Ascendent as their cultivation becomes capped at peak rank. But because you tend to live longer the higher level you are people always strive to be as strong as possible. It is said an Ascendent can live for several thousand years.

Everything eventually came to an end, and about a month before my 80th birthday I... died. There was no fanfare, no fuss really, I just died of old age. That was where this story was supposed to be finished, but I guess this is where this story actually truly begins.

Just when I though I died, just when I thought this blackness was everything and that my consciousness was going to slip away, large words appeared seemingly on my eyelids. The words read:

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Prestige mode unlocked!

Total score: 50

Prestige points earned: 1

Restarting in 3, 2, 1

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