1 A view to die for

It had begun raining heavily.

It was the feeling of icy-cold raindrops hitting his face that awoke him.

The sharp realization of being conscious had startled him badly.

The sudden movement of his body produced a long groan as the pain hit him.

Theodore had experienced his fair share of pain before, however this one easily took the cake.

His body was flat on his back on the sidewalk next to an alleyway.

Surrounded in a puddle of blood and water, his badly wounded body tried to remind him of something having gone terribly wrong.

Theodore winced, his breaths coming in short ragged bursts.

He tried to roll his body onto his left side in the hopes of getting back on his feet, or at the very least try and sit up.

Unfortunately, his hopes were utterly dashed when he realized that his left arm was completely missing below the elbow.

The realization hit him when the attempt at propping himself up resulted in him hitting the burned stump on the stone sidewalk as he lost his balance.

Another round of pain followed as Theodore's eyes shut tightly and his face twisted in agony as he lied back down on the ground.

Every minute started feeling longer and longer as he kept glancing at the projection of a clock floating in the air above his face.

The raindrops were falling right through the digits of the clock and trickled down the side of his face in a steady stream as his empty gaze met it.

Theodore gathered enough of his wits to analyze his situation.

His left arm was missing below the elbow.

Somehow a terrible burn had cauterized the wound but it was a total mess.

A bad gash had also traveled up to his shoulder and his woozy head was probably due to the lost blood.

Other than his arm, his head must have gone through a serious concussion as well.

The urge to vomit and motion sickness were dead giveaways.

The stench in the air didn't help much either, despite the rain.

The rain had started letting up a bit and whatever relief he had been feeling from its cold raindrops was soon followed by shivers, as he was laying in the pool on the ground.

Had he been a normal human he probably would have died due to the shock of the injury long ago.

Thankfully, Theodore was anything but a regular human.

The cauterization of the wound definitely helped to prevent the loss of more blood, after loosing such a big portion of his arm.

Theodore quickly revolved his cultivation method. With each breath he absorbed more spiritual energy and circulated it inside his body in a precise pattern.

In his mind, Theodore saw the information Sutra of his body cultivation method and recited it from memory while circulating spiritual energy.

The pain began to subside slowly. His senses became sharper and his breathing had long become deep and slow.

In this day and age there wasn't a human without access to cultivation methods!

These were provided by the government of the federal galactic territories to all citizens.

There were naturally some families and sects who had their own methods and the same went for races other than humans.

In Theodore's case, his luck was not that good.

As he had no family to speak of and since he was not part of any sect, he only had access to a low-grade body cultivation Sutra.

Having practiced it since his childhood in the government orphanage, Theodore had achieved stage 3, minor success in the method.

An immortal cultivation method was considered to be achieved in 10 stages and was divided into initial, minor and major success for each stage.

This was so because no matter what your method of cultivation was certain phenomena and signs would occur no matter what method was used.

For example, with very few exceptions, there was no way for a cultivator below level 6 to defy the gravity well of his environment.

The rating and grading system was something the galactic government had spend much time and effort to research.

Theodore had also received standard level implants like all citizens.

These "implants" were nothing as crude as what people used thousands of years ago!

Back in those ancient days human doctors would injure the body and the patient always risked the triggering of a rejection of the implant.

Compared to the implants that Theodore possessed these crude medical methods were ignorant and savage!

There was no need to cut someone's head open and stab wires into his brain to connect it to a computer.

On a nano scale a human being was a lot of something in between a whole lot of nothing.

There was a lot of unoccupied space in the body of a human being, one of the discoveries of science.

Cultivators though, had remarkable bodies!

Some of their methods resulted in a fundamental restructuring of the human body.

Injuries healed faster as well which only accelerated the incompatibilities of having a physical object implanted in the body.

This technology had allowed all of the required components to occupy the same physical space as the brain did except that it did not injure the body at all.

The technology had to be this way because otherwise cultivators would not be able to refine their bodies.

This allowed for access to virtual and augmented reality.

The clock hovering in front of Theodore was not actually visible to others unless he wanted it to be.

Of course, the other party had to possess implants themselves if they wanted to see what was shared.

Implants enhanced memory and mental capacities and connected people and races more than any other breakthrough invention had for thousands of years.

Thanks to his enhanced memory, Theodore could effortlessly engrave his low-grade body cultivation Sutra onto his memory.

It was over a thousand pages of text with each letter being a custom shaped symbol that was tied to different meanings and purposes.

It was like a visual symbol program language used to relay information quickly in large amounts.

Spiritual energy was everywhere in the universe in differing amounts, depending on location.

Cultivators relied on it to transcend the limits of ordinary humans.

Theodore inspected the stump of his arm.

Injuries like this were curable in this day and age and it would heal on its own over time, thanks to the Sutra and the implants.

Nonetheless his combat efficiency was impeded severely by the loss of his arm.

He took a deep breath and got up carefully.

Despite the rain having stopped, the stars stayed hidden under ugly dark clouds and the air was heavy with ozone, and the occasional thunderclaps sounded off in the distance.

The very air smelled putrid and heavy with death.

According to the internal chronometer he was unconscious for less than 15 minutes.

Just before he blacked out, he remembered something having collided into him.

Not knowing what it was that had injured him so fast he vigilantly surveyed his surroundings finding nothing in the immediate vicinity.

As he turned his attention into the alleyway ahead, he saw an enormous shadow lying on the ground, wedged further down the alleyway but he couldn't tell what it was.

Ripped up Stonework on the floor painted a path of destruction leading into the alleyway towards the shadow.

His eyes turned to needle points and his attention snapped to the slight movement he saw on the shadows outline.

A deep, rumbling growl, that could be physically felt, came out of the alleyway and a concert of low hisses sent shivers down Theodore's spine.

Something had most definitely gone terribly wrong tonight.