The start of a new journey

Aran was finally awake!

When he opened his eyes, although he was still alive, his injuries weren't healed. Since he didn't have any healing pills left, he had to quickly do something about that, before bleeding to death.

Aran quickly got up, with all the strength he had left, and followed the blood which was spilt on the floor and found the beast's body.

Since the mana beast had the healing power, he knew that he can heal his wounds by absorbing its soul stone so, he immediately extracted the soul stone from its body and started to absorb it.

***

It took Aran many hours to fully absorb the soul stone.

Although the soul stones are very expensive and he didn't want to waste a soul stone by absorbing it; Aran had no other choice with his life in danger.

When he finished absorbing the soul stone, it was already dark.

Most of his wounds had gotten healed, but even by fully absorbing the soul stone's power, he couldn't completely heal his chest wound and it was still slightly painful. Since he didn't have any proper healing pills or potions, he had no other choice but to wait until he gets back to him home.

After completely absorbing the soul stone, aran got up and found some firewood, and created a bonfire.

Since he didn't have any food pills; he had to eat that mana beast for the night.

He sat down, close to the bonfire and summoned the book as elrich said. Instantly the book that was inside the cave, appeared in his hands and as he opened the book, he saw that it not only contained details of many martial techniques, but it also had the information Aran might need for his journey.

On the note about the important things aran has to know, there was the true story of the great calamities. Although he already knew about the great calamities, he still decided to read it, since he thought that it might have some new details.

As he started to read about that, it was really shocking for him to know that the story he heard about the great calamities was completely different.

***

Thousands of years ago, magic descended to earth in the form of mysterious energy. The world slowly started to change after that. The animals started to evolve and turn into beasts, and the plants evolved and gained magical essence.

Humans tried to understand magic so that they can benefit from it; but when they tried to use it, the energy clashed with human emotions.

The friction between magic and human emotions increased day by day and one day it got exploded. It was the biggest explosion humanity had ever seen.

Most of the life on earth got exterminated in that explosion and two out of the seven continents got destroyed.

People called it the great calamity!

To bring balance to the magic and the world, A powerful natural entity called the will of nature created two different higher realms similar to earth.

One realm with a mixture of magic and positive emotions called the Heavenly realm, and another realm with a mixture of magic and negative emotions called the Demonic realm.

The people who survived after the calamity started to awaken their magical abilities and these people could summon magical energy from the higher realms.

They called that energy Mana!

Mana is the magical energy that can be used by awakened people to perform magic. These people are called the Mana cultivators.

Both Heavenly and Demonic cultivation have five major stages such as; beginning, intermediate, profound, advanced, and master stage. All the stages have nine tiers each to cultivate.

After breaking through from the beginning stage, cultivators awaken their elemental attributes. The basic attributes were Wind, Water, Earth, Fire, And Lightning. And the cultivators will be able to manipulate the attributes they have awakened.

When a cultivator breaks through all five stages, they will get the power to enter the higher realms from where they summon their Mana from.

These cultivators who can enter the higher realms are called demigods and demons. After entering the higher realms, they will continue their three new stages of higher realm cultivation there.

Soon after the great calamity, cultivators discovered the existence of another realm. The energy from that realm strengthened the souls of lives and it was the realm that gave nature its will. Since this realm provided energy for soul cultivation, people called it the Devine soul realm.

Soul cultivation also had five stages and it strengthened the cultivator's souls. After cultivating the five stages, when cultivators broke through to the divine soul realm, their souls got so strong that they started to get reincarnated even after their death.

The cultivators who got reincarnated used their previous life's knowledge to quickly get stronger. Some of the reincarnated cultivators who hit the peak of the higher-realm cultivation and the peak of the divine-soul-realm cultivation broke through from both these final stages and became nearly invincible!

Until then, no one had thought that breaking through to an even higher and unknown realm was even possible.

People called them the Legendary cultivators! They were so strong that they broke the limits of elements and created their own ultimate forms for the elemental attributes.

As their cultivation increased, the world become vulnerable and couldn't sustain their power. Their battles were so powerful, that they broke the fabric of reality itself.

When their mere existence started to disrupt the balance of the world, The will of nature responded and created another great calamity to bring balance to the world!

People called it the second great calamity and it ended up destroying two other continents.

All the legendary cultivators died in that calamity. Their souls were permanently sent to the divine soul realm. Since the will of nature is the will of the gods; not even these legendary cultivators could fight against it.

After the legendary cultivators' death, using the energy of their cultivation, the will of nature re-shaped the elemental realm, turning it into five different sub-realms.

After the second great calamity, soul cultivation got nearly ten times more difficult than before to stop the cultivators from breaking through to the divine soul realm and getting reincarnated.

After that, every cultivator aimed to break through to the divine soul realm. but soul cultivation got so difficult that no one was able to do it for hundreds of years.

****

After knowing the truth behind the great calamities, Aran realized why that's important. Since Elrich was also someone who got reincarnated, Aran realised, Elrich was the first person to break through to the divine soul realm after the second great calamity.

Aran also understood, that the people who killed Elrich will be stronger than him and revenge was not something that he can even think about, at that moment.

After reading the book for a while, Aran decided to take some rest since he hadn't rested enough for days. He also knew that he can't stay there for long. Because now that the war had ended, he knew that the mana beasts will be coming out of their caves and he won't be able to face them.

Until then Elrich was keeping the beast away, using his enormous aura. But without him, Aran had lost his shield. So he decided to get some rest for the night and leave that place, the next day, and he went to sleep.

***

Aran woke up, early in the morning and started to get ready to depart from there. Since he did not have a storage ring, he had to find a carry bag of a dead soldier.

Storage-ring was a high-rank device and it was very expensive. Although his family was one of the richest families in the country, he had to live like a poor person because of his father.

As Aran went to the place where his tent was, he found a bag of a dead soldier. After that, he looked for his things, which the soldiers had thrown away before they left. He found everything and packed his bag and started his journey.

Aran had to travel a long way before he gets out of the mountain. So he moved as quickly as he can.

As he was walking, he tried to use his newly gotten, divine soul vision. He was amazed as he used that. Because with that power, he was able to see for almost a mile and feel the presence of souls.

Using the vision, he easily saw through the dangers ahead of him before he encounters them and avoided most of the mana beasts.

He fought some of the low-tier beasts along the way and collected some low-tier soul stones from them.

After travelling for three days,  Aran finally made it out of the mountain. When he got out, he was so exhausted and had to find a carriage for further travelling.

After looking for a while, he soon found a small town there. He sold all the soul stones he had, to pay for the coachman.

After having decent food from a diner, he began his journey towards his hometown.