Avarice and Admiration

"Lucius dear, I think it is somewhat obvious to all of us that you don't originate from the Gold Kingdom, so where do you come from dear?"

"I'm from the west, I don't know exactly where since my parents left when I was young and I lived in a mountain range with Delilah. In fact this is the first time I've even left the mountain and I had never heard of the Gold Kingdom until you just mentioned it. Can you please tell me about the countries in this world and what this Gold Kingdom is ?"

"Wow, you really did live in seclusion all these years? Your parents must be quite eccentric and powerful people if you lived in the dangerous west. The Gold Kingdom is a kingdom of humans that is quite close to here, technically this mountain range is within the Gold Kingdoms borders. I have a map here, let me show you."

Jack pulled out a large map and spread it over the empty picnic cloth (Milly had already cleaned it up) and then pointed to the western most part of the map that showed a large forest that stretched out into the ocean on the western side and there was a kingdom on the north-east of the forest. The Kingdom was quite large and was even 75% of the size of the forest. It was labelled in big cursive gold letters as the Gold Kingdom. As Jack was a military colonel he had to know the layout of the kingdom and all its reaches. He then showed Lucius two other smaller parts of the map, a big plain of land titled the Horde Plains and a large lake that stemmed from the sea named the Sea Front. There were other small kingdoms and cities scattered around the place but these weren't nearly big enough to matter.

"To begin with Lucius you need to know that the Gold Kingdom is the apex power of this world that is headed by the Golden Royal Family. They hold all the power in the kingdom and decide on its policies and such. After the Gold Kingdom is the Sea Front which is headed by a fish clan. A species of half fish half man hybrids that focus mostly on trade and industry instead of military and power like the Gold Kingdom does. After these two is the Horde Plains, a wide savannah that houses the Horde, a collection of minor sub races as we call them. The Horde has Goblins, Orcs, Kobolds and other bottom feeders. The Horde isn't really a country or a significant power as they are usually divided and only have their own interests in mind, but very, very rarely there is one of them that is unlike the others and this variant will rally the others and build an empire strong enough to rival the Gold Kingdom. Most of what I do as the colonel of the Gold Kingdom is massacre part of the Horde and assassinate the leader type variants that emerge from time to time. The Sea Front is a valuable companion to the Kingdom in trade and welfare but the Horde is the scourge of our world. They reproduce rapidly and kidnap and rape woman from our races in order to satisfy themselves as the females are much less likely to be born. Out of 100 goblins, 1 would be a female. For the orcs and Kobolds it is higher but still quite low being at 1 out of 20 and such. "

"I see, so then what are the average strengths in these different powers?"

"The average among the Horde is qi refining stage but since there are so many of them it becomes difficult to actually eradicate them. The sea front average is qi condenser with the leaders being spirit refiners, like the mermaid queen who is a prominent spirit refiner. However, the average in the Gold Kingdom is at the spirit gatherer stage while the peak experts are at the spirit condensing stage. I myself am at the spirit condensing stage and there are only 5 other people as strong as me: the leaders of the 4 Main families (of which I am a part of), the King and the Queen. "

"I'm marrying the prince who is already a spirit gatherer and he is only 16. Soon I will get everything I could ever want you know? My prince loves me so much."

Lucius didn't know what to say to that since she hadn't really contributed anything interesting to the conversation or asked a question so he had no idea what to say next so he just blurted out an impassive "Good for you" as he turned to Johnny and asked him what level of cultivation he had reached.

"I'm at the qi refining stage only. I'm too slow compared to you geniuses." Johnny murmured as he rubbed the back of his head.

"Don't be silly Johnny, cultivation is not a race. You need to take it slowly and seriously, especially since the qi gathering stage is vital for leaving a strong foundation for future development. Even if it is only Tier 0 it is still your most important starting point."

This left the Whites feeling kind of lost and embarrassed as they had tried to get through the qi stage as soon as they could. However, they couldn't be blamed as this was the norm for low tier worlds, they rushed through the early stages to get to the next stage since a steady and strong foundation only mattered once you reached above tier 4. For these Tier 1 worlds where tier 2 was the strongest height they had seen before, becoming stronger rapidly was a lot more appealing to them than slowly building up strength. This could also be attributed to wanting to retain a youthful look as the younger one was when they advanced their cultivation then their aging would slow down from that point. Of course once you reached higher tiers you could refine your appearance back to how you liked it so it didn't matter but for these low tier worlds it was a problem. Lucius' parents were over 1000 years old but they both looked like they were in their twenties. It was worth saying that since his parents were so beautiful and refined that they looked almost divine, someone that usually would be considered a peerless beauty within a tier 1 world like Rebecca didn't even register as someone of noteworthiness to Lucius, he had only seen pretty people so far and simply thought it to be the norm. It was fair to say that it wasn't that Lucius was ignoring Rebecca's beauty as she had been thinking but that he had simply accepted it as a standard thing to see, after all Rebecca was pretty but she couldn't even hold a candle to Lucius himself, let alone his mother. Acacia Basil was a tier 8 expert who had focused on academic subjects instead of military based ones so she was soft, gentle, and as divine as a swan swimming through a crystal clear lake on a snowy day. She was beautiful enough to topple entire worlds as kings and emperors fought for her attention. She was, after all, the 2nd Princess of one of the most powerful races in existence. Furthermore, Acacia's older sister, the Queen of the Lazarus, was even more beautiful than her but that's a story for another day.

"But tell me Lucius what do you mean by tier 0?"

"Tier 0 is the classification you know? Like how you have tier 0 through to tier 9 herbs and pills and ores and such. Tier 0 is the qi stage, Tier 1 is the spirit stage and tier 2 is the elemental ascension stage!"

"Elemental Ascension! Is that the name of the stage above Spirit Condensing, wow, I never thought I would learn this from a boy I met in the middle of nowhere. But Lucius, if your saying that tier 9 herbs exist and so on then there must be a tier 9 stage right so that means there is a tier 3 and tier 4. So Elemental Ascension is not the highest stage of cultivation? What is then?"

"Haizz, I tripped up didn't I? Well to tell you the truth Sir, I don't come from this world, I come from elsewhere and I got all this information from my parents who told me to come and gain experience in this world. This world we are in, Bakre, is only a tier 1 low tier world so the qi density and element concentration is too low to produce those above Elemental Ascension stage. To be honest, I think that only if you had a genius in tune with the elements then put all your resources into him, only then could you get an Elemental Stage expert!"

"Wow so you really aren't from this world! That explains the weird clothes and the never before seen artifact."

The Whites all had different reactions. Jack was surprised but in joy about finding out about the extensive reach of cultivation and all the things he could maybe reach, with Lucius' help of course. Milly was thinking about getting Rebecca to marry Lucius instead so that they could establish a connection to this rich and alien boy. Johnny was bursting with admiration and was considering turning into Lucius' disciple immediately, but he held back since he thought it inappropriate to ask someone he had only just met to be his Teacher. Rebecca was thinking much more sinisterly though as she was insanely jealous of Lucius and began to think of ways to take what Lucius had for herself, she was already thinking of many schemes to steal everything Lucius had. Her eyes glowed with a lustre similar to Johnny's but much more corrupt and disgusting. Avarice as opposed to admiration.