Chapter 2: Awakening

As the Shield slowly descends into the plane the world itself is changing leading to various unfolding sceneries, making it look like as if the Shield is travelling through the time of the birth of the plane.

The Shield seems unaffacted by this, but in truth some strange energy particles got through itself and are going inside Phil's body, slowly these particles are affecting him, at first nothing of particular happened but after a while Phil's body is beginning to age backwards and this phenomenon is becoming faster as more particles are attracted, reaching a dangerous rate.

If Phil was awake he could literally see all the physical changes that are happening as his body becomes younger. As his physical age enters the sigle digit it begins to slow down until it seems to be no more changes.

Phil's body now is a 1.15 meters tall little boy, with scruffy brown hair and green-blue eyes. His body build could be described as chubby, but not the cute type of chubby that makes some little kids look adorable; he looks like a little meat ball.

A while after the changes happened the ground finally appears and the Shield lands, right after it landed the Old man's voice could be heard again talking to himself "Interesting, I didn't expect that the Primordial Laws of the Plane birth would help you by turning your body back into your younger self, probably this happened because one of the dominant parts of this Plane consciousness was the one that chose your sister as one of its Chosen".

A small hand appears inside the Shield and begins to touch some parts of Phil's body. "Interesting indeed, it left something else in you, but that's not for me to reveal, it is something that you need to find out by yourself. Now young one I wish you the best of luck" The hand touches his forehead and then disappears into nothingness with the shield.

A few seconds later the hand and the shield disappeared the sound of footsteps coming closer is heard. "This way brothers, I saw this strange light descend close by, we need to find it before the other clans do. This light has a high chance of being a sign of a natural treasure being born" says a deep voice and right after a chore of voices saying .

"Yes Commander!". They began to search the surroundings and after a short while one of the men stepped into the proximity of Phil. "Commander, I think we are too late!" he shouts and looks around, the surrounding is filled with blood splashes, broken trees, sword marks, ripped clothes and dead bodies.

The commander on 2 other men went toward the other person that just shouted and they too seemed shocked by the scene. All four of them are wearing the same clothes just with different decorations on it.

All of them are wearing black robes, over it there's a sleeveless black armor made of leather that only protects their upper body. At the l armor there's a crest, a wolfhead with three scars above its eyes while it howls.

At the bottom section of the leather armor close to the hips they wear belts with a piece of obsidian in the middle, but the number of belts is different for each person, two of them wear just one, but on the remaining two, one is wearing two belts and the commander is wearing three of them.

Extending on the arms there's an armguard made of black leather reaching from a part of the back of the hand to the supinator, and on their left side there's a Jian, a double edge straight sword.

"This is cruel! Even I would never do a slaughter like this and the worst thing is that they're all commoners, they're not even close at the body forging period. Who could do something like that? Was it Xióng clan or the Yīng clan, maybe something else?

Says the Commander while he checks some of the bodies, as he does that he suddenly sees some of the corpses move. "Be careful" he says while looking at the corpse that began to move.

*grunt*

"Help... someone there?" says a weak and childish voice, the commander reacts and instantly begins to move the corpses until a body of a small kid is revealed.

Phil who just woke up a few seconds before is now looking at the eyes of the commander. //What the heck is going on here and where am I? Where is my war-…..// as he thinks about why he is here he remembers everything that happened and begins to cry.

"Mother, Father, Sister... you are all... Waaahaa" he begins to cry loudly, while tears are streaming down his chubby cheeks. "Calm little boy, calm down, the bad guys are gone now" says the commander as he lifts Phil //Poor kid, he lost everything and is the only survivor// thinks to himself as he tries to calm down the crying boy. "Commander I don't want to be rude, but we still don't know who did this and if the natural treasure is still here but I would suggesto to leave this place as quickly as possible" The commander nods "Okay let's go, little one hold me tightly okay?" Phil who finally calmed down a bit nods and moves his arms around the commander.

After giving a sign all of the men began to run into a specific direction. As they run, Phil begins to think about what happened to him //Calm down Phil, I know it was not a dream and it was pure hell, but you need to calm yourself now and realise in what kind of situation you are in now, so the old man healed me and gave me a chance to get my revenge, that is good. My body turned into my 6 year old self, strange but I think that gives me more time to become stronger. Now back to my situation, why the hell did the shield place me here in the middle of corpses and blood!? But the good thing is I don't know why but got saved by these 4 men, hopefully they can give me something like a home and information about this world.//

As he thought of it and wanted to ask he suddenly realised something //I'm a child right now, these question would seem too suspicious, I need to find another way to get the informations that I want//. While he's thinking about all the things he suddenly enters a strange space in his mind that has 4 jade slips in it, each of them have some words engraved. On the left there's "Demonic beast" right next to it on the right side there's "Herbs" continuing with the same direction there's "Survival Guide" and the last one is "Life Saving".

//Interesting and what now// as He's approaching those jade slips they suddenly began to shine and a voice is heard "Young one, these jade slips are meant to help you on your travels and on your path to Power, they will give you information of the most common demonic beast that you will meet in this plane, because every world has them and the most common herbs, I gave you a small guide that will help you survive in this world and lastly there's a life saving item, but only use it when you really have no other way out. That's it for now, you should focus on becoming stronger to step on the path of a cultivator."

After the voice said its lines it faded away and Phil decided to leave the place ending up finding himself still in the arms of the commander, but they're not anymore in the wilderness but in a town. He looks up and his eyes meet the eyes of the commander. Noticing that the kid woke up he puts him down and then places his hand on the boy's head. "Hey little one finally awake?" he says with a laugh, Phil just nods and then looks down to act like a shy kid who is a bit scared.

"Everything is okay little one, you are safe now because we're inside the town walls" He lifts Phil up and runs into the direction of the town walls, it could be seen that they are made of stone and 5 meter high with guards patrolling on top of them, ready to act whenever something happens close to them.

Phil begins to look around and again realizes that he isn't in his world anymore. This town has no sign of technology advncement, no sign of electricity or machines. He looks sad but then he smiles starting to think in a positive way // I may not be anymore in my world but atleast I can cross something off my list, visit a town with chinese buildings//. The commander watching that begins to smile too "See everything is good now. I will bring you to your new home" saying that he begins to walk down the street. As he passes through the streets he shows Phil the market, the river that flow through the town, the areas where he shouldn't go and important building like Dojos and alchemy buildings.

After a while they arrive at a second wall, this time 8 meter high "This is the wall that separates the lower town are and the middle town area" the commander says as he walks trough the gate. A few minutes later they reach a tall gate with a sign hanging that reads "Láng Clan".

"This, young one, is the Láng Clan, my home and from now on yours too" as he says this a guard comes to us "Brother Jiang you're finally back" The guard smiles then he notices the kid "Who's that? Is that your illegitimate child?" *Slap* Jiang slaps the man "NO! My brothers and I found this little one in the area we were sent to. A massacre happened there and he's the sole survivor, because of that he lost everything so I wanted to bring him into our clan as an orphan". Jiang explained to the guard "Okay I understand, but brother Jiang even if you propose that I still have to to message the superiors so they can test him and see if he's worthy to join us". Jiang nods "I understand, then would you be so nice to do it?" The guard nods and pulls out an emblem with the same crest on it as Jiang has on ist armor. "I informed them brother Jiang, you can go in and bring him to the testing area"

Jiang thanks him and walks in with Phil. While they're walking the commander shows the kid some parts of the clan and explains how it was built. "The clan is separated into 5 major rings. The servant ring that consider 2 areas that are close to the clan entrance, the Wild ring is a forest that surrounds the core part of the Clan that is on a mountain, in this forest you will find all kinds of small beasts and training areas, the Warrior ring is where you'll find the warrior's living and their tamed beasts, then comes the 4th ring, the Descendants ring, where you'll find the living area of the Clan Descendents and important warriors and the last one is the Core ring, where the Ancestral Ground are and the Patriarch lives, do you understand little one?" Jiang asks Phil.

"Yes, I understand" He says quietly while nodding his head. "And where are we going now?" "We're going to the 3th ring, there we hold the test for the outsiders who want to join our Clan or the people that were brought here from Clan members, people that may have faced the same fate as you" he answers. After a while they arrive at an arena and they walk to the gate then to a window where there's a sign in front of it that says "Registration". There there's an elderly person sitting behind the window, suddenly Jiang bows and puts his hand together, Phil copies him "Greeting Elder Jian"

The Elder looks towards us "Oh Jian Láng, what are you doing here... Mhm and who is that little one next to you?" "This little one is the boy that I want to register as one of our clans member, I found him on my last mission and he lost everything" "Mhm okay then give me his name, age and Cultivation level" Jiang nods "Right, his bone structure is the one of a 6 year old so he is 6, he has no cultivation and his name is …." He looks toward Phil "Oh, little one what is your name?"

"My name ?" //F*** what should I say, I shouldn't say my real name but it would seem suspicious if I say I forgot, because then I should have acted more like a person that forgot ist name and maybe even ist identity, mhm I have it!//

"My name is Nie. My mother gave me this name because she heard it means never and she thought this name will be a reminder for me to never give up" Phil (now Nie) says in a childish voice while tearing up a bit and even Jian begins to become a bit sentimental, the Elder looks at him "Okay Nie, the test will be difficult so I hope you remember these words" He moves his hand and Nie has suddenly an emblem in his hand "Go into the arena, the test will begin soon"

Nie nods and then walks inside the arena while waving to Jiang "Thanks Sir" He shouts to him. //it seems this is now the beginning of my adventure, my Adventure beyond my limits beyond the world,… Beyond mortality//