Chapter 1: The Start

On the first day of the year 567 A.A, mortals and cultivators alike spread across the Xilin continent in preparation for the Aeridora Empire annual aptitude assessment. 

It's an assessment for those who have just turned 11 and will be tested for their ability to cultivate and, if lucky, join their region's sects.

Some of these children will find this to be a momentous turning point in their lives. For others, it will become a passing disappointment.

Regardless of the children's feelings, one who has no aptitude to cultivate can never start nor touch on the path of immortality, as such is the uncaring nature of the world.

Yet even so, cultivation has always been a sought-after dream of many living in the Areidora Empire, even with the slim possibility of having the aptitude for it. 

Since being a cultivator means fortune and prosperity for the families they leave behind, there's also the fact that very few would pass on the opportunity to gain the strength and lifespan of a cultivator.

But regardless of one's individual thoughts and reasons, plenty gather in their towns and city squares today to do as many have before them and take the aptitude test their regional sects happily sponsor each year in exchange for budding talents they may come across.

One child is Tian An, sitting just in the middle of the seemingly endless stream of other eleven-year-olds and their accompanying families.

Tian An knew that his city was a large one, yet he had yet to comprehend just how many people inhabited its walls until today.

Standing alone in the crowd with a stained brown linen tunic and stuffed pants of the same color, Tian An couldn't help but feel out of place when comparing himself to the well-washed families surrounding him.

He also couldn't help but give a slight twitch every time a family near him got particularly loud in displaying affection for their young child. 

Tian An thought, 'I should have arrived later. Why was I so eager in the first place?'

His mood quickly plummeted after having to stand in place for hours.

'Oh right, it's the opportunity of a lifetime I almost forgot,' Tian An thought, using an amusing tone.

Yet regardless of what Tian An thought to himself, he knew it was undeniable that he came so early to accompany the large crowd, simply because he was anxious. 

Anxious about both success and failure.

Tian An had realistic expectations; he pondered that out of all the thousands here today, his chances of actually having even the smallest of aptitudes were probably a pipe dream.

Yet while his situation didn't allow him to spare too much hope, he couldn't help but pray that maybe he could finally take his fate into his own hands.

Tian An is what some may call a victim of circumstance. 

His mother was a respectful woman who used what she was born with to have an advantage over others her age; she climbed into higher positions through her natural charm and wit, yet was too young and brash to ever stop and look back at what ladder of society she was climbing.

If Tian An remembered correctly, her mother made it quite far in her pursuit for personal power.

'Well, not that it mattered,' mused Tian An. 

As he could recall, his mother climbed all the way to the liking of the commanding officer of the city's central guards—quite a feat for a woman born of a foreign background, especially when society puts quite the emphasis on excluding anyone without at least three generations in one spot.

Yet, despite how far she climbed, she fell harder than she could have ever imagined.

It all started with Tian An, as she became pregnant with Tian An on the accidental occasion of a pill malfunction.

Tian An's mother was a woman of strong will and even stronger values. 

When she decided that she wanted to keep the baby regardless of the central officer's wishes to get rid of it, she quickly became slandered for her actions in the midst of society.

People started to spread malicious rumors about her under the guidance of the central officer she used to accompany.

It became hard for her to even leave her home without a passing stranger telling her off for inexplicable crimes she had certainly not been a part of.

Even worse was the lack of credibility anyone allowed her, as her foreign background made ingrained ideals reject any personal defense she made towards her case.

There finally came a time for Tian An to be born into the world. A day that should have been celebrated had turned into a lonely and frightening day for his mother.

Tian An's mother struggled for hours on end on the barely furnished floor of her home to give birth to Tian An.

Those around her refused to lend their services to the now-well-known 'criminal', even if she promised the appropriate payments.

So in that desolate house, she gave birth to Tian An alone.

Tian An remembered his mother saying that if it weren't for him, she would have probably not survived that day, as it was his cries that made her hold on to the thread of life so desperately. 

Tian An could only think differently; he thought, 'Wasn't I the reason for you almost dying in the first place?'

While growing up, he kept those thoughts to himself, as his mother would probably beat him over the head if she heard him say that.

She had become accustomed to doing so as six-year-old Tian An wallowed in self-pity at being the cause of his mother's fall into the slums.

Yes, it didn't end with the apparent isolation and false crimes. As Tian An was brought to life in the world, there was a need to care for that life.

His mother could only find jobs on desperate occasions and was almost completely barred from buying anything anywhere close to where she lived without exorbitant overpricing.

This led to her eventually being forced to move to the slums, the place where Tian An would spend the next eleven years of his life.

A place where he would spend at least four of those years alone.

Tian An stared daggers into the tanned bricks of the ground in front of him as he recalled his life up to this point.

It wasn't that he was angered by the past; that would be foolishness.

Tian An was only angered at the hand he was dealt.

A hand that had led him to experience and see things that most would go without in their entire lifetimes.

Maybe he was indeed angered by his past, but maybe one could better understand his case if they walked a mile in his shoes.

Sadly, such a thing never occurred, as Tian An was brought out of his murky thoughts by various exclamations of excitement from the crowd around him.

"Mom, look, those people are flying on sticks!"

"Papa, look, the cultivators are here!"

"How are they flying!?"

Screamed one child amongst a cacophony of hundreds.

Now, while Tian An didn't verbally express his interest nor show much of it on his face, he couldn't help but feel a sense of awe at seeing the display of mysticism when compared to the mundane reaches of the mortal world.

—

As if the sight of the cultivators had cued them on, parents started shuffling away from the group of eleven-year-olds, leaving a few thousand little heads in the center and tens of thousands of family members waiting on the sidelines.

Standing on the tips of his feet to see ahead, Tian An stifled a sigh at the realization that he was going to be here for a while.

Although Tian An was well able to sneak further up the crowd, he didn't dare risk it on the chance of squandering his future.

Those cultivators could already be keeping an eye on each and every one of them.

Or maybe Tian An was just paranoid.

Tian An came to the central plaza before even the first rays of the sun had risen up to the sky, and by the time he came close enough to finally see and hear the two cultivators present at the aptitude ceremony today, the sun was directly beating down on his head.

The cultivators were both of noble appearance, looking to have a profound sense of cleanliness with arguably pleasing faces.

One man and one woman, both sporting wholly white robes with gray embroidered lotus flowers that seemed created to give the illusion of falling off the ends of their sleeves and pant legs, sat behind two plain stone tablets.

At least, they looked rather plain in Tian An's eyes.

By the time Tian An finally got up to the platform the two sat on top of, he had run out of any energy to feel even the slightest bit nervous.

All that was left in his mind was the mild interest he had for the cultivators in front of him and a burning desire to both change his fate and finally be able to leave the line under the scorching sun.

As he dutifully stepped up on the platform like thousands before him today, he looked into the eyes of the male cultivator in front of him, who looked no older than 18. 

He took a subtle glance to his right, where another child stood beside him to be tested by the female cultivator, before he finally laid his eyes on the empty stone in front of him.

Barely giving time for the cultivator in front of him to say the same things he heard a hundred times while waiting in line, he firmly presses his palm onto the middle of the stone.

Tian An watched with bated breath as he waited for something to happen. Although he wasn't sure what would happen, those who had some sort of reaction had either been far ahead of him or had yet to be tested.

After a brief pause, the world in front of him shifted as he felt a chill travel up through his lower chest and into the plate in front of him.

Tian An refused to give a brief shiver in the presence of the sudden chill, not wanting to bury any chance he had.

Tian An glanced up at the male cultivator in front of him, only to flinch back at the close proximity he had to his face.

The cultivator didn't seem to regard him, though, as he was staring directly at the stone tablet Tian An had just put his hand on.

After making a hum of confirmation, the cultivator looked up to Tian An.

"Please make your way to the left behind me; you should notice a man in a white uniform similar to the one I possess." The male cultivator spoke in a uniform tone as he leaned back into his previous spot.

'D-does that mean I passed?' Tian An wondered in confusion, working it out in his mind.

Yet, with the fear of rejection of a possible new fate laid out right before his eyes, Tian An made sure to swiftly make his way behind the elevated platform and over to the first person he could see wearing a white uniform similar to the cultivators on the testing platform.

To Tian An's surprise, it wasn't difficult to find them, as well as the group of kids bursting with excitement behind the man in uniform.

Tian An was slightly taken back; he was sure this group hadn't been here when looking out from the line before.

Maybe the cultivators did something to block his vision from the group of people in front of him?

Tian An, who, like most mortals, was under the assumption that cultivators were powerful beings with limitless strength, felt little resistance in his mind to accept that reality.

Walking up to the third cultivator Tian An had ever seen, he quickly passed through the wandering children in the small group and stood in front of a man at least three times his height.

The man sported large muscles and tanned skin, reminding him of the farmers that lived outside the city's walls and worked in the sun all day.

Without missing a beat, the man only gestured an open hand behind him in silent communication for Tian An to join the group around him.

Seeing the gesture of the man in front of him, Tian An quickly scampered away to go among the crowd of rowdy children.

Tian An, finally out of line and in no mood to talk to others his age, quickly found a spot in the ground and placed himself under a shaded tree in the left corner of the congregated group.

To Tian An's relief, the children seemed to give him a wide range of space, as if repulsed by his presence.

'Which is a fair assumption to make,' Tian An thought while nodding along to his own guess as to why he was given the peace of mind he wanted.

Tian An grew up in a very, very different place from most of the children in the group here.

How he looked surely represented that.

With his dirty, unwashed clothes and various cuts along hanging exposed skin, accompanied by a lack of shoes and greasy hair, the world could only be thankful that Tian An had yet to hit puberty and was only a little putrid-smelling.

Tian An would swear he kept up with the hygiene taught to him by his mother. It was just that after her passing, he would be lucky to find a source of clean and available water to wash in.

Tian An could barely feed himself every few days, so bathing was the least of his past worries.

Yet as he sat in with an emotionless face on the ground, he couldn't help but take a glance or two at the well-groomed and unmarked faces around him.

He would be lying if he said it did make him a bit self-conscious.

–

It seemed that even the impossibly long line had eventually come to an end.

The sun had now crossed over the mountains and dimmed beyond the horizon. 

Looking forward, Tian An could see about forty new faces.

Given the ratio of 1 out of 200 mortals having the potential to actually have the aptitude for cultivation, it was actually quite the number.

Tian An was brought out of his thoughts at the sound of a loud clap reverberating throughout the surrounding plaza.