The Han clan had attacked every clan from Northeast of the Qi Continent to all the way down to Southwestern areas of the Continent. They had killed all the man and even female warriors. They kept young and beautiful girls as their exclusive domain and killed the others. They checked every child for good Qi seeds, to be raised as slave warriors. The ones who they deemed under par or inferior qi nature were tossed into the river or into the beast forests.
When they attacked the nomadic Hu clan of central plains. The clan leader Hu Lei put up the great fight but in the end the hoard of ten thousand Qi warrior easily swept the two thousands of Hu clan.
Hu Lei had just became a father and was still drunk in party when they were attacked. Even though Hu Lei of nomadic clan was widely known in central plain as ferocious warrior of gold rank and had rare poison element as his primary elemental Qi, he couldn't even stand for ten minutes in the battle.
Nine hundred of Hu clan warrior were killed and then skinned and their corpses were fed to their summoned beasts. Four hundred elders were put into the spiritual chamber to extract the their ancient knowledge and they all turned into dust once they were done. Three hundred young girls were raped day and night till all of them died or were half dead and were left for wild animals to feed on. One hundred young boys were used as sacrifices to ancestors of Han clan as the proof of victory. Two hundred and fourtythree young children were taken as slave soldiers. And rest were thrown in the magical beast mountain.
Among the abandoned children was the child of Hu Lei, Hu Gou who was only four days old when Hu clan perished. Initially Han clan had thought him to be something worthy as slave but when they checked him for Qi element, they found that this child of mighty Hu Lei, had no qi element. Even the farmers had some sign of qi elements when they were born but this child had none. Such a child was not even worth keeping as slave. Han clan was in victory March, they didn't need such trash, not even as a slave.
Hu gou landed on beast mountain and was half dead when a mythical beast of draconic origin known as "Reincarnation Lord" found him. The mythical beast looked at the half dead child and took a long breath and said, "A child with the rarest of element is left to die... If you were a dragon child, I would have adopted you but a mere human child is unqualified to be taken to 'The realm of Life bearer', so all I can do is send you to alternate universe. Live your life there and when you die there you will return back here. A decade you live there is a day in here. So even if you live a full life there, you won't age much here...." The Reincarnation Lord swallowed the child.
Four days later he opened his mouth and brought out the child who had just awoken. The child was then left on the doorsteps of infamous alchemist, living inside the beast mountain. After the Reincarnation Lord left, the baby started crying.
I
It was more of tree trunk than the home of an alchemist. A hand that looked like dried stick slowly opened the door which looked like tree bark. A coarse voice sounded, " Who is there…? Did nobody tell you that I hate children?" A crooked figure came out of this tree trunk and look around. When this figure looked down and saw the child crying on the ground , the already dried face of this figure twitched and made a shape that one cannot describe using words. After a while, this figure realized that there was something in the cloth wrapped around the child. The dried stick like hand approached it and and opened the cloth. There was a parchment and a medicinal plant known as "reincarnation rose". This plant was said to exist only in the realm of life bearer. It was a priceless object that even the royal family of richest country of Lu Long could not afford to buy. The stick like hand trimbled when it took hold of it.
This thing was way too precious, even the wealth of entire nation in rich eastern coasts couldn't afford it. It was said that if a highest grade alchemist could make a medicinal pill of draconic rank with this plant. The one who absorbs this pill would reincarnate in a new body with dragons might and all his or her previous knowledge and Qi. And even if it was not used in the refining pill, it was said to have effect of refining one's body and soul if kept in contact. The stick like hand quickly grabbed it and hid it inside the robe that had covered the whole body of this figure.
The figure then looked at the child and quickly frowned. The figure couldn't sense any qi elements inside the child's body, and said, "what a..... Meat bag(someone with no qi ability)". Then the figure looked at the parchment lying next to the child. This parchment didn't look like any animal skin or the paper made of tree pulp, but it had no spiritual essence in it so it couldn't be a devine object. There was something imprinted in it but the figure couldn't make any sense of it. But at the right end of the parchment there was a logo that had two yellow eyes with split silver coloured pupil. It indicated that this parchment was something belonging to the dragons of ancient dragon clans. The heart of this figure shook when the figure's deep eyes which looked like well, looked at it.
"Ahhh! Whatever... Reincarnation rose is at least worth raising this mutt..." The figure looked at the baby with disdain.
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"7 years later"
A little boy was carrying a pile of medicinal herbs. The pile was bigger than his own size. But luckily the herbs were not that heavy. This boy was the orphan from seven years ago, Hu Gou. "Yu Gou! Hurry up!" A beautiful lady cried out with lovely voice. Her voluptuous figure was wrapped with skin tight red dress. Her skin was looked so smooth and soft as if made of whipped cream. She looked as if she had just reached the age of 19-20. Nobody can say that she is the same alchemist known as "Witch of Hunted Forest" and was more than 2000years old.
"Here it is… mama can I get the silver dagger you promised me?" Hu You asked after putting the pile of herbs on table. The lady who was in middle of refining medicinal pill turned around. Her lips twitched. She frowned and said, " Didn't I tell you not to call me mama? It feels like I am an old hag when you call me mama.... Besides I'm not your real mother." But when she saw Hu Gou made puppy eyes, she sighed and said, " Fine! You can call me mama…" Hu Gou's face brighten up. Seeing this she said, " But only when we are alone, when anyone visit, you are to call me Miss Yun, understood?" Hu Gou smiled and said,"Um…" It didn't really matter since people rarely visit this place. Or rather, only ones that visited were non humans so far.
Inside Hu Gou's head there were many stuffs he couldn't make sense of. The information inside his heads were the information from his life in another world, granted by the mythical beast. He had lived about 40years on the world without magic, earth and was a shady programmer, more precisely a hacker. He was a genius programmer who hacked the most secure bank system and stole billions. He was a wanted criminal and was fugitive for 14 years when he was caught and was sentenced to death. Now that he was back to the world of magics and whatnots, the information in his head didn't make sense. Besides his memories were not complete. He knew his name was Hugo in that alternative world but that was not much different from his own. It seemed that he couldn't do magical stuffs like creating fire or wind in his palm like people from this world could do. At least he couldn't do anything Ms.Yun could do. So he was like a frog in fish pond.
Although Miss Yun said that his qi potential is great but Hu Gou couldn't sense anything inside him. Although the understanding level of Hu Gou was far greater than that of seven years old kid but he couldn't comprehend the qi cultivation. Whenever he sat down for cultivation as mama(miss Yun) instructed, at first he would feel as if something was getting inside his body but then he would get used to it. Instead of feeling filled with energy, he would feel empty. It was clear that he was not made for cultivation. So he tried to learn the alchemy instead. At least it was easy to understand and was precise. All he need to do was understand the property of the herb. Then decompose it to the needed components and mix it with other complimenting components from other herbs. It was more like 3D puzzle to him. Although for alchemy one needed to have wood nature of qi and should be able to control fire, Hu Gou was able to this without using qi. He would simply put the herbs in his palm and as if cultivating he would try to absorb the binding force within the herb and herb would breakdown to different components like herb essences, excess oil, water, residue etc. Then he only needed to separate the essence and combine it with other components and finally crystalize it and then shape it into a pill which was easy since putting the crystalized pill between his palm and exerting pressure would make it perfectly round in shape.
It was such a normal thing to do for him, he never realized that Ms. Yun was baffled to see it work. But due to the pride of master alchemist, she never asked Hu Gou about how to do it.