In a vast world full of lies, a frail young man lays beneath the stars. One day he wished to touch a star, and look down upon the world from above, but he knew his fate was to be chained to this damned earth never being able to break these shackles of what humans called limits. As he observed the patterns of the stars a gust of wind hit him, the grass brushing against his bare feet and skin out of his ragged clothes.
The air moved softly carrying a spiritual energy with it, the world is a mysterious place, and those who lived in it... Cunning, cruel, wicked, ruthless. The world was overrun by those who were powerful, thanks to the gift of spiritual energy, but to some? Those who didn't have any talents, it was a curse, every passing minute is a struggle for the weak.
It's the year 254. The calender began after the fight between the Emperor of death, Moert. And the Saint of Radiance, Lucent.
A battle between what people considered Deities. Thanks to the powers granted by the gift of spiritual energy.
As a person comes of age, the residues of the spiritual energy they breathe in awakens inside the person's body, making it a vessel to grow infinitely stronger, but the process depends on one's talent and the attributes they have awakened.
As a person could try and cultivate for life but only some can even reach rejuvenation.
Every person awakens a power unique to them, varying on their personality, will, tenacity and the reflection of the soul. the phenomena happens when the capacity of the human body reaches it's limits of breathing in the residues of spiritual energy forcefully openings one's meridians and the dantian, the process can be really painful and damaging if they weren't taught and trained from a young age how to control the flow of spiritual energy inside their bodies. This occurrence doesn't only happens to humans, animals, or wild creatures tend to breath in the spiritual energy as well, most of the time they die from the unbearable pain they have to go through from not having an intelligent mind nor having the capabilities of the endurance of a normal human, but those who manages to survive ends up being creatures unimaginably strong. Humans have divided them into ranks.
Made into 7 ranks, as the rank increases it being unimaginably stronger than the other. There's also a classification for humans, first part divided into three orders, as you awaken, you become a first order human, you're able to rise in your order by filling your dantian with spiritual energy and overflowing it, making a second core, and unlocking your next attribute ability granted by the spiritual energy. As the world is now, the maximum amount of cores a human was able to make now were 3, that being the reason why there were only three orders and to add to that, there were only a handful of them as well. And Emperor of death and Saint of Radiance had 5 cores, that being the reason why they were called Deities. To cultivate cores, one has to be extremely talented and skilled, the way to cultivate is absorbing the spiritual energy slowly while meditating or fighting powerful foes and beasts, applying pressure of a life or death battle into your meridians and dantian to absorb a large amount of energy, but any sane person who values there life wouldn't choose the second option.
The world is divided into two regions as well, one following the legacy left behind by Emperor of death and the other that of Saint of Radiance. Both of the regions only occupied about 30% of this vast world, the remaining amount wasn't explored nor filed in reports and out of the human knowledge but one thing was sure for everyone, out in the world exists creatures far beyond human control.
Even with the fear of what's beyond the borders, no one considered what could rise from within...
And in the outskirts of the Region of Death, the frail young man lay beneath the stars when something twisted violently in his lower abdomen.
The unknown pain made him sit up unconsciously, without giving him time to even think.
He had gotten stomach aches like this for the past days, but not on this level. As he put tension on his lower abdomen, the twisting worsened, he yelped in agony as he began rolling uncontrollably.
Suddenly the twisting stopped for a second before his eyes began to shine, the torment hasn't left yet, as he relaxed the tension on his lower abdomen, letting down his guard, everything snapped.
"Argh!!"
He screamed, as if it would have helped diminish the pain, he felt like every fiber of his muscles were being ripped away, his bones were breaking and reforming every millisecond, a minute felt like a century of torture, his veins were popping out as if it was about to explode.
He dug into his own skin trying to rip it away as his blood was starting to boil, tears and saliva streaming down his face as he tried to ensure the pain, hoping the torture would end before he died. After what felt like an eternity for him, he let out ragged breathes before fainting from the exhaustion.
From the distance a grumpy and deep voice could be heard.
"Ace!! You little rascal! Where did you run off to this time! Leaving the blacksmith unattended!"
A blurry image of a short muscular old man could be seen from the angle of the frail young man, his vision hasn't completely returned yet from the excruciating pain he endured earlier, wearing a long sleeve shirt with trousers and a thick leather apron and leather boots, walking towards him.
As the muscular man towered over the young man, he flinched as the old man grabbed the back of his neck and dragged him away
"Little rascal!" The old man muttered again.
Ace was too exhausted to protest and he let himself be taken away, his consciousness slowly dripping away.