Chapter 0:

Prologue - Getting Down with the Sickness

The Joy of Double Cultivation


 “Cultivation is about betterment, for yourself and the world around you.” - ancient Chinese proverb

Chao Li was following his teacher Qiang Qianfan on the campaign. He was Qiang’s right hand man, but they were followed by the other 7 disciples. Their target was the most powerful family at the time, the Xu family.

Chao had already broken through the barrier of Combining all three Realms, making him a Combined Realm cultivator.

This idea his teacher came up, about the world, cultivation and so on, was much more complete than his own Li family Kwoon1 could ever achieve.

The limit of the Li family understanding, ended at the Half-step to Spirit Mastery and even before that for the other two realms. No doubt the Xu family was ahead in terms of cultivation as they had achieved domination over the surrounding areas and had been expanding the most aggressively of the 30 great families.

They were a real thorn in Qiang’s side, however his diplomatic approach of the last 50 odd years didn’t slow them down, they would lie to him about the way they were making the world better for their subjects, while ignoring all his ides and their subjects’ pleas.

The only reason he couldn’t just take them down, was the three Demon Moons that had been happening in that time. An unprecedented event.

Cultivators able and prepared to fight Demons and protect their people was the minimum, but now that all three Demon Moons had ended, not all of them were a necessity.

And yet, they disappointed him again and again. During the last Demon Moon, they would only fight Demons of the third rank and higher or large groups of smaller Demons.

This meant a lot of people died, were cursed, or lost their crops and houses during the Demon Moons. But after the last Demon Moon a 47 year lull period would happen, this was enough time to straighten out the old cultivation world and start a new order.

The nine of them got to the bottom of the Temple staircase and stopped as Qiang said “One must always show grace when it is afforded to them.” Qiang had a different style from other teachers. Chao admired this man and everything he had done for the regular people.

As they started walking up the steps, one stair at a time, to give Jing Xu enough time to give them the courteous welcome Chao Li was sure they would receive.

Especially seeing him, a reject from the Li family, which had been to an extent a branch family of the Xu’s.

As they were reaching the top of the staircase, they were stopped by three cultivators in their traditional martial artist garb.

“State your business.” One of them sternly said.

“A simple talk with your master Jing.” Qiang was fast to give an answer, flashing a smile for a split second while tilting his head revealing his neck.

“Why the large posse?” The man asked, even though a group of 9 wasn’t considered a large posse when entering a temple of cultivation training. Usually Qiang came alone or just in Chao’s company, as his first student. But today was very different. With all 8 of his students from the first training ground, Qiang had very different plans.

“As the Demon Moons have ended, we all have more time.” Qiang flashed another smile and tilted his head to the other side.

A year worth of rebuilding efforts meant that most people got back on track with their lives, the perfect time for a change in pace of the world.

The three men at the gate allowed the group in. With Qiang leading the 8 of them into a first courtyard with many a Spirit Gate lining the path, they came to the first fork and continued straight forward, to the main training ground.

A large sandy area of a roughly circular shape with a radius of 30 meters at its slimmest stretched out in front of them, there were a couple chairs around it, and red Runes and writings on the sand.

A duel between a man and a woman in adjutant garb was going on.

The woman had better form, but the man’s Body Realm allowed him to pass through her defenses more often than not. Such was the world of Cultivation, the person further on the scale would almost always win.

Chao was assessing people around him, none could come even slightly close to the amount of Soulforce he or anyone in their group had gathered in the hundred years they had been following Qiang.

When Jing Xu came out, despite being better than any of the other Xu cultivators, he was clearly leaps and bounds weaker than anyone of their group.

He looked like a man in his fifties, as he was already 300 years old. Not achieving the 2nd step of immortality meant that he still aged, even if it was slow.

He was shadowed by a number of other people from the family, all at a close rank to him, some even the same rank. All together there was 16 of them, from what Chao could tell, they each had at least one Realm at the pre-mastery level, Nascent Soul, One with the Spirit, and Earthly Nirvana.

Chao was aware that about half of them were out on errands, however this didn’t change anything in terms of their objective.

“So Qiang, what have you come for today? Are you going to chastise me about my methodology, or give me threats you can’t deliver on?” Jing ask haughtily, followed by some cheering from his group of cronies.

The situation turned tense, their mostly warm smiles froze, the subtle change emanated from Qiang and even Chao could feel that this wasn’t just a normal reaction.

Every Cultivator in the immediate vicinity was at the point that they could mask and completely avoid their emotions, and yet Qiang decided to amplify his anger instead. ‘Oh, that might cost them all their life.’ Chao thought to himself.

“Yes, the day of reckoning has come for you, you have showed me disrespect many a time. I let it slide as I had a use for you. But…” Qiang trailed off, putting a finger into the air, giving not only Chao but everyone else present goosebumps “But as you have outlived your use, you can die now.” And he pointed the finger at Jing’s chest, and an orange beam left it, going at an extreme speed.

The beam hit the protective barrier around Jing, and for about a 500th of a second it got stopped, before breaking through it, enveloping Jing and removing every trace he ever existed.

Eradication was something that even Chao couldn't handle yet, despite his best attempts to keep up with his brilliant teacher.

The emotions of surprise, anger and many similar probably tugged at the Cultivators in front of them, but against such overwhelming power, reason was the main driving force for Cultivators, except for two, all of them made a bow or step back of sorts.

“Chao, those two are your job. You still have to show them how basic their view of the world really is.” Qiang said, as the anger he had been showing had completely abated.

They were too slow, Chao knew he was in combat and yet he couldn't get excited or have any emotions about it, today’s job was like any other.

One of them used a Soulcraft technique, summoning a flash of fire, which started barreling towards Chao, the other used a sword with Brightly shining Runes to cut at Chao.

Chao put right his index finger in front of the blade and by entering his own Body Realm he broke the Rune that gave the sword its sturdiness. The sword momentarily shattered on impact with his index finger.

Entering his Soul Realm, Chao saw the plume of fire and disassembled it, as if it had never existed.

He made a fist with his right hand and punched the cultivator, with a punch containing just a little more than his opponents full reserve of Qi.

On impact, his entire body fell apart into millions of tiny pieces and fluids spurting away from him in tiny droplets. Chao wasn’t hit by any of the remains, but the Cultivators of the Li family thirty or so meters behind, weren’t as lucky. Many of them got hit by multiple small chunks or droplets, forcing some of them to take a step back from the recoil.

Using Yin-Yang Soulcraft, Chao’s eyes sparkled with a weak green light as he focused more Soulforce than the other opponent had in store, as he shone green for a second before collapsing dead on the ground, his body a husk with all of the liquids and moisture gone from it.

The skin almost immediately started crumbling.

“This is a change in the world order, I am going to lead you all to a better life, for everyone.” Qiang said turning away, “The day is still young, we have 29 more families left.”

Qiang and his apprentices, killed the leader of every family, along with anyone who put up resistance.

On that day, the normal world and the cultivation world saw a massive change, as Qiang became the Immortal Emperor of the surrounding areas, and the apprentices became masters of the families they originated from, turning them into the 8 main families.

********

As Qiang developed a faster transportation method, he moved the capital of the world to the Suez, to be able to help everyone with the Demon Moons that came once in a while.

With more and more people learning cultivation, a new era started, where the weak didn’t have to fear for their life or well-being, as the cultivators at the top and all 30 families were helping people now. As true immortality had been reached by more and more people and the journey towards immortality became more and more simple.

470 years after the day when Qiang Qianfan took over all the cultivation Kwoons in the world a new problem arrived.

Chao Li along with three others had made a prediction that the next Demon Moon, would contain demons that were two ranks higher than any demon they had ever fought.

‘We should be ready for this, with our advances in cultivation, even these new demons should be no match for the greatest cultivators’ Chao thought. With 43 years to prepare, they should still be able to develop weapons and important things.

They started the STEM institute of the He Xao Royal Cultivation University with the hope of getting to a breakthrough, not only in terms of cultivation strategies but with other laws of the universe. The institute would take people who weren’t made for combat and get them to be researchers, to help in the safety efforts of the world.

‘Knowledge is power’, was a saying that was especially true in cultivation, as an understanding of the universe expanded your cultivation powers.

But two years before the Demon Moon was about to start, a parasite that was impervious to most ways cultivators were used to deal with them appeared, infecting people randomly.

At the end of the summer when many people went on their last vacation before the Demon Moon could come, the grave news was delivered to the citizenry: “Qiang Qianfan, the God-Emperor has contracted the parasite.”

Chao Li thought ‘Well that is going to complicate things marginally.’

1 – A Kwoon is a martial arts training hall