Everdawn Kingdom, Graywolf Town.
In the southernmost part of the town, inside Voss Butcher Shop, I sat on the side of the bed holding my head, trying to bear the headache while my brain processed the memories of my past life. They had just awakened and were merging with the memories of my current life.
"Huh! So this is a world where the strong reign supreme, haa, nice. I will be able to do all the things that I couldn't do in my past life. I won't make the same mistakes again, and I won't come under anyone's mercy again. This time my life will end because of my own decisions, not because of some other person's trickery and cowardice." Came a murmur as I merged with the memories.
The memories kept coming one after another, the memories of an adult from another world, a world without any spirit energy, where the most powerful thing an ordinary person like me could do was read about heroes in fantasy novels, and I had read tons of them. Now those two lives were being pressed into one head, and it felt as if someone was stirring my brain with a stick. After a while, the pain slowly became bearable and I could finally think properly.
This world has spirit energy, and people absorb this energy through set patterns called cultivation techniques. These techniques are in the hands of those in power, who hold them quite dear and won't part with them even in death. There is a catch, though — if you have enough money, you can enter the Martial Hall as an outer disciple. Thankfully, in this life I had been born into a family that, while not rich, wasn't so poor either.
"Kael, are you alright?" came a man's voice from outside the room.
"Yes Dad, I am fine right now," I replied as I opened the door to see a man in his late 30s with a concerned look on his face.
Looking at me and seeing that I looked alright, he asked with concern,
"What happened? We were just celebrating your 14th birthday and cutting the cake downstairs with your friends when you ran out holding your head in pain. I asked your friends to head home and asked one of them to send the doctor here first, while I stayed by the door calling out to you for the last hour or so, since you only yelled in pain from inside and wouldn't open the door." My dad continued in concern.
Hearing this, I felt a little guilty. To him, his son had suddenly screamed and locked himself in a room for an hour, and he couldn't do anything but stand outside the door and call my name. (Well, I couldn't exactly tell him that his son had just received a second life's worth of memories.)
At the same time, the sound of knocking came from the door downstairs.
"This must be Doctor Wayne. You rest in your bed, I'll bring him here." He walked away after saying this to bring the doctor up.
While my father said all this, I realized I didn't see my mother around, and then a memory jogged up — I hadn't seen my mother since a young age, and my father had mentioned that she had already returned to the stars.
Remembering this, my first thought was like every other fantasy novel — my mother should be from a big clan, she ran away with my father, later they had me, and once her family found out, they took her away to some faraway place. Or so I thought, until another memory jogged up. That time when I was 12, my friends and I had dared each other to go around the town's graveyard, and it was then that I saw my mother's grave there. From that, I could definitely say that she was no more, and there was no plot about rescuing my mother.
Thinking up to here, I couldn't help but sigh. It was a little disappointing as a reader, but as her son, there was only a dull ache in my chest that came from the memories of this life.
As I was reminiscing about these memories, the doctor and my dad entered the room.
"I don't know what's wrong with him. We were celebrating downstairs and suddenly he caught his head and ran out of the room, and when I reached here I could hear his voice full of pain. Please check him." My dad said to the doctor with concern.
The doctor asked me to lie on the bed as he placed his hand on mine to check my pulse. When he grabbed my hand, I could feel something passing from the doctor's hand into my body. It did a round through my body, slowly moving through my arm, my chest and my head before returning, and at that moment I understood how magnificent this spirit energy is. It was faint, warm, and completely obedient to the doctor, and it was only a small doctor in a small town using it. As I was marveling at the sensation of this power and yearning for it, the doctor and my dad had a talk, and the doctor said,
"He just had a headache. His body is slightly weak right now and he only needs some rest. Give him these medicines and he will be fine by tomorrow, nothing to worry about here." He passed some medicines along while my dad escorted him out, and also went to settle the bill with the money he keeps downstairs.
I just looked at them and continued to think about what I should do. How should I proceed? Should I directly join the Martial Hall? How do I convince my father? Do we have enough money to handle the fees along with the other things that would be needed to cultivate? I didn't even know how much the Martial Hall charged, and a shop that earned in copper coins might not be able to afford it as easily as I hoped.
While I was brainstorming, Dad came back and, seeing me staring blankly at the ceiling, said,
"Here is the medicine, keep it by your side. I will bring you demon tiger bone soup, it will help your body recover fast. I'll be downstairs looking after the shop, there are already customers out there queuing up for the demonic meat. If you need anything, just yell and I will run up here." He said this with relief, since he had learned from the doctor that it was just a normal headache, and he continued downstairs to attend to the customers.
Yes, just as mentioned at the start, although I wasn't born into some super rich or noble household, I wasn't born into a poor household either. My dad runs the only demonic meat shop in the town, and everyone who needs meat comes to us, so yes, we have money, and I can use this along with the martial contacts my father has to get into the Martial Hall and have a go at reaching the world's top. Like every other transmigrator, my goal is the same — to reach the very top and beyond.
...
A couple of days later, I was busy helping my father sell the dissected beast parts to the clients.
"Here you go sir, 3 kg of five-feather chicken," I said with a smile as I continued, "this will cost you 30 copper coins."
"Thanks, kiddo," the customer said as he passed the coins.
Taking those coins, I smiled and moved on to the next client.
"This is your 2 kg of wild rabbit, this will be 10 copper coins," I said with the same professional smile.
Taking the amount placed on the counter, I continued catering to the other clients for quite some time. In my past life I had smiled at plenty of people I didn't want to smile at, so a counter full of aunties haggling over a few copper coins was nothing at all. Before long, every order placed had been catered to.
"Phew! Finally I can relax now." Saying this, I moved towards the back room.
As I neared the back room, the sound of chopping could be heard.
Opening the door, I saw a bulky man swinging the butchering knife onto a large piece of meat on the stone table.
Looking at him, I said,
"Dad, all the orders are delivered."
Nodding his head, the burly man continued chopping the pieces.
Seeing this, I moved to the side bench and looked through some books that contained general knowledge about this world.
As my memories became clearer, and as I understood the world better with my newfound wisdom, the knowledge from my previous world and the tons of fantasy novels I had read, I started looking for more books about this world. I wanted to find a path, decide which route I should take, and plan for the future. I had bought these books yesterday from the nearby bookstore.
Sadly, they weren't anything great. They talked about legends, famous battles, how strong some old monster had been, and gave a rough sketch of the geography, but about martial cultivation itself there was almost nothing, as expected. Who would write their treasured methods into a book sold at a small town's bookstore? Still, information is information, and a cautious kid from a small town needs every bit of it he can get.
I continued to browse through the books about martial arts while my father worked, though he was also keeping a tab on me and seeing how engrossed I had become with martial arts and power.
Seeing my determination and enthusiasm for the martial path, my father thought about it and made a decision.