9 A New Land (1/2)

Shura opened his eyes. Greens filled his sight. He felt the grass and dirt on the ground. He saw grasses everywhere. Bright sunlight illuminated the surrounding.

There were many trees in the distance. This was either a clearing in a forest or the periphery of a forest.

Shura stood up. He was surprised to find out that he was completely naked. And not only that, but he didn't feel any pain at all. His wounds had disappeared. There were no visible signs of a single wound on his body. But even so, he knew that the picture was different inside. His core and meridians were destroyed. He could feel a familiar sensation, it felt lacking compared to the feeling of power he was used to. He was back to where he had been a year before—a normal person.

But that didn't mean anything to him. He would not remain as a normal or a crippled person. With the supreme being's vast knowledge, there were countless ways of reforging the meridians and core, there were even different ways of strengthening the body or even the soul.

He was not worried. He would be able to recover his strength eventually. But before that, there was a more pressing matter, a mild issue that he had to deal with. Shura looked around at his surroundings, then on the ground, and finally he looked up at the sky.

He was absolutely certain that he was not on Aggradise Continent anymore. The symbols of the teleportation array were ones that denoted super-long distance. This was the kind of distance that would bridge the solely known continent by its inhabitant through the endless oceans many times more vast than the continent itself.

If he was not on an entirely different planet, he was on some other side of it, within a completely unknown piece of land. The probability of it being the latter was very high.

He thought this way because from what he knew of the Great Destruction, such a clear blue sky and peaceful scene of vegetations did not exist on Aggradise Continent anymore. Demonic energy had changed everything. The sky was forever dark and cloudy, the ground was perpetually dead save for some rare exceptions, and most vegetations and wildlife and had undergone a massive transformation that no longer resembled what it was before the Great Destruction.

”Haaa…” Shura let out a long sigh.

He was a fish out of the water. A stranger in a completely unknown land. It was quite disheartening. There was no information to go on. He'd have to think and start from scratch.

His goal was to recover his capability of strengthening himself and then increase in power. Once he became strong enough, he would be able to return to Aggradise Continent. Although Shura didn't care about where he was, Claira was still back there. He had to go back for her and find out what happened to her.

Shura spent a long time traveling until he finally found signs of human habitation. As he was now a normal person, his speed and endurance were limited. He didn't know how long he had spent in total, but it was a long and boring period of travel. He was thankful that he had not encountered any dangers.

Then he reached Fragrance City. By that time he was no longer naked, or he'd have more problems to deal with.

He spent time there collecting information. The language, architecture, culture, and even the people themselves were familiar to him. They were identical to his continent.

After a month later he had finally had a basic grasp of the situation.

He was in a continent called Short Continent. He was in the northern part of the continent, in a nation called the Heaven Empire. Fragrance Town was one out of many small towns and cities within the Seventh Province of the empire.

People on Short Continent had another common point with the inhabitants of the former Aggradise Continent: they were cultivators! The atmosphere of the continent contained an invisible cultivation resource that people and animals could absorb. It was similar to the heaven and earth qi in Aggradise Continent. It was called Spirit Energy in Short Continent, and it had different properties from qi.

Time passed and the seasons changed. After a great deal of hard work and exertion that reminded him of his woodchopping days, together with no lesser amount of thinking, Shura finally managed to gather enough resources to repair his body. Now he could finally cultivate again.

As if it was long accustomed to strengthening itself, Shura's body immediately absorbed spiritual energy as soon as his core and meridians were reformed. He felt his body immediately change. The spirit energy made him stronger and he felt what the people of this continent called the Spirit Acolyte rank.

In Short Continent, a person's strength was graded into seven ranks: Spirit Acolyte, Spirit Master, Spirit Grandmaster, Spirit Lord, Spirit King, Spirit Emperor, and Spirit Sovereign.

Each rank was subdivided into first layer, second layer, and third layer.

Shura estimated that he needed to at least become a Spirit Emperor in order to get back to Aggradise continent. He had to become a Spirit Emperor. That was all he was thinking about now.

People who weren't familiar with him gave him odd glances. It was very odd for a twenty-year old to be a first layer Spirit Acolyte. Most children became a Spirit Acolyte at the age of 16. Some geniuses were already third layer Spirit Acolytes at that age.

Shura was now a Spirit Acolyte. It was not much different than a cultivator running on demonic energy being in the Fiend Warrior level. One's physical ability increased.