1 Chapter 1: Survival

"Trash, how dare you offend our wang clan!"

Bang!, Richie's head was mercilessly thrown against the cold floor of the whirlwind Valley.

Richie was from the Hong clan, a second rate clan which had offended the wang clan due to killing one of their members. The Hong clan had been massacred and destroyed by the wang clan in only a single day, and only due to the pleading of his father was Richie spared, out of pity.

This was quite the blow to Richie's mind, he was only eleven, he shouldn't have experienced such an event, yet his eyes seem to contain maturity, but not the maturity that would help you in life or death situations, a maturity of which was forged across multiple traumatic events.

The wang clan was a first rate clan with extreme power, therefore, they were able to easily destroy the mere second rate Hong clan.

The two people which had just dumped Richie on the floor were mere servants of the wang clan and, they were already at the 5th sub stage of the 1st realm.

After dumping the 'trash' on the floor, the two members of the wang clan swiftly left leaving richie stranded in the whirlwind Valley.

The whirlwind valley was classified as a forbidden zone as the environment was extremely harsh and the spirit beasts were very powerful.

spirit beasts were beasts which had absorbed qi into their body therefore becoming extremely powerful, however, people especially feared the spirit beasts of the whirlwind Valley due to their wind element and the harsh environment making it exceedingly difficult to kill them.

Even though the whirlwind Valley was a cold and merciless place, people still ventured through it, people could go there for beast cores, herbs or even just there because it was the quickest route to their destination.

out of all of the forbidden zones in the Xinjiang Empire, the whirlwind Valley was by far the largest one, yet also the least dangerous. It spans over 5 million kilometer, covering over 20% of the entire empire, it was also connected to some of the most important areas in the Empire, like the central city, as it was a reliable source or resources any city needed to grow.

"That damn wang clan!" Richie screamed. He was furious, well anyone would if their family had just been destroyed. Richie was cut and bruised all over his body. he was in an extremely miserable state, his cultivation had even been crippled. The wang clan sure was cautious, making sure that he would never be a threat to them in the future by crippling his cultivation, but he had recovered from worse

He swiftly picked himself up , he had to survive if he was ever going to get back at the wang clan.

As his father's only son, he was taught the essentials on how to survive in the wilderness, like how to make a fire just so that in situations like this, he would know how to actually survive.

His father was the clan head of the Hong clan and he had poured his resources into Richies cultivation, only for it to get crippled, how sad was that? anyway Richie them stared to make the fire

He plucked two sticks of off the nearby wind trees, trees specialised in surviving in windy environments, and rubbed them together.

After a while, the sticks set on fire due to the friction. Richie the put the alight sticks on a pile of wood to start the fire.

The heat felt incredible on his skin . But he still had to sustain it using his qi.

even though he was crippled, he could still circulate his qi, of he couldn't even sustain a measly fire, he wouldn't deserve the title of 'alchemist'

Richie used to be a cultivator before his cultivation was crippled, he was at the 7th sub stage of first realm, there are nine cultivation realms and each of these realms have 9 sub stages, the first realm is the qi gathering realm, where a cultivator would gather qi into their body, preparing to form their qi core.

Alchemy however is an occupation, alchemists are highly respected due to the very demanding requirements you need to meet to become an alchemist, they were also respected due to the incredibly useful products they made, but to make them, you needed to have an extremely precise control over the fire you are using as you would need to increase and decrease the temperatures according to what you were making

"God what a horrible day" Richie sighed, he didn't have a clue how he was going to recover from this.

"Grrrrrr" suddenly a bush nearby started moving , Richie immediately became alert and stared at the bush that moved.

Pop, a bunny came flying out of the bush and landed in front of him. It had soft looking fur and a cute innocent look on its face, the complete opposite of what it was trying to do to Richie. what a cute bunny, he thought and reached out to pet it without thinking.

However when he finally realised what he was doing it was too late.

"AAAAAAAAAH" he screamed, the "cute" bunny had just bitten him! He quickly smacked it away, but it immediately pounced back on him

"Crap", he thought and started fighting the bunny, it was good that the bunny was only at the first sub stage of the first realm, he could still defeat it using his experience, he punched and kicked it into a corner.

After a while of kicking and punching the bunny, it finally died, but not before inflicting some horrid wounds onto him.

Gazing up at the sky, he realised that it was almost night and his fire had extinguished. sighing, he took some leaves and wrapped them around his wounds and quickly fell asleep due to over exerting himself in that battle, if he didnt have prior battle experience, he would have died already, that just shows the power of a spirit beast.

A few hours after falling asleep, a mystic green glow surrounded his body, healing all of his wounds immediately, what was this glow, well, it was ...