4 Chapter 3 First years

He woke up in a small wooden cot.

He was hurt, he might have just been born, and he might not have known her, but he could feel his mother's happiness and love for for him, he didn't understand, but he could hear her talking to him everyday since he could actually hear it. She was definitely doing it from before. It hurt, what might have been.

He didn't feel as much loss from his father, he only heard him for a few weeks, sensed him even less, but it still hurt, his emotions might have been numbed from his life before, but they were there, and losing two families in a row hurt.

A few days had passed and Chen Jin discovered that he was in a middle aged woman's house.

She did not know how to take care of a kid. She tried, and she was kind though. She would sit down for a few hours everyday and talk to me, i did not know what, but it was helping me now that I could see things, I could already understand sleep, cot, chair, bed and day.

Now that I was born I couldn't feel the energy as well as when I was in the womb. I got the feeling that it was there, but it was faint.

I started to try to meditate, that's what they do in books and novels, so I hope that would help. I always fall asleep. It was taking longer now though.

A few more days passed and I learned the woman's name, a younger woman came by to talk to her, her name is Bai Huo.

It was in the same day that I learned what world I was in, the entity did say that it might be a world that I thought of with fondness.

The younger women, Bai Yin, held me in her arms and took me to the door, through which I saw Bai Huo, she extended her hand and a small scythe appeared that she used to cut the taller grass around the back of the house.

There was blue grass besides the green.

Douluo dalu, besides coiling dragon was one of my favourite web novels.

I was happy, but also a bit sad, from the house and the houses that I could see besides mine, I could tell I probably wasn't near the second timeline, Yuhao's, and that's when spirit souls were first conceived. I disliked the way to acquire spirit rings, a path in which you have to kill another to go further is wrong, it probably wasn't like that before the war of the gods and they decided to restrain the spirit beast.

Besides restricting spirit beasts it also restricted spirit masters. Younger spirit rings became useless in the future, there was also the problem of finding a suitable spirit beast, and even then you couldn't be certain what spirit ability you would acquire.

Spirit masters very rarely created their own spirit abilities, they seemed to find it extremely hard, but that shouldn't be, it is their own spirit energy, they should be able to learn to control it

'I will try for myself, it all should start from control, from the novels they don't seem to have any way to train that'

'Needing to kill another to go further seems wrong, it's also likely that it isn't the original path, I will try to find another way, it is said to be impossible, but I doubt that there is someone who would willingly stay at a bottleneck for years to try and find a way'

'I will give myself until I'm ten' he thought

'six years... If I can't do it the I'll yield'

He remembered Long Shiya, from Heavenly Jewel Change, it belongs to the same shared universe and he created a method that made it so he did not need stored skills, it showed him that it might be possible to do what he desired.

His days continued like that trying to meditate, trying to take control of his own body and listening to Bai Huo, sometimes Bai Yin, they were cousins, he learned.

He made more progress learning the language and taking control of his body than meditating, he was only two months old now, but he could already understand nearly everything that Bai Huo said, she mostly talked about her day, sometimes she told him stories. For controlling is body he could already turn around and was trying to sit up, he could almost always do it.

Meditating went slower, he felt a bit... At peace, was the best way to describe it, and unless he wanted he never fell asleep, but he couldn't meditate for long, stray thoughts started appearing after twenty or so seconds. It did help him feel spirit energy better though.

A month soon passed, and he discovered that even though he could absorb spirit energy, he didn't actually know if it was doing anything, it felt different from when he was in the womb, and he didn't know any of that meridian mumbo jumbo.

'Nothing to do about that' he was feeling a bit resigned.

'I won't stop though, if it helps me I would regret it later if I stopped'.

It was two days later that he decided that no matter how Bai Huo would look at him, he would start crawling, he was in a cultivation world, no matter how small, or weak compared to a few others, so who knew, maybe there are weirder sights.

"Chen Jin!"

Shocked, it seemed, wasn't strong enough of a word to describe how Bai Huo felt, and most definetly looked.

She had her mouth open and her blue eyes bugged out.

He wasn't amused, not a little bit.

"guagga" he laughed. 'traitorous body'.

"You're crawling! Come here, you can do it!" she was just exited now.

'Alright then, this isn't the first time you're crawling, try not to hit your head again, it's easy'

It wasn't.

His left arm did not totally obey him midway, it was embarrassing.

"Are you alright?!" Bai Huo was rushing to his side, but she stopped when she saw him sit and pout.

'Damn it' he was soo embarrassed.

"pffft" it looks like it showed, she was trying not to laugh.

"There, little guy, there is no need to be embarrassed" she said as she picked him up.

He couldn't see her, he was looking to the side, but he could practically hear the smile.

"Let's go, let's try again" she said after putting in the corner of the room, she stayed close, probably to prevent any more accidents.

The next few weeks passed like this, meditating, and learning how to crawl.

He was nearly four months old now, it was night, and Bai Huo was talking to him, as usual before he fell asleep, and she went soon after.

She had learned that he could understand her, so she started saying other things, besides just talking to get him used to the language.

"Today I will tell you about were we live! We live in a village called weapon soul, because nearly everyone awakens a tool type martial spirit when they are six years old."

"Our village is not very big, but it has at least one spirit master every year! Which is a lot. There were fewer when I was small, but the children of spirit masters have a greater chance of being one, so even if they are not very talented we still have a few"

It was in the day after that I learned that i was in the Barack kingdom, near Soto.

'I'm thankful for knowing, but I really don't know why she's telling geography to a baby' the first time she started telling him common knowledge he was a bit baffled, thankful, but baffled.

The months flew by, he was now one and a half, he could already talk, and more importantly, Bai Huo knew that he was a lot smarter that he had any right to be, and he did not forget easily.

"Granny" he was going to ask today, he needed to know if Bai Huo knew anything about his parents, he waited so long in order to not appear to weird, but even if just their names, he would be happy.

"Do you know what happened to my parents?"

She was sitting at the table when he asked, he'd seen her eyes widen, and the relax, as if she knew that sooner or later that question would come.

"I thought it would take you longer to ask that. At least one more year, even with how different you are from a common child". She looked through as she talked.

"I don't know much, your mother knocked on my door bloodied, visibly tired and clearly with not much time to live, she looked as if she could fall to the ground at any moment" she remembered.

"She asked me to take care of you, and left me a necklace, to give you only when you awakened your martial soul, she said it was a soul tool, and had a letter for you inside. She did not leave her name, she looked at you, still in her arms gave you one last kiss and handed you over, it looked as if her heart was breaking apart as she did, she said that she did not have much time left, and there was something she needed to do to make sure you stayed safe, she turned around and almost instantly disappeared into the trees south of the house". She looked sadly at you while she said.

"Stay here" She said as she got up and went to her bedroom.

"She asked to give it to you when your martial spirit awakened, but I seen no harm in giving it sooner" she said when she got back.

The necklace was simple, a simple metal chain and an ash grey sword, he liked it.

"Thank you" he said simply, there were no more words that came to mouth.

"You have nothing to thank Chen'er" she said sadly.

Chen Jin just nodded and went to his bedroom with the necklace in his hands.

He was two, nearly three when he found it, he was outside, in a small clearing near his house, it was in the outskirts of the village, meditating.

He had been trying to feel inside his meridians inside his body, when he found a place, he couldnt describe it, it felt like his body, and at the same time not he could also feel a weird connection there, as if something of his was there.

'What is this' he was curious, so he sent a small bit of his spirit energy there. It was absorbed, and the connection streghtened. It became routine to send a bit of his energy there everyday, he couldn't send much because the energy he sent was forever lost, it was different from when spent it trying (in vain) to merge it with his body.

This endeavor wouldn't bear fruit until he was four.