PROLOGUE
On the outskirts of Fire Hill Village, two young boys were
sparring with wooden swords. The two almost appeared to be dancing together,
weaving their swords through the air.
This was a rather common sight at Fire Hill Village, as the
two boys sparred every day. At times, some passing villagers or travelers
would pause their daily routines and watch. However, they would always leave
before long, sighing to themselves. For unfortunately, although the two boys
seemed to have a reasonable amount of skill, it was apparent that they were both slaves, and were
unlikely to obtain access to any pills or techniques to properly train in the way
of the Song. In fact, the boys were fortunate to even have wooden swords to
train with. Many young slaves were only able to play with wooden sticks they
found on the ground.
After another ten minutes of sparring, the two boys abruptly
stopped. One boy’s sword was in the middle of a swing, while the sword of the
older looking boy was at the first boy’s neck. This signified that the older
boy had won, as well as the end of the sparring match.
“Jia Yuan, you’re almost getting to the point where you can
beat me!”
“Dou Di big brother, it is only because you do your best to
teach me and push me to improve every day. Or perhaps, you’re just getting
worse. Hahaha.”
“Oh, shut up you idiot. As for teaching you, it is all I can
do. Unfortunately, as slaves, the only chance we have to move up in the world
is to become soldiers. Even without pills or techniques, with enough practice,
we can progress to the first level of Absorption. I think, at that point, our
master would be willing to sell us to the Army for sizable sum of money. Hell,
if we’re lucky, maybe the Army will even provide us with a Song to train with.”
“Dou Di big brother is right! One day we’ll leave this world
behind!”
Currently, Jia Yuan was 8 years old, and Dou Di was 10. When
they were first purchased two years ago, they quickly became allies of a sort.
After a few months, they began sparring together and called each other
brothers. Over time, the bond between the two was not any less than that of blood
brothers.
The two brothers continued practicing into the night.
However, they made sure to not overexert themselves, as they knew that their
master would have work for them in the morning. As Dou Di predicted, the only
reason the master let them practice in the night, was so that he could sell the
two boys to the Army in the future.
As one of the four nations on the Continent of the Five
Elements, the Fire Kingdom desperately needed a constant influx of soldiers defend against invasions and man invasions of their own. After all, every nation wants to be
able to expand its borders, and the Fire Kingdom was no exception.
As such, every year the Army would send some low ranking
officers through the kingdom in search for young martial talent. Many of these
recruits would be former slaves. In fact, some slave owners would purchase slaves
for the sole purpose of training them to sell them to the Army for a large sum of
money. A typical child at the age of 4-6 cost about 50 small fire shards, while
a 12 year old with reasonable martial skill could be sold to the Army for over
500 small fire shards. If the slaves were made to work in a way that did not lose their master money, then
the owner would receive a straight profit of 450 small fire shards. To put this
into perspective, a family could live off of a single small fire shard for a
month. With just 6 to 8 years of effort, a talented slave owner could virtually
set themselves for life.
12 years of age was the requirement for the national army.
Furthermore, the recruit had to have passable talent with a weapon as well as
good body strength. However, the extremely talented who had reached the Absorption
level by the age of 12 could bypass the life of a simple infantryman, and become a
knight or a candidate for the Burning Legion, the prized fighting force of the Fire Kingdom.
For slaves who had reached this level, the Army would be willing to pay 5
thousand small fire shards, or its higher equivalent, 500 medium fire shards.
This shows just how highly the Kingdom valued these talents.
And such was the dream of Jia Yuan and Dou Di, to become one
of these highly respected Burning Legion soldiers.
Jia Yuan and Dou Di both returned to the small shack at the edge
of Fire Hill Village, where they noticed that their master had already gone to
sleep, but had left two bowls of congee on the table in the middle of the room.
Jia Yuan and Dou Di were both rather fortunate. Their master
was rather kind hearted, and treated the two rather well. At the very least, he
was willing to provide them with basic necessities, such as clothes and food.
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(Although the food was only ever congee or vegetable congee)
They quickly ate, and slept on the floor. They would continue
training in this manner until the fateful day in 2 years, when Dou Di would be recruited
by the Army...
Chapter 1: A Song
-2 years after the prologue-
“Big Brother, I will soon follow you. Wait for me!”
Earlier that day, a 100 man commander stopped by Fire
Hill Village, and had purchased Dou Di from the master for the hefty price of 4
thousand small fire shards. After all, despite not being able to enter the
first level of Absorption due to his lack of a Song to train with, Dou Di had
reached the threshold required to do so. All he required was a Song, which the
Army would provide him with. In short, the Army had basically gained themselves
a candidate for the Burning Legion.
For a slave like Dou Di, this was an outcome that he had
dreamed about for many years. Which brings us to the current moment, where Jia
Yuan and Dou Di were exchanging their goodbyes in preparation for Dou Di’s
departure.
“You idiot Jia Yuan, who would wait for you? You better keep
training hard or you might not be able to surpass me! Ha!” Dou Di offered some
brave words of encouragement, but in his heart he was also slightly sad that he
would have to leave this brother of his behind.
After the goodbyes were said and Dou Di left, Jia Yuan
headed back to the location where he and his brother frequently sparred, and gazed at the field with sad eyes. I’ll see you in two years, brother. He
then headed out west, opposite the direction of the main village. He headed into the
nearby forest and started sprinting. He and Dou Di had both reached the peak of
martial training without Songs, at which point the Master knew that he could
sell them for four thousand small fire shards. At this point, the Master was
very happy, and allowed the two of them to explore the surroundings. The place
where Jia Yuan liked to explore the most was the forest.
The day before, he had discovered a cave, but given that it
was nearing nighttime when he found it, he had decided to come back the day
after.
I should be getting
close to the cave by now.
After another 5 minutes, Jia Yuan found the cave, and cautiously
walked in. It was very dark, so Jia Yuan quickly used a fire ember (a commonly
found, cheap item in the Fire Kingdom used for starting fires) on a stick to
create a torch. He then continued on.
It seemed to be a rather deep cave, and Jia Yuan walked for
about a full minute before he stopped. In front of him was a rather large bear,
standing slightly taller than Jia Yuan himself, body rippling with muscle.
Jia Yuan smiled to himself. It seems that this will be good practice. He quickly drew his
wooden sword, placed his torch on the ground, and took a stance. Then he
waited.
The bear quickly lumbered toward Jia Yuan, and tried to tackle
Jia Yuan with a swiping motion.
Jia Yuan saw this, and jumped to the right, dodging the
swipe. At the same time, he swung the wooden sword at the bear’s eyes.
Jia Yuan had sparred for so many years with Dou
Di. As such, the speed of the bear, while frightening to a commoner, was easily
below his own. As such, his sword hit true and slashed through the eyes of the
bear, effectively blinding it.
WIth that, the bear had already lost.
Jia Yuan quickly dashed around the bear while slashing again
and again with his sword. Despite never learning a Song, he was still fairly
adept at performing a Dance with his sword. After performing about 10 slashes over the
course of 4 seconds, he stopped. The bear’s body was crisscrossed with bloody
scars, a testament to Jia Yuan’s skill. Although others may have had trouble
with the bear even with a metal sword, he was able to swiftly take down the
bear with a wooden sword.
Well, I guess it wasn’t
that good of practice. Maybe I’ll meet a stronger creature later…
Jia Yuan picked up his torch and continued further down the
cave. After another minute, there was a hole in the floor of the cave,
leading deeper into the ground. I wonder
what could be down there… guess I’ll take a look.
He jumped down into the hole and started descending. After a short descent, he arrived at a room in the cave.
For some reason, there was a pillar in the middle of the
cave. Strangely enough, the pillar and the area around it was illuminated, even though
there was no light entering this room.
Jia Yuan felt drawn towards the pillar, and walked toward it
with large strides. Can this be? Can this
really be??
Jia Yuan felt rather incredulous, for on the pillar was a
scroll covered in symbols.
It was a Song.
