Travellers - An Isekai, Cultivation Fantasy

Fifteen years ago, back on Earth.

“HOW COULD THIS HAPPEN?” shouted a man at another.

The two men were dressed in police uniforms and were standing in a dark corridor, just outside a jail cell. Looking inside the dimly lit cell, one could spot a man lying on the ground, eyes wide and frozen stiff. His throat was slit open and he was in a pool of his own blood.

In his hand was a thin, metal string that was covered in blood – clearly the weapon he had used to kill himself.

“Where on earth did he get that string from?” the first man asked.

“It seems he had hidden it in his hair sir!” the second man cried.

“What!? How’s that possible?” The first man asked in disbelief. “He has been the most wanted serial killer in our country for TWO DECADES! We finally caught him, and you just LET HIM DIE!?”

“I’m sorry sir! I had no idea he had such a weapon hidden!”

“TO HELL WITH YOUR SORRY!”

The name of the dead serial killer they were talking about was Theo. And in contrast to the two men screaming at each other in the grotesque scene, Theo who was lying dead on the floor, covered in blood, had an eerie smile on his face.

Unknown to the two officers, Theo was now in a completely different place.

He was standing in a room with no walls, painted in the brightest white, stretching into infinity. In front of him was a lonely desk filled with various documents. Behind it sat a middle-aged man who was also dressed in white. Even his short, scruffy hair was white.

Despite just dying and arriving in a completely new location in front of a stranger, Theo had no trace of fear or panic. In fact, he just stared curiously at the middle-aged with his pitch-black eyes.

“Welcome to the afterlife,” the middle-aged man spoke nonchalantly while writing something down. “Before you start asking me questions, I’ll just tell you the gist of things.”

The middle-aged man was still not looking at Theo when he started to explain.

“You’re dead now.”

Theo’s eyes slightly widened but the man continued speaking without pause.

“However, you’re special because you have the ability to carry your memories and skills with you through your different lives. Hence, you have the opportunity to join our organisation, the Orion Immortals, as long as you can prove yourself worthy.”

Theo’s face slowly broke into a smile.

The middle-aged man finally looked at Theo and saw him smile.

‘Does he have some screws loose?’ the man thought for a brief moment before he stopped caring.

The man pointed his hand forward.

Theo felt a strong suction force pulling him towards the man.

The man’s eyes started glowing with a brilliant golden light and Theo felt an enormous energy wash over him. The man released Theo and he instantly became weightless. Theo was brimming with energy as he started fading into the distance, his face plastered with the same eerie smile he had when he died.

…

Back to the present.

The continent of Jin was vast and prosperous, filled with magic and martial arts, and inhabited by various races. One such race was the human race. They mainly lived in the Holy Kingdom which was located at the centre of the continent, occupying almost twenty per cent of it.

The Holy Kingdom was made up of many cities and towns of various sizes, ruled by different sects, families, and organisations. On the western border of the Holy Kingdom, was one such town – Basindale.

Large storm clouds were covering this area. It had been raining heavily throughout the night. Despite this, however, a large carriage was making its way towards Basindale from the Beast Woods located further west. Its wheels were bouncing up and down as it travelled through the rocky road.

Barely anybody used these roads which were located far from the centre of the Holy Kingdom, and close to the dangerous Beast Woods. Hence, they were not maintained properly.

“Hiya!” yelled the carriage driver, as he whipped the horses into running faster.

His voice, along with the sound of the horse hooves bashing against the road, echoed across the plains, before being drowned out by the storm.

The carriage and the people inside were barely visible due to the darkness. However, the storm was slowly coming to an end. The clouds began parting, and a few rays of sunshine poured through.

Two people were seated inside the carriage.

One was a boy, only around eleven years old. His fair skin contrasted with his dark hair and black eyes. He was resting his face on his right hand which carried an expensive gold bracelet, contrasting the rest of his ordinary-looking robes.

Sitting next to him was a swordswoman. The boy looked at her as if he was seeing her properly for the first time.

She had long, red hair, and fair skin, and looked around twenty years old. Wearing a silver chainmail with a sword placed next to her seat, she gave off the aura of a young, but proud knight.

“Why did you decide to accompany me?” Drake asked.

“Because master Hazezel ordered me to, master Drake,” Helen replied respectfully.

Drake shook his head. “That doesn’t answer my question. Why did you decide to accompany me? Did you not want to fight for the village? What about your parents and family, are you okay just leaving them?”

Helen paused for a moment and then replied calmly.

“I do want to fight for the village, master Drake, however, I could also see that it was a lost cause. The enemy was too powerful. You are the son of Lord Holt. To me, protecting you is included in my duty of protecting the village. So, I was happy to do that when master Hazezel asked me to, as that was something within my ability. As for my family…” Helen looked down for a moment before continuing, “I don’t have any.”

“I see…”

Helen was a late-stage tempered body martial artist while Drake was actually at the perfect-stage tempered body. With his artifacts, Drake would be a bit stronger than Helen. However, she would still be a great help for him now that his mana core was destroyed. So, he was very grateful that she wanted to accompany him. Moreover, with her around, he would have someone to keep him company so he wouldn’t feel lonely as much after losing his family and village.

Drake grew silent and looked out the window.

Fixing my mana core isn’t going to be easy.

He was glad that he managed to save ten per cent of his mana core at least. That’s because one of the pill recipes he had learnt from the mage emperor’s inheritance called the Three Leaf Healing pill, could heal damages to the mana core. He wasn’t sure if it could heal his mana core, however, it was the only option he had.

The only problem was that it was a rank three pill.

Pills were refined using an artifact that didn’t require a lot of mana. Hence, he didn’t need to be a grand mage in order to refine a rank three pill like he would have to be in order to summon a rank three spirit. As long as he had the necessary ingredients and skill set, he could refine the pill even with his broken cultivation.

However, the problem was that Drake had no experience with pill refinement. So far, he had always only used pills given to him by Ray or Holt.

Drake reached into his pockets and took out the bag that Ray had given to him during his graduation. Luckily, it was also not taken by Hazezel.

In that bag, Ray had given Drake two books, one of which included all of the elves’ knowledge on pill refinement. He would have to use this to learn to become a rank three alchemist.

Additionally, he would need lots of materials to practise pill refinement as well, and that required money. So, he needed to find a way to make a lot of money.

He wasn’t sure what kind of jobs would be available for him in Basindale. If there was nothing suitable, it would be extremely difficult to even survive, let alone become a rank three alchemist, refine the three leaf healing pill, and heal his mana core.

Drake sighed. This is not going to be easy.

“How long will it take to reach Basindale?” asked Drake.

“About three months normally. However, we only have supplies for about two months. Hence, after that, we’d have to stop to hunt for food and water, which could increase the time by another few weeks, master Drake,” replied Helen.

‘That is going to be a long time,’ Drake thought, but it made sense.

To his knowledge, no one from his village or any of the other villages had ever travelled this far in the many generations that they had been established. That’s because they got everything they needed to survive such as food, water, herbs, materials for construction, weapons, clothing, etc, directly from the Beast Woods which was rich in natural resources. If they needed anything else, they just traded with the nearby villages.

Additionally, given how dangerous the Beast Woods were, people from the central parts of the Holy Kingdom rarely ventured close to it where their villages were located. Although not as common as in the Beast Woods, it was possible to find some lone demons wandering these plains, making the journey for anyone who dared to make it even more dangerous.

Unless one was powerful and confident in their own abilities, they wouldn’t make the trip. But people who were at that level would not want to leave the prosperous cities in the Holy Kingdom in the first place, therefore it was quite rare for anyone to make this trip.

Hence, over centuries, their villages became quite isolated from the Holy Kingdom, despite being part of the human territory. Drake had no idea what the outside world would be like, apart from what he had studied in the books.

Now that they were making this long trip, Drake had plenty of time on his hands. He figured that he could use this time to read Ray’s book on alchemy, and also work on his martial arts cultivation. If he could cultivate the steel body, his battle strength might become equal to what it was before when he had his mage skills.

Luckily, Drake had the pills that Hazezel gave him for protection. Otherwise, they would have to constantly be on the lookout for demon attacks too. He knew that its effects wouldn’t last forever, but it just had to last until they got far enough away from the Beast Woods, at which point, there wouldn’t be a lot of demons running around anymore.

Drake turned to Helen again.

“In that case, use this time to cultivate well. We don’t know what dangers we’d be facing on this trip, or when we reach Basindale. It’d be wise for us to improve our strength as much as possible.”

“Yes, master Drake.”

…

Two months later, Helen surprisingly broke through to the perfected tempered body stage.

At the same time, in a location further away from the three villages but still close to the Beast Woods, Damon Rogue, his assistant dark mages, Henry, and the undead Jin Tong were standing at the edge of a tall cliff. In front of them was another village, smaller than the three villages, but still had a population of a few thousand.

The village was being annihilated by their demon army.

This village was about a week’s trip from the other three villages, and so it hadn’t been attacked with the others in the beginning. After Damon had been ambushed by Myra Wan and Sion Hart, he had to take some time to recuperate. Afterwards, he gathered more demons into his army, and along with the demons he got from Myra, he now controlled a more powerful force than before. This relatively smaller village therefore stood no chance against it, so the dark mages did not even have to personally attack.

“With this, I have finally filled up the soul harvester again,” Damon mumbled to himself.

They had spent the last month scouting and raiding two, smaller villages, and this was the second one.

Damon took out the soul harvester and held it up high to see two white, glowing spheres connected to a golden arch. Waves of mana were rippling outwards from the spheres, creating winds that muffled the screams of the dying villagers, while rustling the dark mage’s robes.

With a powerful device in hand, overseeing the destruction of tens of thousands, Damon looked like a dark god.

But this scene was interrupted by a giggling voice.

“That’s an interesting device you have there,” the voice laughed.

Alarmed, all the mages and Henry instantly turned back. Jin Tong equipped his spear and was ready to attack as soon as he was given the order. The group spotted a hooded figure covered in black robes standing behind them. The robes fluttered under the strong winds and the hood was thrown back, revealing the figure of an old woman.

“Who are you?” asked Damon warily.

“Tehehe, quite curious for a dead man aren’t you?” she laughed.

“Oh?” Damon replied, taken aback. “You really think you can take on all of us, and our army?”

The woman laughed again. “An army of ants is still just a bunch of ants.”

The grand mages became angry and Damon frowned.

“Really?” he asked sarcastically. However, he was still observing her to figure out who she was. He didn’t recognise her, and she didn’t seem to give off any magical energy. This could either mean that she had no mana, meaning she wasn’t even a cultivator, or that she was so powerful that he couldn’t even detect the depths of her strength. Given her sudden appearance and arrogant attitude, it was likely to be the latter.

However, Damon was a mage king who had experienced many dangerous situations. Now that he had various powerful subordinates, including an entire army of demons, he wasn’t scared of her.

The dark grand mages looked questioningly at Damon and he nodded in approval. The one on the right smiled wickedly and faced the woman.

“Old hag! Looks like your old brain has forgotten your place. Let me remind you… blood bats!”

He raised his hands and black coloured mana instantly gathered at his fingertips before forming over fifty blood bats. They were each three feet long, with huge fangs that dripped corrosive venom, and radiated the aura of a rank two spirit.

When fighting Holt, he had only summoned a dozen. But this woman gave them all a bad feeling so he used over half his mana to summon almost five times that amount. Even Holt would have a headache dealing with this number.

The bats charged at the woman, screeching in delight at their new prey. In response, the woman smiled and raised her right hand.

“Aquanox!”

A large amount of mana gathered and made her hand shine blue, before forming into a humanoid figure holding a trident. The figure seemed to be composed completely out of water.

Damon’s brows furrowed. He could sense that a large amount of mana was used to summon that water spirit, but he still couldn’t guess her cultivation realm. He decided to watch for a bit longer.

The bats were extremely close when the water spirit finally made its move. Under everyone’s watchful gaze, the spirit disappeared, leaving everyone stunned, before appearing behind the blood bats the next second.

All the bats froze midair, before falling one by one to the ground and dissipating into mana.

“Impossible!” the grand mage cried. How could it be so powerful!

Damon’s eyes widened in surprise. Despite his cultivation, he barely managed to track the water spirit’s movements.

‘Who the hell was this woman?’ he thought.

“Stop,” he told the dark grand mage. “Let me deal with her.”

Damon released an enormous aura and rose into the air, eyeing the woman carefully. Facing his aura, the woman was completely unfazed and still had a cheery smile.

He became annoyed. “Let me see if you still have that smile after this – Storm Dragon!”

Damon looked up and raised his hand, forming a fist. An enormous amount of mana gathered into the fist and shone purple. Thunder rumbled and lightning struck, parting the clouds. A gigantic purple dragon descended with a deafening roar. It was the size of a mountain and made completely out of lightning.

It stared at the woman coldly, who was still smiling as if nothing had changed.