It was a warm sunny day and many people in the town where going about their daily routines. The city resembled the middle ages but there were flying ships that emitted blue lights underneath. It that looked like a 16th-century frigate ship. Also, there was personal flying through the air. In a small house located near the center of the town was the residency of the Kronos family. The door opened as a young boy of 11 years old ran out with an innocent aura around him. He had black short hair, brown eyes, olive skin and was of average height for his age. Then from behind this young boy was the boy's mother who looked at her son with a warm smile.
"Luca you better be back home for dinner!"
"Yes, mom!" Luca responds as he smiled, running out of the yard.
He was going to visit his good friend John, who was one year older. John was waiting for him a few houses away. He ran towards his house in anticipation and found John playing around with a stick. Luca called his name as he approached him. They left to go play in an abandoned house that they found 10 minutes away. The house was in bad condition as the roof was caved in and the windows were broken. The front of the house had weeds that towered 2 meters tall.
They founded this place the day before but reluctantly went back home. But they did have a chance to explore the outside of the house. So, they decided that today, they would go inside. They were curious and excited to explore the unknown. John walked in front as they looked around the house to find an entrance. Luca decides to first try opening the door. To his surprise, it opened with a loud creak.
"Hey John, I found a way in!" He waved at John who was about to go to the back.
They slowly and cautiously went inside. The entrance led to the living room, they walked towards the living room finding destroyed furniture, with pieces everywhere. They walked around the living room and found fist-sized holes in the walls and the fireplaces had pieces of brick with huge holes in them. It looked like a battle had taken place in the living room. What Luca noticed was the furniture was high end and looked expensive even after the passage of time. They carefully made their way to the back of the room that had a hallway that led to the kitchen and a staircase leading upstairs. They made their way to the kitchen
It was also in a similar state to the living room, the floorboards were ripped out and cabinets were torn apart. There wasn't a single spot that wasn't filled with holes and destroyed. Luca and John looked at each other.
"What happened to this house John, did a monster attack this place?"
"I don't know but this is to weird!" he gulped as they made their way to the staircase
The strange thing was that the staircase wasn't destroyed. There was two room upstairs that were in a similar state to downstairs. John was walking around the second room when he founded a piece of wood that belonged to a desk. On it was a few words written on it, it looked ancient, but John recognized these words.
"He Luca! Look at this, it's written in Salvon" he waved towards Luca in excitement
"Whats Salvon?" Luca tilted his head in confusion
"It's the language cultivators use for incantation"
Luca didn't really know what cultivator where besides that they could do amazing things like flying and control the elements. But he just nodded his head and watched as John's voice changed slightly being more harmonized and powerful. John had learned a little bit from his uncle who was a cultivator, he had taught him Salvon and how to infuse primordial energy into his voice. The primordial energy was what cultivators used to cultivate with and gain power. Incantations required one to infuse primordial energy into one's vocal chords. John believed that he was looking at an incantation, so he naively and incautiously performed the incantation.
After John finished the incantation a small white light flashed on the side of the wall facing them. It then revealed a small opening where a small box was placed inside. The sudden appearance caused the boys to be caught off guard as they immediately took a few steps back. As they looked around they got a clear view of what it was, an opening in the wall. They looked at each other and slowly walked towards the small opening when they reached the opening they found a box.
The box looked ancient and there was a carving on the top of the box.
There was an image of a beast that they had never seen before engraved on the left side, while on the right side was a demonic looking humanoid figure that had horns on its head, bat wings, and a long sharp tail. The beast mouth was opened, its large fangs exposed, its body looked ready to pounce and attack. The beast had eyes that gave off a predatory vibe which matched its powerful looking body. The humanoid figure had a hand lifted which was covered in scales and had nails sharp like daggers. The figure had a flame that covered its palms.
The boys looked at the box in a daze as the cravings seem so lifelike and gave off a sense of wonder to any who gazed upon it. The box itself could be worth an astronomical amount of money just based on its intricate and lifelike engravings. The boys saw that there was no lock on the box and John looking a bit impatient went to open the box after coming back to his sense first. There was a divider that spilt the box right down the middle. The left side had a small azure crystal that had white swirls on its surface and a small booklet with the image of a beast on its cover. There was also a sealed tube with blue viscous liquid on top of the booklet. The right side of the divider was a red crystal with black swirls. There was also a small booklet that had an image of a demonic head on its cover. With a sealed tube of black viscous liquid on top of the booklet as well
John was immediately drawn to the right side of the divider and spoke up.
"Hey, Luca since we found this together and its split in half why don't we pick a side to keep. If you don't mind, I want to get the right side. You get the left side what do you think?"
"Sure, I like the look of the beast it's so cool!"
Luca was drawn to the beast when he first saw it, it was beautiful, majestic, and domineering. He also had the same idea, but John beat him to it. So, he went and got the azure crystal and the booklet. He was captivated by the beauty of the crystal when he heard John utter something.
"I know what these crystals are Luca! I once saw my uncle use one and he told me about them, their skill shards."
"What's a skill shard?"
"It's a special crystal that cultivators use to store the knowledge of their skills and insight. The crystals are special because they can store memories and because of that they can store skills. The shards are used to pass the knowledge of the teacher to their students, well that's what my uncle says."
"That's so cool but how do we use them?"
"You place it on your forehead and pour primordial energy into it, but only cultivators have primordial energy"
"I guess I won't be using them for a while" Luca shrugged his shoulders in disappointment.
But Luca regained his excitement as he picked up the booklet and felt its leather cover. When he touched the cover, he felt a prick in his finger. He pulled his hand back and saw that John did the same thing when he touched his demonic book, both confused they touched them again but felt nothing odd this time around. Cautiously Luca opened the first page, but he saw dark red words that were foreign to him, but one of the letters looked like the one written on the piece of wood they found earlier. It was Salvon and Luca had no idea on how to read it. He immediately looked at John for help. John's face was filled with an overwhelmed expression as he constantly muttered "impossible" in excitement. Then John looked up at Luca with a fire in his eyes.
"Quick, Luca I need to see your book!" Luca gave him the book and saw that John was trying his best to hide his excitement.
"Luca we've just founded something that's only heard of from legends!"
"WHAT!"
"These two books are cultivation manual that are god ranked cultivation manuals. But my uncle said that all god ranked manuals where already found 400 years ago."
"How do you know their god ranked?"
"Easy, every manual has an intro which has the rank of the manual, and both books have their intros written in blood. The only time blood is used for writing a rank is when doing a blood trial spell. A blood trial guarantees the authenticity of the claim, if the claim is wrong then the person who wrote it will die the next day and the book will burn to ash."
"Wow, you know a lot!"
John smiled in satisfaction, but he'd learned this from sneaking into his uncle's room and reading his books. What others didn't know was the John was gifted with a photographic memory and was regarded as a genius among his peers. Luca was also regarded as a genius among his peer and was also blessed with a photographic memory. In the past, they had trouble making friends with others but when they met each other they hit it off immediately.
"Luca, we have to keep this a secret!"
"Yeah, these books are treasures, we should learn them! But could you teach me Salvon!"
John agreed and so they hid their items in this broken-down house. This house would become their hideout and where they would learn together. What these boys didn't realize, was that these two books where unique. When Luca and John felt the prick in their hands that signified that the books were now bound to them. Even if someone stole these books all they would see would be black pages. These books were related to each other and so they could partially see the contents of each other's book but not all of its content. As only the owner had the right to the all the secrets of this manual.
These books also had one hidden secret and that was that it would influence the behaviors and the character of those would read them, All those who owned and learned from god ranked manuals would suffer from a slight influence from them. But what kind of influence these manuals would bring to Luca and his friend, well only time could tell. Their young minds would make it easier for them to be influenced. In the coming weeks passed by as John picked up Salvon. Also, in that time frame, John was able to convince his uncle to lend him a book on cultivation.
The book was titled "Intro to Cultivating" the book was written in Salvon. In fact, every book that had anything to do with cultivating was written in Salvon. There where other ancient languages but for now Salvon was used in this planet. Three months had passed and Luca's Salvon was at a middle school level, enough for now, but he would keep being learning.
John came walking in with the book he took from his uncle's library. It was time for them to grasp what it really meant to be a cultivator. With excitement and curiosity John and Luca went to the broken-down house. They set the book on the floor of living room and they started reading it together. The intro read like this,
"In this Universe there is primordial energy all around us, it came about during the creation of the universe. The planet that we live on, Nutho, hosts many intelligent species that have meridians. Meridians allows one to absorb and use the primordial energy that's all around us. The energy is circulated towards the center on the body where it condenses and forms a nexus core that stores this energy. We have 124 meridians, 4 are core meridians, and the other 120 are supplementary."
This new revelation was mind blowing to the two as they reread it. That intro was already filled with tons of informative info. They continued reading.
"Cultivators are people who have awakened their meridians and through hard work open more meridians. There are four stages, where each stage requires one to open 1 core meridian and 30 supplementary meridians. Certain amounts of open meridians will cause a person nexus to increase in size and capacity."
This confused the two, but they had to know more as they filled page after page!