Rowel Empire.
Slums.
A boy, 14 of age was in the yard of a dilapidated house practicing a set of fist technique vigorously. His fists were following a wondrous trajectory compressing and pulling air away, leaving a vacuum.
He had a slender physique, with properly trained muscles, giving him the air of predator. He had androgynous facial features, with cerulean blue eyes, dark lustrous long hair reaching the middle of his back. This boy was Neon Mallari, Layla son and last member of the Mallari Clan. He just finished his training when a voice resounded in the yard, it was a middle-aged woman.
« Neon, breakfast is ready, come and eat with me. »
He turned toward her, she was Mary, his mother friend, after his birth, she had deceived Rolland. She told him that Layla and the baby didn't make it. In his wrath, he had fired her, but it wasn't a bad thing as she was already wondering how she would take care of Neon if she stayed at the City lord castle.
After leaving the castle she used the savings she had accumulated working in the City lord Castle for years to buy this house in the slum and lived frugally with Neon till this day.
« Yeah, I'll be there shortly Mary. »
He answered with a smile. He was very grateful for Mary and all she did for him. He also admired her very much because he had already lived before and saw all manner of people, good one, the bad one, selfish one but in Mary, he saw something much rarer, it was devotion; devotion for her past friend Layla and her son.
His mother died just as he came to this world. He was worried as to how he would make it, being a defenseless baby and all. But Mary took care of him, raised him. For Neon she was the only family he had in this world.
In his past life, much like this one, he was an orphan. At the age of 6, he was taken by a certain organization, they trained kids from a young age and used them when they're grown up to accomplish missions. He became rapidly one of their best seedlings, he was able to rapidly learn all the things he was taught.
Soon when he grew enough, he became one of their best agents. He learned to use internal force and became a martial supreme, a title only belonging to those who reached the perceived pinnacle of martial arts.
He became known as SHADOW, he was one of the 3 most dangerous men on the planet. One of the other most dangerous men on the planet was the chief of the organization. He became threatened by the rise of SHADOW thinking one day he would take his place at the top of the ladder and steal his life work which was the organization.
It was never one of Neon's goals in life but well it was inevitable. Neon noticed something wasn't right when the missions assigned to him started to become more and more dangerous, with more and more false intel. Despite that faulty intel, he always managed to complete the missions with a rate of completion of a hundred percent.
Seeing this the boss of the organization shed all pretense of cordiality and declared that SHADOW had betrayed the organization, he had to be hunted and executed. Feeling helpless and pretty much pissed off, he entered a war with the boss and the entire organization.
You would think he would be rapidly disposed of by this gigantic organization, but it couldn't be more wrong. He became a devil for the organization, always everywhere picking them on one by one.
It was only after he had killed thousands of people almost single-handedly bringing the organization to its knees that the boss decided to confront him personally, of course not alone as SHADOW became stronger and stronger during his time being hunted, now the boss was not his opponent.
He gathered all the enemies SHADOW had made all this time working for the organization and set an ambush.
Unfortunately for them, SHADOW had become impossibly strong, despite their number, and even as grandmasters of martial art, they were still slaughtered. In the end, the boss used a devious trick and managed to kill him, but before dying he still took him with him to the afterlife.
And like that his life as SHADOW ended and his life as Neon Mallari, son of Leyla Mallari started. Coming out of his thought he took a towel to wipe the sweat he had accumulated while training.
He took a small bucket and cleaned himself before donning on a black well-used robe. He then went into the living room where Mary made a delicious-looking breakfast. One of the things he loved about Mary was her gift for cooking.
She made the best things he ever ate, in both his life. She had once told him, that her dream when she was little was to open a restaurant.
Alas, life didn't go as planned, her parents died early and she was forced to find work, which led her here to the City lord mansion where she became his mother servant. That's why even after Rolland cast her away as his wife, Mary was the one present in her last moments. Leyla didn't treat her like a servant but like a friend.
« What are you waiting for, eat before it gets cold, » she said to him seeing him staring at the food.
At her reminder, he shook those thoughts and started eating heartily. As expected it was fabulous, even with their meager means she managed to make such delicious food. Like always she was impressed by his appetite.
Since he started training his body when he was 4, his appetite grew more and more monstrous. It was normal after all the goal of his training was to condense his life essence and produce a hint of internal force entering the second stage of cultivation, for this, he needed a lot of energy.
On earth, it was called the martial grandmaster realm, but the cultivation of the body essence seemed not to exist here. Instead on this Hidden cloud continent, magic was the most prominent way of power. What was magic? well, it was an art and a science too.
It consisted of taking the ambient mana, absorbing it, and condensing it into magic power. To become a first-grade magician one needs to open his magic pool. In this world, there was at least one magician against one hundred normal folks. So it was a rare occupation.
So rare in fact that if a person was found to have magic potential, he would be made a noble immediately regardless of their previous status. It was also due to the fact that magicians were the battle power of an empire, they could change the tide of war by themselves.
At five Mary had taken me to a priest to test if Neon had magic potential, she did because he started talking and walking before his 1st birthday and his intelligence as a child was ridiculous.
Unfortunately, it seemed he was the same as his mother, he couldn't practice magic. He was a bit bum out when he found out, as he was also a geek in his previous life, wielding magic? that was the dream.
But he recovered fast as he could still become powerful with internal cultivation. The fact that there was a thing such as mana gave him hope to break through his previous limit in his past life, which was the martial supreme.
What was the martial supreme? well unlike the martial grandmaster it was a title and a state of being. It was not another cultivation stage, it could only be chance upon and not sought out. Those who reached it were able to display 1000% of their powers.
SHADOW was the only one to ever reach this miraculous state in modern time. What brings him joy was that he still had it even now in this new life.
What validated his hope of breaking through in this life was the fact that he reached half-step grandmaster realm at fourteen, how heaven-defying was that? If those of his past life heard this they would cough a mouthful of blood.
Before he only reached it at 23 and he was already considered a monster.
He had always theorized that there had to be a superior realm to martial grandmaster it was just that in his old world people didn't have the necessary method to reach it. In this world, there was magic and apparently dragons too, according to the books he read so it was very much possible.
This brought him unending excitement.
He also had the feeling something was going to happen when he reached, martial grandmaster.
« I finished eating, I'll go to work now, later, » Neon said before speeding out of the house. Behind him, he could hear Mary's voice
« Have a good day! »
' What an exciting world! ' he thought as he went to work.