After receiving all the new messages from the System, Wu Li fell on all knees as tears overflowed his eyes.
"10 years, after 10 years.....", he whispered slowly.
He then looked to the sky and, "AHHHHHHHHHH," screamed as loud as he can, it was so loud that birds in the nearby trees got scared and flew away.
But it was not enough, he was not satisfied, all his pent-up emotions have not been released yet. So he screamed again and picked up his sword and began to repeat the Basic Sword Art as fast as he could while thinking of the past 10 years.
These past 10 years had been hell for him, if not for his loving grandpa he might have gone insane.
To continuously do the Basic Sword Art every day for 10 years. In the beginning, it was physical pain that accompanied by the tearing of his muscle. Wu Li was only 6 years old at that time, and even with the breathing technique helping him absorb Qi from the atmosphere to heal his body it was very painful, several times he wanted to give up, but each time he saw his one-eyed grandpa making breakfast for him and felt motivated to give him a good life.
So every day he worked hard and slowly he learned how to ignore the pain.
Because he spends most of his time practicing the Basic Sword Art he did not have any time to make friends or play with his fellow village kids. He was soon isolated and ridiculed by kids of the village. One would assume that Josh who was a college student once who ignore this. But it did affect him. Isolation was one of the worst things in this world. He felt lonely. It was at this point he fantasized living a normal village life, he could play with kids and grow up and become a farmer or a soldier, and marry a village girl and have few kids and watch them grow up, it was wholesome life.
But all his fantasies vanished when his grandpa accidentally told him of the story of his father's and mother's death when he was drunk. His father Wu Tu and mother Zi Ning were farmers, unlike his grandpa who was a soldier. A young master of a Noble family was passing through the village took a liking to Zi Ning. He offered 10 gold to Wu Tu to let him use his wife. Wu Tu was furious but he politely rejected. The young master ordered his guards to capture Wu Tu and Zi Ning, he wanted to rape Zi Ning while Wu Tu watched. Wu Tu resisted but he not a match for the guards form the Noble family. Seeing no hope left Zi Ning smiled at Wu Tu who was apprehended by the guards and then looked at guard who coming towards her direction. She quickly took out a knife and cut open her throat and died. But the young master was not satisfied he still raped the lifeless body of Zi Ning and forced Wu Tu watch. Wu Tu cried tears of blood. The young master of the Noble family killed Wu Tu and then massacred the entire village to prevent the news of his disgusting deeds from spreading. Wu Tu's father Wu Zen, at that time, was in the army at the border, when he heard of the massacre at his home village he applied for early retirement, but it was rejected so he stabbed out one of his eyes making him a handicap and unsuited for the army, thus his early retirement was approved. He got a pension of 60 gold for 60 years of service.
He rushed to the village on the fastest horse he could buy at 30 gold. It took him 3 days to reach the village, but he was too late to save anything, everyone was already dead, he walked to his house to see that it was nothing but ash. He searched the entire village for survivors, just as he was about to give up he heard a cry for help from the house of the village head, the house had already collapsed, as reached closer to the house the cry for help became louder, he rummaged frantically through the debris and saved the wounded village head who was clutching a sleeping baby.
The village head told Wu Zen the story behind the massacre of the village and begged him to look after the baby. Wu Zen was enraged by what happened but he couldn't do anything about it as he was far too weak. He promised the village head that he will look after and protect the baby. The village head then passed him an amulet telling him that it was related to the origin of the baby and to give it to him when he is of age. The village head passed away soon after that.
Wu Zen name the baby Wu Li moved to another village and raised him as his own grandson.
Wu Li was enraged, he did not care if he was adopted or not as he believed that love determines family, not blood. He was fuming at Noble's actions. He now realized that he was not on earth anymore where there was equality and laws and police. On this world only power matted. Only if he was the strongest will he be able to protect what was his. That day Wu Li vowed to be the strongest.
He did ask his grandpa who was still drunk about the identity of the Noble. But as soon as he heard the question Wu Zen sobered up and avoided the question. Wu Li did not bother to ask again, he knew that his grandpa was doing this to protect him. Once he was strong enough he will ask again.
Next thing that plagued him was despair. At first, he didn't feel despair as he could visibly feel himself becoming stronger. But after the 3rd-year mark, the rate of increase in his strength decreased exponentially. Many time he thought that he had reached his limit and felt despair. He wanted to give up. And one day he really did decide to give up.
But on that day his grandpa called him and said to him, "I don't where you learned that Sword art from but take this", and passed a military long sword to him and told him, "although practicing with a wooden stick is good at the beginning, its nothing compared to practicing with a real sword".
Tears filled the eyes of the young Wu Li at that time.
'Why was I even thinking of giving up, didn't I swear to become the strongest and get vengeance for grandpa', he thought.
With newfound determination, he began to practice the Basic Sword Art again. And he completed the first active mission. It was the fruit of his labor. He felt so happy and satisfied that he could die. But he quickly shook off the feeling.
Only by feeling unsatisfied can you progress and feeling satisfied will lead to stagnation.
After doing the Basic Sword Art until he felt exhausted, he fell to the ground and looked at the new messages that he received.
'Now the path to my future is open, I will become the strongest and get vengeance for grandpa'.
Wu Li was most interested in the Blessing of Dust, the Paragon of Hell. So he opened it first.
Originally Wu Li looked at the description of the 3 blessings.
Wu Li nodded in satisfaction as he looked at the Infernal Whale's Digestive System and Sword Sense but frowned as he looked at the details of the Origin Seed.
'Brother System why is the information about the Origin Seed restricted'.
'Ok.....I guess'
Since he couldn't do anything about he put it at the back of his mind.
'Will assimilating these 3 be painful'.
'On the scale of 1 to 10, how painful will the assimilation of the Infernal Whale's Digestive System be'
<......15>
Wu Li cringed, he couldn't even imagine how painful 15 would be.
He first thought it would be best to go back home before assimilating the 3 blessings but now he changed his mind. 15 meant that he will not be able to stop his screams. Looking at the sun he determined that it is almost 9 'O clock. He needs to get back home before 12 otherwise his grandpa might start worrying about him.
'How long will it take to assimilate the 3'
He has enough time. So he headed deeper into the forest so that villager will not hear his screams. But he did not go too deep into the forest lest he wants to meet a demon beast.
He sat crossed leg on a large boulder.
'Brother System which should I assimilate first'.
'That's the most painful one', Wu Li cringed.
'Let's do it like a rip off a bandaid'.
'Brother System assimilate the Infernal Whale's Digestive System into me'.
"Than.....", that was all that he could speak out before he felt his teeth, and tongue melting, and then he felt his tongue burn up like the pain spread into his throat down his food pipe into his stomach then his small intestine and large intestine and finally his asshole.
It was pain that was indescribable by words alone. It was so painful that he couldn't even breath, and because he couldn't breathe he couldn't scream.
It was so painful that his brain short-circuited.
There is sat wide-eyed feeling like he drunk sulfuric acid.
Soon 10 minutes passed.
"What the fu*k was that???? Do you even call that pain that was beyond pain, that was.....that was worse than getting kicked in the nuts".
What Wu Li did not realize is that if the system did not forcefully stabilize his mental state then he might have gone crazy due to the pain.
"You are right, time and tide wait for no man".
'Brother System assimilate Sword Sense'.
"WOW!!!", Wu Li experienced intense vertigo' "I am sooooooooo high".
After 10 minutes, vertigo reduced by a large margin and finally stopped.
Now he felt something different, it was like he gained an extra eye, ear, and tongue. He could now see the Sword in everything, hear the Sword in everything, and even taste the Sword in everything.
The trees had the Sword in them, the stone had the Sword in them even the grass had the Sword in them. And most of all he himself had the Sword in his body.
'Brother System what... what is this??!!'.
<@#$%Sword Dao&+@%$#%$ >
'I am sorry I don't understand that language'.
'I know it was something about Sword Dao.'
'Brother System assimilate the Origin seed.'
Suddenly space around Wu Li fluctuated and was isolated from the outside world.
'What is this Brother System?'
"I see.", he wondered just who the Paragon of Hell is and why he gave me his blessing, maybe he is the one who made the system. The only thing he knew about him was his name Dust. But since he couldn't figure out the answer he put it at the back of his mind and prepared for the assimilation.
Suddenly the space in front of Wu Li twisted and small white ball of light that resembled a seed appeared before him.
Wu Li closed waited for the worst but nothing bad happened, the Origin Seed dispersed from before him and reappeared inside his dantian and slowly began to fuse with his it. And after 10 minutes.
"By the way does the Origin Seed give me any special abilities to."
"Ok, fine let's move to the reward for completing the first active mission".