Red Gaia World was a planet that's known for possessing an ominously red sky due to contamination with certain evil magical energies. This planet has always had an unusually high crime-rate and is in the Dark Zone of the Human Coalition, a zone composed of several habitable planets that, together, form the most troublesome and felonious part of the coalition.
The culture of this planet is known for being strangely in-tune with nature, while still maintaining its criminal syndicates, dark markets and corporatocracy. This paradoxical utopian-dystopian nature of Red Gaia makes it one of the top ten most populated planets in the Human Coalition. There aren't any people who want to break this balance.
Acheron, currently a 15 year old human boy, was busy training martial arts together with his father. His father, Xerius, was a former warrior of the Human Coalition, and despite not being able to give the cultivation methods he's learned in the military to his son due to a life-bound contract, he was hoping he could give Acheron the greatest edge he was able to. This meant martial arts training and a great understanding of psychology and military strategy, along with some basic understanding of the politics he would inadvertedly get embroiled into. These are the things he himself felt he lacked during his military and mercenary career.
Acheron was about 175cm, pretty tall for his age, with shoulder-length black hair and deep abyss-like eyes. His facial features could be described as above-average, giving off a mature air. He was currently panting heavily, with his entire body reeking of sweat. His uncovered torso showed muscles that were chiseled to a near-perfect degree, not too big nor too small.
The sun was about to rise soon. His father had the habit of waking him up everyday before dawn in order to train him. Gradually, this habit of waking up early was ingrained into him. Every morning workout overclocked his neurotransmitters and increased his day-to-day performance, whether it was at school or at home.
"Alright, hurry up and go." his father said, sending him off.
He quickly went to take a shower and prepare himself for school, he didn't have to do much though. Other than the occasional homework or school project, high school was a walk in the park for Acheron. All he had to do was pay attention in class in order to maintain his top-of-the-class status. Most other kids had difficulty paying attention, thus he could be described as exceptional amongst them.
The foolishness of his classmates was even something he frequently took advantage of. His way of making money off of them was pretty straightforward. Acheron was used to buying performance-enhancing drugs along with other types of addictive substances from the local blackmarket, expertly mix them up into an intensively addictive cocktail using his basic chemistry knowledge, before selling them to the unsuspecting fools. In other words, Acheron was a ruthless drug dealer.
Acheron knows from a young age that money, authority and strength run the world. His encounters with large family scions didn't help in changing his pragmatic world-view. They had access to all types of body, mind and energy techniques while he had to waste his time until he enrolled into an academy.
He wanted to know if he could skip years from school, but it turned out the system is pretty rigid. For now, he can only use other methods in order to obtain a cultivation method.
Naturally, Acheron was very careful about who he sold to, making sure they wouldn't rat him out. Despite all of this, he was still first in his class. He liked expanding his knowledge, and he was able to constantly absorb everything like a sponge. Every piece of knowledge had its uses, especially subjects like chemistry and biology.
Acheron said his goodbyes to his father and his mother, Kayle, before riding his hoverboard straight to school. Zooming past the urban jungle, he easily avoids the traffic by flying at ridiculous altitudes, altitudes that are usually illegal besides special circumstances. There were many others that also broke this law along with him. What were they gonna do? Arrest them all?
Right now, Acheron wasn't heading to school. Instead, he was heading to the safe house where he's been storing his illegal merchandise and a few other things. He's been preparing for a heist, to put it bluntly. Today he would steal the cultivation techniques of one of the cultivation family scions present in his school.
Attempting to cultivate without a technique usually ended up in illness, or even worse, death. This was common knowledge. In order for one to cultivate properly, a very precise technique must be followed. These techniques not only required anatomical knowledge, but also knowledge about the elusive meridians.
What Acheron is about to do is the only method he was able to think of in order to begin cultivation as early as possible.
Everything he needed was already prepared. They were a handgun along with a suppressor, a time-bomb, reinforced zip-ties, and a syringe of truth-serum. He's been planning for this day and tailing said scion for the past month. Today was the day to execute his plans and reap the benefits. For the past month he's been missing from school once in a while in order to not seem suspicious for missing on this day. When doing something, you must place full focus on it. Acheron followed this to the letter.
Acheron prepared one duffel bag and a normal backpack. The former containing his getaway clothes, while the latter his heist necessities. He carefully put on some makeup as disguise, wore his gloves and left with the two bags.
Reaching a concealed alley, Acheron throws the getaway bag into the dumpster before putting on a detailed mask that covers his head and conceals his face perfectly, and hair to an extent, making him look like a completely different person. Putting on a hoodie to cover the imperfections of the mask, he leaves the alley with his other bag. He is ready to go.
The target he chose was one of the more lazy scions, Edward Chreka. While he had access to cultivation techniques, he didn't put much time into practice. He also tended to skip school in order to visit brothels and bars quite frequently. Currently, he was visiting one of the less influential brothels in the red-light district of this city.
Edward was always using the same private room on the fifth floor. Acheron knew this, so he calmly paid for an adjacent room using a dark-net cryptocurrency account he had prepared just for this operation. This was common on this planet so he didn't arouse any suspicion.
Acheron prepared his handgun and pressed the button to open Edwards door. Edward was busy doing the deed with a woman and neither of them was able to notice that the door opened, as they were both lost in pleasure and alcohol.
Acheron closed the door behind him before knocking both of them out using the base of the gun. Dragging a nearby chair, he ties Edward to it before covering his unsightly parts with a blanket. Injecting the truth-serum into his bloodstream, he waits for a few minutes before slapping him across the face.
"Wha- who are you and what are you trying to do?" stammered Edward.
"I ask the questions here. Don't shout and answer them fast, otherwise I'll be forced to kill you and I don't intend to kill anybody today. Where do you store your cultivation technique and how do you access it?"
Edward clearly wasn't willing to talk for some reason, but he still ended up stuttering out the details, which ended up shocking him a little as he wasn't intending to say anything.
Acheron calmly takes out Edward's phone from his nearby pants and starts browsing for the cultivation techniques according to the intel. There were several of them for different purposes. Sending all of them to a dark-net email address, he thinks of another thing.
"How do I access your bank account? What are your bank account details?"
Quickly receiving his answer, Acheron converts everything into crypto, sending it to his anonymous account.
"Alright, any last words, Mr. Chreka?" he asks as he shoves a piece of cloth into Edward's mouth, clearly not intending to let him answer.
As Acheron listens to the desperate muffled cries of the hedonistic scion, he calmly makes a decision regarding his life and death.
"Sorry, no witnesses." he says, pulling the trigger. Edward fell limp, blood coursing down his face from the hole in the middle of his forehead.
Regardless whether he killed him or not, the Chreka family would still make an insane fuss about this matter. Cultivation methods must not be exposed to the populace, otherwise the family would get into trouble with the oligarchic lords.
In fact, they'd probably even try to cover up this matter.
Silence falls and Acheron decides to think about what to do next. Originally, he had planned to blow up the entire room, getting rid of all evidence. But now, that feels a little over the top. He felt he acted a little childishly buying the time-bomb.
The plan was executed perfectly, with the unconscious lady having no memory of him, while the receptionist wouldn't be able to see through his disguise. He could just leave now and it would be fine. Thinking about this, Acheron decides to just leave. Triggering an explosion inside of this building would attract too much attention.
Just as he was about to leave, he feels something strange appear in his mind.
"Lifeforce Absorbed"
"Commencing Divine Source System"