"Immortal."
A word that is feared yet revered by all humankind. It is both the strongest status and the most powerful aspect a person could have. They are known to flatten mountains, summon both rain and thunder, shatter the skies and bring the Heavens to their knees.
Throughout recorded history, all conflicts regarding immortals would be followed by unimaginable devastation to the surrounding lands, and an uncountable number of deaths. They can bring ruin and prosperity to any land they inhabited. They were humans who have attained godhood by ascending the heavens in the eyes of the masses.
They became the goal of many who sought to achieve the same. Billions have tried yet only a handful have ever come close.
Along their journey, many have left countless treasures buried under lost ancient ruins of an age that has already passed.
Mortals in their ever ending journey to achieve true godhood and become immortals have scavenged these ruins and decimated countless tombs of the ancients. Just so they could end up with a treasure that had already failed its previous master.
It was funny in a morbid way, the very paragons of justice and fairness some claim to be. Only achieve great power by becoming thieves and murderers.
But that is just how the world works, and everyone knew that the heavens never favours anyone.
For as long as he remembered, that's how Yao Tian's father described the existence of Immortals and their impact on the world to him and his younger brother Yao Bao. Yao Tian himself was a 14-year-old farm boy with short black hair, black eyes, his skin was slightly bronzed due to the long hours of work. Yao Tian spent most of his day helping his father take care of the numerous assortment of different crops that needed daily care.
Whereas other kids of his age would spend their time running around with their friends, causing various kinds of mischiefs and causing no small degrees of headaches to the adults. Yet he laboured in the fields for hours a day, not because he was forced to in this situation, but rather chose to do so despite his father's initial disagreement with his decision.
"That's enough for today Tian'er!" yelled Yao Tian's father Yao Tai after he sat down on the nearby boulder.
"Come sit with me, your body must be exhausted, so rest up by drinking some milk!" He then placed a fairly big wooden jar near his sitting spot waiting for his son to join.
*sigh* "Again? This is the third time this day that I have to drink another jar of milk. Can't I just get some water?!"
"NO!" Shouted his father, who then stood up from the boulder and proceeded to shout again.
"Milk gives you strength and bones strong like metal! When you will grow up you will have the power to lift an entire bull and take down a tree with your bare hands. So be a man a drink your milk!"
Even with his unbelievable claims, it was quite hard to refute him due to his crazy physique. Amongst the village populace, his father stood out like a sore thumb. He was a two-meter-tall giant with huge bulging muscles on every corner of his body. His skin was so tanned that one might mistake his father to be a moving bronze statue. But despite all that impressive mass, he was completely bald!
If it wasn't obvious before it was quite easy to see that Yao Tai had quite the fascination with milk and would encourage him and his brother Yao Bao to drink up an entire jug of it every day. Even though children above the age of 5 would stop drinking milk as it was considered to be food for the little ones his dad was considered the weird one in the village.
After sending off the last harvested batch of crops and finishing the milk bottle, Yao Tian and his father gathered their farming equipment and walked back to their house. Whilst they travelled down the road they met the locals and the passing merchants who all enthusiastically greeted the Yao pair with some even gifting them some small snacks to up home and a few even offered free scrolls to the young Tian.
The boy was an odd one among the young generation of kids in the village. He was known as the village little helper, he would assist other people dealing with various chores as well as somehow find time to work on other fields aside from his family's. But not just that, as he was also fairly competent in the art of healing, that he learned to perform from the various scrolls and manuscripts given to him as a gift from merchants and passing travellers that were offered help by the young man during their passing in the village.
But despite the nearly crippling amount of time and work done by Yao Tian daily, he still appeared to be in peak condition every day. All of these deeds earned Yao Tian the respect and admiration of the denizens of Red Mountain Village.
But it did not mean that Yao Tian lacked any hobbies or activities. When he truly had some time for himself, he would go on the roof of his house and spend hours cloud watching and stargazing. He had another hobby of collecting old figures crafted from wood to metal and even clay from various components. It was not a common hobby with children of his age or even any other person in his village but everyone just chalked it up to like father, like son situation.
Red Mountain Village wasn't big but was large enough to accommodate half a thousand inhabitants comfortably. The village was surrounded by a circle-shaped four-meter tall wooden wall with dirt patches acting as a defensive measure against Jade Forest's wild beast. There were two gates in the north and south, the former leading to the outside region while the latter leading to the fields.
The forest itself was an extremely big piece of land, just travelling to the nearest village could take days if not weeks. Whereas the nearest town, which is Redwood Town could take up to a month on horseback. That is why the red mountain region and its sister villages were so closed off to the outside world. Most merchants would be locals and only once a year during the new year festival would outsiders visit their region.
After passing through the south gate the sky started turning into deep orange colour. The leaves seemed to emit a deep orange, almost red colour glow painting a beautiful and peaceful picture of the surrounding nature and mountains. By seeing this view every day, Yao Tian would recall how their village got its name. This scene also indicated that night would be befalling soon so the father and son duo hurried back to their house.
""We're back! "" Shouted the pair arriving in front of their abode. Soon enough the wooden door was slowly sliding away, revealing a small chubby 6-year-old boy, with short black hair just like Yao Tian, brown eyes like Yao Tai, and what seemed like an angry face but was hard to tell due to the chubby cheeks making him look like a rabbit. It was of course Yao Tian's younger brother and Yao Tai's second son, Yao Bao.
"You are both late!" Said Yao Bao.
The father and son duo laughed hard at seeing Yao Bao's reaction. Yao Tai went to little Bao's side and lifted him to his broad, muscular shoulders for him to sit on.
"Did you miss me and your brother Bao'er?" exclaimed Yao Tai in a fairly loud voice.
Yao Bao laughed and hugged his father's head while also nodding enthusiastically along with his father's question.
Soon after came walking out the door an old woman who was the nanny for Yao Bao when Yao Tian and Yao Tai weren't home. After saying their thanks to the elder woman and seeing her off the Yao family gathered beside the main dining table for dinner, night had finally come. After eating some grilled chicken with boiled vegetables and playing along with Yao Bao and his small animal toys everyone was prepared for bed.
The siblings shared a room and always before going to sleep their father would always tell them a story and this time little Bao wanted to hear the story of 'Jiang Chen's road to immortality! '
Despite having already read the story to his son hundreds of times, the young boy never seemed to grow bored of it.
But instead grew more infatuated by the tale with each of his readings.
After narrating the story and noticing the little Yao Bao had already fallen asleep, their father slowly left the room, while Yao Tian seemingly lost himself gazing at the ceiling with an unreadable expression.
"Immortality heeeee?... Is it truly worth it?
.
.
.
Nah, it's just a waste of time."