Author's note: The first fifty chapters are going to be rewritten because the honestly just suck. I am sorry about this but I am working on fixing it, so if you read this novel, please don't mind the horrible writing quality for the first fifty chapters and just read the plot of the novel to see if you like it and I promise that the quality will get better as you go on and it will also stop jumping around so much. Please enjoy Heart of Ruby!!!!!
It was morning on a mountain somewhere in the middle of a rural kingdom.
A little thirteen year old boy was peacefully sleeping in a room filled with other children. The whole room was dirty and looked as if it might collapse at any moment. The boy had jet black hair and deep ocean blue eyes. He was short and seemed very frail, as if he could fall apart at any moment.
He was laying on a dirty bed with nothing more than a thin sheet that was so thin it seemed like it would do nothing to keep him warm. Despite this, he seemed to be warm and comfortable.
At this moment, an old woman seemingly at the age of fifty or sixty barged into the room, screaming, "Get your butts up!!"
This was the woman in charge of the orphanage, Miss Valerie. She was a vile old woman with a twisted personality. This was because she was raised in this kingdom in which only power mattered. In the face of it, she was too weak and was stuck raising the children in the orphanage who would only ever be slaves to the rich or powerful.
This world was a cruel place. In it, only power mattered. If you didn't have power, you would be lucky to get a place to sleep in the gutters. This kingdom in which they resided was run by a particularly evil dictator who regularly beat his subordinates. However, no one could complain about it because they were simply not strong enough to resist. If they tried to leave, they would be hunted like dogs until there was nothing left of them.
When Miss Valerie was a young adult, she was told that she would work here until she died, unless she reached the spirit realm before she was 50. She was currently 48 and was only at the late stages of the 8th level of the foundational realm. Being so weak and talentless, she would likely never get out of here and instead die a vile old woman who's life was wasted raising worthless children.
The foundational realm was the beginning of cultivation: it had 9 levels and each level would strengthen the body with the use of Qi. Qi was the foundation of cultivation and was used to gain near infinite power. After the foundational realm came the spirit realm. The king was at the peak of the spirit realm, and was the only one that strong in the kingdom. Being that strong, no one had the strength to resist him and could only follow his orders, even if they were evil and twisted.
Being at the late stages of the 8th level of the foundational realm, Miss Valerie was able to project her voice loud enough to boom in all of the children's ears. All of them quickly got up and started to get ready for a hard and depressing day's work. they worked to keep the orphanage clean and also went as slaves to the rich and powerful of this town.
The rich had the right to beat any of the children that made a mistake, so they were often bruised and had broken bones, but they could do nothing about it and simply accepted the fact that they were the weakest. If they tried to resist, they would just be beaten more, and if they tried to run away, they would be hunted down and killed like worthless dogs, which, to the rich, they truly were.
Despite this, one kid managed to stay happy every day of his life. That kid was Will, a 12 year old child who was barely at the beginning of the 1st level of the foundational realm. Despite having such a low cultivation for his age, he was not sad or dissatisfied with the life he was living. He figured that as long as he was alive, there was a chance for things to get better; that it couldn't get worse than it already was. He believed in hope, and that hoping for a better future would bring a better future.
He was bullied every day by the kids his age because he was so weak that they felt joy to be the ones on top for once. This was the way of the cruel world they lived in: the strong bully the weak for fun and the weak just have to endure it and serve. They were not strong at all, at the very bottom of the bottom, but being stronger than Will, they took that chance to make his life like a living hell. But he didn't mind it, because he believed in hope.
You would think that getting bullied every day of his life would put Daniel down, but it was just the opposite - it was his motivation - to be the one that rises up above those that look down on him and establish his place above them. To make sure that he could protect himself and those he loves from ever suffering the way he suffers now.
Little did he know that this very belief would be the very thing that caused his rise.