Hey look! It's trash!" A bully shouted as he saw a boy of 16 walking across the street to a local Alchemy store.
The boy had silver hair and light blue eyes, which made him look quite mysterious and unnatural.
Soon, a gang was formed to beat him up, but the boy didn't mind; it seemed as though all this was a natural thing for the boy.
***
The boy's (Leo's) mother had been getting sick ever since her husband, his father, was stripped from his Earl status for no good reason about two months ago. His father's bank account filled with gold was dissolved by the emperor. In order to raise money, he created a fresh account in another bank, and joined the Hunter Mercenary Guild to participate in missions for money. With his cultivation, everything was easy peasy. A week later, he was added to a group of cultivators assigned to raid an A-Rank Dungeon.
After the dungeon was raided, everyone came out alive, but only the former Earl was said to be dead. Everything was suspicious, but no one dared to speak out. Since then, he was assumed dead, and things became hard for Leo and his mother.
_____
His father was a good, handsome man that people knew well. All the maidens of the Empire had their eyes on him when he young, but at the age of 23, he decided to marry a mortal woman.
Rumor had it that the empress had her eyes on him, too, though what happened in the palace did not leak out, so people could only roughly guess what happened.
The empress tricked the former Earl by sending a messenger to tell him that the emperor had a word for him, while leading him to the empress' room. Everything was set and planned carefully. Everything seemed normal up until he entered the room with the messenger.
Telling him to wait for the emperor, the messenger immediately went out and locked the door from the outside.
The empress soon came out from the inner room wearing a seductive dress, and tried to blackmail him. However, the Earl didn't fall for it. When the Empress realized her plan failed in the end, in a fit of anger, she followed through on her blackmail. She called the emperor, claiming that the Earl planned to rape her. From there, all things followed up until now.
______
Leo and his mother retreated from the city they had always lived in and came to live at a small village.
People of the village always made fun of them as their cultivation ranks were even lower than that of the villagers.
Normally, he would have tried to fight back against the bullies, but he needed some medicine. He had no money, and now he was planning to steal it.
When he arrived at the shop, he realized what he needed was at the far end of the store and impossible to steal without a high risk of getting caught. He decided to come back at night. If stealing would keep his mother and sisters alive, then he will cross that moral line without a second thought.
He walked out to meet the group already waiting for him.
"Hey trash, where did you get the money for those drugs!" A boy shouted, even though he saw no drugs.
"..."
Leo was silent and walked by them, but they blocked his way.
"Is your mom sick, momma's boy? Gimme the money bastard!" The leader of the group, who was about 21 years old, said with a deep voice.
"He's as foolish as his father! If I was him, I would have fucked the empress to a sorry state!" boasted a kid of 17 while the others hushed him down in fear of people hearing him.
The hushed kid rolled his eyes in defiance.
"Don't bring my father into this!" Leo shouted, getting angry at the mention of his father's name.
"Look who's angry."
"As if you could do anything, trash!"
Leo's blood was burning in rage. If he could, he would grind these pests to paste, but he is not even able to sense Qi and has no talent in cultivation. He is weak! Too weak to try that.
"I heard about when he went to check his talent at the public talent stone. You know what the talent stone gave of as result--Can't Detect Talent Rank!"
Hearing the new voice, everyone turned to look. They found the Baron's son, who just joined the group.
The people there bowed slightly before asking, "Son of our Baron Lord, is that true?!"
The boy nodded affirmatively, "It was all over the County they once lived in before their noble status was removed."
Such a thing had never happened before. Everyone has a talent. It is a common belief. Talent ranks from E - SSS (E-D-C-B-A-S-SS-SSS), so for him to be the first person on record with no talent is a shameful thing for sure.
Everybody was shocked, and they knew he wasn't lying from the expression on his face.
"He-He! He is even more pathetic than an E-Rank!" laughed a guy among them, and they all burst out laughing.
Anyone with talent ranked E usually lowers their head in shame at the mention of talent. They see others with higher rank than them as gods that can do anything because the higher the rank of talent, the easier it is to discover and nurture it. People with high ranked talent could cultivate easily, making them cultivate faster than their peers.
The talent stone is an expensive stone that could only be seen in a city, county, and larger jurisdiction. It could measure the talent of a person by giving off results with words, all according to the corresponding rank of the individual's talent.
Little did they know, there is more to his talent than meets the eye.
All of them where laughing as they all had the same thought.
Usually, the child is as talented, or more so, than their parents as it's the cumulation of the parents talent.
'How can the son of a rank SSS be a 'No-Talent' '
***
While the bullies were making fun of Leo, a crystal was watching them from high, high above. In a spatial dimension.
The place was dark and it looked exactly like space.
"Master, I have finally found you. Let's start a new adventure together again!" exclaimed the crystal in excitement.
"Master, I can sense your rage. I would have finished them, but I will let you do it yourself. Run now! If any one blocks you, all you have to do is punch him away. Run to a location were no one can see you and let's combine!"
If it had a heart right now, it would be pumping with excitment.
It quickly tore through the void and teleported to just a few meters away from the group.
***
The year was 2073, and it had been 11 years since humans discovered that they could grow stronger by cultivating through the absorption of a mysterious energy that had been detected in the air on the year 2062. It was later known as Qi by the Korean and Chinese. That period of time was known as the Qi Sensing Era.
Since then, many mysterious people who had been in seclusion started appearing, making their presence known. Within the length of two years, the world was unrecognizable from what it was before.
Those who were in seclusiong became known as Ancient Cultivators.
These people later briefed a group of people on cultivating and those people were known as Cultivator instructors.
There were no longer any such things as countries, states or previously known territorial titles as everything was renamed and restructured in this new Qi Sensing Era.
Dungeons began appearing everywhere and normal animals mutated into oversized animals. Even a previously small, baby chick would be at the height of a bicycle and as powerful as a normal big dog. If it attacked an average non-Cultivator, within ten strikes of beak, the person would be dead. The person could literally be pecked to death.
People soon began to hastily cultivate as it was their only chance of survival.
Gold, silver, copper became the currency again as paper money became unreliable. It was like going back to ancient times.
But before all this happened, there was a game.
It's name: '#SURVIVAL ONLINE!#'
***
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Chapter 1 has been edited.