Sitting on a bench, Cain played chess with another vagrant. The black and white pieces created a battlefield on the board.
The vagrant found Cain strange but rarely got to play with anyone, so he dealt with it.
That was until Cain flipped the board while saying strange things, "White stinks! My general's a candy wrapper. Hehehe!" He picked up one of his pieces and started to chew on it while walking away.
The vagrant was going to stop him, but the strange actions completely threw him off. Cain just walked away without being stopped.
Looking down at the board, the vagrant scratched his head, "He was winning, why'd he quit?"
...
Finding himself in a market, Cain spat out the white chess piece and took some food straight out of someone's hand, eating it and disappearing into the crowd. The shopkeeper screamed and yelled but couldn't find Cain. He could only frown and let his anger boil.
By the time Cain exited the market, it was night. He saw a butterfly and his eyes lit up as he chased it. Somewhere along the way, he accidentally tripped a Cultivator walking down the street.
They were only in the Founding Stage but to them, Cain was but a mortal vagrant who dared touch him.
"You! Stop vagrant!"
Cain didn't stop, he was fixated on the butterfly, leading the cultivator to give chase.
Unfortunately, the cultivator didn't have any methods of movement, he only had a singular harnessed soul in his head. It was a spirit of intelligence, granting him greater intellect like memorization and critical thinking.
"Huff....Huff....stop!" He called out but Cain didn't listen. Only stopping when the butterfly did.
As the small insect drank nectar from a flower, the cultivator finally made it to Cain. His face was furious, he had to run for so long just to catch a vagrant. It was a disgrace.
"Damn wretch! I'll kill you for touching me!"
Gathering Spiritual Qi, the cultivator prepared to unleash a basic-level spell he knew, it created a streak of fire that burned anything ordinary.
However, before the flame could touch Cain's body, something strange occurred. A membrane appeared around the dirty vagrant as his attention was drawn. It was like a cocoon, trapping him.
In the sky, the clouds gathered and solidified heavenly might.
"The innate spell ritual....he's a Growth Stage Cultivator! I got to get out of here!" The cultivator wasn't dumb, he quickly ran away. He had no plans to tell a soul what he saw either.
This was the gift of intellect.
In the cocoon, Cain titled his head as symbols and shapes beyond his understanding formed in the transparent membrane. Shapes and colors floated up and down, entering through his ears, nose, and mouth, leading to his brain.
As it did, the heavenly energy from above shot down and entered Cain's Dantian, helping its walls become sturdier and concentrating the spiritual qi into a more pure liquid.
By the time the membrane weakened, Cain clutched his head as he felt worms wriggling in his brain.
He started to repeat, "World Cutter, Firmament. Sharp, powerful, quick...."
Stumbling about, the sky became even darker as lighting gathered.
The final part of the ritual was for the person to test their spell against the heavens. Those who succeeded either had decent spells or powerful souls that fueled them.
Instinctively, Cain sensed the lighting and moved his finger in an arch as golden lighting shot down at him. From the tip of his finger, a tangible blue and white wire shot out. It bent like a sword slash and collided with the lighting.
Crackles resounded as the wire broke through the electric energy, creating a deep chasm in the bolt and only continuing to deepen it as if it were going to reach the heavens.
Yet it was only a growth stage spell, the wire soon lost its glow and fizzled out a quarter up the lightning bolt, but the bolt was still destroyed, splitting off in two directions, one hitting an area outside the city and the other hitting a nearby building.
He had succeeded, Cain's Firmament Innate Spell passed the heavens test, and although it was only a Firmament Spell, for being a Growth Stage spell it was indeed above the rest. Spells could evolve and jump grades when ascending to the next cultivation stage. Sun Xiang's spell was originally a Nadir Spell before it became a basic one, without his Ancestral Dragon the might of heaven would've killed him.
Strangely enough, Cain began to chuckle at it all before disappearing in the night. Once he was long gone a few Cultivators came over.
"An innate spell ritual! Where is the lucky cultivator? I must meet them!"
A woman appeared beside the man who had just spoken, she hit him on the head. "They're already gone genius. They must not want people to know about this. Just clean up the scene and then we'll go back."
...
"Just my luck. I lost the competition and now I lost my money! Damn it! Not only did my fiancé betray me to get with Fan Gen but she watched as he trashed my harnessed spirit and now the school kicked me out! Where am I going to go? I was only a mortal before all of this! Argh!"
In a fit of rage, Kang Wan kicked a stone, it traveled into the dark alley standing before him.
Kang Wan had only recently entered the Founding Stage, but he was the quickest of all his peers. However, his talent caught the attention of a popular student in the year above him.
It led to him getting played with before being knocked down in a fight. No one knew why a Senior would do this to a junior, some rumors pointed to Fan Gen's jealousy of Kang Wan's talent. Of course, now that Kang Wan lost everything no one cared, winners won while losers lost.
Kang Wan had nothing, he had no family, no money, and all he knew other than cultivating was to be a mortal who worked farms all day.
'Hah.....perhaps I should just drown in the river....'
His eyes had dark circles, he hadn't slept for days. In anger, he kicked another, much larger stone. The stone whizzed into the dark alley.
"Ow!"
Kang Wan's eyes lit up. "Is someone in there?"
From the darkness, a weak and raggedy young man walked out. He was wearing dirty clothes and was starting to grow a beard. It was Cain, and surprisingly, his eyes seemed clearer.
"Did you kick the stone? No worries, I'm just a cultivator down on my luck. I need a place to cultivate but this alley has proved itself useless." Cain dryly laughed.
He didn't look at Kang Wan but at a reflection in a puddle. His eyes were glowing bright green.
'My memories are returning....it seems that ritual helped delay the problem with my mind. I need to hurry! Cultivating fixed it so I should continue to do just that right? If I can out-cultivate this affliction I might be able to have time to find a cure!'
Just as Cain finished his thought, his mind dulled and his eyes glossed over for a few seconds before flickering again. 'Close! I almost lost myself again! For now, I must use the mandate to offset the illness and cultivate. I need to find a spiritually rich location! Only then will the heavenly energy fuse with my spiritual qi and help me advance quicker!'
Cain only now looked at Kang Wan. His eyebrow raised as he noticed he was a cultivator. "Is fellow cultivator a part of an organization? I can help you if so. Anything at all! I just need a place to recover!"
Hearing that, Kang Wan smiled.