The years passed, and he reached his fiftieth year, the day of maturity on this planet. On this day, the village elders who had survived were allowed to cultivate, which brought their age back to their twenties forever – until the diseases that lingered from cultivators' cultivation killed most of them.
And it was also the day when noble families had their children enlist in the army.
"I don't want to go," Sengrar said.
"Why?" his father asked. "It will give you resources."
"It will kill me, yes, that's all it will ever do."
"But really!" exclaimed his father. "If you don't cultivate, you'll die from diseases, from the fact that worlds that don't meet energy quotas are destroyed! Do you want to be destroyed? Killed by a noble family? You are of my lineage, and they will never leave you alone! Your life was decided even before your birth by your position! By the advantages, the technology you have obtained! What villager can access teleportation? How many of them survive time? How many escape the mines? Let me tell you: of the 5 to 10% of villagers surviving their fiftieth year, only 3% leave the mines, usually after 300 long years!"
"I see the advantages you speak of, father, but then we will always have to fight for more resources; of course, I know the mortality rate is low at the beginning, but Father, when you increase the statistics, you eventually reach 100%. I will strengthen myself, but so will my enemies, and one day, I will die by their blows. Fighting, stealing... all just to keep your advantages; this road won't allow anything other than an early death."
"Stealing?" said his father, enraging. "You dare say it's stealing?! That's not true! By the Red Star, it's not true! You could be at the top of the world! You have a chance to survive! Don't you realize an asteroid could kill us all? But if you progress, you won't have to fear that. It's a risk to take; it's a harsh, heavy, difficult path, but it's the only path! If you hide and wait, you will die for sure. What I give you is the opportunity to evolve! To maybe even travel through universes and be a little safer, more powerful! To have some meaning!"
"I refuse to go."
His father was enraged.
"If the life of a beggar suits you so much, then you will also take their place in the mines."
"Father," he said furiously. "Do you really want to do that to your son? It costs you nothing to leave me alone and decide my future! I don't want to become your soldier!"
"It costs me nothing? Oh, think again, son. It costs me my honor, and it can increase the risk to have given birth to the next Red Star! A karma that would touch me for eternity and annihilate me! Like your mother, you are nothing but shit."
"Don't you dare insult my mother!" Sengrar raged and raised his body's energy, but the aura emanating from his father sent him flying.
"Look! One word, and you become no more than an animal! I'm only at the seventh stage of the first rank! If I was an enemy, I would have killed you in one blow! You couldn't withstand my strength! In this world, strength is everything! If you can't even reach this rank, don't think you'll survive! I'm far from it! Only the ultimate stages can leave this planet! Only the highest ranks can hope to flee this tiny universe, which is nothing more than a speck of dust for the small universes, whose ratio is even smaller compared to the intermediate universes and so on! Not taking risks means dying!"
"Maybe, but I see no chance of your so-called survival if what you say is true, father. So let me enjoy life! Give me the freedom to choose my own death!"
"I will let you have it. You can commit suicide. You can choose the mines – it's either that or be my soldier."
Sengrar remained locked in his room for a few months and only came out to be buried in the mines after a final chance left by his father.
"In ten years. You will only have the right to ask to leave in ten years."
In this cave, Sengrar became accustomed to the atrocious treatments and unbelievable societies created by this underground life.
This difficult life, despite his strength, made him beg the guards to see his father before the ten years were up, but was always refused. In his 7th year, his corpse was found in a hole, the ropes cut by fire spirits, the bleeding rocks of hands that had tried in vain to climb back up.
Thus was born the legend told around the fire camps of the caves of hell, whose lord did not even spare his son. In the extremely patriarchal and senior-ruling societies of the caves, it served as a moral lesson to respect one's elders, a practical lesson to always carry at least two ropes and an abandonment of any hope of ever seeing the sun again in the short term.
[Power used beyond capabilities. Rest required. Rest...]
The system's voice faded as Rargnes crashed to the floor.