"Is it going to take much longer, Gold?" Draconius asks while lying bored on the couch.
"I already told you, I don't know, bother the system, you idiot dragon!" Gold says with an irritated tone, lying on the other couch. Finally, he gets a taste of his own medicine as the dragon went a bit too far and asked 25 times.
After using the token, the duo waited at the entrance for a full 20 minutes, discussing what to do when the client arrives. However, their expectations were shattered when an hour passed without a soul entering the barrier.
*Sigh*
Disappointed, Draconius starts checking his new mission, activated when he sent the token to find a potential client.
[Mission available!]
[The Grand Opening!]
[It's a historic moment for any establishment to serve its first customer!] [Objective: Close a deal with your first client.]
[Reward: Access to the system store and creation of the banker's weapon!]
"I hope there's something good in that store." Draconius mutters to himself and opens his status.
[STATUS]
[NAME: Draconius Celestrion]
[RACE: Primordial Dragon (Cosmic God)]
[GENDER: Male]
[HEALTH: Excellent]
[POWER LEVEL: Mortal Stage 0 (Just an ordinary mortal)]
[COSMIC COINS: 0]
[BANK LEVEL: 1]
[CURRENT MISSION]: Attend to the first customer!
Note: The first dragon and cosmic entity that can be defeated with a common kitchen knife!
"I feel like hitting someone." Seeing the note, Draconius looks at Gold, who is picking his nose.
"It suddenly got cold." Feeling a shiver down his body, the rooster hugs himself with his wings.
Setting aside his anger and the urge to cry, Draconius goes to his inventory and takes out a large, tattered red book that fits in his claws.
"This technique is really advanced. Get rid of all your strength and train your body to the peak. Then, perform 9 cycles to renew existence, 99 cycles to ascend your own existence, and 999 times to reach the apex. And do 1 more cycle to go beyond perfection." Reading this, Draconius is satisfied with his choice, but as he sees the method of circulating energy in various races, he scratches his head.
"Although the technique is incomplete, with several missing meridians. Moreover, I think passing through the heart meridian would improve the technique and be a way to fuse cultivation with magic." The dragon rubs his chin with his claws, contemplating the countless possibilities.
What he doesn't know is that the technique only goes through the 12 main meridians of any race. Manipulating energy delicately through the body to avoid internal damage is a laborious task.
Wanting to pass energy through the heart meridian to the whole body would create numerous energy currents that must be controlled to circulate through the over 300 meridians spread across the humanoid body. Not even a high-level spirit born from its own energy would have the ability to use this with the limited strength of a mortal.
Especially not a body as complex as Draconius's.
"I think with my abilities, I can... But it will be at the limit." His heart beats with a desire for more power, but also with the anxiety caused by the risks. Ignoring this, he continues studying the contents of the book. 'When will the first customer arrive?'
...
The birds were singing cheerfully in a sunny forest where a small, simple village existed without a care in the world.
"Chen! What are you think so much about?" In one of the large wooden houses with a thatched roof in the middle of the village, an Asian-looking girl who seemed like a fairy entered the garden where a boy was sitting at the foot of a tree.
Chen Yu snapped out of his thoughts and smiled kindly at the girl who just sat down beside him.
"It's nothing, Meimei, I just feel that we should hurry our preparations for migration." He replied, trying to hide the anxiety and panic on his face from Li Mei.
"Is it those strange dreams you had? It must be a bad omen, but this is a golden opportunity for all of us. The mine of spiritual stones we found should make us stronger. The elders of the clans said that even with your bad omen, we should take the risk to climb higher. Maybe we'll finally get several spiritual masters for the village."
Li Mei spoke with clear indecision on her face. Part of her was scared of the terrible stories that Chen Yu repeatedly told everyone in the village, but it's not every day that a small trading village like theirs finds an entire mine of spiritual stones to mine.
Chen Yu was a boy with brown hair, his eyebrows and high bridge nose make him look like a model and his black eyes gave him an attractive look. He was the acclaimed genius of the village, listened to by all the elders of the village, and envied by the younger generation.
"Tch... you guys don't understand the problem that will happen." Chen Yu clicked his tongue upon hearing this and got up to leave the garden.
"Chen!" Li Mei tried to call him, but he continued on his way without paying attention.
'I need to find a way to drag everyone with me... If only I were stronger.' Chen entered his room and lay on the carpet with this thought in mind.
'Now that I can finally have everyone back, once again, I don't have the strength to protect them.' Looking at the ceiling, he bit his lips until they bled.
In reality, he was a repressor who returned from the future. Chen Yu was once the acclaimed God of Time but was killed by mysterious creatures that invaded his world, bringing about the apocalypse. However, a little before his death, he returned to the past with the final technique of his dragon avatar, Chronodraco.
"You won't give up now, right, kid? Destiny won't change if you don't row against the tide." An aged voice appeared in his mind.
"Give up? Never! But even if I become a spiritual master, I won't be able to stop the horde of scouting monsters that's coming. Our only chances are for everyone to head toward the city or survive for half an hour until the army's lookouts arrive." The eyes that had hardened over thousands of years surviving on top of mountains of monster and enemy corpses seemed to contain an unextinguishable flame.
A horde of monsters would approach in approximately 1 month. Every 500 years, the prana miasma emerged from underground, and monsters that inhabited nature organized to attack humans due to the birth of various kings who went to war with humans.
The village that constantly migrated found an entire mine of spiritual stones on-site and decided to mine them all before moving on. Unfortunately, they encountered one of the scouting hordes that marked the beginning of another terrible cycle, and almost everyone met a tragic end.
Surviving were only a few people from the younger generation, including Chen Yu and Lin Mei, who were ordered to run towards the city and found the army's lookouts sent to observe abnormalities in the region.
'Mother! Father! Uncle Xin! Aunt Lin!' In Chen Yu's mind, the scene of him desperately shouting amid the burning village with the smell of blood in the air, finding only remnants of the shattered corpses of his closest relatives and friends, tears falling on his dirty face full of wounds.
"Stop thinking about the past, my friend. Let's find a solution so this doesn't happen again." The aged voice spoke in a warm tone.
"You're right." Waking up from his memories, Chen Yu smiled and nodded at his friend and trusted brother.
*DOOOOOOONG*
Suddenly, the sound of a bell rang along with a powerful voice.
"EMERGENCY MEETING NOW."
Jumping out of bed, Chen Yu's heart seemed to stop for a moment with the shock, and his body suddenly felt chilled.
"This didn't happen at this time." A terrible possibility arose in his mind, to the point where his vision blurred.
"CALM DOWN, CHEN YU. IT'S NOT TIME TO PANIC!" The voice of his spirit suddenly appeared, pulling him out of this condition.
"Huff... Huff... Okay, let's see." Panting, he spoke and ran out of the room.
Running all the way to the village center, Chen Yu's mind couldn't stop thinking about the worst possibility.
Arriving at the small square built during their stay, hundreds of people gathered around a wooden stage where four older elders and one middle-aged man with a strong appearance were assembled.
"I see Chen Yu has arrived. Now that everyone is here, I want to announce that a horde of monsters is coming in our direction!" The man who seemed to be the village chief spoke.
"NO!"
"Why is this happening?"
"Mom, are we going to die?"
Screams and sounds of crying began to emerge from the crowd, which became agitated upon receiving the news. A horde is a sign of tragedy, containing at least thousands of monsters. Rumors circulate that to stop the smallest horde, 5 spiritual masters need to join forces, and that's just to stop the horde for a while.
Spiritual masters are not cabbage for a small village like theirs. A spiritual master often has the ability to become a noble in various kingdoms and even become an outer disciple of sects.
Chen Yu's heart began to beat rapidly, and panic began to set in as well when he remembered his past.
"CALM DOWN!" A powerful shout echoed from the leader, making everyone immediately calm down.
"Our elders discussed a way to delay the horde of monsters and evacuate the entire village to the city! We will use Elder Lin's knowledge of prana bombs to explode the horde of monsters and delay them as much as possible." The village leader, who is also Chen Yu's father, shouted.
"Let's form a squad to protect Elder Lin. The goal is to keep him alive at all costs while he sets up the bombs with the spiritual stones we've gathered, even if all the fighters need to sacrifice themselves!" After finishing the explanation, everyone finally saw hope at the end of the tunnel.
'True! This didn't happen in the past; it was too sudden! But now it has changed, and we have a chance to prepare ourselves. Maybe even the army team is closer than before' A fire ignited in Chen Yu's eyes, and he immediately raised his hand, determined to go along.