"Your Majesty."
A burly man spoke as he knelt before a thrown raised high above the ground. In this majestic hall, his powerful voice reverberated, destroying the silence.
"Get up and speak, Martial God Jiayi Bi"
An old man wearing a golden crown and majestic dragon-patterned robe spoke, he was the emperor of this vast empire.
Even so, his voice expressed great respect for the man kneeling in front of him. The ministers sat there in silence, not daring to utter a single word.
After all the one kneeling before him was the Martial God, one of the strongest figures in the empire. A man strong enough to take down a thousand-man army alone.
"You majesty, a great tragedy has struck the empire."
The Martial God spoke, his voice filled with distress and sadness.
"Thousands of villages and few cities near the Weeping Mountain, have been destroyed and the whereabouts of the people are currently unknown."
Hearing his words, all the people present showed shock in their faces, after all these high-ranking people got such a piece of news out of nowhere.
After all for such a big incident, they should have gotten some news before it even happened but there was none.
"Is it the work of another empire or some evil cult?"
The emperor asked with an ugly face, there was also anger hidden in his eyes. After all such a big incident showed the failure of the information network of the empire and in turn the failure of the emperor himself.
"The reason is unknown your Majesty, it happened so suddenly and so quickly that we only got the information after some weeks."
Jiayi Bi spoke as he clenched his fist, although he was more than a hundred years old he hadn't lost his youthful vigor and strength.
He has always been the symbol of rightness so such an incident burned a great flame of anger in his heart.
Hearing his words a dull silence fell on the hall as the Emperor's face became even uglier, fear also started to creep on his back.
Taking a deep breath he calmed himself down and looked at the Martial God in front of him. Knowing his strength his heart relaxed.
"Martial God Jiayi Bi, I as the Emperor command you. Take an army of a hundred thousand strong and behead my enemy. Avenge the million innocent souls of our Empire."
The Emperor spoke in a voice filled with royal majesty as he gave his command.
"YES!!! YOU MAJESTY THE EMPEROR!!!"
The martial god replied in a thundering voice as he knelt before the emperor.
Vooo!!
Perhaps he used too much force as the ground beneath him cracked and dust rose, the entire room shook as if an earthquake had passed.
The Emperor's heart calmed down even more as he looked at the show of power in front of him.
At the same time hundreds of thousands of kilometers away.
A mountain thousands of kilometers tall stood piercing through the clouds, but this mountain didn't give people the feeling of majesty but dread.
The Weeping Mountain, one of the tallest mountains in the region, as for why it was given its name.
Well, one look at the trees in the mountains and you will have your answer. All the trees in the mountain have a face making a weeping expression.
As the winds pass the tree you don't hear the rustling of the leaves but cries of the dammed.
And such a situation has made this mountain a forbidden zone for all the people in the nearby area, even the empire doesn't dare send its army there.
If you are brave enough to climb the mountain and can somehow make it to the top, well then say bye-bye to your life.
Atop this mountain stands a large pavilion, coated with black and red releasing death qi that can kill any mortal.
Small houses and huts can be seen spread everywhere, but if you look closer you can see human bones spread on the ground.
Some new and some old, the ground has become a reddish-black color due to all the blood that had splattered on the ground there.
With just a glance you can see two kinds of people, one wearing leather clothes and the other wearing a black Taoist dress.
Just looking at the respectful and fearful attitude of the leather-wearing people when they see someone in a Taoist dress you can see who is superior and who is inferior.
Also if you still don't think these people here are evil, well the leather clothes they are wearing aren't made of animal skin but human skin.
From the sky, if you look at the left side of the top of the mountain you can see a large and deep hole.
In this cave, the true lowest of the low in the mountain live.
In this dark and damp place lit with torches made of skulls, you can see hundreds of thousands of people mining without stopping.
And if someone dares to stop, well get ready to be whipped by the leather-wearing people. As for the Taoist robe-wearing people, well they don't wish to stay in the same space as these lowlifes.
If you go even deeper you can see fewer and less amount of people, and the people that exist are already old.
Perhaps this is their luck or tragedy to have survived in this place for so long.
But in this group of old people, someone stands out, a boy or perhaps a young man covered in dust and mud mining away.
He wears dirty and tattered clothes with holes in some places, but through these holes, you can see his muscular body.
Tang! Tang!
Each swing of his pickaxe on the stone generates a spark as they get ground to dust.
But something else stands out even more than his age or body, it's his expression. Unlike the despair and hopeless expression of the old people, or the hopeful and angry expression of some people in the upper caves.
His expression is normal... too normal in fact as if he isn't a slave minding away but someone staying in hope watching TV.
"Haaa, I thought my future would have been that of a martial artist and not that of a Miner."
The boy spoke, but in English and not the language of this world. But no one had any extra power in their body to reply to this boy's words.
Not that they understand his words anyway.
"Plus as a reincarnated person I don't even have any golden finger."
After saying that he closed his mouth and worked there in silence, after a minute or so he sighed again.
"Well isn't this the cue for a system or something to activate?"
He spoke but just like last time, there was no response. However, his expression didn't change and he continued to mine.
A blue-colored crystal fell to the ground, he picked it up and put it in his daily quota bag. This was a Spiritual stone, the thing they were mining for.
Everyone is required to give two Spiritual stones at the end of the day and his quota has been fulfilled.
As for those who fail at this task, well the thing you get is no food and a beating.
Putting down his pickaxe the bay went to a corner and sat down, the old men in the area looked at him with envy but no one dared to mess with him.
"Haa, I a man with such a promising future am slaving away here."
He spoke again as he looked at the dark ceiling of the cave.
"You may be wondering how I got here."