Shi Yan woke up with a start. His head was throbbing in pain, as if it was filled with lead and it felt extremely heavy.
Once the pain faded decreased slightly, he found himself in a dimly lit stone cave which was the size of a basketball court. Piles of bones were scattered all over the place, and a dozen corpses covered in strange clothes lay beside him. The clothes looked new and bright. As if these people had died recently.
"Where is this? Is this still the Bahamas?"
Shi Yan, 27 years old, was an insane fanatic of extreme sports. His mother died early, while his father died of cancer in the prime of his life. But, he had saved a fortune working his whole life. This left him with such a large amount of wealth which he could never use in a lifetime.
He owned many things at an early age, which other people would pursue their entire life.
Although young and rich, he had no future goals, which made him unhappy for a long time.
At the age of 17, he had his first taste of extreme sports, which brought him unspeakable excitement. Given his large amount of wealth, he could undertake these sports as much as he liked, which ordinary people would not be able to afford this.
Traditional extreme sports, such as free-climbing, crocodile bungee, low-altitude parachuting, volcanic skateboarding, cliff diving and limbo skating, brought him the greatest enjoyment and pleasure.
The thrill of being on the verge of death invigorated him and made his blood boil.
In ten years, he had tried all sorts of the most dangerous extreme sports due to which his body was extraordinarily strong. Hundreds of near-death experiences made his nerves as hard as steel. He once joked that he was the man who was closest to the Grim Reaper.
The blue-hole exploration in the Bahamas was his most dangerous extreme sports trip. Some of these blue-holes were hundreds of meters deep, while some were complex like mazes. What's more, every little move could stir the sand up on the bottom of the cave. No matter how bright your light was, you wouldn't be able to see anything in front of you.
Even if you were an experienced diver, you had to wear a steel wire before you jumped into a blue-hole. The steel wire was the lifeline of explorers, and its length decided the distance explorers could go. Moving beyond that distance was tantamount to suicide because nobody ever got out of that maze without a steel wire. According to the statistics from the Bahamas Maritime Institute, there was an average of 20 cave diving related deaths in the blue-hole, most of whom died from losing direction.
In this dangerous extreme adventure, Shi Yan threw away his lifeline; the steel wire, entering into a suicidal adventure, and finally lost himself in the mysterious blue-hole.
And in the blue-hole, getting lost meant certain death.
---
Shi Yan lay collapsed on the ice-cold rock ground, looking at his surroundings with the aid of a dim light coming from the cave walls. In his mind, there appeared some memory fragments that didn't belong to him.
This was the memory of another Shi Yan...
That boy was 17 years old and had the same name as himself. He was attracted to antiques and was obsessed with all kinds of historical remains; because of an ancient map, he strived for half a year and eventually got here with his guards.
Feeling weak all over, Shi Yan frowned and slowly lifted himself up.
Just then, to his surprise, Shi Yan noticed that this body was not his own, but that of the other Shi Yan who was only 17 years old.
He was dumbstruck for a moment.
"Didn't I die in the blue-hole? No! I am still alive, but in an unbelievable way!"
...
According to the other Shi Yan's memory, this place was called Grace Mainland, where there was no science or technology. There were endless waging wars and warriors raging everywhere!
Many dwellers here showed mysterious abilities not long after they were born. Some had the power of lightning, some could control plants, some could tunnel into the earth, some could use the chill of frost, and some were capable of communicating with demon beasts...
People with these various abilities would all become warriors, and their abilities were referred to as Martial Spirits.
Martial Spirits were nearly all possessed at birth, and only very few could acquire a spirit through some stroke of luck. That is why this mainland was named Grace Mainland, as the warriors believed that Martial Spirits were God gifted.
Not every warrior could possess a "Martial Spirit", in fact, the majority of warriors weren't blessed with one. Ordinary people could train hard to become a warrior, but there was no way to obtain a Martial Spirit through training. Martial Spirits were so powerful that they could benefit a warrior's training, increasing their combat potential significantly and granting them their own special abilities...
As a result, among warriors of the same level, those who owned a Martial Spirit tended to be much stronger and achieved significantly greater results. They did half the work with double the results.
The "Martial Spirit" can be inherited through blood, plus there was a higher probability where one inherited the Martial Spirit.
In general, if one of the parents possessed a spirit, there was a high possibility that their child would inherit the same spirit. If both of the parents had a spirit, their child would have an even greater chance to inherit one of their spirits, either from the father or the mother.
There was only a one in a hundred chance that a couple, who both possessed a martial spirit, would give birth to an ordinary child.
Even rarer was the situation where the kid inherited both spirits from his parents. This inherent type of Martial Spirit was called "Twin Spirits", and those type of lucky individuals which possessed them were also known as a 'Son of God'! It only happened to one in ten thousand couples who possessed different Spirits.
Shi Yan stood there and continued to put the fragmented memories in order.
The original owner of this body came from the Shi Family. They possessed the Petrification Martial Spirit which could make the body as hard as a rock in battle, preventing damage to the body. As said fighter raised their cultivation, the Petrification Martial Spirit would become much stronger, to the point where they were almost indestructible.
Unfortunately, this guy didn't inherit the Petrification Martial Spirit and was thus considered a poor successor for the martial arts that the Shi Family trained in. He also showed no interest in martial arts, and never learned anything about them either. All he had been devoted to was the exploration of historical remains.
Thanks to that ancient map, he had crawled through numerous heavy bushes and suffered a lot to arrive at this ancient cave.
"Wu wu wu.... hu hu hu.... "
Suddenly, a devil-like cry came from deep within the cave. Astonished, Shi Yan looked around only to find a blood pool in the direction the voice came from.
The blood pool, about 10 square meters in size, was located in the middle of the cave, filled with a red fluid which looked just like blood. It was bubbling on the surface and was giving out horrifying shrieks and howls when the bubbles popped.
He realized that his escorts were driven insane by the howls, and they had started to kill each other. They all died in succession, while the 17-year-old Shi Yan fainted from the frightening shrieks.
It was all because of the blood pool!
Shi Yan stared at the blood pool with a rigid face. The howls slowly evoked the desire to kill within him, and made him want to kill anyone around him!
His head was still aching and the howls from the blood pool never stopped tormenting him, which made it harder for him to concentrate.
"...Must be the blood pool!"
With a grim expression, he tried to guard his mind. His countless near-death experiences had steeled his mind and Shi Yan managed to calm down. Although his head still ached, he was able to stay focused and walked towards the blood pool.
"Crack, crack, crack!"
Shi Yan looked dignified, as he walked gray dry bones shattered under his feet. Judging by the pile of bones in the cave, he could only guess how many people had previously died in this place. The pool was the source of this evil. If he wanted to examine the secrets of the blood pool, he had to be prepared for death.
As he got closer to the blood pool, the howls kept getting louder and louder which drilled into his head like sharp knives. The sound of slaughter contained in the howls almost destroyed his reasoning. He wouldn't have been able to bear this pain if it weren't for the extreme conditions he faced for so many years that had slowly formed his spirit.
A heap of bones was situated beside the blood pool; some milky white bones also floated in the center of the pool. This small blood pool was like a sea of blood from hell, which had devoured an uncountable number of lives.
Shi Yan had a feeling that his soul was summoned here because of this bizarre blood pool. He thought maybe this blood pool was his ticket back to the Earth.
When he got closer to the blood pool, Shi Yan suddenly found something strange. The blood in the middle of the pool was scarlet and thick, but he couldn't detect the slightest whiff of the scent of blood.
On the contrary, the air around him was very fresh, even filled with an unexplainable fragrance. After careful inspection, he determined that the exotic fragrance actually came from the blood pool!
Shi Yan was full of curiosity and thought that there must be something weird in the blood pool.
Again, he took a few steps forward. All of a sudden, an illusion of an endless sea, filled with scarlet red blood entered his mind. Pile of corpses like a small island were there. Some of the bones were like those of the cretaceous period dinosaurs and were as large as a small hill. There was a repeatedly screaming sound coming out from the blood sea, "Kill! Kill! Kill! Kill! Kill!"
Shi Yan tried to stay calm, but he couldn't. His heart started to beat faster and faster. A suffocating and terrifying pressure overwhelmed him. He felt a familiar feeling like those near death experiences he experienced back on Earth
He knew that the next step likely meant death!
However, those dreary adventures over the years hadn't terrified him, but instead had given him the utmost pleasure! Being face to face with death and surviving all perils was the true definition of extreme sports!
Step by step, one after the other!
Under the calling of the blood pool, Shi Yan finally went up to the edge. He stared at the small blood pool; the insane side of his character had been triggered. He roared, "Let's see what you have to offer, small little blood pool!"
Then, he jumped into the pool.