Legend of a demon god

After countless eras had passed by and cultivators still researching different ways to draw the natural essence from from the world to benefit their daily needs, at first magic was used in the crudest ways, one was only able to cultivate the element they had the most affinity to. That was the way mortals could benefit from nature itself.

But as time passed and many more powerful mages ascended into the immortal realms, some who still felt patriotic to their home lands would return with powerful cultivation techniques, some who committed crimes fled down to the mortal realm and left behind their legacies, and finally mortals started benefitting from real cultivation techniques.

They grew to understand the ranks and realms in power, and then they felt how insignificant they were and also felt how great of potential they possessed.

Back those years a human awakens to their powers at the age of 5 due to the dense spiritual energy that was around the world , even the mortal realms were rich in essence but as time went by and the decline of spiritual energy becoming more obvious, humans couldn't just rely on the normal way of just meditating and breathing to recover lost energy.

Initially they believed that what you awakened to was what you are left with, you can only grow your recovery speed and your spiritual pool. This was how the world went till they realised there was more to it but by then the spiritual energy started declining.

The cultivation techniques that ruled in this era made human realised that they had always been stuck in the spirit foundation stage of cultivation which could only be considered the gateway of stepping into real cultivation.

There were three types of cultivation.

Qi cultivation which was also known as spirit cultivation

Soul cultivation which could also be referred to as the mental cultivation

Body cultivation

All this cultivation types were broken down and after years of research , ways have been discovered to assimilate all three into one cultivation cycle that will improve the three , (body, spirit and soul )

There was no longer restrictions to elemental affinity but of course some cases can be special, for example, a fire Phoenix can't cultivate an ice technique same as a lightning qilin couldn't cultivation ice technique.

But the improvement to cultivation was obviously helpful regardless.

Cultivation was broken into 9 realms under 3 stages.

The early stages being , the qi refinement, spirit foundation and core gathering realms

The middle stages being, the nascent soul, soul birth and spirit enlightenment realms

The late stages being ,body tempering, soul tempering and transcendent realm

All this realms had six sub stages each.

This were just the realms to break into and continue on and on, but without cultivation techniques, breaking through any of this stages was just a pipe dream. You could be an awakened but not a cultivator and that's where sects came in play.

They were hubs for real cultivation, you could join a sect or join a clan to gain their bloodline either way,the moment you stepped into cultivation you were not allowed to be free. Of course this restriction only mattered to those who chose to, you could also be a rogue cultivator affiliated to no sect or clan, just a man on his own, you can use your money to buy your cultivation techniques or you can inherit a cultivation technique from your parents....either way there were many ways to become a cultivator without joining a sect or clan but then you won't be able to grow too far, because the cultivation techniques outside the clans or sects were either fragmented or incomplete.

In the mortal realm there are 5 continents, the southern, northern, western , eastern and central continents each ruled supreme by either a clan or a sect.

In the northern continent under the rule of 3 powers the wind panther clan, the Fenrir born and the spirit profound palace, although there were also some other smaller sects and clans around the continent but this were the major clans and sects.

The spirit profound palace was the dream place of every youngster in the continent. Due to decline in spiritual energy the awakening has became drawn out till the age of 7, and were accepted into the sect at the ages of 15 to 17 respectively.

Today was the day the examinations were going to start in the profound palace branch of a small city called Zietung.

The crowd strolled down the city towards the academy meanwhile deep within the slums , a region that faced cloud cliff mountains , hunger stricken children could be seen laying around the corner of the streets.

A child who seemed to be no more than 16 was been chased down the alleyway in the street .

"You better stop running already you damned rodent!"

"If I lay my hands on you , I swear you'll curse at your whole generation for giving birth to a trash like you!"

"Give it back filthy thief!"

" I swear I'll dig my sword into your brain and enjoy fucking the stab hole you dimwit!!"

All kinds of vulgar profenities were being spitted out as they chased after the scrawny looking boy.

He ran with all his strength as he zoomed off into the mountains but the mob won't stop chasing, it left the crowd wondering what treasure exactly did this child steal.

He ran into the forest but was stuck after about two days of continous chasing, in front of him was the 'graveyard of the gods' and behind him was was a bunch of angry thugs.

"Ha ha, keep running...go on...keep going!!"

" Why did you stop you dimwit...go on"

The bandits grinned evilly while gasping for air, this damn kid made them run for two and a half days, how won't they savor the feeling of finally catching him.

"Now are you ready to give it back or will you keep being stubborn?"

A bulky man who seemed to be the leader asked.

The kid looked at them with a ferocious gaze that looked like he was going to eat them alive, he had awakened at the age of 6, earlier than he should, he was finally happy that he could cater for his mom and sister , although there were no suitable cultivation techniques for him, he still managed to get his hand on one after slaving away for about a year and when he could finally cultivate, his sister was raped to a near death stage when their mother wasn't around.

His mother came back and out of desperation she sold herself to slavery just to get a pill that could save her daughter but sadly it was too late. The contract she signed at first was just for a year of service but now things had change.

The merchant looked at her with ogling eyes, he could say he sympathised with them but how wouldn't he want to take advantage of a helpless beautiful lady.

He made a new contract, she was going to serve him for 20 years, while he gave her the soul catching bell to save her daughter.

And after many years of him protecting the soul catching bell that held his sister's soul and the years of servitude of his mother this thugs wanted to take that away from him.

He still remember what his mother told him.

"Little Ryu, this bell here holds the wisp of you sister's soul, cultivate and grow strong, get the recognition of an expert to help revive her, she's all you have now....."

This part vibrated in his ears like it was freshly said, he cultivated like crazy, and today he was ready to go show the world what he got at the examinations but how good could the life of the weakling be??

After making up his mind, he raised the bell and stared at it. The eyes of the bandits glowed with greed.

"Bring it over boy and we will let you go" the bandits leader said with his eyes fixed on the soul catching bell.

"Come get it..." A raspy voice echoed in their ears as their eyes widened in shock over what they were seeing..

"GODDAMMIT!!!" The bandits leader sped forward but was too late.

Ryu had swallowed the bell and fallen back deep into the fog beneath the cloud cliff mountains....