CGA: Chapter 1

Chapter 1 Jaime

 

Cold…

Drops of water fell onto his face, waking him from his deep slumber. He opened his eyes, but couldn’t see anything except darkness.

Where am I?

He felt really tired; his body cold and involuntary: as he tried to move, he was trapped by some kind of slimy things. He gave a little push, trying to sweep away those slimy objects that sucked him in. At last he managed to force himself to stand up. Immediately everything looked clear: there was sunlight beaming through the gaps of the many murky clouds. However, he shivered as he was stunned to find himself standing on a mountain of dead bodies.

Suddenly, the vision around made him wanted to vomit. There were no dead bodies in complete condition. Seem like they were all torn up by wild animals and left behind. He could smell blood and rotten meat from his around. His first instinct was get out from his place. His body was covered in sticky dripping blood. Rain was falling heavily as it tried to wash the dark blood from his body.

He dragged his fatigued body away from the mountain of dead bodies and looked around to find himself in the middle of a wrecked village. Houses broken beyond repair. Dead bodies lying down like sand in a beach scattered along the streets. The blood and the rain were being drained away, combining to form a river of red.

“What had happened to this village?” An old man suddenly appeared from behind. Jaime was shocked and almost fell. He thought some dead body come alive.

He looked at the old man with white robe and the other people behind him. Hundreds of people were flying in the sky, either standing on their flying swords or flying beasts. One by one slowly descended next to the old man, looking confused.

“Elder Meng, we were too late.”

Elder Meng frowned and deep wrinkle appeared in his forehead. He sighed heavily and ordered, “Search for survivors around the village and check the forest, maybe some survivors are hiding there.”

“Acknowledged.” Hundreds of people cupped their hand to answer and dispersed quickly. Not long after, some of them started cursing.

“Demon Sect! They are animals!”

“They killed everything alive. Even chickens and dogs were not left behind.”

Elder Meng sighed sadly as his eyes fell onto the only survivor of the village’s massacre. He doesn’t know how this weak and frail kid could survive the massacre. “What is your name, kid?”

“Kid!!? I am older than you! You wouldn’t believe me if I told you my age! It is one hundred and…”

Suddenly Jaime became aware that Elder Meng appeared taller than him. His vision only leveled the shoulders of Elder Meng. He checked his own hands and found they were smaller than usual. He was confused and silent for a long time.

“Maybe he is still shocked by the bloody massacre of the villagers.” Another old man emerged from the crowd behind Elder Meng. “From thousands of villagers here, only he got luck to stay alive. Have you identified him? This skinny boy?”

“Who am I?”

Pondering, a dim light suddenly appeared in front of his eyes. The light created a transparent screen with a lot of words inside it. He secretly sent a gaze at Elder Meng and his gang to confirm he was the only one able to see the message.

He tried to read the words:

[ Name: Jaime (14 years old), Health Point 35/100, Mental Point 50/100, Level: 5 (normal villager) ]

“He is just a kid without any skills. A normal village kid.” Elder Meng locked his eyes on Jaime. “He was really lucky to have avoided this massacre.”

“Elder Meng, I will go back to report this case to other elders. They don’t need to send all their disciples here anymore since it is already over.”

“Then, I will trouble Elder Fan for delivering the report.”

“What should we do with him?” Elder Fan turned to Jaime. Elder Fan’s body was smaller than Elder Meng. But his eyes appeared more dangerous than Elder Meng’s. Jaime sure that cunning old rogue is up to something.

“What do you think?” asked Elder Meng didn’t show any interest.

“His body is weak, his bones are small and he almost has no muscles. Definitely not suited for cultivation, but I will take him to the Double Moon Sect.”

“You want to take him in as a disciple?” Elder Meng questioned with a tint of shock. In fact, this Elder Fan is known for his stinginess for taking disciples. He leads the sixth division of Double Moon Sect and he has only less than thirty disciples. Other divisions have at least hundreds of their own.

“Disciple? He isn’t worthy.” Elder Fan grabbed Jaime’s hand. “But he will earn his worth if he is doing chores for my disciples. Cooking and washing, so my disciples will have more time to cultivate.”

“Why don’t you use the outer disciples or eighth division’s disciple?” Elder Meng suggested. He showed a hint of disagreement.

Elder Fan sneered and wave his hand to refuse, “Too much of a hassle. My disciples had killed a few of them and it is giving me a headache! I don’t want to cause any trouble to the disciplinary committee anymore. Taking an outsider is safer. My disciples can kill them without causing problems to the sect, if they have to.”

Elder Meng didn’t like the way of Elder Fan doing things, but didn’t want to mingle on others problem. “Just try to treat him nice, you can send him to me or outer disciple if he is useless to you.”

“We will see.” Elder Fan hit a small pouch tied to his waist and a sword flew out from the pouch. After a spin, the flying sword laid still in the air and Elder Fan stepped forward to ascend. Taking Jaime with him, in no time Jaime felt his body dragged soaring in the blue sky with Elder Fan like a bullet.

Uarrgghhhhh!

Three people also flew with their swords, following Elder Fan, leaving the village altogether.

Jaime found himself about forty meters from the ground and flying in the air.

“Is this real?! Humans can fly?! Am I still dreaming?!”

After a nearly two-hours flight, Jaime saw what looked like a colossal mountain range ahead. Eleven mountains’ peaks lined up and chained around the biggest mountain’s peak. Twelve mountains simply joined to become one majestic mountain. Coming nearer to the mountains, he saw thousands of buildings spread from the surface of the valleys to the peak of the mountains.

At least, there are tens of thousands of people staying in this place.

“Ba Zai, take this slave to Bamboo’s Peak!” yelled Elder Fan loudly. He grabbed and threw Jaime’s body up into the empty air. Jaime felt his heart was going to stop anytime because three people on behind passed him without bothering to catch him at all. Suddenly, he realized he started free-falling quicker and quicker, while Eldest Fan and his followers had already flown far away. They just let him free fall.

“F**k! I am going to die!” Jaime’s body would be hitting the tallest tree in no time. He was totally powerless in doing anything.

Immediately one person standing near the gate jumped five meters from the ground and caught Jaime. This person was around 30 years old and had a big body.

“F**k that stingy elder, making me work for free again!” He cursed while roughly putting Jaime on his shoulder. He leapt quickly across the road and went up to one of the peaks of the mountains. Before Jaime could understand what had just happened, he again felt his body flying in the air. The guy had thrown him high in the air, over a four-meter gate, while shouting, “Ba Zai has delivered the item that Elder Fan asked for. Disciples of Bamboo Peak please accept him while he is alive. I think he is your new slave.”

Instead, Jaime took his time to look at the sky and be fascinated.

“Ahh, I never realized how blue and beautiful the sky was. It is a pale translucent blue… Ahh… look at those white slender clouds…”

Then his body started to free fall again.

“F**k! if I live I will hit those two guys hard!”

Immediately he saw someone on the ground and was sure that the nice guy on blue robe would catch him. Unfortunately, that nice guy kept standing there and shouted, “You are so dirty, I won’t catch you. Please take care yourself!”

Jaime flew into the bamboo’s trees. He hit dozens of them causing them to bend like a bow before snapping and breaking them all. It was a painful landing but luckily he had passed out before he felt any of it.

Not knowing how many hours or seconds had passed, Jaime woke up when someone splashed water on his face and body.

“Get up you lazy bum! Or I’ll kill you!”

An arrogant guy kicked Jaime in the face. Jaime avoided the possibly fatal kick as he forced himself to sit up. The guy sneered. “New slave, you will serve 28 inner disciples of Bamboo’s Peak.” He pointed at a hill. From the hill to the peak of mountain, there were some caves spreading from the bottom to the peak. “Understood?”

Understand what? Can’t you see I am in agony right now? All of the bones in my body are splitting!

“Starting from tomorrow, you will have to put fresh food in front of each cave. No matter if they eat it or not, you have to keep serving fresh food! And then, fill water into each clay barrel in front of every cave. Take their dirty clothes and wash them. And remember to pick weeds and bushes around the caves too.” The guy slowly walked to one of the caves and shouted, “If I find nothing tomorrow, I will take your dog-shit head!”, and he disappeared in the cave.

Jaime took a deep breath and checked his status: his health point had only 1 point left. Any random chicken kick could cause his death.

Shit!

With a lot of difficulties Jaime tried to stand on his feet around the fallen bamboo trees. “Where am I? Why are people here like shit and barbarians! They never asked my name, yet they have made me their slave!”

Inside Jaime’s mental realm, a book hanging in the middle of the darkness opened immediately.

“Book of Karma!” Jaime knew it by instinct. The book opened and a tiny bit of information poured into his brain:

[You are inside Double Moon Sect on Double Moon Mountain in Dragon and Phoenix Continent…]

At the same time, some of his mental energies rushed into the book. “Equal exchange!” He understood: under the law of karma, offering something as an equal exchange to get something in return. His mental energy exchanged with the information from Book of Karma to yield his location.

“So, I am in Double Moon Sect, one of six biggest sects on the Dragon and Phoenix Continent. This sect occupies the land and the mountain peaks around the colossal Double Moon mountain range.” He stopped as the information kept flowing to his mind. “People who live around the mountain are outer disciples of the Double Moon Sect. Inner disciples stay inside the mountain, occupying every mountain peak. Inside this sect, there are eight divisions of inner disciples. Every division is under one Elder’s command. I am in Bamboo Peak, the sixth division, whose leader is Elder Fan.”

And luckily for Jaime, there was some more information from that almighty book for him:

[Jaime has been made into a slave in Bamboo Peak. If he failed to serve food and satisfy the inner disciples of Bamboo Peak, he will die without intact body in no time.

Day 1 of the 100 years’ time to conquer three realms has begun.]

He was shocked. “Is this for real? Conquer the three realms? Human’s realm which has more than one continents and I don’t even know how many universes outside there! Demon’s realm and God’s realm too? Who do you think I am? Am I someone like King of Vali, Ravana and some other legends that can conquer the three realms?”

Jaime again felt completely powerless against such a condition. Too many things he didn’t understand and he even didn’t know where he is. He felt thirsty and drag himself to the nearest bamboo house. Forced himself to enter a decrepit old house.

“Kuaahhh!!” Jaime was horror-struck as he saw a body without a head laying inside the bamboo house and he ran out quickly. His stomach was throwing up. “Who is that dead boy?”

The Book of Karma processed the request and gave him an answer while taking 2 point of his mental energies.

[Dead body, believed to be Hu Hai, a brave warrior who picked up by Elder Fan while strolling outside Double Moon Sect. He was forced to become a slave for Bamboo Peak’s inner disciples for a week before being killed by Zhou Wei—the nephew of Elder Fan—because his cooking couldn’t satisfy Zhou Wei.]

“I am a dead man! The killing is not a joke!” He was alarmed at the prospect of being dead in that place. Jaime gazed outside and found the way he came into the Sect earlier. That was supposed to be the only way out. Without hesitation, he raced towards the gate as if he was never going to survive again. Just before he reached the Bamboo Peak’s gate, suddenly Jaime felt a drop of cold sweat on the back. He was alarmed by a voice, which seemed to have casted a spell to rooting his running feet to the ground.

Fear creeping to every corner of his body. At the moment he only thought one think, death.

“If you think you can run away from this place alive, you can try.” The voice filled with an intent to kill. Jaime was petrified.

“I… I… am going to collect food.” He tried to reason. Protecting his own life.

“Hmm, go to the west, you will find a forest and a river there. One step out from this gate, you will have to pay with your head.” The voice said coldly.

“Acknowledged.” Jaime turned his body to the west and moved to the deep forest. His hands trembled and sweat broke out all over his body. He was infuriated. “I need my f*cking lawyers! I paid them monthly and never used them once in my life and when the time I need them most, they aren’t here. Oh, I need cops too! I paid my tax every month for them. Believe in my country, believe in human’s right and in Democracy? When I need them most, no one is here to help! F**k slavery!”

After moving through the about half hour and kept grumbling. Suddenly, Jaime seemed to realize something important. He turned around tiredly to make his return way..

Damn! I forgot to bring any tools with me. What can my two hands do without them?

Half an hour later, He came back to the bamboo house. He grabbed anything useful he could get from the house and from the dead body.

A dead man needs nothing.

As for the dead body, he dragged it out from the bamboo house and threw it into the nearest valley. Not even family or a friend, he wouldn’t waste his time and effort to dig a grave for him.

He laid his eyes to the valley. “Hu Hai brother, don’t get me wrong. We are brothers who share this same miserable fate, so please don’t rest in peace. Be resentful and bring all your ancestors to haunt the disciples of Bamboo Peak. Make them pay for what they had done to you. Make them sleepless, sick and take them with you to hell.”

Jaime looked at the forest and let out a deep breath. He continued, “If I can’t feed those 28 pigs, I will follow your path most certainly. Please book my place in advance and have two or three beauties to accompany me later.”

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