3. Understanding The current world

Thirty miles from Liu Fan's village, following the bumpy road, going southwest of the Great Red Sea, stood a magnific stone gate written its pillars as Red River City, which is the entrance of pier town in the southernmost of the country.

Going through the gate after giving tax to the gate guard. Liu Fan moves on and heads straight to the shopping district. This was not Liu Fan's first in the city. He used to come here with his family before the new year to buy some stuff.

In the shopping district, there are various stores open up on both sides of the street.

Each store had its way of attracting customers, and shopkeepers were trying to call in people or promote their products. Many people go back and forth, and some are hooked by the exquisite items put

on the stall.

Horse carts and donkey carts go in and out of the district. This prosperous scenery was only available in the ancient era. Big shops with a long history stood still, tall stories building restaurants, inns, tea houses, articles of clothing stores, and even brothels were eye-opening for modern-era people.

Later that day.

There is one small stall, maybe we can not call it a shop but just a wooden stall almost just a table, with some baskets selling homegrown agricultural products, but there seem to be many customers trying to squeeze in and call out the bid for vegetables.

What's a world open view to see? A handsome with tanned skin was selling vegetables and marines. He wore a professional smile. Eh! Isn't this our protagonist?

In the last few days, Liu Fan was pestering his father to bring him to town to gain experience, later he proposed that he would handle the sale of his father's seafood in town. Liu Fu thought that this was also a good chance to teach his son some world affairs, at first he thought that his son would make a loss in his first transaction. but unexpectedly all the products are sold out at high prices, this happens a few days consecutively, and his son even sells better than him. So they decided to let Liu Fan handle all the sales. Liu Fu thinks that maybe it is time for him to relax, and spend more time at home with his young daughter and wife.

Coming back to the present day. A young girl standing in front of a cand stall called out,

"Uncle how much is this fruit candy stick?", a sharp soft clear voice was heard next to Liu Fan then he turned to his neighbor's stall, a cute little girl around five years old was asking for the price of a candy stick from a triangular, busy brow middle age man selling candy stick.

"One copper coin per stick, if you buy two it is three copper coins", the old man said.

"How much was this money?", the little girl asked then she handed her money.

Then the old man answered, "One tale of gold equals one hundred tales of silver, one tale of silver equals one hundred tales of copper, one tale of copper equals ten copper coins, so lass what is your money worth?". The girl replied dumbfounded scratching her head.

"Xiao Ling don't know I just got this from Papa". This old man acts wise in front of a little kid, and even tries to swindle her, how shameless can he be?

Still, the girl only buys one candy stick then she goes back, The old man can only give the correct changes to her because he is afraid of the girl's father.

Liu Fan took this moment when all of his products were sold out, then he turned to the candy stall to initiate a conversation.

"This uncle seems wise of world affairs, can this junior seek enlightenment from you, I will buy 10 candy sticks when I go back home". The old man's face blushed embarrassed due to these flattering words. Of course, how can a street vendor be wise in the world affair, but don't look down on these people, they see more people than anyone, they hear many rumors more than anyone, and there were many travelers, and adventurers who talk to these vendors are inevitable. The candy stick stall owner nodded and then asked

"What does this junior want to know?"

Liu Fan had doubts about this world's cultivation levels and also wanted to ask about martial arts if available for practice. Then he arranged his thoughts and politely asked

"How big this world is? What are the cultivation levels classified? Have you one with high martial arts skills? or is there a way to learn martial arts and cultivation?"

The old man then answered,

"In this Heavenly World has nine continents divided by four Great Seas, Red, Yellow, Black, and Green respectively. They were so huge that almost no man could cross them. Unless you have high cultivation or mighty beast to fly across them. There were five main continents, East, West, North, South and Central continent respectively.

In this world, cultivation ranks from bottom to top such as Body-refinement means a mortal needs to forge his physical through practice or labor work to improve strength, bone, vessels, and muscle. This step is divided into ten levels. At the tenth level, the cultivator needs to form their Chi or spiritual energy, and after successfully forming chi(energy), he or she can be counted as a Chi-manipulation practitioner. In this stage practitioners need to control their chi well and transfer it to the other parts of the body, for instance when they want to concentrate this chi on a single point or part of the body including arm, leg, chest, back... etc Above fifth stage of Chi-manipulation, they need multi-focus of their chi to many parts of the body at the same time which greatly enchanted their physical body in combat. At the tenth level, they need to be able to shoot out their chi from their body. This rank is called the Chi-Explosion stage means that they can kill people without direct contact just their shot-out chi is enough. At this stage, cultivators can also infuse their chi into weapons, or other people.

At the tenth level of the Chi-Explosion, they started to reform their body especially their skin preparing to absorb chi from nature. If they succeeded they would step into the Nature Chi Manipulation stage. In this stage people can use nature chi freely, they will find their most affinity with nature to focus on cultivation for instance some cultivators have an affinity with fire, and they could conjure fire out of thin air, to attack or defend at will.

The next stage is when martial artists or cultivators start to go against nature, like flying, walking on water, and setting themself on fire without harm... This stage was called the Chi Lord master.

At this time, the old man seemed lost and he honestly said to Liu Fan,

" I have never seen others above stage 5 Chi Lord master, so I don't know more, but the world is too vast there were many people, and above that stage might be countless, it's just that we mortals can not meet them. And for martial arts, there were many schools, sects, and empires. They are recruiting talented individuals. Oh, I remember I had this very basic martial art book if you want it just give this brother two copper tales".

Liu Fan smiled, this old man was sure not to miss the chance to earn money.