Light Asafoetida

"My brother was also in that expedition and said he was thankful that the Sarvyoon forest was quite far away from the base or the beasts might have formed a beast tide and ended zone 9."

"What do you think?"

Li Chen suddenly said to Yan.

"The beasts are quite strong, or they wouldn't have been able to exist all those years from us."

Yan said indifferently.

"You sound like humans would have wiped the beasts clean if they were weak. Although you are right... but the matter isn't as simple as that."

Yan felt the seriousness when Li Chen said it. He didn't know what Li Chen meant and neither did he wanted to know.

"... So why did you choose this task?"

Li Chen asked after some silence.

"I have some stuff to do in Zone 17 that will take time. Fortunately this task was available and since it is a repeatable task, I can stay in the Zone 17 till the thing that I want to do is done."

Yan answered, his tone indifferent.

Li Chen kept staring at Yan's face.

"It must be quite important that you are leaving a chance to grow stronger. Currently there are less than 6 freshman and hundreds of easy task. Once the other freshman enroll on September 1, the tasks would be harder to get, so will earning credits." [Li Chen]

"Is that why you are here? Did you deliberately took the loan?" [Yan]

Yan said.

"You are right but not completely. I had some problems and couldn't give my martial assessment on the first day. By the second day, all the spots of the top 50 Martial academies were already taken by the others and some more stuff happened and I had no choice to but to take on the lower academy."

"So after some searching, I found this school the best among all my choices and I applied for it. As for the loan, It was both a choice and a need of mine at that time. Plus using loan as investment was a great idea."

"Sorry, you won't understand by just some of the details."

Li Chen said and become silent.

"Then tell me, there is quiet some time before either of us reach our destination."

Yan said. Normally he wouldn't have cared but the person in front of him spouted a lot of information that he didn't know.

Yan wanted to know, know more about the Martial world and maybe Li Chen can tell him just that.

"Okay..."

"I belong to a family of Martial Masters. I have six brothers and four sisters and all of them are Martial Masters."

"If you don't know, a person with a stronger soul will given birth to children with stronger soul. Although the person needs to be really strong to achieve the 100% chance. My father was one such person. Strict, proud and stubborn; words that describe my father or should I say my whole paternal family."

"Among the 11 of my siblings, I had the third highest talent as a Martial Practitioner but I did a 'blasphemous thing' according to my parents(Father) and was denounced by them."

"I missed my martial assessment due to the involvement of my younger brother who were jealous of my talents."

"Thankfully a maternal Uncle of mine adopted me and helped me but even he was unable to rival the influence of my previous family due to which not a single Martial academy till the top 150 dared to accepted me."

"Hence I chose this one after some thinking, even though it ranks 200, Shen Hai had a chance in reforms a year ago and had upgraded their facilities to the level of the top 100 Martial Academies."

"Adding to the fact that even my siblings felt that Shen Hai was too low of an academy that they didn't even bother to stop me. Good for me."

Li Chen slowly explained his past but left all the major details. Yan was also listening to it until he felt something was off.

"But my journey was difficult, really difficult, you know. My previous family had kicked me out. I had no money and, I felt ashamed to ask money from my Uncle after all the help that he had provided me with."

"I never had any problems with money in the past. It was like water to me but after being denounced, I had nothing. I was nothing but a burden. Thankfully I am a smart person and used my wits to solve the situation."

"I took a 100 million loan from the Shen Hai, the maximum that they offered due to my surname and used that to buy the cultivation technique that I am currently using."

"!!!" [Yan]

"It a really good middle Earth grade cultivation technique and I was able to reach the peak of Martial Apprentice realm in a week, but due to the special requirements of the cultivation technique, I wasn't able to breakthrough at that time."

"Unlike other cultivation techniques, my Earth grade Heaven Earth Body technique is a two in one technique that cultivates both the body and soul."

"But it requires different stuff to breakthrough at every major breakthrough. Like I need a Fiery Polka berry, Some Cloud mushrooms, Greenright vine, spiritual ginseng and light asafoetida, all of which costs a total of 390 thousand credits."

"All this just to breakthrough to the Martial Master Realm. What about next then? I feel like I should change it to a better Heaven Tier cultivation technique after reaching Martial Master Realm."

"Life sure is hard for me."

Li Chen finally finished and looked at Shi Yan.

Yan, despite the fact that he felt something was odd, listened to Li Chen's past calmly from the beginning but as the tone of the story changed from a tragic kid to 'listen to my bragging', Yan couldn't trust Li Chen on his past now.

"What about you? Why did you take the loan?"

Li Chen asked.

"I had a major accident and needed money to pay my hospital bills."

Yan said, leaving the rest of the embarrassing stuff in the darkness.

"Ohh. How much did you earn in the past two weeks then?" [Li Chen]

Li Chen asked, his voice filled with curiosity.

"39k credits." [Yan]

"So low!" [Li Chen

"I mean... Okay sorry, that's too low of an efficiency. This is the chance that you have now, after the freshman joins the academy, the tasks would be non-existent and the rewards would be halved."

"You should have earned at least a 100k credits and brought a better cultivation or Body Strengthening Art. With hundred thousand credits, you can easily buy low to mid Earth grade techniques and art. That alone would have made you miles ahead of the newcomers."

"You can even rival the students of top 100 academies by then. A Earth grade cultivation technique isn't something to be looked down upon...."

And then Li Chen began his one sided attack on Shi Yan for the next half an hour.

Yan looked at him and then tried to gather all the precious information he can get from Li Chen while ignoring the rest.

And it turned out be useful to him as well.

From the incessant chatterings of Li Chen, Shi Yan was able to gather some of the following things:

The techniques of the Martial Union of Great Xia were divided into different tiers/grades. From low to high, it is Mortal, Profound, Earth, Heaven and Saint.

Which are further divided into, low, middle, high.

For Example - Heaven Earth Body is a middle Earth grade cultivation technique.

And be it weapon, body arts, combat techniques, cultivation techniques or even any other techniques. All follow the same grading.

As formulated by the World government before the formation of Martial Union.

This was done to not cause any differences among the different groups of people.

Although it failed and the bigger forces of the world had their own system of grading but in the country that Shi Yan was, this system was the prevalent one.

The cultivation technique that Shi Yan had fell under the nameless category of the Mortal tier. It meant it was even beneath the low Mortal tier cultivation technique.

'Can say anything, it's a free one.'

While the Sunshine Body Strengthening Art was unknown as their was no rank on it. Yan decided to later ask the Old man about it.

Moving onto the third thing.

Different cultivation techniques have different requirements on the strength of the soul and high tier cultivation can not be imprinted on a weaker soul.

The result being the shredding of the souls into pieces and disappearing from the world, never to be reborn again.

So generally, Martial Practitioner's often cultivate to a higher ranks before practicing high tier techniques.

More so, there is an another planet a few light years away to the Great Blue planet and Martial Masters regularly go their to salvage the environment there.

While on the other hand, the biggest and the most shocking thing that he heard, that there is another planet connected to the Great Blue Planet, hoarding humans that wants the Beast Planet's resources and for that they are ready to take care of the Great Blue Planet.

And the Great Blue Planet is actually having two battles on both sides with battle results unknown to the mankind.

When Shi Yan listened to this, his mind became blank.

First of all, he couldn't understand how the other world came into his conversation with Li Chen.

Secondly, the world was able to hide a whole planet from the humans.

Lastly, He, as a Martial Master, had to serve three years of military service on that planet after graduation.

He had to ducking fight with the otherworlders for his life in the otherworld because he was obliged to.

The resources that the university was going to give him had a price tag and that was the price.

And this information was to be told to Martial Practitioner's after they have achieved Martial Ancestor Rank because before that, they are just cannon fodder in that world!

And this ducker was explaining him all this in the public transport that he took, he didn't even know him before all this!

Shi Yan didn't even want to know about all this.

He looked at Li Chen who showed no signs of stopping and changed the topic.

"My parents died a few months ago." [Yan]

"Well the gatha berries are really goo- huh?"

Li Chen stopped mid-sentence and turned to Shi Yan. Shi Yan was looking at him. Li Chen was looking at Shi Yan. Finally shi Yan spoke.

"My parents died in the Guangzhou incident." [Yan]

"The Guangzhou incident that happened on March 10 this year? The one with 200 thousand plus casualties in 16 cities." [Li Chen]

Li Chen asked after thinking.

"Yeah. A few months before their deaths, I did something that was blasphemous in their eyes. After that, my relation with my family strained and I rent out a small house in the suburbs."

"I never liked studying. To me it was a waste of time and truthfully it was. My parents thought otherwise though. To them, ny education at my school was a necessary benchmark for my future."

"A way to my job and income. Laughable isn't it? When nearly 90% of what we are taught at school doesn't apply to anything in the society, not is there any need for them. The rest of the 10% is the same stuff that we have been learning from the beginning till the end."

"And at last, what does it matter? Companies said that whatever you have learnt in colleges doesn't matter it's the skills that matter, and then doesn't give a job because you don't have a college degree."

"I am a crafty person. I can earn and live without needing to go to school. That was just a waste of time. My parents never understood that."

"After moving out and giving them enough space to think about it, the day of the martial assessment came and I was selected."

"My teachers hurriedly informed my parents and all. I refused to become one though. I wanted to live a normal life, always wanted to live a normal life."

"Me, a wife that I liked, some kids and a small house. We will all be happy. I never planned to become someone special. I just wanted a peaceful normal life. Hence, being a Martial Master wasn't for me. "

"My teachers tried to stop me. So did the bald invigilator. I didn't care though. I gave my rejection and was suspended for a week due to my behaviour."

"My parents got to know about it. I thought they would understand, understand what what I wanted and yet they didn't."

"They called me, came to my new place and tried to 'show me the right path', except my answer didn't change, nor did their disappointment with me."

"But even then, they pestered me for quite a while, gave me taunts and peer pressure that someone else's child from our relatives had also awakened and yada yada. I didn't care."

"One day, they suddenly came, all of them and saw me sitting with my teacher, used their mind to think, thought of the wrong thing, tried to fight with me meaninglessly."

"Except their was a small problem on that day. You know, I was fed up with all this charade and their ignorance when they didn't even listen to what I wanted or exactly what the situation was."

"And I wasn't the best behaviour child to begin with. So when the fight reached a point where it all felt like a meaningless rhyming to my ears, I used violence... on my friends that were with my family to persuade me,"

"On my mute father that was ready to hit me with his belt or my female relatives that were just filling the ears on my parents."

"I didn't do anything to my mother though, the teacher saved her."

"..."

"... After that day, I didn't call them, neither did they. For them, it was the first time they saw how I behaved in school. To them I felt like a stranger. Murmurings of my mother that my sister told me on March 7 before departing for the celebration of the relatives child."

"Heard he got admitted to a good Martial University. I didn't care."

"You see, I wasn't the quiet and simple kid. Nor was I the rowdy one as well. I was just the type who thought that respect should be earned, not given."

"My teacher Ye had gained my respect in that sense."

"But all the students in the school called me the worst scum even though I never bullied, or smoked or drank, that's just a stupid way to lose the functions of my body."

"I told my sis that it was a waste of time and that they shouldn't go to it. They didn't listen. They died. All of them. My parents, sister, grandparents, relatives, a prospective partner and one of my school friend."

"When I heard of their death, there was a small moment where I felt nothing. I hate that moment..."

Yan became silent when he reached this point.

Li Chen was still looking at him for what answers but when Yan didn't continue even after sometime, Li Chen asked.

"So did you become a Martial Master because of it?" [Li Chen]

"... Nope. You see, after the death of my family, I thought a lot. The incident had taken everything that I wanted. My prospective partner was dead, along with my family."

"Now I had to find a new partner that fulfills my requirement to complete the dream of a normal family."

"But... I really liked the old family. I know that given enough time, I would have make them forget about all the bad things that were between us. We will be in peace. I know that, time changes a lot of things."

"Except time can't be turned backwards. After two days of thinking, I chose to become a Martial Master."

"There was nothing left of my common self, no family, no prospective future and no way of fulfilling my dream of a common life because my ego won't let me be in peace. My pride was too high for that."

"I want to know exactly how, why and who did it. I want revenge against them. All of them. They took away my dream, I will take theirs."

"Two days of thinking brought me to a single answer. I don't actually care about the deaths of my parents. Everyone dies one day. I am not god that can stop it. Death is the eternal truth that all must accept."

"I cared more, far more, about my loss of my future, my dream and my normal life, my unborn kids and their future and my unmarried wife and our life together. All of that crushed by someone. I will stop their dreams along with their desires."

"That's all that drove me to start my Martial Practitioner's path."

"That's it."

Shi Yan finished his part and expectantly looked at Li Chen to say something.

"You... my parents call me unfilial. You are beyond that!" [Li Chen]

"But quite a low cultivation for those big words that you said." [Li Chen]

Li Chen said with a smile, compared to Shi Yan, he was a good person.

"I have my ways." [Shi Yan]

"Do you always talk like that with everybody?" [Li Chen]

"Respect is earned, not given. If I feel respect towards someone, I will talk respectfully to them." [Shi Yan]

"It's a surprise how you have survived so long." [Li Chen]

"I am a crafty person." [Shi Yan]

"... Maybe you are." [Li Chen]

""..."" [Both of them becoming silent as a someone moves to the front of the bus]

""..."" [Awkward silence]

Three minutes later.

"My stops here. Bye." [Li Chen]

Li Chen got up from his seat and when to the front to get out of the bus type vehicle.

"Bye."

Shi Yan also mumbled.

"By the way, you really shouldn't waste too much time on the Workman task."

Li Chen screamed from the front of the bus, capturing all the eyes onto him and got off.

The students looked at him and shook their heads with different emotions in their mind.

Shi Yan listened to the advice but ignored it.

'Life sure is hard.'

'I should have asked him the grade of my Sunshine Body Strengthening Art. He might know it.'

...

There will be a two day break.

Someone suggest me a better title.