Archive - 005 (Patreon)

Chapter 005 – New Weapons and Beast Repelling Powder

Waking up early the next morning, Fang used a bit of his spirit essence to cleanse his mouth of his morning breath. It was a 'technique' he had found in the Archive, even though it couldn't really be called such.

In the end, it was just a bit of spirit essence manipulation nothing more, though it was incredibly convenient, especially in an environment like the Wildernis.

After all, there was nobody that sold toothbrushes here, the best one could get was some fresh twigs and some herbs.

Gathering his belongings, Fang left his tent and walked towards the center of the tribe where a few dozen houses had been built for the more powerful and wealthy tribe members.

It didn't take Fang long to arrive before one of the bigger buildings, the sounds of hammering and scorching flames reaching his ears. This was one of only two blacksmith shops in the Red Wolf Tribe and belonged to 'Master' Lou.

Through the knowledge he had received from the Archive, Fang knew that this 'Master' Lou was nothing more than a mortal blacksmith, incapable of producing even the weakest treasure weapons. It wasn't just a lack of skill, but more importantly a lack of knowledge.

Refining a treasure weapon required refiner knowledge most of the natives in the Wildernis simply didn't have access to

Of course, there was always the option of figuring it out yourself and gathering legacy knowledge themselves by passing this knowledge down to the next generations. After a few thousand years there was bound to be some progress, though this was simply not feasible in the Wildernis.

The constantly warring tribes made such stable progress almost impossible, which made the Wildernis a rather unsuitable place for truly strong cultivators.

Directly entering the shop, all Fang saw was a large room with more than three-quarters of the room being the smithy itself, while the rest was used for storing ores and finished products.

The back wall was missing, probably to give the store proper ventilation and prevent the smithing noises from disturbing the customers too much. Two men, one middle-aged and the other in his early twenties were working hard in the background, while a teen around Fang's own age was sitting at a counter in the front, who was currently busy polishing the blade of a spear.

Approaching the youth, Fang directly placed his own iron blade and a small package of best fur on the table.

"I want to exchange these for a pair of twin blades.", he said, not beating around the bush.

This was after all the Wildernis, flattery and courteousness were useless here. Either one had enough wealth to get what one want or one had the strength to simply take it without consequences. If one had neither, then one shouldn't even bother trying to buy something.

The youth put down the spearhead and took the iron blade in his hands, inspecting its weight and condition, before opening the package of beast fur. Inside were claws and teeth of different beasts, and while they weren't very valuable on their own, there were a lot of them, nearly two dozen.

While Fang hadn't wasted the time to properly skin and dismantle the beast he had hunted down, he had taken the claws and teeth of them all. Anything harvested from beasts was useful after all, and these things could be turned into tools like needles or small knives, so they had some value.

"Hmm, this blade is of average quality, but it has good weight. Though only this blade and the lowest-level beast materials aren't nearly enough for some decent twin blades... But we do have a pair of second-hand short swords here that I would be willing to exchange for these things.", saying so the youth got up and fiddled around in a nearby box before he brought back a small package.

Putting it down on the counter, he unpacked it and revealed a pair of iron short swords, before gesturing with his hands for Fang to have a look.

Taking them in his hands one by one, Fang examined them closely.

'Average quality, but thankfully not damaged. Both are slightly off-balance, but their weight is very similar and their forms match each other well... Guess, this is the best I can get for now.', Fang thought to himself.

There was a reason why Fang had decided on twin blades as his new weapon of choice, most important was his reservations when it came to terrain. Even though he had always been a fan of polearm weapons, like spears, halberds, and glaives, Fang knew very well that such weapons would greatly limit his movement in environments like the forest, caves, or generally indoors.

Fang wanted to avoid limiting his combat effectiveness through his choice of weapon, so he discarded polearm-type weapons for now.

As he cultivated the Titan Star Law, he also didn't need to worry about exerting enough power with one-handed weapons, because as his body transformation made progress, he would gain unparalleled physical strength. In such a case, becoming a dual-wielder seemed like a good choice.

"I will take them, but I need sheaths for both of them.", Fang said, knowing full well that his items were still worth more than this, so asking for two sheaths wasn't an unreasonable thing to do.

“No problem.”, the youth replied.

A few minutes later, Fang walked out of the shop with two short swords strapped to both sides of his waist. The sheaths were made out of beast skin and rather crude, but they fulfilled their purpose, so he wasn't really bothered.

Next, he exchanged the rest of the harvested beast materials for a second set of clothes and went back to his tent.

Inside the tent, after putting down his belonging, Fang sat in a meditative pose and opened his mind to the endless ocean of knowledge that was the Archive.

The Archive was the memory bank of the Origin, everything that has taken place since the birth of the Nine Universe was recorded there. With every passing moment a myriad of new knowledge and history was recorded and the only thing that couldn't be found in the Archive was knowledge about the future. The future was undetermined after all, so it couldn't be recorded just yet.

Still, access to different kinds of knowledge came with different challenges. 'Dead' knowledge like historical records, cultivation techniques, or Battle Arts, was the easiest to gain access to and didn't take much out of Fang.

Finding other lifeforms in his vicinity through the Archive, was way more difficult however.

The more distance there was between them, the harder it was for Fang to get a clear picture, while the pressure in his mind would steadily increase until it became unbearable.

Currently, the radius he could observe comfortably was only a few kilometers. Fang knew instinctively that the stronger he became, the greater the radius he could observe. Should he one day master the Law of Life and Space, he may be able to observe the happenings of the whole Bright Heaven Universe.

Of course, these things were too far away for the current him.

What Fang was doing right now, was a mixture of these two knowledge-gathering methods, which expanded the radius he could observe greatly. Though it did restrict his vision of other things while doing so. He was trying to find some lucky opportunities for himself in the surroundings and after a while, he managed to find not one, but several.

The biggest of them was an inheritance left by a high-level Spiritual Stage cultivator roughly three hundred kilometers away in a small cave. While the smallest opportunities pertained to some lost treasure weapons that had been buried after their wielders had died to some beasts or other cultivators.

The most lucrative was obviously the inheritance, not because of the techniques that could be found in the cave, but because of the resources in the cave and the formation that kept it safe and hidden from others.

The most attractive for Fang though was something else though. Roughly three years ago, two early Spiritual Stage cultivators had fought a battle to death only a few dozen kilometers away from the tribe.

That battle ended with neither side winning, as one of them had used a forbidden technique that ignited his own lifeforce for momentary power which he had used to kill his opponent, after which he himself had died too. These two cultivators hadn't been especially powerful but compared to the current Fang they could have as well been gods.

Still, what caused Fang's heart to throb in excitement was the fact that both of these cultivators had worn storage rings on their hands, rings that were still there to this day. It was kind of a miracle that no beast had dragged off the rings after devouring their corpses.

The next moment though, his budding excitement died down rapidly, as he focused his vision in another direction.

What he saw was a dense cluster of life approaching the tribe. Estimating the strength of these lifeforms caused a pounding sensation on the back of his head, clearly signaling him that he was no match for nearly all of them.

For the current Fang, it was impossible to spy on beings much more powerful than himself, which was also the reason he did not wander of too far into the forest the last two days, to avoid being ambushed by a more powerful beast or cultivator.

Retreating from the vision, Fang took a moment to calm himself down.

'Sigh... It seems I have to leave the Red Wolf Tribe way earlier than I had planned.', he thought to himself.

Even though his vision had been inaccurate and blurry, he could infer easily enough that another tribe had come to attack the Red Wold Tribe. And with the number of warriors that were on their way, he seriously doubted that this small tribe would survive the assault.

Without hesitating any further, Fang stuffed his bedroll in his bag, strapped on his weapons, and left his tent with all his belongings, before unhurriedly walking into the woods at the edge of the tribe.

As always he didn't attract much attention and the other people of the tribe were still occupied with their own stuff, with Fang being the only one knowing about the tragedy that would take place here in a short time.

He didn't feel guilty about not warning the other tribesmen, as it was questionable that they would even believe him or that this would change something about the outcome of the battle.

The Wildernis knew no peace and things like this happened every day, so guilt was an exclusive privilege for the strong in his view. Maybe if he had the power to prevent something like this, he would have done it. But as he was just a Skin Transformation cultivator it was useless for him to think about these things.

After he had entered the woods, his eyes turned once more into two swirling galaxies as he hurriedly sprinted forward, avoiding all the stronger beasts he could sense on his way, while occasionally finishing off the unsuspecting lowest-class vicious beasts and taking their cores.

His Deceiving Heaven Technique was working overtime to hide his presence as best as possible from potential sources of danger.

…

Two hours after Fang had left the tribe the smoldering remains of some tents and houses, along with the dense stench of blood and the corpses that were strewn around everywhere, alerted everyone of the disaster that had just taken place here.

The Black Snake Tribe armies had overwhelmed the Red Wolf Tribe's people and slaughtered most of the warriors while capturing the women and children. Slavery was very common in the Wildernis and a very lucrative business.

It didn't even take an hour for the Red Wolf Tribe to be exterminated, even the strongest warrior of the tribe – a Meridian Transformation martial artist – had been slain easily enough.

Nobody in the tribe even took notice of Fang's disappearance.

…

Hours passed. Fang didn't even rest to drink or eat, doing so while continuously moving forward, as he used spirit essence to alleviate the tiredness and soreness of his muscles somewhat.

As the sky was already darkening slightly, Fang finally reached a small clearing in the dense forest. Taking a few steps forward, he directly knelt down and used his small dagger, and began to dig. It only took him a few minutes to find what he was looking for.

A light-green jade ring with densely placed runes on it.

Putting the ring around the index finger of his right hand and pouring his soul force into it, the ring directly adjusted its size to fit his finger, while the image of a separate space appeared inside his mind.

This was the storage space of the ring, which had formed a connection with his mind after he bound it using his soul force. Inside were all kinds of items, bottles of medicine, weapons, spirit stones, books, clothes, and other trinkets.

Touching his bag with his right hand, it took but a thought for Fang before it disappeared and reappeared inside the image of the storage space.

Standing up, Fang took a few more steps in a different direction, before he once again began to dig around in the moist earth.

Like it had been with the green jade ring, it took only a few minutes before he found another storage ring, this one though had a fiery red color, but the runes were very similar.

After binding and putting the ring on the index finger of his left hand, Fang sat down and used the Archive to identify all the items in both rings, hoping to find something useful for his current situation.

Because while it may seem, as if he had avoided the calamity that the rest of the Red Wolf Tribe had faced, he now was on his own and had to navigate the Wildernis with the measly strength of a Skin Transformation martial artist.

Even on the way to this small clearing there had been a few close calls with some vicious beast, and this place was only a day's journey from his tribe.

Of course, joining another small tribe in the vicinity was an option, but not one he particularly favored. Staying on his own was more convenient, as he wouldn't have to sneak around and hide his progress.

It was just that as things stood, he couldn't defend himself against the dangers of the Wildernis.

Fang even highly doubted that he could survive the night right now. The only reason he even came here to search for the storage rings, was that they represented his best choice for survival.

Luckily after a few minutes of searching, he found what he had been looking for, as a bottle appeared in his hand. It was a smooth white jade bottle with a few inscribed runes on the bottom – runes that preserved the contents of the bottle for extended periods of time.

Opening the bottle, an unpleasant scent wafted outwards, the origin of which was a dark-green powder inside the bottle.

Low-level Beast Repelling Powder.

This Beast Repelling Powder would take care of all the Unranked vicious beasts in the vicinity and repel them with its scent, from lowest-class to peak-class.

This powder could only be refined by Alchemists, which meant that only large-scale tribes in the Wildernis had access to it, even though it was an unranked product. Smaller tribes therefore only sent out their men in groups so that they wouldn't incur unnecessary losses.

It was also for this reason that hardly anyone traveled the Wildernis alone, and those that did were at the very least Organ Transformation martial artists, which was still three stages above Fang's current realm.

Thankfully, vicious beasts that could rival Spiritual Stage cultivators were very rare in the Wildernis. The large numbers of Unranked beasts were the primary problem that had concerned him, though with the powder they were no longer an issue.

There were roughly a dozen bottles of this powder in the storage rings after he had organized them, which would be enough for him to travel towards the inheritance he had discovered early today.

At that point, he could use the formations left behind by that senior to ensure his safety and cultivate in peace for some time.

Sprinkling some of the powder around the clearing, Fang took out his bedroll and the rest of yesterday's meal, before sitting down and finally satisfying his hunger.

[A/N: So that's a first taste of my original story. It still needs tons and tons of work, especially world-building and such. I also don't know what kind of plotlines I want to include overall, as I am not a fan of the typical novels of this kind.

Still, what I can tell you is that this world is incredibly extensive, and that Fang fully intends to explore it while cultivating towards the peak. You may have gained a few glimpses of his character already, and seen that he is similar to my other MCs.

I hope you like it so far, I will probably post a chapter for this occasionally.

I also welcome any suggestions you have for the plot at any time, like what do you want to see Fang do, or where do you want him to go.]