8] – [RPG System vs Cultivator]

With his hands behind his back Alexander stood in space, unmoving, with his head down and his eyes sharp.

After some time, Alexander extended his right arm directly to his side, his hand in a grasping motion.

Immediately after, spatial fluctuations oozed from his entire being before spatial ripples, visible to the naked eye, kept appearing around his right hand.

In the next instant, a middle aged man that had unfortunately started balding with a brown beard and casual medieval clothes appeared, his neck directly grasped by Alexander's hand, chocking the man.

The man struggled to get free with fear reflected in his black eyes before his body suddenly turned limp the next moment. Throughout the entire event, Alexander did not react, his eyes still looking down at the world below, not paying attention to the middle aged man.

If one was powerful enough, they would see the blue, hazy, featureless and translucent figure of a what was the middle aged man. His soul had been directly extracted from his body, before it was forcefully absorbed inside Alexander's head. After a few minutes, Alexander's eyes shone with a blue light before tossing the body away, letting it drift into the eternal void.

'I get the gist of it, this young girl made a system, forced on every being inside this world. Not bad. The system is quite classic too, some RPG styled system…'

'So there are levels, races, dungeons as well as faith and adventurers… Let's see if I can find a suitable sprout!'

The statue that was Alexander's body vanished before he reappeared inside a forest near a dirt road, changing his overall appearance until he looked like a young man with black hair put in a ponytail, some faint freckles around his nose and bright green eyes, his clothes like a farmer's, with a simple design.

'I look like a living napkin…'

Admiring his taste a bit, Alexander then turned his attention around him. The grass was vibrant, the trees light brown wearing crowns of varied foliage. While most of the leaves around him were green, he also noticed some trees with blue leaves among other colorful ones.

'Well that's funky.' Not paying much attention to the peculiar leaves anymore, having seen much better… or worse, Alexander turned toward a thin dirt road in the distance.

Walking to it, Alexander didn't see anybody, but, having teleported here, he of course knew someone would be coming.

'They should arrive right… about… now..?'

As soon as Alexander finished his prediction, he saw, in the distance, a brown carriage pulled by purple unicorns.

Looking at the 'colorful' horses, their forehead accentuated by what looked like a fake horn on each of them, Alexander could not help narrowing his eyes slightly.

'So I wasn't wrong!'

Alexander clearly remembered that while he was still in space, using his Divine Sense to scan the whole world, he vaguely remembered finding this carriage. Not paying attention to such minor details, Alexander was therefore not sure he had seen correctly.

'Whatever…'

After a few more minutes, the carriage reached Alexander's location.

Seeing a young man in the middle of the road, the brown haired middle aged coachman stopped the carriage before asking, some doubt emerging in his heart.

"Young man! Why are you here? Don't tell me there really are bandits ahead!?"

"Bandits? Oh I don't really know, I don't remember much… I don't even know who I am…"

With a blank look on his face the coachman simply stared at him before saying.

"Alright then, you seem like a kind young man, come aboard! I'm heading back to Tarvaros City!"

Fidgeting about, Alexander looked left and right before nodding with a bright smile plastered on his face.

"Alright uncle! Thanks a lot!"

"No problem young lad, there are some people inside but there still should be some available seats."

Laughing kindly the coachman helped Alexander inside before going back in his seat and making the 'unicorns' march forward once more.

—–

Inside the carriage, Alexander saw a young man and a young woman, the young man had short dark blue hair, the hairstyle messy. He wore metal armor on his upper chest and shoulders down to his forearms, some chainmail flowing from deep within the armored parts. The rest mostly leather armor with some belts and pouches here and there. With a scarf around his neck, the man looked at Alexander, his dark blue eyes accentuated by his hair.

This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience.

Looking at the man, Alexander swiftly scanned his battle prowess.

'Aura Master… as for the other one…'

Alexander turned his head, looking at a young woman with a white braided ponytail wearing heavy armor with crosses on each shoulder pad. The young woman had black eyes and fair skin, a huge, large sword on the side, looking at Alexander as well. She analyzed him from head to toe before snorting and looking away.

Seeing this reaction, the other young man stopped paying attention to Alexander.

'Aura Grandmaster, well that's rare, but what's with the attitude of these two ?'

Seeing that neither of them were looking at him, Alexander simply stopped as well, using his Divine Sense to scan his surroundings.

"Well this is going to be fun…"

A couple of hours later, both the young man and woman suddenly opened their eyes before preparing themselves for combat.

Observing the two, Alexander did not even bother, sensing the bandits to be mainly Aura Veterans with a single Aura Master and Great Mage.

Even in this Tier-2 World, such strength was considered average for their age. Though Alexander sensed something different about every person he met so far, all of them were clearly at certain levels of prowess, yet it did not feel right. After thinking about it a few seconds, Alexander soon understood the crux of the matter.

'It's the system… instead of reaching this strength normally, they are forced to reach a certain standard each time they level up.'

'I'll have to ask them about it, I'm curious, and since I didn't spoil myself with the man I caught in space I really do lack information…'

—–

Minutes later, Alexander saw the young man and woman, that had previously left the carriage some couple of minutes earlier, come back.

Guessing that they had probably taken care of the bandits, he turned toward the young man on his left.

"Hey brother, I seem to have hit my head and can't remember much… I just remember something about 'levels', do you happen to know anything about that?"

The young man looked puzzled at Alexander, questioning his ears.

"Are you serious kid? How do you not know about this?! Just say 'status'!"

"Haha, well you see, I can't read what's written on it…"

Hearing this answer, the young man started to get angry before lashing out.

"What do you mean you can't read?! This is meant so that everyone, including even unintelligent creatures, can read it!"

Before any of them could say anything more they heard the young woman with her eyes closed.

"It's fine, I don't know how you do not know such basic things, nor how you can't read any of it, but it's just a screen showing your name, age, race as well as your current level with some of your skills too."

'Finally… I almost went and slaughtered them to get their memories…'

"But how do levels work? That's what I'm the most curious about."

Opening only one eye, the young woman said.

"It's simple really, you start at level one, then after killing either humans or other beings, you level up. Each level being harder to surpass than the last. For your information, the highest one can reach is level ninety-nine! Well that's what they say, some rumors claim that the hundredth level exist. But don't worry, I'll reach it soon enough! By then, I don't mind answering this myth for you!"

"Then what level are you guys, if I may ask?"

The young woman was the first to answer. With pride covering her face like a mask, she said.

"Level seventy-three!"

The young man followed right after.

"Level sixty-nine !"

'Hahaha! What's this, I thought they were almost at the top, but seventy-three? Laughable!'

While they were imagining what shock he must have felt over their incredible achievements, they did not know that Alexander was currently laughing from their meagre strength, disdaining their efforts over the years.

"Wah~! Amazing~!"

When they saw Alexander's expression along the tone of his voice, they could not help raising a brow, after all, Alexander's words sounded stiff and forced beyond reason.

'Is this kid serious? Does he not understand our powerful identities as peerless talents, capable of shocking the entire world?!'

Creak

Just as they were about to take out their anger on Alexander, the carriage suddenly stopped.

Understanding that they had arrived at Tarvaros City, they simply snorted before getting off and entering the city.

Exiting the carriage as well, Alexander thanked the coachman before falling deep in thoughts.

'Isn't that funny? People start at level one, not level zero! In almost every single world with such systems that I have visited, making newborns start at level one indicated the system administrator's wish to not even spare children. While it is pretty normal, I'm wondering if anyone in this world managed to create newborn farms meant to harvest experience from newborns… It didn't happen often I remember…'

For many, hearing about such methods would turn one's stomach from disgust, hearing that people would go so far as to slaughter newborns for some meagre experience would be heart wrenching. But for the most powerful of cultivators inside this Universe, such means were nothing short of ordinary, Alexander himself was constantly, while indirectly of sorts, massacring countless newborn creatures every instant.

Since, in this Universe, something like 'Killing Intent' actually existed, while the official but rarely used name was 'Death Aura'.

'Death Aura' originates from the amount of Tier-4 lifeforms whose deaths are related to the owner of the aura. Indirect deaths worked just as well as direct ones, there are also are tiers for it, from Tier-1 to Tier-10, more commonly known as the Absolute-Tier.

To obtain a 'Death Aura' one needed to have reached the first tier of it, which requires one to have a single kill. For the tiers above, however, the amount of deaths or kills required was getting exponentially higher while every tier higher one reached, the stronger and more useful their 'Death Aura' would become.

Alexander for example possessed a staggering Tier-9 'Death Aura', this required him to have at least one vigintillion deaths to his name, giving him the ability to shatter lower dimensions only with his killing intent.

For this, powerful cultivators often used what was called a 'Death Aura Farm', their process fairly simple as well.

Artifacts would constantly birth Tier-4 lives while other artifacts that had been filled with the owner's aura and Qi would repeatedly kill all of these beings without stop. Like this many cultivators did not have the need to go around destroying world after world forever just to obtain a slight increase in their 'Death Aura'.

As for why the need of Tier-4 lives, the reason was simply that a creature needed to be considered intelligent for the Heavenly Way to count it as valid.

So, comparing the two, Alexander obviously did not care about little kids slaying a few younger kids here and there.

After looking at the bustling medieval looking city, Alexander decided to go search for potential disciples!