A Cultivation Tale: The Godly Punisher

When he got to the table, he looked up and saw the crowd looking at him. They were looking at him with awe in their eyes. Alex understood their gazes. He knew that they were wondering if he could actually drink such an alcohol and not suffer.

Gugugugu!

He picked up a jug and drank its entire content.

The wine moved down his throat to his stomach. Then he took another and drank it. Like that, in a short breath of time, Alex had drank more than six jugs.

Before he could move to take another jug, he suddenly felt hot within. But the heat generated by the accumulated wine in his stomach couldn't compare to the heat generated when he swallowed dozens of peerless-grade pills for pyroforce energy cultivation.

Although he felt hot within for sometime, the heat quickly vanished when his reactive adaptation ability came up.

A victorious smile appeared in his face.

Then he picked up another jug to drink.

Gugugugu!

He happily downed the content and moved to the next jug.

Like that, Alex drank more than twenty-five jugs. He was moving to his twenty-ninth wine jug.

As Alex drank, everyone around him looked at him with awe in their eyes. They had been waiting for the reddening of his skin when he reached the sixth or seventh jug. But the red coloration of his skin didn't manifest and he was on the twenty-ninth jug.

Many minutes later, precisely thirty-five minutes, Alex had entirely emptied the contents of about seventy jugs.

"So my prize man" Alex said arrogantly looking at the man he made a bet with. Then he gazed at the crowd and said "You feel me now? I told you that 'The Devourer' title isn't a child's play. Now that I have created my unparalleled, wine-consuming legend here, my alias The Devourer would go round the entire state and put you flimsy wine-drinkers to shame. Haha!"

While Alex was talking haughtily, the crowd shook at the realization of Alex's ability. He was someone that emptied many dozens of wine jugs and stand his ground without feeling intoxicated or be harmed by the high concentration of the alcohol in the wine. Then they applauded him and began to shout his self-given name.

Alex laughed with great pride and spread his hands out like he was a king basking in the shouts of praises by his slaves and servants.

Then he went to meet the man who he made a bet with.

"So where's my damned prize. Bring my baby to me." Alex said, not caring about the cultivation stage the man was in.

The man gazed at Alex coldly.

Alex was disrespecting him who was a senior in cultivation to him. But he couldn't bring himself to do anything to Alex as he felt Alex was just a naturally proud bastard. Also, since he won the bet, it was right for his arrogance to shoot up to extreme levels. If he didn't pay the boy, he would loose customers as people would no longer trust his business.

He was still shocked at Alex's ability to drink so many wines without feeling discomfort. But he wasn't perturbed. He would give Alex the money to show everyone that he is a worthy person to associate with, but he would retrieve his money from Alex's corpse. He smiled inwardly at his evil plan.

The inn manager snapped his fingers. Then someone walked towards him from the inn with a spatial ring in his hand which he handed to him.

The man then gave Alex the ring.

Alex looked at it and sent a sliver of his perception into it to count the number of sapphirstones. When he saw that the man gave him the right amounts of sapphirstones which was a hundred thousand yellow sapphirstones, he left, ignoring everyone as he walked back to the room he rented in an inn.

When Alex was leaving, the inn manager looked at him as he walked far into the distance and gave a smile.

'Be proud as you like, you will die soon. Idiot'

......

Alex got to his room and went to have a shower.

When he was done, he sat on the bed and thought back to what happened earlier. He was surprised that his body allowed him to drink that kind of quantity and not feel discomfort whatsoever. He didn't even sweat despite the astonishing amounts of the intoxicating liquid he imbibed. But he felt full of energy. Little did he know that his body transformed the entire liquid into energy for him. The alcoholic liquid was completely metabolized and energy was produced in the process.

After thinking about it for sometime, he sat on the ground in the cross-legged position and tried to cultivate his soul.

Since Alex was good at multitasking, he deployed his powerful sense of hearing.

Why he did so was because he knew he had offended the inn manager just by behaving haughtily around him despite him knowing that he was a cultivation senior, and taking a small part of their entire wealth. They would surely want to recollect it. They just wouldn't let him walk away like that with their money.

As he sat on the ground trying to comprehend the mysterious attributes of soulforce energy, a cultivator far away who had stealthily tracked him to the inn he resided suddenly shot an arrow at him.

This cultivator was a skilled tracker. He was paid to trace Alex to wherever he stayed, kill him and bring back the money he won from them.

Alex suddenly heard something whistle towards him from far using his powerful hearing sense, then his eyes snapped open. He knew they had sent someone.

An instant later, the arrow pierced through the wall towards him. Just when Alex would punch at it with his fist that had begun to emit golden light, the arrow suddenly picked up speed and turned invisible.

Alex's eyes widened in fear.

The arrow that was shot at him was no ordinary arrow. It was a treasure-arrow that absorbed invisibility-energy and speed-acceleration energy from the realmverse.

But before the arrow could penetrate through him, everywhere suddenly paused. That is, the flow of time abruptly halted. Everything came to a standstill.

Alex at the moment could feel an intense tingling and warm sensation at the region between his eyebrows.

Then his field of vision changed as he appeared in a new place. He was in a completely white dimension.

Alex became surprised. He didn't know why he was brought here. But he remembered the sensations he felt. He had always felt those before in the past whenever he felt a threat to his life or a threat to the life of someone he cared about. It was like it always warned him of danger. But he couldn't explain what brought about those sensations. Since he was here now, he felt would understand why he always felt those sensations that seemed to be signaling him of danger.

As he looked around, he heard "Son"

His mind shook. Then he turned hurriedly to see who said that.

When he turned, his jaw dropped as he saw two celestial-looking and extremely gorgeous people.

These people were Alex's parent!

In an excited tone, Alex shouted "Mom, Dad." Then he dashed towards them to hug them but he passed through them.

His parent chuckled.

"Alex, calm down. I know you are happy to see us but these aren't true bodies. They are bodies composed from our soul energy. We split off a fraction of soul so that we could pass a message to you. Look at you. All grown up and looking very handsome." His mother said and smiled affectionately.

Alex wanted to talk, but he just couldn't. He was overwhelmed with excitement. Although these weren't true living bodies but bodies composed from wisps of their souls, he was still immensely glad to see them and talk to them. He felt fulfilled.

Then he asked after he regained control over his overly excited mind. "Mom, dad. Where is this place? A pocket dimension compressed into a treasure?"

"Yes son. How intelligent you are. This is where we are now. In a spatial dimension compressed into a treasure. The treasure is something we placed at the center of your brows when you were little. It's a danger-detection-and-warning treasure forged by your mother. It scans the environment and warns of immediate, potential threat to your life. But it is our doing that you are here since we want to communicate with you and pass a couple of information to you." His father, Max said.

"Okay." Alex nodded with a light of understanding in his eyes.

Then Alex's father continued "Son, I know you are under pressure now because of this invasion. But you don't need to push yourself too far just because you want to protect everybody. Defending the whole realmverse is an impossible task to do by yourself. So if you have friends that you deem worthy to be your blood-brother and blood-sister, you can give them cultivation books and cultivation pills that matches the energy they cultivate. You can't do this alone. You need friends to support you. Now, to you. You have a type of body that no one would ever understand. When we thought we have understood it, you will do something that will upturn everything that we think we have learnt and knew about you. You should try to discover more about yourself child. Also, as someone from two major super-families, you have their blood flowing in your veins. Our blood child. In this blood contains our physiques. Mine is the 'Great Chaos Originator Starry Realm Celestial Physique' while your mom's is the 'Blood Rebellion and Metal Calamity Divinity-Slayer Physique'. You should discover them and comprehend their mysteries to be able to unlock and deploy the astonishing powers you would gain from summoning them."

"Hmm. Okay dad. I will do so now that I know about them" Alex said.

His father nodded. While his mom, Lucy spoke "Alex, there is also something I want to bring to your notice. There are two treasures that we want you to seek for. They are called the 'Absolute Zenith Sovereign-Creator Alpha Library System' and 'Ancient Multiracial Overlord-Maker Gene System'. The former also called 'Beyonder Library System' is a system that infuses your memory with the comprehension of profoundness of energies whenever you achieve tasks set by the ancestral developers of the system. While the latter which is the gene system infuses your blood with genes of ancient races whenever you accomplish missions assigned by the creator of the system."

Alex became surprised. Then he asked "What are those systems? Are they treasures?"

"They are treasures. But we refer to them as systems. The 'Beyonder Library System' was something that was created when thousands of Beyonders gathered for a common goal. This goal was to forge someone into an unparalleled powerhouse — the 'Ultimate Beyonder'. This is a cultivator who would have comprehension of the mystifying attributes of tens of thousands of realm-energies. So for this objective, they passed the entire comprehension of all the profundities of the energies they ever cultivated into the treasure. Anyone in possession of this system-treasure would receive transmission of profound understanding of energies when he or she completes a certain task." Alex's father, Max said.

Alex became dumbfounded.

"Dad, what are these tasks?" He asked.

"The tasks are simply things that the Beyonders couldn't achieve in their lifetime. So if one wants comprehension on a certain energy, one must fulfill those tasks sets by them. You help them complete the tasks, the system infuses your memory with their comprehension. This particular system is like a library that possesses complete understanding of thousands of world-energies." Max replied.

"Hmm. Okay dad" Alex replied. Then he asked "What about the gene system? It's the same thing too right? One has to complete tasks to receive genes of ancient races?"

"Exactly child. It was created by a particular ancient cultivator called the Chaotic Realm Lord. He was the first to achieve half-step Supreme Alpha Eternal cultivation stage. Now, a great calamity was going to befall the ancient races but this cultivator helped them ward it off. So as gratitude, the chiefs and rulers of these races gave a drop of blood which contained their powerful primeval genes to him. He had about hundreds of these which he stored in a treasure he named the 'Ancient Multiracial Overlord-Maker Gene System'. So to acquire these genes, one must accomplish random missions generated by this cultivator" Max replied.

"Wow." Alex said.

He was extremely awed.

So such things existed?

Why hasn't he come across them with all his reading?

He looked at his parent and asked. "So these systems, where are they?"

"We don't know too. But it could be in any world in the realmverse. Anyways, they are still exceedingly far from you because of your cultivation stage. So we have decided to help you in your adventures. We know that you would want to build your own collection of treasures and gather your own wealth. But you don't know exactly how to go about it. Where to go to acquire them. Therefore, we have prepared a map which we would transmit to you soon. The map gives locations of only supreme-grade and peerless-grade treasures starting from the earth adept stage to our stage. Also, there are locations of divine beasts, monster pets, pills, cultivation books, pill-making scrolls, array-laying scrolls and so on in the map." His mother, Lucy replied.

Alex nodded.

His parent looked at him for sometime. Then his father said "Normally, for every cultivation stage, there are a number of years it would take for one to enter the next realm. For example, the Sky Lord stage. It could take five hundred to a thousand years just to enter the Sky Lord stage from the Earth Adept stage. But this also depends on the cultivation speed of the cultivator. But for you who is a cultivation aberrant. It would take you more than that. At least, tens of thousands of years to achieve such a breakthrough. So no need to pressure yourself. I know you are trying your best. Continue to do so. But don't forget to do things that you enjoy. Comprehend, cultivate and have fun. That's the triangular life you should live."

Max paused for sometime, then he continued "But if in the end you fail, it was never your fault in the first place. You were just born very late, in the time when the invasion is near, not giving you time to grow at all."

"Honey! Don't say that. He can do it. I believe my baby can do it" Lucy refuted.

Max sighed and nodded. Then he looked at Alex and continued "Before we go, I want you to know that this treasure is infused with our divine power. It contains my 'Origin Astral Explosion' power and your mom's 'Desolating Nine Worlds of Invincible Death-Instruments' power. These powers exist as cores in the treasure. These cores are each formed from the condensation of billions of years of our divine powers. Whenever you are faced with an exceedingly powerful opponent, you can unleash the power. But mind you, you can only use each of our divine power seven times. That means you have protection against fearsome powerhouses for a number of fourteen times. Never waste this protection-attack power on small fries. It's only when you are in grave danger should you release the power."

"Okay dad. I would just as you said" Alex replied.

"Good." His father replied.

Then Lucy spoke "I know that your uncle Houston would have told you this. But I will say it again. This cultivation world apart from being a polygamous one is a ruthless one. You have to be merciless to survive. No matter how your enemies plead for forgiveness, you have to destroy them. If you aren't ruthless enough, they could come back and cause you harm. Slay anything that seems like a potential threat to you. Forgive no one. Not even the friends that may betray you or insidious beauties that would cause the minds of deities to spin. But also note, you should distinguish between friend and foe. You should be able to discern between friends that you can rely on and those that would bring destruction your way. I repeat again, in your journey to become the strongest cultivator, slay every adversary that would come your way without batting an eye. Be kind and generous to those that need it. But be cold, ruthless and wicked to those that deserve it. Be a dazzling light of solace and hope for those that are weak and oppressed and a dark cloud of judgment and destruction for those who are sinister and evil."

Alex nodded.

Then a fierce glow shone from his eyes.

All that his parent mentioned caused his eyes to emit an intense light of ferociousness.

Seeing Alex's new mindset, his parent's bodies transformed into motes of energy that penetrated into his body.