The Dawn of the New World

*Ding*

Hao Xuan came back to his senses.

He was still standing there with his hand on the crystal ball and everyone was looking at him with curious gazes.

"Are you okay?" asked Sam slowly, "What happened? You just zoned out for a bit there".

"I-I was...in a different place, they showed me some images and told me a few things about this world. I don't think it's dangerous, you guys don't have to worry about it...I think," said Hao Xuan moving away from the ball.

"Oh, that's good to know. Let me go next" said Maaz lunging towards the ball and quickly putting his hand on it before his parents could stop him.

"You!" Mr. Khan tried to stop him but it was too late.

Hao Xuan left them to their own accord and started looking around, trying to digest everything he saw and heard. "I still have so many questions, how the hell was that an inauguration? They barely explained anything. What are we supposed to do now? Where do we go?" he thought to himself.

As soon as the thought appeared, the same robotic voice was heard, "Once you have been through the memory transfer, please move on to the next area to continue the process," and a door opened up on the opposite end of the area.

Hao Xuan looked at the Khan family and it seemed like they would be a while so he quietly started walking towards the door. On the other side was a spacious room with a small platform in the middle with 4 screens hovering on it.

After making sure there was nothing else, he moved on to the platform and touched one of the screens.

*Ding*

"Please place your right hand on the screen to register," a different, slightly feminine robotic voice said.

So Hao Xuan placed his right hand on the screen and it lit up with some numbers showing up one after another.

"Registration complete. Welcome, Traveler No. 8671, please enter your name" said the voice again.

After entering a bunch of his personal information like his date of birth, medical history, and whatnot, the screen went blank for a second, and then a new page showed up.

"Since you are new to this world, you will be provided with some limited edition cultivation manuals according to your talents and aptitude to choose from. Please go over their details carefully before selecting one as it will be the very basis for your future cultivation," the voice explained further.

On the new screen several different kinds of "manuals" came up with their summaries right underneath them.

The first was "Mental Cultivation Manual", its description said "The easiest and the most basic manual, available almost everywhere in the beast world. Well Rounded and suitable for almost any being of any age and race."

The second was a "Spear Cultivation Manual" with the description: "One of the many weapon cultivation manuals. Focuses on merging the weapon with the user's body. Perfect for those that prefer to keep some distance from their enemies. Warning: All characteristics of the weapon will affect the user's mental state."

It seemed like choosing a cultivation manual wasn't an easy thing to do. One had to think hard about what they desired and how the manual would affect them. Using these manuals would bring about changes to one's state of mind.

Hao Xuan looked through several dozen others. There were a lot of manuals related to weapons and there must have been another reason for these weapon manuals other than just getting extra power.

He found some strange ones as well, some that focused on speed and agility, or defense.

There seemed to be something for everyone here, but nothing caught Hao Xuan's eye.

So he went back up to the top of the page and filtered the manuals according to his own likes, but he didn't really know what he himself was looking for.

With that in mind, he filtered the manuals according to their popularity and selected the descending order to start from the least popular ones.

The least popular manual was the "Chain Manual", where the user's weapon would be a chain itself. "No wonder no one chooses this one, who would fight with chains as their primary weapon, its creator must be a sadist," Hao Xuan thought to himself.

But that was just his uneducated opinion of course. Chain manual was actually very good but had very high demands to cultivate it. One would have to be a genius and be rich enough to afford all the ingredients needed to level himself up.

After not finding anything to his liking, he filtered the manuals according to the highest difficulty, and finally, something caught his eye.

The "Glaive Cultivation Manual". Its description read: "One of the most difficult weapons to master, requires extremely high strength, speed, and endurance to be of any actual use in combat. But once mastered, The Glaive is a weapon that would reap lives with every single swing. It is an overlord of weapons and not everyone is suited to cultivate it."

Hao Xuan remembered reading about the description of a glaive as it was commonly used by commanders in the Ming Dynasty, it was described as the "Horse Beheading Dao", a massive 96 cm blade attached to a 128 cm shaft, he imagined how awesome and cool would he look with a weapon such as that on a battlefield.

Without a second thought, he touched it with his index finger and got a prompt "Please confirm, choose 'Glaive Cultivation Manual' as your cultivation manual?"

He faltered for a moment, and then clicked "Yes". Solely choosing a manual based on how he thought looked but who could blame him? There was no one else to tell him otherwise.

The screen went blank again and a bright ray of light, like a laser, came out of the top of the screen straight towards his forehead.

Hao Xuan wanted to move away but his body wouldn't listen. So he just closed his eyes and waited. There was some slight irritation where the laser was hitting him but other than that, nothing.

Suddenly, a strange feeling appeared. He felt like there was something new inside his head. The robotic voice came again and gave further instructions.

"Please close your eyes and concentrate. Imagine a safe place, any place, you are standing inside it. No one else can get in here, this is your personal palace..."

Somehow Hao Xuan could feel himself falling asleep. The robotic voice sounded a bit hypnotic and Hao Xuan couldn't help but follow its directions. He did as told but after several minutes nothing happened.

He kept trying over and over again and finally after a full hour he found himself standing in a dimly lit space. There was nothing around him but other than a feeling that there was something in front.

He reached out and a book appeared in his hand and he could see it vividly with the words "Glaive Manual" inscribed on the cover.

Hao Xuan thought about what was inside it and it flipped open on its own.

He saw the first paragraph, "Cultivators beware, not for the weak of mind or poor of Character. The Glaive is a God of weapons, and as such its difficulty is also Godly. It will not be easy, but if you persist, the very Heavens themselves will tremble beneath your feet. With one swing the Gods will be Slayed, and with another, the abyss sundered."

Hao Xuan's mind trembled like a kite in a hurricane.

He had never read anything more badass, and that was just the introduction. An image appeared in his mind of a man standing in front of an army of millions alone with his weapon, hair swaying in the wind, what could be more majestic than that?

For some reason his heartbeat increased and a strange new feeling seeped into his heart. The desire to fight!

He opened his eyes only to see a teddy bear staring back at him.

"What the f-"

Startled, he jumped back, falling off the platform on to his bum. After sitting up again he saw Emilie standing on the platform, looking at him with tears in her eyes while hugging the teddy bear.

"Did Emi hurt you big brother?" she asked with a quivering voice, about to break out crying any second.

"No no no, absolutely not. I'm not that weak, how could a little fall hurt me?" Hao Xuan said shaking his head vigorously.

"Really?" Emilie asked with a questionable gaze.

"Yes of course, why would I lie? I just tripped on my own, it wasn't your fault" Hao Xuan said with a laugh.

He looked around but there was nobody else in the room, "Where is everyone?" said Hao Xuan looking back at Emilie with a little smile.

"They are touching the crystal ball, papa said everyone has to stay together so they will come after everyone is done. I was finished so I came ahead without telling them" Emilie said with a slightly guilty face.

"Oh, okay, let's wait for your parents and big brother to join us, and then we can go out I think," Hao Xuan said.

A few minutes later the rest of the family arrived, Hao Xuan explained to them about the screens and manuals. He sat on the sideline and waited for them to finish.

When they were all done Maaz came up to Hao Xuan with a wide smile, "Guess which manual I choose?"

"The Hammer Manual?" Hao Xuan said looking at him.

"Close, it's something heavy, the Greatsword Manual!" he says with a proud look.

"Oh, well, it suits you I guess, someone of your size with a normal sword would look really comical," Hao Xuan said after thinking about it, as he imagined Maaz, a well-built almost 7ft tall guy holding a little sword, he chuckled. It would've been quite a sight.

As Maaz was about to ask him about his chosen manual, a lady in a blue Cheongsam appeared on the other end of the room.

Everyone looked at her, she was quite tall, fair skin and beautiful to boot, could easily have been a model on earth with her looks.

"Since everyone is done choosing their manuals, please follow me and we can send you on your way," she said with a gentle smile that was not a smile and then without waiting for a response, turned around and started walking towards another door that appeared out of nowhere.

Hao Xuan was the first to follow her and then the rest of the family came after. They walked for a couple of minutes and then reached a wide open hall filled to the brim with people.

The hall seemed to have been carved out of wood with a fountain in the middle and some strange little birds flying around in the air. There were a lot of other women in the same dressing as the lady leading Hao Xuan and the party, either just standing or leading other groups of people to some places.

They made their way to the other side and entered another room. It was much smaller in comparison with some strange marking in the middle of it. On the right side, there was another lady who waved at the party as they entered. She was standing in front of a desk with some papers on it.

Everyone moved towards the table when they heard the second woman speak.

"Hello everyone. My name is Liu Yifei, and I'm here to send you to your chosen kingdom. A little information first. This place is called the Saint City, it is one of the central places in the Beast world where all new races are transported to. Just like you, they were inaugurated here and sent on their way to the lower world."

Hao Xuan and company were thoroughly engrossed in her "speech" by now so she continued, "Beast world is mainly divided into Six main continents. They make up about 55-60% of the total landmass on the planet. The rest is unexplored wilderness filled with monstrous creatures that even Gods fear."

"There are thousands of kingdoms in every single continent, along with some Sects, Ancient families and Empires that oversee them. A kingdom has three grades, 1st being the highest and 3rd being the worst. There are some other institutions out there as well as some powerful lone experts that are as strong as entire Empires, if not more so," Hao Xuan knew this new world was big, but he had no idea how big until he heard the next statement.

"A normal grade-three kingdom has a population of more than 5 Billion, and every Grade two and higher kingdom will have several times the population of a grade-three Kingdom" at this point Hao Xuan was simply speechless. The population of the entire planet Earth was a little more than 7 Billion, but here there were thousands of kingdoms with the same population if not more? That was an unimaginable number of people. And this was only on one continent, then what about the other 5? And the more than 40% of the world that was as of yet, unexplored?

"For your family, the Mei Kingdom which is a grade-two Kingdom has been chosen. You will be sent to one of the main cities of the kingdom, the city of Fortuna. It is a very important location in the kingdom and acts as the trade center for the entire area. Do you have any questions?" She asked smilingly.