The Beginning of Transmigration

Chapter Seven: The Beginning of Transmigration

Lorist scoffed at the notion of bloodline-awakened battle qi. He felt that current research into battle qi had gone astray. It was like the Confucianism of his previous life—good at first, with its ideals of cultivating oneself, managing one's family, and bringing peace to the world, only to ultimately become the mainstream doctrine of groveling before rulers. These historians of Galintea were the same, blindly catering to the nobility's preferences, attributing everything to noble bloodlines, and constantly proclaiming the necessity and legitimacy of nobles standing above all others.

That argument was truly ridiculous. If the historical records regarding the origin of battle qi and magical civilization were true, then those Sword Gods and Sword Saints who had left behind such "noble bloodlines" had, in fact, merely been cannon fodder created by mages. Think of those legends about mages going to war against the gods—one Sword God Legion after another had been thrown onto the battlefield. How many people were in a legion? At least twenty thousand. Even Sword Saints could only handle logistics and transport work. Looking at it that way, what was so noble about the bloodlines passed down by cannon fodder?

Even though the original owner of the body he occupied had been part of the nobility, the beliefs of his previous life—that victors became kings and losers became outlaws, and that all people were equal—made it impossible for Lorist to truly sense the difference between nobles and commoners in this world. Deep down, he was still that forty-something ordinary man, busy every day managing his family's little handicraft factory.

He had merely drunk a little too much at a gathering of old comrades. How had he woken up as Norton Lorist? The former owner of that small handicraft factory was terrified. Fortunately, he had occupied the body of a severely injured young nobleman, and had more than two months to inherit the original owner's memories while lying in bed and letting his thoughts run wild. Besides, given the original owner's detestable personality, even the hired caretaker had little interest in speaking to him. He need not worry about anyone discovering that he had taken over another person's body.

In his previous life, he had come from a small town in Jiangnan. His family could be considered a large clan, and they had been a martial arts family as well. His grandfather had been an old Chinese physician and a master fighter, probably having reached the realm of Dark Force. He remembered an Eight Immortals Table at home with a round hole in it, about the size of a wine cup. When he was still young, a red-faced man from Henan had come to the house and pestered his grandfather for a match. His grandfather laid out a feast, toasted him with a cup of wine, then pressed the empty cup against the table and slowly sank it into the wood until it was level with the tabletop. The red-faced man's eyes went wide. He did not even dare drink the wine, merely cupped his hands in salute and left.

His father had been in poor health, while his second and third uncles worked elsewhere. His grandfather had been strict with him and his cousins, forcing them from childhood to study martial arts and medicine. They trained through the harshest winter cold and the hottest summer heat, memorized meridians and acupoints in the morning, and read medical texts and prescriptions at night. Life had been difficult, yet exceptionally fulfilling. As a child, he had been so mischievous that whenever he had a little free time, he would lead several cousins around and turn the whole town upside down.

But in his youth, he had grown tired of the town's unchanging life and longed for the exciting world beyond it. His high school grades had been poor, and he was always getting into fights. In the end, he dropped out and enlisted.

During his seven years in the military, he had always been one of the unit's key military personnel and had even become a master sergeant. Yet his era of service had not been a good one. The country needed peace and stability so it could focus on economic development. In society, everyone chased money, while soldiers went from being called the most lovable people to being ignored by all. They could only endure, silently guarding the nation with their blood and youth. Then another military downsizing began. When he heard that his father was seriously ill, he submitted his discharge request and returned home to inherit the small handicraft factory his father had established.

Changing from a soldier into a businessman, he had suffered greatly. From manufacturing craft gifts to making imitation antiques, he did whatever made money. Thinking back on his grandfather's hopes for him—that he would become a Chinese physician and inherit the family's medical legacy—he could only look at himself, reeking of money with a growing belly. How long had it been since he practiced the family's Golden Water Art? He could no longer remember.

Though he had a family, a wife and children, a luxury car, and a grand house, such a life only made him feel increasingly empty. That was why, when he gathered with his old comrades, they reminisced about their days in the army. Mourning their lost youth, everyone drank too much. Crying and laughing, he drank until he knew nothing at all. He only knew that when he woke up, he had become Norton Lorist.

Looking through the memories of the young noble nicknamed Little Locke, he found that his family's territory lay in the northern highlands of the Krissen Empire. Though it was only a barony, the land was vast. Most of it was barren mountains and wilderness, nominally belonging to the Norton Family. The territory had few inhabitants, only several thousand people, along with a small town and a castle. The family was not wealthy; the sole small copper mine in the territory was its main source of income.

The ancestor of the Norton Family who had received the baronial title had originally been a forest hunter. When he was young, he had been persuaded by a wandering minstrel to enlist in the army of Krissen I, the founding emperor of the Krissen Empire. Beginning as a scout, he fought through countless battles and earned repeated merits, winning Krissen I's trust and being elevated from a commoner to a knight.

Later, when the Krissen Empire was established, Krissen I asked his loyal knight what wish he had. The founder of the Norton Family replied that he wished to return home and hoped to die on his homeland's soil. Seeing that the knight who had followed him for most of his life was already gray at the temples, Krissen I was deeply moved. He summoned the chancellor and had him bring a map. Seeing that the northern lands were a wilderness, Krissen I made a sweeping stroke of his pen, granting the elderly knight the title of baron and assigning him a vast stretch of wasteland in the empire's far north as a hereditary barony. He also bestowed upon the new baron a high-level Battle Qi Manual, Blazing Flame Battle Qi, blessing his knight's family to guard the northern frontier for the empire generation after generation.

Seven generations had passed from the time Norton's ancestor was granted the barony to the father of Norton Lorist. Little Locke's father had three brothers. As the eldest son, he inherited the title and territory. Little Locke's second uncle had gone to the Imperial Capital to join the Royal Guard Knights. Little Locke had never seen this second uncle since childhood, only hearing that he was doing fairly well. As for his third uncle, he was the chief steward of the family merchant caravan that had brought Little Locke to Dawnlight Academy.

In Little Locke's memories, his mother had been a very beautiful and gentle lady. His maternal grandfather had been a great merchant who had spent a large sum to purchase the title of gentleman, merely to make trade more convenient. He also had a bookish uncle who spent all day clutching books. His father had been very strict. His older brother was three years older than Little Locke, a big, reckless, powerful fellow. Their life should have been very happy, but when Little Locke was seven, his mother became pregnant again. After giving birth to his younger brother, she fell seriously ill and eventually left Little Locke forever.

From being doted upon to being ignored, Little Locke blamed everything on his younger brother. He believed his brother had been the beginning of all misfortune, stealing away his beloved mother and everyone's attention. Deep down, Little Locke intensely hated his younger brother.

When thirteen-year-old Little Locke began receiving the Norton Family's traditional education, he awakened his battle qi after just one year and, for the first time ever, received praise from his usually stern father. Filled with pride, Little Locke went into the courtyard and saw his younger brother playing beside the well with a maid attending him. Suddenly seized by malice, he strode forward and pushed his brother into the well.

The maid's terrified scream rang in his ears, followed by chaos and panic. Finally came his father's furious face. His father raised a hand and slapped Little Locke. His vision went dark, and he lost consciousness.

When he woke again, he was in Little Locke's small bedroom. The old steward Cress looked at Little Locke with an expression of bitter disappointment and said that his father had ordered him confined to his room, forbidden to leave until a punishment had been decided. Before leaving, the old steward told Little Locke that his younger brother had been rescued, but he had been badly frightened and soaked in cold water. He was now ill...

Three days later, his father decided on Little Locke's punishment: he was to leave the family territory and travel thousands of miles away to Molent City to study. Unless summoned by the family, he was never to return for the rest of his life.

His older brother, the old steward, and his third uncle all pleaded on Little Locke's behalf, but his father was resolute. He said that in the wild northern lands, if one did not know how to unite with and care for one's family, then the Norton Family could not survive. What Little Locke had done chilled everyone's hearts. He had even been able to harm a five- or six-year-old child—his own younger brother. Even if they spared him this time, it would plant seeds of discord within the Norton Family. Therefore, Little Locke had to leave the family territory and be exiled.

The handicraft factory owner from another world found himself suddenly turned into a fourteen-year-old child. His terror went without saying. Two sets of memories flashed and intertwined in his mind, leaving him unable to tell who he truly was. It was not until more than ten days later that he realized he might, perhaps, probably, certainly have transmigrated, just like in those web novels.

Although Little Locke's memories gave him some foundation, the world before him remained unfamiliar. His current condition made things worse: the body he had transmigrated into was wrapped like a mummy and lay in bed, unable to move freely, wracked by pain and longing for the family of his previous life. Tossing and turning at midnight with tears streaming down his face became a common occurrence.

More than ten days later, the handicraft factory owner finally accepted the fact that he had transmigrated. From then on, he became Norton Lorist—Little Locke. To better understand this world, he paid the caretaker extra and instructed the freckle-faced fat woman to bring him history books and read them aloud. Such historical knowledge had held no interest for the original owner of this body.

The plump female caretaker brought him Galintea's Ten-Thousand-Year History. The title startled Lorist greatly. If a world had ten thousand years of recorded history, its civilization must have been remarkable. But once the caretaker began reading, Lorist understood that this so-called ten-thousand-year history was actually more than half myth and legend. Only the last two or three thousand years of history were relatively reliable.

Legend said that ten thousand years ago, Galintea belonged to the elves, while humans were merely a small tribe under elven rule. The war between the elves and the Dragon Race had already lasted thousands of years, and humans under elven protection were often caught in the crossfire. During those long years of war, a goblin tribe began to rise. Through their wisdom, they developed a different kind of magical mechanical civilization and used it to help the elves defeat the Dragon Race.

But the magical mechanical civilization developed by the goblins caused immense environmental damage, which the nature-loving elves found utterly intolerable. Eventually, the two races went to war. To everyone's surprise, the elves, who had sworn to teach those lowly mole-rats a harsh lesson, were utterly defeated before the goblins' Magic Mechanical Corps. In the end, they had no choice but to surrender the throne of Galintea's ruling race to the goblins.

Yet the naturally chaotic goblins had no interest in ruling the continent. What they loved were wild ideas and all manner of imaginative inventions. After more than a hundred years of chaos and disorder, the orcs who had once wandered the western wastelands arrived, bringing blood, fire, and slaughter.

Amid the tide of fur-clad, raw-meat-eating, thick-skinned orcs, the goblins' refined and formidable Magic Mechanical Corps was swallowed by the orcs' human-wave tactics, which disregarded all losses. The goblins were overthrown.

Having just become Galintea's greatest race, the orcs immediately began their brutal, bloody rule of extortion and oppression, successfully provoking the united resistance of every other race.

Thus began another war lasting several centuries. Among all the races resisting the orcs, humans learned magic and combat skills from the elves, engineering, construction, and forging from the dwarves, and weapons manufacture and trade from the goblins. With their vast population, they became the backbone of the resistance. When the orcs were finally driven back into the western wastelands, humanity had already taken the throne as Galintea's foremost race.

What followed was the beginning of the legendary golden age of magical civilization. It lasted for thousands of years, until the mages grew bored enough to wage war against the gods. Both sides were severely weakened, and in the end, heaven and earth changed drastically, magical elements vanished, and the Age of Declining Magic arrived.