The Family

At twenty-six, a Level 4 Warrior, being able to retire from the army safely was already a stroke of immense luck for a commoner.

During his ten-year military career, Karl Talos had seen far too many geniuses; some were only Level 1 Warriors at sixteen, yet by the time they retired, they had already reached the level of a Level 5 Warrior. The army was never short of such talents.

These geniuses of common birth would start their cultivation step-by-step from Level 1, and after performing meritorious service, they would receive a basic Battle Qi manual. With an early start, they gained an advantage at every turn, eventually becoming Level 6 Warriors and earning the chance to remain in the military.

Only these geniuses had the opportunity to make a push toward becoming Level 7 Warriors.

And all of this only applied to those who survived; far more were his comrades who died in the chaos of war.

It was precisely because he had seen these comrades, both the living and the dead, that Karl Talos truly cast aside the pride he held as a transmigrator. After retiring, he chose not to pursue adventure, but instead returned to his hometown—the present-day Anlan Kingdom—and honestly followed his parents' wishes, taking a local woman as his wife.

He married and had children.

From the Level 4 Warrior who returned home after retirement, it took Karl several decades to walk step-by-step to the pinnacle of a mortal: a Level 6 Warrior.

It was only after becoming a Level 6 Warrior that Karl Talos was selected by the lord to become a glorious instructor for new recruits.

This seemingly simple position of instructor was, in reality, a status that ranked within the top ten figures of the entire township.

Aside from the lord and the lord's family, Karl Talos held the highest status in the entire town.

Yet, no matter how high his status, it only brought him some money and power that was not particularly significant.

This was the life of someone with ordinary talent.

Everything changed on the day of Karl Talos's one-hundredth birthday, a day when his house was full of children and grandchildren celebrating his longevity.

It was on that day that Karl Talos finally activated the Auto-Cultivation System, which had long been awakened but had remained useless.

It was precisely by relying on this auto-cultivation that Karl Talos, who had been stuck at the peak of Level 6, successfully broke through to become a Level 7 Warrior.

A Level 7 Warrior—back in that small town, the lord's strength was no more than that. Relying on the strength of a Level 7 Warrior, which was enough to break through an army of a thousand, Karl successfully became a Baron of the kingdom.

With the status brought by his strength, Karl Talos did not choose to seek further advancement in the kingdom, but instead chose a frontier land, which is now Spark Town.

The commoner who once didn't even have a title founded the current Taros Family in Spark Town, and Karl naturally became the first patriarch.

Thus, over a hundred years later, step-by-step from a newly minted Level 7 Warrior, Karl relied on his auto-cultivation to become the current Viscount of the kingdom, a great Level 9 Warrior.

If not for Karl's single-minded dedication to guarding Spark Town, his strength as a Level 9 Warrior would have been enough to earn him the title of Marquis or even Count in the kingdom.

Titles and power were merely external things.

Karl saw this clearly, for the root of all status was one's own strength.

If he could reach the Saint Realm, then even if he were to establish a vast Principality, no one would dare to object.

In a world where supreme power resides within oneself, indulging in power is merely placing one's own head under the blades of others at any moment.

He glanced at the familiar panel; even though he knew his own situation by heart, Karl Talos would still look at it from time to time, and these moments were covered by his act of drinking tea.

After all, while others could not see this panel screen, it did not mean that no one could probe his consciousness; the Yulan Continent was not devoid of such existences.

Those were great existences whose names Karl didn't even dare to contemplate.

He looked at his system again, which had several tabs: [Personal Attributes], [Family], [Auto-Cultivation], [Mall], [Territory], [Faith], and [Novice Tutorial].

If all of these were integrated, they would form a relatively complete attribute panel.

[Auto-Cultivation System]

[Host: Karl]

[Age: 267]

[Level: Level 9 (100/100)]

[Family: Taros (Level 1)]

[Territory: Spark Town (Level 1)]

[Faith: None]

[Cultivation: Level 9 (100/100) Attribute (0/1)]

According to the explanations in the Novice Tutorial, family, territory, and faith could all increase cultivation speed. After learning this, it wasn't as if Karl hadn't tried to build a stronger family and territory, but at the level of a Level 9 Warrior, both the family and territory were capped at Level 1. A Level 1 family and territory offered limited cultivation speed boosts, only 1% each.

Adding up to a total of 2% in cultivation bonuses, it might seem negligible, but only Karl knew in his heart how powerful this extra advantage truly was.

If a person with ordinary talent had a cultivation speed of 100%, their limit would be a Level 6 Warrior; even after a hundred years of toil, they would at most reach the peak of Level 6.

But if one could exceed that limit by even 1%, there would be a glimmer of a chance to break through and become a Level 7 Warrior.

It was precisely by relying on this 2% cultivation bonus that the residents of his family and territory had the chance to break through. Otherwise, at Karl's current advanced age of over two hundred, having married and had children in his twenties, his children and grandchildren would have long since passed away.

However, this was also the limit of a Level 1 territory and a Level 1 family. Since none of his descendants had managed to break through to become Level 8 Warriors to this day, Karl knew clearly in his heart that unless he could break through to the Saint Realm, his descendants would at most reach the level of a Level 7 Warrior, relying solely on this 2% cultivation bonus.

[Faith], according to the Novice Tutorial, would only officially unlock after becoming a god. And while family and territory seemed to only provide others with the chance to break through to Level 7, the stronger the territory, family, and personal strength became, the more points they would bring to Karl.

[Points] were the currency of the [Mall].

[Mall] Currently, Karl could only use the Level 1 Mall, but it contained quite a few good items.

For instance, the basic Amulet, which could withstand an hour of continuous attacks from a Level 6 Warrior; this was one of the guarantees that his children and grandchildren could live safely until retirement. Besides the Amulet, there were also some divine weapons and, most crucially, attributes, which were the key for Karl to break through to the Saint Realm.

To become a Level 9 Warrior, one only needed to comprehend "lifting the heavy as if it were light" or "lifting the light as if it were heavy." Mastering this power allowed one to perfectly unleash their own limits, enabling them to instantly kill Level 8 Warriors and easily lift objects weighing hundreds of thousands of jin. Relying on these two methods, a single strike was enough to destroy a wall over a hundred meters high, and their defense was enough to ignore the massive force of ten thousand jin. This was the gap between a Level 9 Warrior and a Level 8 Warrior.