2 Edward Stone

Looking around for a little bit, Edward noticed he was laying down in a bed, it was a pretty normal bed if you would measure it from his old worlds standards. He also noticed that said bed, was inside of a room, a pretty decently sized room actually, it was about 10 meters square, the walls inside of the room seemed to be made out of wood, but it seemed to be in pretty good shape. One thing he did notice, however, was the fact that this room he was in seemed pretty behind, so to speak. Or more like, not very up to date compared to most rooms in the country he was from, but then again, that country was pretty well-developed.

But then again, God had told Edward that this was a world where cultivation was a thing, so he didn't really expect the society here to be technologically advanced. He was just about to take a step out of the bed, when something suddenly hit him, that he had somehow already forgotten. This body wasn't his! He had a lot of new memories that he hadn't digested and accepted yet, just putting them in the back of his head. But after willing the memories to appear, they suddenly started streaming straight into his mind.

Edward learned a lot of things almost instantly, and the pain he had experienced earlier almost started to reappear, but fortunately, the pain this time was a lot less intense, compared to before. One of the things that Edward learned was his new name in this world, Edward Stone. It was actually the same as his first life if you don't take the surname into account. The Stone family was one of the 3 major families of the city Idirie, along with the Silvercreek family and the Eaglestone family. All of these 3 families were more like clans that one was born into, and they all cultivated. But even if these 3 families were the tyrants of Idirie, they were still just branches of their bigger counterparts, so the Stone family of Idirie was just one of the branches of the main Stone family.

Idirie was situated very close to the border between Esmea and Oshar, but it was a part of Esmea. Therefore this place wasn't really the best place to settle down since there were regular skirmishes between the 2 countries, and they were always at odds with each other. There had also been multiple occasions were war was brewing, and Idirie took the biggest hit of them all before it all calmed down. Inside of the Stone family, there were strict hierarchies between the main descendants and the regular family members. The punishment would be much worse for the regular family member if one of the main descendants fought with them since they were favored by all of the elders and higher-ups of the family.

Edward was considered a regular member in the family, but one with more backing than the others. This was because of Edwards uncle. Edward Stone didn't have any parents, as they passed away while he was still a little kid, but he did have an uncle, and that uncle was an outer elder of the family, and what does the "outer" stand for? Well, it's quite simple, the younger generation of the family was not just divided into regular and main descendants. They were also divided into outer, inner and core members, this was all decided by strength and cultivation level.

And to Edwards surprise, cultivation in this world was apparently not as simple as he had thought. To cultivate meant to absorb the essence of heaven and earth, and strengthen yourself, at least in the most general and simple explanation. But to absorb this essence, one needed to have a martial spirit. Martial spirits could be just about anything, and they were divided into tiers and ranks from low to high: Human - Profound - Earth - Heaven. Each of these tiers was further divided into 10 ranks, with tenth rank heaven tier being the highest. But not all humans had martial spirits, and even if they did, they needed to have one that was good enough to get accepted into sects and such, as they all had strict requirements. And this was because the rank of the martial spirit could roughly decide your future. The higher the rank, the faster you would absorb essence, and the further you would be able to go on the path of cultivation.

When Edward was about to try and find out what his martial spirit was, he was hit with another memory, he had not awakened one yet! Even though the Edward Stone of this world was 14 years old, he hadn't awakened his martial spirit yet, which indicated that his aptitude was below average in his family, as the average was between 12 and 13 years old. But Edward wasn't discouraged! God had sent him here for a reason, and how would he save a world from calamity if he didn't even have a martial spirit? God had also told him he had talent, so when he actually awakened his martial spirit, it would probably be good.

Thinking of this, some more memories streamed into Edward's head, that was right! The yearly ceremony for the members of the Stone family to awaken their martial spirits was just around the corner! There were only 3 weeks left. And since Edward was sent here right now, he was feeling confident that he would awaken one this time, he felt that it would be very unreasonable for there to be such a coincidence otherwise. But then again, the world works in mysterious ways sometimes, and no possibilities should be entirely ruled out.

After a little while, the memories from the old Edward of this world had completely sunk in and settled, making Edward feel whole, but he didn't actually know the reason why. The actual reason for this "whole" feeling would be that the merging of the two Edwards' souls was now complete, the really painful part would be when the two souls first started merging, as they were rejecting each other.But Edward didn't know any of this, even if he did, he would probably not understand what it would mean anyways, but it was actually a great thing! As his comprehension, as well as other abilities, were sure to rise due to the merging of the souls.

But Edward finally started to realize something after thinking and digging up all of the memories of the original owner of this body, there was once an original owner, and that meant that the original owner was now gone, this made Edward a bit uneasy, as he wondered how the original owner of this body had died. So he investigated his memories a bit deeper this time, and he managed to find some more fragmented memories hidden deep inside of his brain, and luckily, the original owner had died in an accident. It would be really troublesome if he had been killed since that would mean that Edward had someone who wanted him dead in this world. But then he thought some more about it, and realized he had worried for nothing, the old Edward didn't socialize or interact with anyone, since he wasn't even mediocre, so there was no way he could make any enemies.

But Edward didn't get sad at the fact that he didn't have any friends right now, it was actually the exact opposite, this made this new life a lot easier, as he had fewer people to interact with, which would mean he could get more accustomed to this world before he spoke with people, if you didn't count his uncle of course. As Edward was thinking about all of this, the door was suddenly opened, and in through the door came a maid.

When the maid concentrated her gaze on her young master, who sat up in his bed, she gasped as she hurriedly left again in a hurry. This, of course, didn't escape Edward's eye, and he was a little puzzled when faced with the current situation, why did a maid enter his room? And why did she leave as soon as she saw him? There existed 2 possibilities inside of Edward's head, the first one was that she had entered the wrong room, and the other one was that the maid had been hired by his uncle, who had sent her here to keep watch over him.

Edward couldn't really come up with an answer, so he decided to stop thinking about it, and think about something else, but he didn't get the time to...

BANG!

"Edward!"

A loud bang and a shout could be heard as a middle-aged man suddenly smashed his way through the door into Edwards room. The middle-aged man wore a blue robe that seemed to hang too close to his body, almost like it was a bit too small. His face was well groomed, and he kept his facial hair neatly trimmed. His eyes were crystal blue in color, and his eyebrows were straight and they looked sharp as they slanted downwards. His hair was a dark shade of brown, and also very disheveled at the moment. Edward also noticed how this man had a sword hanging around his waist, it wasn't really hard to guess who this person was, it was Edward's uncle! Pierre!