The Geared Immortal

New Journey: Chapter 1

A few months ago a young man was accidentally transported to a world where fantasy and magical beings exist. This world is supposed to be full of possibilities and adventure, and yet he discovered that it is not what he imagines it to be.

The world that he came into is known in many names and in different languages. He first learned the language of the cultivation land through telepathic communication with a cultivator named Gubu who had died many years ago. And through this, he discovers the existence of many different races, animals, creatures, and mysteries in this land. The land is like Earth where different races of people and many mysterious places exist.

He also learned cultivation techniques and natural energy manipulation. And with his ingenious mind, he was able to combine both and created his own way of improvement. And throughout his adventure, he met many people and fought with many enemies. Then he became a leader, a lover, a scientist, an engineer, a slave, and more. He survives them all due to his unique personality and because of his unique skills which he has learned while young using his curious mind.

But then disaster struck and he lost his dantian, however, due to this, he was able to make an artificial one. After some time he was able to regain his dantian using a gear that converts the power of cores into pure spiritual Qi and natural energies to slowly turn him into a powerful immortal. Later on, due to his unique existence and technique, he will be known as The Geared immortal.

This young man is named Shin Jiao, and this is his story.

…

As the sun calmly sets into the horizon, the vast scenery of trees and rolling hills were slowly blanketed by the darkness. In a long and winding road, a long line of wagons traverses a rough terrain. Each of the wagons is being pulled by a huge beast which looks like hornless bulls called Groog. Unlike Neighs which looks like horses, Groogs has sturdier stamina and is stronger. They can travel for days without stopping to eat or rest, this is because they can absorb the Qi in their surroundings and convert it into their energy. If a Groog doesn't work and just stays in one place their body would slowly be blotted and would die after a week.

That's why Groogs are valued as a working beast because of this characteristic. They are hard to find because a herd would always move everywhere and only death due to old age would kill them. Though they absorb Qi, they could not cultivate, hence their lifespan stays the same.

As the caravan travels through the bumpy road, the passengers inside did not relax. Each of them is feeling tensed as they know the danger while traveling along this road. They might or might not encounter bandits or wild beast so everyone is not at ease, everyone except for one person.

At the end of the caravan, a wagon where 10 people sat silently followed along with the rest of the wagons. Each person inside the wagon has their eyes closed but their spiritual sense would always burst out like a radar ping to make sure that their surroundings are safe. Even the little boy sitting between his parents has an uneasy look on his eyes. As he has been traveling with his parents the whole time, he has experienced a lot of troubles along the way. Bandits attacking and beast hordes rampaging are some of the things he experienced and saw; hence he didn't relax even for a bit just like his parents.

The only time the boy can feel secure is when the caravan would camp out. This is due to the defensive array formation set to protect them. He has seen how strong the array formation is that even those huge beasts could not even break it.

As the boy grabs hold of the hem of his mother's clothes his eyes unconsciously turn towards a corner where a young man sits. He then noticed that the young man seems to be doing something. All of a sudden everyone heard something that made them dumbstruck.

Snore!!!

The young man sitting in the corner actually snores out loud. Then as if to tell everyone that what they heard is not wrong, the young man slowly leaned against the wagon's wall.

Shin Jiao has been feeling tired while traveling because for the whole day he has been absorbing the energy of the core inside his artificial dantian. His strength has been steadily increasing but so far, the rate of progression is going slow ever since he reached the gold core realm and the spheres inside his mind dantian numbers more than 40. But of course, Shin Jiao knows this and already has a plan on how to increase his cultivation. But still, it would consume a lot of resources, so as he travels he also aims to search for more resources for his cultivation.

He needed a lot of spirit stones, beast cores, rare herbs, and black ore. This way he can make himself stronger both his physique and his improvement. With regards to his dantian, he needed the black ore to craft a stronger core so that when his cultivation increases it won't get destroyed.

Shin Jiao's mind is already adrift to the dream world when he was awoken by his own snoring. He slowly opens his eyes and saw the incredulous look on the faces of the people around him.

"How can this young man be so carefree? He is now even aware of the danger that we could be facing while traveling." A man in his 30's suddenly said while showing Shin Jiao a disappointed look.

"Young man, you should be new with traveling, right?" the beautiful woman who is beside the little boy asked while she showed a gentle smile at Shin Jiao.

"I suggest that you should be more careful while traveling. These are uncertain times, evil is everywhere so you should be more alert." The woman added.

Upon hearing the warning of the woman which seems to be genuine, Shin Jiao nods his head in respect. He didn't want to argue with the people in the wagon so he just goes with the flow and pretends to be vigilant.

Using his glasses, Shin Jiao can easily see what's ahead of them within a two-kilometer radius. As the glasses only have basic functionality unlike his good old goggles which can zoom in and out, it has only the basic scanning of aura within a certain area. This would lessen his usage of spiritual sense or his absolute sense.

Not long after the people told Shin Jiao to be alert, thee caravan suddenly stopped. This causes each and every one of the people around him to tense up and suddenly showed vigilance. In their journey, this situation has happened quite too often that it became second nature to them to be vigilant.

The people in the wagon with Shin Jiao seem to be experts in their own rights. The nine of them are not only exuding powerful auras but also shows the unique temperament of an expert. Shin Jiao has his attention to all of them especially the woman who is clearly a beast-man. What confuses him is that she is clearly not wearing any concealment magic or even uses any shapeshifting potions, and from her bones and everything, she is clearly a human. But her aura is showing slight fluctuations of a beast-man, she has masked her aura perfectly that the beast-men aura has been suppressed and is now showing a gold core realm cultivator's aura.

Shin Jiao knows that this is a technique and if he has a chance he wanted to learn such a technique.

"Cultivators please help with the defense; we have detected a horde of the beast right in front of us which is closing slowly to the convoy." A voice shouted coming from outside.

Each of the people inside the wagon looks at each other and as if with a tacit understanding, they all get off the wagon with their weapons on hand. The young boy didn't move from his seat and looks at Shin Jiao who also didn't move from his position.

"You… why are you still here? You should go out and help… my mom and dad are very strong, I know that they can protect me…" the boy said proudly which looking at Shin Jiao.

"Well, if your mom and dad are very strong then why should I still go out?" Shin Jiao said as he took out something from his pouch.

He would not show the people that he has a spatial tool; this would keep the prying and envious eyes of other cultivators from him. From his pouch, he took out some dried dates which he made in his spare time. He then offers it to the young boy in front of him.

"Do you want some candies? This tastes good, I made them myself." Shin Jiao said with a smile.

The young boy showed some hesitation in his eyes as his gaze was glued to the black date on Shin Jiao's hand. The boy unconsciously swallowed his saliva hard and showed an expression of wanting and desire to have the palatable food in front of him.

"You can have it. You'll be my friend." Shin Jiao said as he put the date on the boy's hand and took another one from the pouch and put it in his mouth.

The taste of the date enters his taste buds and the sweet and sourly combination became a perfect mixture showing a delighted expression on Shin Jiao's face. The young boy on the other hand upon seeing Shin Jiao once again swallowed hard, then his eyes turn towards the date on his hand and carefully scrutinized it. Upon seeing that he could not find anything wrong with the food on his hand he didn't hesitate and quickly put it in his mouth.

The dried food in the boy's mouth immediately made him feel delighted, and then he realized that he feels calm and relaxed all of a sudden. Then tense feeling he had from before seems to have vanished and was replaced with calmness.

"It tastes good right? Here take some more. If you feel worried and anxious eat some more and you will feel calm." Shin Jiao said.

Unknown to him the mother of the boy is currently watching the exchange between Shin Jiao and her child. Seeing that the young man doesn't show any malicious intent toward her child she just calmly watches outside the door.

But when she saw the dried date, she looks at it with suspicion. When she scanned it with her spiritual sense her expression immediately changed.

"How can that be? That… that is a Heavenly Dew Date. He… he just turned it into candy and…and gave it to Hao'er." The woman thought.

"Brother you are very good to Hao'er, you will be my friend." The boy suddenly said with an excited expression.

"So your name is Hao'er?" Shin Jiao asked with a smile.

"Umm… my name is Hao Fu. My mother is Ling Ya and my father is Jin Fu, we are from the boundary town of Bliss. I and my parents are going to visit my grandpa in the city of Wu to celebrate his birthday." The boy suddenly blabbers.

His mother standing outside showed an incredulous look on her face, she didn't expect that her son would immediately open up his heart to the young man. She knows that her son has an ability to judge a person; it's an innate ability of his to see what's inside a person's heart.

Upon seeing this it only means that the young man does not harbor any ill intent towards her son. Ling Ya now has a good impression of the strange young man. But still, she didn't lower her vigilance because there is no such thing as certainty in this world.

Shin Jiao then slowly stood up and went out of the wagon. He nods his head upon seeing the boy's mother and silently walks to one corner of the wagon.

Standing not too far from Shin Jiao are nine cultivators, each holding their weapons. The tense atmosphere can really be felt as the silence envelops the darkness, only their calm, and almost inaudible breathing can be heard.

Then…

"There!... A beast horde is coming from up ahead…"

"Everyone prepare to fight!"

The shouting of the cultivators leading the mercenaries can be heard as they commanded their troops. Shin Jiao can see the cultivators forming their ranks in the darkness, some of them who have an affinity to fire began throwing fireballs to the surroundings providing light.

Shin Jiao turns his gaze to the creatures marching towards the caravan, then his eyes turn into slits upon finally seeing their grotesque appearance. Each of the creatures advancing towards them is like lifeless beings, but the lights in their eyes show that they are moving because of a particular power. Shin Jiao then notices that the core in their body emits a strange aura. Strange in a way because their aura has a touch of murky shadow-like darkness mixed with it.

"Zombies?" Shin Jiao muttered in a low voice.

But everyone around him heard his words, and their expression turned frosty. Though they didn't know the meaning of the words, however, from the reaction of Shin Jiao, they can see that he is able to know the kind of beast they were about to face.

"Undead… These are the undead beast… How can this be? Have we entered an evil cultivator's lair?" a large man holding a flat scimitar suddenly said as his spiritual sense saw the approaching creatures.

"This is very bad… how can we kill those who are already dead?"

"I heard that these creatures are un-killable. What should we do?"

Almost everyone showed a panic expression on their faces, except for the couple who stood near the wagon. The man named Jin Fu who is the husband and a father seem to be confident in his own skill to protect his family.

As the horde of undead beast slowly approaches the caravan, the tension in the air began to stifle the people making them uncomfortable and anxious. Though the mercenaries have faced hundreds of enemies before, however, fighting against the undead is a first for them.

"Everyone! Remember that these beasts are undead, so don't think that they are like those regular beasts that would die if you attack their vital points. The best way to kill them is to just do heavy damage to their bodies." The leader of the mercenary shouted.

"That would be very ineffective. Just cut the head off that would do the thing." Shin Jiao muttered in a low voice.

"You seem to know these things?" suddenly the young woman with the beast-man aura asked Shin Jiao in a hushed tone.

Shin Jiao was taken aback because he was not really paying attention to his surroundings and was too focused on observing the undead beast that is closing in. And upon hearing the young woman's voice he was taken aback.

"Umm… you see…" Shin Jiao is thinking whether to share his own analysis to the group or just keep it for himself.

"It's okay. You don't have to tell me. I can sense that what you've said is right." The young woman whispered.

"I'm Lily Chen, and you are?" she added.

"Shin Jiao, nice to meet you." Shin Jiao answered unconsciously.

As the two whispered to each other the other people around them didn't pay attention as they are too engrossed in observing the undead beast.

"Dear, what do you think? Is what he said correct?" The woman suddenly asked her husband.

The man nods his head in confirmation as his gaze is glued to Shin Jiao. He didn't know how the young man knows how to kill the undead beast, but he has already encountered these creatures in the past. And true to Shin Jiao's theory, the only way to kill these things is to sever their heads. At least that is how his group was able to survive that ordeal.

When Jin Fu was still a young man, he roams the cultivation land to improve himself and go on an adventure. Then one day he and a group of young people decided to enter a cave, they didn't know that it was a cave that belongs to an evil cultivator that delves in life and death cultivation. And so his group was assaulted by hundreds of undead.

They fought their way out of that place and discover that the only way to stop the creatures is to cut-off their heads. And so while looking at the undead beast Jin Fu already has an idea of what to do. The problem now is how could the other cultivators' cut-off these creatures' heads when their cultivation is weaker than the creatures. He is not even sure if they can penetrate the thick hide of the beasts.

Jin Fu decided to offer his advice, so he calmly walks towards the leader of the mercenary group who is currently talking to the pudgy man.

"What should we do captain? This is too bad, why are there undead beast in this place?... We… we need to run… No… No… we…" the pudgy man said while walking back and forth.

"Calm down master Bibao, you know how capable we are. Trust us." The mercenary leader said with confidence.

As the two are talking Jin Fu walks closer.

"Master Bibao Ling, I may have a clue that may be able to help us." Jin Fu said as he stopped behind the two.

"What the… Who?..." Bibao Ling said as he jumped in surprise by the voice coming from behind them.

Upon seeing the confident look of the handsome man standing behind, his expression immediately changed into a delight. He already saw how strong this cultivator was in their travels and his group has high regard for this low-key expert.

"Really? What is it, master Fu? What should we do?" Bibao Ling suddenly asked.