Chapter 8: The Nine Realms

Chapter 8: Chapter 8: The Nine Realms

"Guys, I’m home!" Eric called out, shoving open the weathered front door of Sunshine Home.

"Big brother! You’re back!"

Like a miniature avalanche, Lily, Mark, and the other three children came charging down the narrow hallway, nearly tackling him before he could untie his scuffed boots.

"Big brother, what talent did you awaken?!"

"Is that your beast on your shoulder?!"

"Are you an official tamer now?!"

A barrage of breathless questions fired at him in a chaotic chorus.

"Alright, alright, hold on, give me some room to breathe," Eric laughed, bracing his hands against the wall to keep the exuberant kids from knocking him over.

Emily hurried out from the kitchen, dusting a trail of flour from her faded apron. The lines of tension etched into her forehead dissolved the instant she saw him standing there in one piece. "Welcome home, Eric."

"Guys, quiet down for a second," Eric said, raising a hand. To spare them the agonizing worry of his native E-rank Appraisal, he chose his words with deliberate care. "I awakened a C-rank talent."

"WOAHHH!" Mark cheered, throwing both fists into the air. "I knew it! C-rank is super strong, right?!"

Emily froze in place, her eyes wide with shock. In a third-tier frontier backwater like Riverdale, a C-rank awakener was considered a genuine local elite, guaranteed priority enrollment into municipal academies, lucrative guild bounties, and respect from city officials.

"Congratulations, Eric... thank heavens," Emily breathed softly, her voice trembling as she blinked back tears of overwhelming relief. "I’ll make something special for dinner tonight. We have to celebrate."

Lily tugged shyly on Eric’s jacket hem, her big brown eyes fixed upward. "Big brother... Can I touch your bird?"

"Sure thing, kiddo," Eric smiled, crouching down to her eye level. "His name is Coal. Coal, be gentle and say hi to Lily."

*Caaaw~*

Coal let out a low, inquisitive trill, hopping down onto the wooden floorboards with a soft tap of his talons. Lily knelt beside him, gingerly extending a tiny finger to stroke the glossy, obsidian feathers along his neck.

"He’s so smooth!" Lily beamed, looking up with wonder. "Almost as pretty as Jade!"

Right on cue, a slender feline with emerald-tinted fur and soft, leaf-shaped markings glided silently out from beneath the living room sofa. It was Jade, Emily’s bonded Leafjade Cat, a docile Wood-attribute beast she had contracted years ago to help tend to the orphanage garden.

*Meow~*

Jade sniffed the air, regarding the new avian arrival with curious, slit-pupil eyes. Coal stood his ground, cocking his bone-plated beak with calm dignity. Finding no hostility, Jade circled the crow once before padding over to curl contently around Emily’s ankles.

"Alright, everyone," Emily clapped her hands, herding the excited children back toward the dining area. "Eric just walked all the way from the municipal center. Let him wash up and rest for a bit, okay?"

"Okay, Sister Emily!" the kids chorused, scattering into the kitchen.

After taking a brisk, cold shower to wash away the grime and road dust, Eric headed into the orphanage’s cramped computer alcove. In the dusty corner sat an antique, clunky data terminal, their only piece of functioning electronics, held together by duct tape, cracked plastic casing, and second-hand wiring.

Eric powered up the screen and logged into his newly minted Beast Taming Association account.

*PING.*

A priority notification flashed across his inbox. Attached were two encrypted digital files: the *Awakened Primer & Continental Compendium* and his foundational *Low-tier Mortal Grade Cultivation Manual*.

Eric opened the compendium first, absorbing the structural data with laser focus.

The cultivation hierarchy of this world was formally divided into Nine Major Realms:

THE NINE CULTIVATION REALMS

Mortal Rank

Soldier Rank

Captain Rank

Commander Rank

Master Rank

Grandmaster Rank

King Rank

Emperor Rank

Demigod Rank

With every major breakthrough into a higher realm, a tamer’s spiritual sea underwent a qualitative expansion, unlocking exactly one additional contract slot. At the absolute apex, a Demigod sovereign commanded an unstoppable army of nine high-tier mythical calamities simultaneously.

Scrolling further down, Eric took in the sheer macro-scale of the planet.

The known civilized world was divided across Seven Great Continents, each individual landmass roughly equivalent to the entire surface area of Earth:

* Sumeru

* Zhongyuan

* Hinomoto

* Valoria

* Ferronia

* Aetheris

* Primordia

Riverdale was merely an isolated frontier border-town situated on the outer rim of the Valoria continent. Beyond the fortified territorial borders lay boundless, uncharted wilderness zones and abyssal oceans ruled by catastrophic Demonic Beasts, making human civilization an archipelago of fortress cities clinging to survival.

Having committed the macro-structure to memory, Eric opened the second file: the *Low-tier Mortal Grade Cultivation Manual*.

The text outlined a foundational rhythmic breathing pattern and mana-routing cycle designed to siphon ambient environmental mana through the physical pores and condense it directly into the *Mana Heart*, the arcane organ that formed in the center of the chest upon awakening.

To an ordinary novice, deciphering the manual’s seventy-two meridian junctions took weeks of painstaking trial and error. But with Eric’s [Rank C: Skill Comprehension] working at full capacity, the obscure diagram dissolved into simple, logical arithmetic.

Within forty minutes, the entire circulation loop was fully mapped and memorized in his mind.

*The theory is locked in,* Eric thought, closing the terminal. *Tonight, I start the actual cultivation.*

"Eric! Dinner is getting cold! Come sit down!" Emily’s voice called from the dining room.

"Coming, Sis!"

Before walking out, Eric prepared a shallow clay dish with high-protein grains, mineral dust, and a few drops of dark-essence fluid, setting it beside Coal’s perch near the windowsill. Coal gave a low, appreciative squawk, immediately pecking into the nutrient-dense meal with gusto.

The dinner that followed was the warmest, liveliest meal Sunshine Home had seen in months. The battered wooden table was lined with roasted root vegetables, warm crusty bread, and a hearty pot of savory beef stew Emily had saved for a special occasion. Laughter filled the dining room as the children giggled, taking turns offering bread crumbs to Coal while Jade watched lazily from the floor.

Looking across the table at Emily’s bright smile and the children’s carefree faces, Eric felt a deep, grounding warmth take root in his chest.

In both his past life on Earth and his eighteen years in this realm, he had lived as an abandoned orphan with no roots to claim. But right here, inside this creaking, debt-ridden house, he had something real, a family worth fighting for.

Eric gripped his wooden spoon, his dark eyes hardening with unshakeable resolve.

*Thirty days.*

*No matter what obstacles stand in the way, I will protect this home.*