Lord Ice Moon POV
I looked over the window as I pondered what had happened today.
The night sky was as pretty as always, the stars were flashing with bright light, and the moon was also quite pretty.
It was an ideal night to spend with your loved ones.
Heh… loved ones.
Did I ever had loved ones in my life?
Always so concentrated into growing stronger… I never thought about it.
I had completely lost myself on my own purposes in life, I had completely lost myself in power.
I just wanted power and more power. I was obsessed with it.
Any women to me were an annoyance.
I had many chances to get a woman to love, but the only thing I decided to do was to grow stronger.
I hunted monsters, refined their mana cores, and continued to slowly cultivate using their cultivation hastening potions, pills, and the like.
All for my obsession with growing stronger.
All of it so I could make my own sect too. I only made it when I was already Rank 3… people naturally began to gather around the dungeons where I settled down a base. And things scaled into them asking to become my servants.
Slowly, as I grew up, these people developed around me and multiplied.
Without realizing it, a small town was created, then a small village, then… a small city.
And all of it centered around me, a former outcast.
I was once part of a family of hunters in a small village.
I didn't have anything other than my hands and my magic to survive with my family, we hunted bears, wolves, and we eat them to survive. We even had chickens and buffalos, and we used them for milk, eggs, and cheese.
It was a simple life of surviving another day without looking too far into the future. But I guess even that can change abruptly.
My family died one day when I was out.
When I came back, my entire village was burnt to ashes…
I didn't know what had happened. I didn't know who even did it.
There were some scrap metals left, the only clue, and even up until now, I've only made up a faint idea that the one behind it might be the one capable of suing this scrap metal and create terrifying beings, living golems made of technology of ancient times, robots.
And this man was no one else than this detestable knife ears.
But at that time, I never knew what happened.
I only had sorrow as I saw my family burned to the ground for no reason.
I didn't even know why this even happened.
I was the only survivor because I was out two days chasing a big Wild Freeze Boar, a rare monster that has very tasty meat.
I came back with it thinking we could have a feast together. My family for me was everything.
I suppose I obsessed myself with the idea of growing stronger after that because my heart was broken.
I made of my own purpose to grow stronger and surpass my limits.
To keep crawling up and grow stronger and stronger.
Wilder beasts, strongest monsters… and a few manuals were what made me into a Rank 3 in the middle of nowhere. I didn't even receive the help that the Elders here had. I raised with my own bloody hands.
And yet, even as strong as I was back then, I felt hollow inside.
Was the only purpose of my life to grow stronger?
I wondered that quite late.
People began to gather around me and well, I already said it before, and the rest is history.
I am here now, after becoming Rank 4… I became a sect master, and even meet even stronger sect masters before, people with such strength that our difference in power was like that of heaven and earth.
I even met immortals, who took care of such sects.
To them, my sect was nothing but a little town of poor people that had been gathering together just to live on another day.
We had no talents, and we were mostly just trash to them.
They added us into the alliance of righteous sects out of pity, mostly.
I grew so strong yet here I am, wondering why I never loved anyone, why I never built something for my own good… and I mean it.
A family.
Why did I never do it?
I never considered it until now, the only thing I cared for was being strong, growing stronger, and becoming even stronger… I was a hopeless idiot man.
A hopeless fool.
Now I look at Drake. He has a big sect of talented members of all races.
They all cooperate together and are so close with one another… not like my own sect which I never put effort into making the people unified.
They were all cheering for one another.
Seeing them shocked me, it was like seeing one big family.
He was strong too. Perhaps he was Rank 3 still, but the amount of strength he had to defeat another Rank 3 so easily… he was probably already about to become Rank 4.
A man who had almost reached the same level as I as accomplished so much more.
And he also seemed so humble at times…
The thing that baffled me to most was that he had a wife that he loved. And his wife was just as strong as him.
I felt envy… I also wanted such a family, such a life…
I had been walking alone my entire life and now I regret it so much.
I've been stuck as Rank 4 for almost 70 years, cultivation is hard and slow… I wish I could have a companion with me to make it less frustrating and boring.
We were humiliated by him too… all our sect members lost to them, even his children were so talented…
I felt completely devastated.
And to humiliate us even further, the reward he asked us was… to become their friends.
Drake…
Perhaps I misunderstood you.
Maybe… we could really be friends.
