Re: Tales of the Rune-Tech Sage

Chapter 215: History of Human Cultivation

CH215 History of Human Cultivation

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Back with the main force of Exercitus Alexii, Alex sat quietly as reports from the Vanguard were read aloud to him and the four Regiment Commanders.

It felt surreal.

The Vanguard was already clashing with Class 3 and even Class 4 Wildkin this far away from the City of Werth.

What struck Alex even harder was how neither the Regiment Commanders nor the scouts delivering the reports seemed surprised. They accepted the information with calm professionalism, as though such strength from the Wildkin was nothing out of the ordinary.

It was clearly the norm.

’In a way, this explains the strength of the Fury Army,’ Alex thought.

The Fury Army’s baseline strength was already high. Ordinary divisions often fielded mid to late Intermediate soldiers as their weakest troops. For the elite divisions and legions, especially those under the direct command of the Family Head, or those tasked with special operations like Jared’s Knight Brigade and the Exercitus Alexii, the standard was pushed even higher—the benchmark there was Elite rank.

The reason was obvious; the Wildkin were simply that strong.

The nature of Wildkin meant that, particularly among the stronger races—such as the Orcs and the Mantisari—any individual below Elite rank wasn’t even considered worthy of being a soldier.

Thus, in order to face them, the Fury Army had to maintain the same standard. Its troops could not afford to fall behind the enemy’s strength.

This was no small achievement, because in truth, humanity wasn’t naturally as gifted as the Wildkin—or any other race, for that matter.

Some would even argue that goblins were more gifted than humans, if only because goblins could evolve into stronger forms with relative ease, while humans had no such luxury.

Over the past few days since the operation began, Alex had been given a front-row seat to the challenges the Fury family dealt with as if they were ordinary. Alongside this, his ongoing work on the Voidheart core and his growing fascination with energy in its many metaphysical forms had led him to study humanity’s cultivation methods more deeply.

The deeper he delved, the more curious he became.

He found himself recalling the books he had read back at the DragonHold Enclave. His eidetic memory allowed him to summon them perfectly, but even so, there was a catch.

A drawback of his Truth-Seeker eyes’ ability was that while they allowed him to remember everything with absolute clarity, they did not mean he comprehended everything. Much of what he had ”stored” was raw data, unprocessed information piled up inside the memory palace of his mind. He could not truly be said to know everything he had seen, because most of it remained untouched.

Now, with his growing interest in cultivation, Alex had to sift through that memory palace—retrieve the fragments related to the topic, process them carefully, and convert them into actual knowledge.

To be fair, this wasn’t entirely a flaw. It was a form of self-protection. After all, the brain could only handle so much information at once.

As Alex began piecing together his memories, his own accumulated insights on cultivation, and even the fragments of knowledge from the novels of his previous life, he started to form his own conclusions.

Slowly but surely, new perspectives on humanity’s cultivation methods began to form in his mind.

Like in most stories, humanity in the World of Pangea had not always been naturally gifted in cultivating energy or its metaphysical properties. Unlike Elves, Dwarves, Dragons, or even the Wildkin, humans had once been utterly powerless.

There was a time—a dark time—when humans were nothing more than weak, fragile beings, livestock even, to many of the stronger races, particularly the beastly non-humanoids.

Other than their relatively faster rate of reproduction compared to most powerful races—save for exceptions like the goblins—humanity had nothing else of advantage.

They lacked the powerful, indestructible bodies of Titans and Dwarves. They weren’t the beloved children of the world like the Elves, nor were they favored by Mana itself like the Dragons.

Simply put, humanity had no talent for cultivation.

So then... how had humanity rise to where it stood today?

That was a long debated question of controvesy.

Optimistic scholars claimed it was through sheer luck. Pessimistic, disillusioned scholars argued that it had been through trickery, cunning, and ruthlessness.

The stories varied, but Alex had learned to classify the origins of cultivation among humans into the usual suspects:

The discovery of some hidden treasure.

Meeting, earning the favor of or mating with members of powerful races.

Stumbling upon the corpse of a powerful monster and consuming its flesh to temper the body.

Whether through fortune or through darker means, almost all accounts of the first human cultivators fell into one of these categories.

From that point forward, their descendants inherited the talent for cultivation.

At first glance, this might have seemed like the dawn of humanity’s golden age. And in a way, it was... but at the same time, it wasn’t.

Why? The answer was simple: natural selection.

When the number of cultivators among humans reached a critical mass, human nature revealed itself. Those with power naturally sought dominance.

The result was a bloodbath.

The strong slaughtered the weak, carving out their authority and prestige. Soon, cultivators had established themselves as overlords among humanity.

And the ordinary people? They bent the knee. Many willingly sold themselves to the powerful, offering their children—sons and daughters alike—in hopes of birthing offspring with cultivation talent.

Cultivators lived in luxury and decadence, indulging their greed and lust, while ordinary families bartered away their progeny to secure a future for their descendants. Those who refused were simply wiped out and those who complied were spared.

Under this ruthless system, the number of cultivators among humans grew explosively—right under the noses of the great races.

To beings like the Elder Dragons, this rise happened in the blink of an eye, no more than a short nap in their endless lifespans. Yet in that brief span, humanity’s cultivators had multiplied to such a degree that the species could finally defend itself.

The powerful races were startled by humanity’s sudden rise. But to them, it was little more than a ripple. Humanity was simply another race that had earned the right to cultivate in a vast pond already filled with predators alike.

They believed humanity would make nothing more than a splash.

But they were wrong.

They failed to recognize human cunning. They failed to see the danger hidden beneath their own arrogance. And most of all, they failed to account for the relentless drive born of humanity’s lust for power.

***