Hi chapter two!

Chapter 2 Cultivation

Chapter 2

" 'key let's go, we still have to get the reports done today."

After this small 'accident' Dan and Jake didn't bother staying and watch the cleaning of the corpses in the streets. They just turned around and left, leaving all the work to the other men of Emperor's Rule.

"This is the third right?"

"So, three more to go."

….

"Jake?"

Dan suddenly asked.

"Hm?"

"How long?"

"?"

Jake didn't understand what Dan meant.

"How long till you reach the peak of level three?"

Dan's eyes were serious as he looked over to Jake. The other only sighed.

"Instantly getting serious, hmm. "

….

Two months, in two months I should reach the peak. After this I will need half a year to prepare and then I can attempt the soul stage."

They were speaking about cultivation. One of the big advantages humanity had over the other races. Cultivation was the art of training one’s body through martial arts and surpassing the boundaries of human beings. It is wide spread amongst the human nations and almost every young boy is send to a cultivation school to learn a martial art and a cultivation technique to train with.

These techniques contain particular sets of movements that, once executed, had the ability to train a human body and even change the DNA of one’s cells. No one knew how it worked, but somehow it could optimize the human genetics and even change parts of it.

Of course there were different cultivation techniques with different paces in cultivation and even side effects that could appear with cultivation. These side effects were called initiate skills and only belonged to the specific cultivation technique. Generally the cultivation techniques with faster cultivation paces would also have a initiate skill and were considered superior to other cultivation techniques without initiate skills.

Because of this cultivation techniques were separated into superior and average grade, depending on the speed that it allowed to cultivate with and the initiate skill it could provide.

Also while cultivating, humans would reach certain stages that would represent a certain degree of powers and training. First there was the body stage with it's three levels. Body stage level one was the stage most people who only occasionally cultivate in their free time were at.

They were already almost two times as powerful as a person who did not cultivate and they would be much healthier in their later years.

Body stage level two was already rare. Only people that had quite a bit of talent and had trained for more than thrice a week could reach this stage. They were four times as strong as a person who did not cultivate and two times as strong as a cultivator on the first level. Also they could easily live over a hundred years and live a healthy life.

Body stage level three was already a level only talented people could dream to reach. There were only about 10000 of them in the whole entirety of the EU and only about a million in the whole world. They were eight times as strong as a normal person and would live over 120 years at least.

People at this level would certainly be scouted by the government and invited into the army getting good positions and a lot of money. Compared with normal citizens they were already the upper three percent.

This was the level of Jake and Dan. In the whole city of Surn it was the absolute peak, the highest level experts that had ever appeared here. Altogether there were only about ten to twelve of them in the city and each was an extreme expert that could easily create a own fraction.

Of course there were much stronger experts in bigger cities and nations, but in this relatively big city this was the peak of all.

After the body stage is the soul stage.

It is only one step from body stage level three to soul stage level one, but the difference was bigger than heaven and earth. This was because only 100 individuals in the whole EU with it's more than one billion citizens were at this level.

Cultivators at the first soul stage level were 20 times as strong as a normal person would most certainly live over 200 years and were highly sought after.

Once found by the government they would get exceedingly high positions and huge amounts of money. They’re what are considered as top class soldiers in the world.

Above that came the level two soul stage that was 50 times as powerful as a human and live about 300 hundred years. There were only three individuals in the world that had reached this degree yet and they represented one of the countries strongest weapons giving them a huge support.

As for level three soul stage and above up until now there had been no one reaching that level yet.

"How long till you reach soul stage?"

Jake suddenly asked back.

"Guess it will be about two months."

"…. you… are really insane."

"Yep I am."

Seeing that Jake stared at him Dan could only smile.

There were two reasons why someone like Jake, a level three expert would follow him. After all Jake himself was more than powerful enough to create an own powerful faction, by only depending on his own personal power!

The first reason was that both Jake and Dan knew each other for about six years now and had long since become best friends with each other, unwilling to fight each other. If both created their own factions there would be no other way, but to fight each other till death and there was no way they would want to do this.

But the second reason was actually much more important. It was really simple….

Dan was simply stronger then Jake!

Not only had Dan already reached the apex of the level, having a stronger cultivation then Jake, he also possessed something that made him much stronger than an average level three expert:

an initiate skill!

His cultivation technique was actually a superior one and provided Dan with an initial skill that made him stronger then a normal level three expert. After all superior cultivation techniques were rare and their preciousness made it impossible to simply buy one for money.

It was this initiate skill that placed Dan above the other level three experts and made him one of the most powerful people in the city!

_____________________________

Three hours later Dan and Jake entered a slightly bigger house in another district. Passing two guards equipped with guns at the entrance that respectful saluted to them, they walked through a hallway and a staircase and finally reached a single, red door.

Another guard that looked like some bodybuilder opened the door and Dan and Jake entered a spacious room. It had three windows leading to the back yard of the building that filled the room with the sunlight of the afternoon sun. In the middle of the room was one long, skillfully decorated table with twelve chairs placed around it.

Ten men were already sitting around the table and stood up as soon as Dan and Jake entered. The majority was between 20 and 20 years old with only two of them more then 40 years old. Many of them had scars going through their faces and each of them had a cold calmness to them as they all stood and looked towards Dan.

The later could only grin.

"Sit down you bad Hollywood actors. If you really were this respectful to me all the time I would have to fucking beat up one of you every week to show you who is the boss."

For a moment silence spread through the room. Then laughter started to break out. The formerly serious and disciplined men fell back into their seats and laughed.

"Fuck this….. Dan every time we try to make a good impression on the guys outside and make a better impression on them you have to do things like this! How do you expect us to be professional and be respected by our men if you keep making entrances like this?"

One of the younger men sitting close to the head of the table said while suppressing his smile.

Dan just shook his head as he took his place at the head of the table, Jake sitting down next to him.

"Ok stop already, I know it's hard, but let's get over this dry talk as soon as possible and start having fun."

The atmosphere turned serious again and the laughter stopped after a few more seconds. The members sitting inside of the room looked towards Dan expecting him to start the meeting. The 10 men in this room were the core of Dan's Emperor’s Rule Faction and each of them was extremely loyal to him.

The things discussed in meetings with them present were all important and had enormous influence on the faction and the whole city

"Ok guys, this is the third district in Surn, our Emperor's Rule Faction has taken over up till now. Out of our five hundred men we have lost three and a few more are currently unable to fight. They South district we have taken over is calm right now.

What's the situation in the North and Outer district?"

The city Dan was living in was called Surn, a city located on the edge between the European Union, the Arabian alliance and the eastern territories occupied by the 'Others'. Because of it’s closeness to the front lines it had been abandoned by the government of the EU and became lawless, a place where many faction fought for the control over it.

Because of these fights, the city had been divided into different districts that were occupied by different powers. There was the outer district encompassing the entire suburbs and the smaller settlement close to the city. It had the biggest area, but also represented the smallest part of the city’s population.

The rest of the city that was surrounded by the outer district was split into five smaller districts of whom each had about the same size and population. The north, the east, the west, the south and the central district. These were the areas where the biggest part of the population and the biggest business was located and also the areas that had the most frequent fights.

Each faction in the city tried to get the control over one of the inner districts and get money from the business there, but most could only hold themselves for a short time before getting killed by another faction or alliance of multiple factions that felt threatened by the other.

Because of this the balance of power inside of the city was constantly shifting while the outer district was mostly stable due to it's unpopularity. And this was why Dan had chosen it as it's base. He had started out in the outer districts, building up his own troops and taking control over it. Slowly he had accumulated more and more troops and as he was a powerful cultivator many powerful experts were willing to follow him, boosting his power in a short time.

In just one year he had become the unshakable overlord over the outer district with a force of over five hundred men and a lot of powerful experts within his troops.

Comparing to other factions they only managed to control their districts in the inner city for a few weeks. He had more than three times their numbers and fighting potential.

Of course he wasn't contended only with the outer district. One year after he had emerged and taken over the outer district he attacked the northern district eliminating the Green Scorpion faction that had the control over it and also taken ruler over his second district.

And now, three months later he had also taken over the south district now controlling the outer district as well as two of the inner districts, becoming the faction with the most districts in the city.

Of course this was bound to attract the attention of the other two factions that remained within the city. The Death Crown Faction controlling the west district and the Kings Sanctuary controlling the eastern and central district. Especially the Kings Sanctuary that had been the strongest faction in the city up till now would surely feel threatened by the newly emerged super faction that had one more district than them.

Also there weren't only the big factions controlling districts. Within the inhabitants of the districts there were many small scaled gangs and factions that were too weak to take over a district and kept in the shadows, but even though they were weak, most of the factions that had control over a district had started off as one of these small gangs and only grown over time to reach their current strength.

Each faction with control over a district had to constantly keep an eye on these small factions and suppress them from early on to prevent any trouble.

This was why Dan asked about the situation in the two districts that had already been under his control for some time. After all looking at how often the rulers of a district changed it was obvious that this suppression wasn't perfect.

After hearing Dan's question one of the two men who were over 40 stood up. He had short brown beard and wore a tidy black suit. All in all he didn't really look like a fighter, but rather like someone that was used to give orders.

And this image was mostly correct. This elderly man was the person Dan had handled the management of the outer and northern district

"Dan, the outer district is fine, they have been under our control for quite some time and as you have been a good ruler, most people over there like you and support you. The probability that someone will start making trouble over there is almost nil. Of course in case we still have men located over there to keep things under control and avoid any unnecessary trouble.

As for the northern district, there have been a few small gangs trying to make trouble, but we have more than a hundred men over there and three level two body stage experts are positioned there. The trouble was quickly taken care of and for now it doesn't seem that there will be any new guys trying their out their luck."

Having made his report the man sat down again.

"Thank you Rean."

Having heard the report Dan turned to another man, a young man with blonde hair and an annoying happy face.

"Mike, what’s with the Kings Sanctuary in the central and western district and the death crown in the eastern?"

Mike also stood up his hair swirling around him.

"Well, Death crown is in chaos at the moment, their leader has died a few days ago and now there are multiple guys with quite a bit of influence trying to take over his place. Let's be blunt, the death crown faction is destroying itself right now. They are no threat to us and in fact we should take this chance and take over the east district from them before the Kings Sanctuary does it.

As for the later, as you might guess they are preparing to attack the east district and get even with us. But other than this they seem to have trouble in their own territories, it seems that some smaller factions have banded together and creates trouble for them."

With this his report was also made and he also sat down. Dan closed his eyes for a moment.

"Well, if this is all….."

The men nodded.

"I can finally get home and calm my sister…….."

Everyone Nodded.

"Good luck boss."

"Hope you survive, we will have a hard time without you!"

____________________________________

"These bastards!"

Complaining Dan looked back on the headquarters of Emperor's Rule. He couldn't believe that these guys were this heartless. After all it was….

his sister!!!!