5 years. So much time had passed, and every day of every year always had the same image in front of her since she woke up on the same bed.

Lien Hua was initially a bit shaken by what had happened over the time from when she was just born until now. But like everyone else, Lien Hua also became accustomed to the daily repetitiveness: waking up and following the directions and care of her caretaker. In time, she discovered her caretaker's name was Li Wei, an over 70-year-old man she now called Old Li.

Although initially, during the first year and a half she had observed this man looking after her every day, he had never once spoken to her directly, only muttering to himself about things, this then allowing Lien Hua to at least pick up some of the words of their world. So, out of spite, she began calling him "Dad" but with a slightly sarcastic tone, until he finally relented and told her his name was Li Wei and began to actually speak seldomly to her.

Li Wei had a blanket of white hairs because of old age, which were gathered by a small brown ornament on the nape, and behind it, a tail fell to his mid-back. He dressed in a brown tunic, and a belt of the same colour kept his clothes firm.

His face was studded with wrinkles, more or less deep, which almost swallowed up his grey eyes, eyes that had once attracted as a young man numerous looks of girls to himself. Plus he was a very tall man.

Noticing a quick understanding coming from the child, Li Wei spoke with the girl in his care every day, taught her things, explained everything he could, as he saw a considerable interest from Lien Hua. On the other hand, it was a form of entertainment for the child to extract her from the inevitable daily boredom.

Thus it was in this way that Lien Hua learned the language spoken in that world, a sort of mixture between English and Ancient Chinese, complicated for those who perhaps listened to it for the first time, but understandable for those who, like her, learned it from an early age.

The caretaker's tasks were simple but basic: he woke her up, dressed her, and gave her the usual pill to eat (the same one she ate for the first time when she was in the arms of the boy who found her).

In time, she learned that Li Wei had a family and was married with a son, but his only son had died at the age of 15 because of a fatality caused by his son's own naivety. And for that reason, the caretaker had to flee and abandon everything and everyone he held dear sir to grief. He found refuge in the sect where he was now serving, where he was now helping Lien Hua.

The caretaker tried to name her, but she chanted "Lien Hua, Lien Hua" when she was three years old.

This day the caretaker came to her earlier than expected compared to other mornings. He looked her in the eye intensely. "Lien Hua, you have grown up. The time has come for you to know the basics of this world."

He was struck by how those little eyes stared at him without hesitation, as she hung from his lips, waiting to know what he had to say to her. He understood that he would receive her full attention. 'Lien Hua is not like other children, with how much intelligence she has compared to her peers,' Li Wei thought to himself.

He continued to speak, "We will start with simple things, and gradually we will go onto more and more detailed things. Okay?" The child nodded. "Well, let's start," said Li Wei, "We are in Arcadia; that's what our world is called. And the name Arcadia comes from the First Empress of the Foehn Dynasty, who saved all humankind by bringing them under her protection within the Foehn Empire."

The little girl interrupted him with a question, "But what did humanity have to protect itself from?"

Lin Wei looked at her and replied, "From the Spiritual Beasts. Spiritual Beasts are animals that inhabit this continent called Eltanin. Our Empire is located in the northern part of Eltanin. These beasts absorb spiritual energy and contain it in their bodies to acquire more strength, and the longer they live, the stronger they are."

Lien Hua was confused. "But Old Li, what is spiritual energy?"

The caretaker replied, "Even i don't know what spiritual energy is exactly, but it is everywhere. It has been with us since we were born. It has been in each of us, and it accompanies us to our last breath of life. We can use it, however, only starting from the age of 8 when we present ourselves at the awakening altar. There, all the children are awakened to the spiritual energy present in their bodies, and from that moment on they can absorb the strength around them. And to answer your next question, which I'm sure you'll have in mind, 'Why at exactly 8 years old?', the answer is simple: It is the age where the spiritual energy stops being absorbed automatically, and an awakening is needed to make it reabsorb." After talking, Li Wei finished cleaning up and left Lien Hua's house.

Seeing him go away, Lien Hua realized how much Old Li cared about her wellbeing and education. Although sometimes he could be severe in his ways, she knew that behind that grim look, there was a heart made of gold. He didn't want her to end up as his son had.

After that day, Old Li was providing more and more information to the young girl. He told her where the sect was located (which was in the province of Feros), that after eight years every child would "be awakened" through a ceremony and a martial spirit of a beast would appear from them. After that, an evaluation of each child's talent would be made, which would decree how quickly they could absorb the spiritual strength around them.

The grades of talents ranged from low to mid-low and mid-grade to mid-high grade. After that came talents that in their provinces were not to be found because the province where they lived didn't have enough concentration of spiritual energy to nurture those talents, even though it was a mid-level province.

Like that, a province was graded by their concentration of spiritual energy from low to mid and, lastly, high-grade.

The days passed quickly, and Li Wei gave Lien Hua a mirror, as she had requested of him for so long. It was hard to find an object such as this, that had once been quite common in her old world, but now was so precious.

Looking at her reflection, Lien Hua thanked her parents for giving her her looks, even though her parents were now just a blurred memory in her mind, especially her mother. Mother - a word so distant and inappropriate for her. Because how can you be a mother if you abandon, without reason, a child just come of life? For Lien Hua, there was only Old Li as her relative.

In the reflection of the mirror, the little girl had electric blue eyes and dark blue hair down to the bottom of her back. Those colours surrounded an oval face: delicate, with small lips of light pink colour. The eyes had the cut similar to that of a phoenix, and they stood out against the whiteness of her skin. She was a lovely child.

Thinking in front of the mirror of the things said by Old Li on spiritual energy, Lien Hua, besides being very curious, had concluded that if until 8 years of age the spiritual energy was absorbed directly into the body without problems, why couldn't she stimulate this phenomenon, maybe testing her own body to the extreme so that she could absorb more spiritual energy and become more powerful?

And that's exactly what she did. Lien Hua with her mind full of light novels and animes of her old world, came to this conclusion and decided to follow a very famous training style of a certain anime.

Waking up the next day more excited than ever, the girl immediately burst out of her bed, washed her face with water brought to her by Old Li, and went out of her house.

Outside the sky was still a little dark, and one could still see the two satellites of this planet, one blue and the other purple. Going down the stairs of her house, she turned as soon as she heard the slamming of a door to her left.

Not even a few meters from her, a boy and a girl equal to her in age were fighting. Lien Hua immediately understood who they were and walked towards them to divide the two of them.

"Chen Huang, Lin Yue, will you stop fighting over every single thing?"

The pair who were about to fight were some friends that Lien Hua had made to spend time with in addition to using them a bit as laboratory rats. In fact,  she had come up with the idea of her training by observing the people of this world.

A surprising fact was how much the children raised with the baptism of spiritual energy were much more mature and stronger than normal; even Lien Hua was a resounding example.

The two children she had in front of her were another shocking proof. Although they were both only 5 years old, they could already entertain an intelligent conversation with complete clarity and were already as strong as a young adult.

Over time, however, Lien Hua had grown fond of these two and now treated them more or less as equals as much as she could. The two quarrelers turned around after hearing a familiar voice, and seeing Lien Hua, they justified themselves in unison, "We're not doing anything, Lien Hua."

Looking at them with a slightly crooked eye, the girl with a dazzling smile then began with an argument that immediately caught their attention: "Well then, since you two are so active in the morning, why don't you both accompany me in my new experiment?"

Seeing that smile and the tone of her voice, the two children looked at each other with intrigued expressions that in the future would turn into terrified faces as they accepted the invitation without thinking twice.