As he began walking in the proper direction towards Mist City, many thoughts started to sprout up in his mind such as the fact that he would not have to suppress his overall potential and could actually pursue becoming a dual expert openly which would make getting his revenge a faster possibility. Not just that, but he also thought about changing his name so that he could try to relive his previous life and become a hero with the same name; Timothy.
Pondering over this, he did not realize it but a very soft voice was trying to get his attention. The voice sounded very grumpy but ancient which would surprise anyone who had heard it. Pausing his footsteps, he began to look around but did not see any other living thing around the landscape he was in so he just shrugged his shoulders and kept walking since this area was somewhat close to a bandit camp that possibly had cultivators scouting the area.
"I SAID STOP!" the grumpy but ancient voice sounding as loud and clear as day sounded out within his mind. This impacted Timothy enough to nearly miss the step he was taking to take a big fall. Due to nearly falling down a large mountain pass and losing an entire half a day of effort it took making it this far, Timothy instantly took out his ordinary sword as he looked around in his surroundings to find the person who had done this to him.
"At least you finally are acknowledging that you could hear me now. After merging with your soul itself and fixing your broken veins so that you had a way to cultivate, it was very frustrating trying to get a response from you all of this time over the course of these few weeks. I am glad you were able to make the most out of your newly found lease on life, but seriously you should act at least a bit grateful towards your savior!"
Timothy was now in quite a shock because he still did not see a single living creature around him and now he was visibly shaking from the shock of what this ancient voice actually was. It could have been anything from some heavenly god all the way to a demonic beast who had a skill passed down from many generations that allowed it to blend in with its environment. "Show yourself and maybe I will consider thanking you properly for giving me such gifts."
"Oh, so you are a cheeky one, well it seems that you think I am hiding somewhere in your surroundings, but when I said that I merged with your soul, I meant it so moving forward, unless you reach at least the High God rank in your cultivation, there is no way that you will be able to even plan on attempting to remove me. So how about you kowtow one hundred times for this heavenly treasure but if you are unable to make a big enough hole in the ground, good luck on receiving any more assistance from me in the future."
Things started to connect in Timothy's brain until it asked mentally as if he was thinking it. "So you are actually that little marble that went into the palm of my hand to have disappeared?"
"Little marble you say? I will have you know that having a heavenly ranked artifact which chose to merge with your soul is an opportunity that countless cultivators in this world regardless of cultivation rank would be thrilled about. Yet not only have you asked such a strange question, but you still haven't properly thanked me!"
The ancient and grumpy voice was slowly sounding a little more like a young child, but hearing that the marble was actually a heavenly ranked artifact shocked Timothy to his core as he actually chose to kowtow. There existed many treasures in this world and the least valuable ranked sword was countless times more valuable compared to the basic sword that Timothy currently had which still cost him three gold pieces. But when an artifact was able to reach the heavenly ranked level, the artifact was able to develop its own soul!
"Very good, since you have kowtowed and showed your respect towards your savior, I will bestow you a story about the life I have lived up until this point. You better pay attention or I will have you punished for your insolence!"
"After being created by my original owner, I have always had my own soul which goes to show just how formidable of an existence my original owner was. After being by his side for ten thousand years, a big war had broken out and he chose to partake in it. Something about saving the countless worlds in this universe and how if he did not act, all of existence would have died out."
"So anyways, he of course fell in battle because he just had to go for the general of the big army's head right off the bat without letting anyone else know who was on his side. Sure, he was able to kill the general but when you are surrounded by tens of trillions of peerless demons who could all devour entire small planets and you used all of your strength to kill a single one, what did he think would happen?"
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------The artifact's tone towards its original owner sounded very adorable even though just knowing it was with its first owner for over ten thousand years was indeed shocking to Timothy who in his previous life thought that it would be a miracle to die of old age at the age of one hundred and twenty. Just how many lifetimes would he have to be reincarnated into to match the amount of experience this artifact already had and this was just the beginning of its story!
"So yeah, one after another cultivators would come across me and I would offer them some assistance since my original owner had taught me so much about every subject that you could think of and then some. But these cultivators would all be evil or at the very least become evil due to just so many different sets of circumstances. It was like my original owner created me for the purpose of serving evil and I hated it!"
"It has been nearly two million years but your father, as weak as he was, picked me up but I was absolutely not willing to aid him since he was not pure of heart so I kept quiet and to myself until you had the bright idea to give up on life itself and poison yourself. Seeing you do that was rather heartbreaking to me even though I do not have a heart, but instead of dying, a light that only the heavens could produce shone down on your body and you slowly opened your eyes. Now, I have seen almost everything but that was definitely a first and that is why I have decided to help you out even though you started your cultivation journey as a literal cripple who was unable to cultivate."
"Since you are clearly not showing a hint of evil even in the deepest depths of your soul, I have decided to aid you moving forward in a way to write my wrongs since I have probably been cursed countless times due to aiding so many evil existences that would put even a Demon God to shame when standing next to them."
"However, it was just your luck that I knew how to completely fix those veins in your body using the strange existence of fire type energy that was imprinted on your soul. There is no telling how much you have lost since leaving that small insignificant so called sect, but the value you have obtained just by having me by your side is worth more than billions of generations of that sect could produce even if countless geniuses were born within their walls!"
"Well, this is where the bad news begins to set in. Majority of my energy I had stored up was used to repair your veins in order to give you a chance to walk the path as a cultivator so although I have many uses being the type of artifact that I am, you will still be unable to fully use me even if I let you being as weak as you currently are for quite some time. Still, just listen to everything I tell you to do and before you know it, you will become an immortal and we can begin the process of making you a peerless expert under the heavens!"
"When you say becoming an immortal would be the beginning of becoming a peerless expert, what did you mean by that?" Timothy now filled with many questions but figured he would ask this one first since this was the first he heard that the peak was obtaining immortality.
"When the time comes, you will understand a little bit more but right now you have to consider yourself incredibly lucky that I made the choice that I have made since you are still at an age where surpassing your peers is still a possibility. If I felt that I should do it but it took me four more years from now, forget about me repairing your veins, I would more than likely not even talk to you. You are at the perfect age to have a late start at cultivating but you had better be ready for my hellish training because from this point forward, you will be playing a game of catch up!"
