Volume One: Stranded on a Deserted Island

Chapter 1: Stranded on a Deserted Island

James Carter woke up.

He struggled to open his eyes, his fingers twitching, and found himself clutching a broken wooden plank, lying on a cold, damp sandy beach. His cheeks were covered in fine, wet gravel, stinging painfully.

A gust of wind and waves swept in, instantly stirring up whitecaps on the sea. The icy seawater crashed over him again and again, the briny wind and water slapping his face, filling his nose with a bitter, fishy smell.

He felt as if his body had been shattered, his limbs weak, every part of him aching. He had no idea how long he’d been lying on this beach before regaining consciousness.

“Cough—!”

James Carter choked on a few mouthfuls of salty, fishy seawater and suddenly began to cough violently, a searing pain tearing through his chest as if it were on fire.

He let go of the broken plank he’d been clutching, and, exhausted and sore, forced himself to sit up on the sand. His coarse martial artist’s tunic was soaked and clung to his body, cold and uncomfortable.

James Carter looked around in confusion.

Before him was a strange crescent-shaped bay, the beach covered in fine white sand, scattered with small shells and conchs.

The empty beach was deserted, eerily silent.

This was clearly an island. In the center, there seemed to be a stretch of rolling hills, all covered in towering ancient trees, wild and uninhabited.

In the distance was the boundless blue sea. The sky was a clear blue, not a cloud in sight, the waves calm. A few seabirds flew low, hunting for fish. As evening approached, the golden afterglow of the setting sun cast a mysterious veil over the undulating sea.

“I should have been on a large sea vessel. How did I end up unconscious on this deserted island...?”

James Carter shook his heavy head, trying to clear his mind and recall what had happened before.

After a while, he remembered the whole sequence of events that had left him stranded on this island.

He was the son of a commoner family in the royal city of the Martial Kingdom, eighteen years old, an utterly unknown and ordinary martial artist. His father had been a regular soldier in the Martial Kingdom’s army, killed in years of war. After his father’s death, his mother fell ill from overwork and passed away in grief.

Like many nameless martial artists in the Martial Kingdom, James Carter’s earliest dreams were a bit mundane: he hoped to become a promising court martial officer, buy a grand mansion in the royal city, ride fine horses in splendid clothes, and if he could marry a beautiful wife, that would be the height of happiness.

But achieving such a dream was easier said than done.

Ordinary martial artists were everywhere in the Martial Kingdom.

To become a court martial officer, one needed advanced martial skills, high-level cultivation techniques, and a large amount of body-tempering herbs to strengthen the body and blood. All of these required money—a lot of money.

A martial artist trained in advanced techniques could easily defeat several ordinary martial artists.

But James Carter had none of these.

He was just a martial artist from a humble family in the royal city. He didn’t even have decent body-tempering herbs, let alone a proper intermediate martial arts manual.

The technique he practiced, “Wave-Slaying Art,” was nothing more than a low-level martial arts manual.

Moreover, all the power in the Martial Kingdom’s court was held by officials and noble families. Every position was already filled by their direct descendants, who alone had the chance to become court martial officers. Even the lowest military ranks had long been divided among the various clans.

For a commoner martial artist like him, the future in the Martial Kingdom was bleak.

James Carter’s pitiful, mundane dreams were nothing but daydreams, hopelessly out of reach. The gulf between his dreams and harsh reality tore his poor heart in two.

A month ago, a group of sea merchants from Donglai Kingdom arrived in the royal city. They hired storytellers to loudly proclaim that there were spirit islands in the Eastern Sea, with immortal villages inhabited by many cultivators. The immortal villages were said to have pavilions built of jade, miraculous elixirs that could cure all diseases, and grant immortality.

The storytellers embellished the tales of the sea immortals’ wonders.

“Legend has it that on the spirit islands of the Eastern Sea, there are immortal villages shrouded in mist all year round, with spiritual peaks piercing the clouds. Immortals living there are often seen flitting through the fog, elusive and ethereal.”

“As long as you follow the sea merchants out to sea and find the immortal village, you’ll have a chance to become a disciple of the immortals, learn their great powers, and become an immortal yourself.”

“The disciples of immortals live in palatial halls, practice magical arts, ride flying swords through the skies, soar across the nine heavens, and ride spirit cranes over the sea!”