(MC POV)
Within a secret underground city, hidden far beneath the surface where no one would ever think to look, I was sitting on a throne, looking at the shinobi who were kneeling before me. Yeah, for a mortal, I had built a powerful force over the years. Take the leader of these ninjas, for example—she had been a slave whom I bought when she was at her lowest, broken and used up by the world.
She had been a sex toy for people, passed around and treated as property, but I gave her a new meaning to life. I gave her power, resources, and a purpose, and in return, she became loyal to me in a way that money could never buy.
I had always brought in slaves and taken in homeless people since I was a child, searching through the ones society had thrown away for hidden talent… and she had been a gold mine.
She was a genius—the kind of talent that only comes around once in a generation—and with my resources backing her, she had been able to grow stronger at a pace that left even established cultivators stunned.
I had former prisoners among my loyal followers too, people who had rotted in cells for years before I pulled them out and gave them something worth fighting for. And that wasn't even adding the paid mercenaries who filled out the ranks, professionals who would do anything for the right price.
They were all equipped with armor as well—armor I had designed using the concept of Iron Man's suit from my past life. I had drawn up the blueprints myself, but before any of that could become reality, I first had to bring the concept of electricity-powered devices into this world. That part I kept top secret; the fewer people who understood the foundation, the harder it would be for anyone to replicate what I had built.
I started with the lightbulb. Just a simple device powered by electricity… and even that had been brutally hard. I had to use memory-enhancing treasures to help me recall everything from my time in school—every half-forgotten physics lesson, every diagram I had barely paid attention to—just to piece together how it worked. But from there, I built it. And once I had that foundation, I went on to create a microwave, and then other devices, each one building on the last.
From that point on, everything fell into place. This was a cultivation world, after all. Recreating the armor itself was the easy part—cultivators could forge materials and shape metal in ways that would have taken factories back on Earth.
What made things genuinely difficult was the requirement that the armor run purely on electricity, without relying on any cultivation-based power systems. But cultivators were smart when properly motivated, and the engineer I had assigned to the project cracked the solution in only a year before going on to fuse that electrical framework with the cultivation world's existing capabilities.
"My lord… we can't let you out of our sight again." The leader of the shinobi said, her tone firm, while the others behind her nodded in agreement.
"In the past, you would have been nearly killed after a few days with a girl. But as of late, every one-night stand leaves you closer to death than the last. This was the most dangerous one yet." She said, looking at me with an uneasy expression.
She wasn't exaggerating. I, at times, would end up stabbed through the chest by an ex, or by someone who caught me with another girl and flew into a rage over me moving on too fast. This was exactly why I didn't do dating. I couldn't be with someone without nearly getting killed for it.
And other times, I would find out that the girl I was with had lied about being single, and the next thing I knew, her husband or lover was kicking down the door trying to end my life.
(3rd Person POV)
Normally, it took days before Ethan's one-night stands turned life-threatening… so why had it taken only 24 hours before he nearly died at Rosa's hands? Ethan had dangerously high charisma—he had gotten an elf, a race that openly looked down on humans as lesser beings, to sleep with him in less than an hour. Who in this world could rival that?
Ethan had even slept with a Demi God… yes, a Demi God. A mortal bedding a being at the peak of this world's power. Honestly, Ethan was one of a kind. But as one could imagine, Ethan was now hiding from her too.
The truth was, Ethan had no interest in marriage. He was the type who wanted a one-night stand and nothing more—no strings, no commitments, no morning-after conversations about the future. He liked his freedom, he enjoyed sex, but he hated the responsibility that came after it.
"Don't worry about it. Instead, I came today because I found out why you're all so weak without the armor." Ethan said with a smile, and the shinobi before him went still, stunned by his words.
"There aren't 7 levels in Martial Disciple, but 12. Looks like that knowledge has been deliberately hidden from the public. So, let's have you all recultivate from the ground up. I even got you guys new treasures to work with." Ethan said with a smile while rising from the throne.
"I will give you all a cultivation art," Ethan said, snapping his fingers. Instantly, every shinobi in the room froze as they felt a cultivation art flood into their minds. It was called The God of Shinobi Cultivation Art, and it was unlike anything they had ever encountered.
This cultivation art would grant them unique eyes called Sharingan, the power to create thousands of clones, and a host of other abilities that shouldn't have been possible for people at their level. They stared at Ethan in silence, processing what they had just received.
They had always believed that Ethan was an immortal playing mortal. He tried to act like he wasn't, but they had seen through his act long ago… so they weren't shocked by what he had just done. Just grateful. Grateful that they had passed whatever test he had set for them and that he had deemed them worthy of something like this.
"Well, remember to cultivate from nothing once more," Ethan said while snapping his fingers again. To the side of the room, a door materialized out of thin air. It was connected to nothing—no wall, no frame—just a freestanding door that stood upright on its own.
"Go in and cultivate. Feel free to use all of the resources you find inside." Ethan said with a smile.
"But your protection." The head shinobi said with unease, her brow creasing.
"Don't worry. One day out here is equal to one year inside. So, to me, it would just be 24 hours. I believe I can survive 24 hours—even less if you regain your strength fast… I can take care of myself for that long. Plus, I have my armor." Ethan said, to which she frowned, clearly not satisfied with that answer.
"Will you stay here?" She asked with unease, and Ethan rolled his eyes.
"Of course. I promise, I will not leave," Ethan said with an amused smile. With that, the group of shinobi nodded and rose to their feet, heading toward the door one by one. They could sense the dimension waiting on the other side—vast, rich with energy, and filled with resources they had never had access to before. le?
As they filed through the door and disappeared inside to cultivate, Ethan shifted his attention to his own training. Honestly, he didn't even need to actively cultivate anymore. He was self-sustaining, meaning even if he never sat down to cultivate a single day in his life, his strength would continue to grow on its own. He didn't need the heavens, didn't need spiritual energy, didn't need external sources of power feeding into him.
Right now, he could cut himself off from everything—every energy source, every resource, every treasure—and his strength would still keep climbing, albeit at a slow rate, until he reached Level 144 Martial Disciple. That was the ceiling for now. But that limit could be removed the moment he comprehended the next stage of his cultivation technique.