MTL - Machine Storm - Chapter 74 willful randomness

Anton is a great-grandfather. He is living quite a happy life, despite his advanced age and declining health… until a group of cultivator bandits moves into the area. The nearby guardians of the area, the Order of Ninety-Nine Stars, are unable to track them down as they continue to ravage nearby towns. During one desperate winter Anton is out on a hunt when his family- his entire village- is killed or taken as slaves by the bandits. He lacks the strength to fight them, and he wasn’t even present for their arrival to die with his loved ones. At the pit of his despair, he wonders if he ever had any chance to change things. What could he even do? He cannot even pull his best bow, and his eyesight is failing. If he had been a cultivator… perhaps there might have been a chance, but he was decades- perhaps even most of his life- too late.Participant in the Royal Road Writathon challenge (2022)Notes on cultivation levels:There are five general stages of cultivation, though the fifth is extremely rare. Each cultivation style might have their own name for the stages.1. Body Tempering2. Spirit Building/ occasionally System Creation (Ninety-Nine Stars)3. Constellation Formation (Ninety-Nine Stars)4. Life Transformation/Galaxy Construction (Ninety-Nine Stars)5. Ascension

A Lovecraft- inspired darker, grittier One piece fanfic. A fanfic based on emotion and madness. A fanfic not for the faint hearted.----------------Regret. I have been drowning in it for far too long. I’ve regretted every choice I’ve made, every mistake I’ve carried, every moment of my past. I’ve regretted the present I live, the path I walk. Even my future, uncertain as it may be, has been tainted by regret.But not anymore. I refuse to live under its shadow. Yet, I know the truth—I don’t have the power to escape it completely.Am I not like a flicker of flame? So fragile, so fleeting—one puff, and I’m gone.Regret has burdened me, weighed me down to make me climb the towering wall of greatness. But I press on.It was all I could do. All I ever wanted to do.

Year 24XX. With several hundred years of improvements, virtual reality has become more mature. It had gradually become humanity’s second world. Socializing, working, studying and other everyday things could all be done while sleeping.

Zhang Xing traveled through the realm, with an additional Divine Dragon island in his mind, so he started raising various dragons on the island.

Black Dragon, Golden Dragon, Red Dragon, Blue Dragon, Green Dragon, White Dragon, Magician Dragon, Crystal Dragon …

He also has the attributes of some dragons. Spitting fire and putting a magician arrow are just the most basic skills.

Dragon’s ultimate magician forbids spells and sprays without opening the mouth, without having to read incantation.

Let’s see Zhang Xing lead the group of dragons to single out the whole continent.

- Description from Web