Death Cultivator by eden Hudson (best books to read .TXT) 📕

almost there. Everybody on the platform rushed forward so they could be the first on the train. Warcry shoved his way to the front, then jerked his head at us to come on. Rali broke off the conversation he’d been having with an old blind beggar and steered Kest, who had her nose buried in her schematics again, through the crowd to join the redhead. I squeezed through the crush of people and stepped up beside them.

The bullet train’s brakes screeched as it pulled to a stop in the station. The doors rolled open and the crowd flowed around me into the car. My friends disappeared inside, but I just stood there, staring at the threshold. Just like with the transport shuttle that first day on Van Diemann, I got this weird feeling that if I stepped onto the train, I’d be taking a step I could never take back.

Maybe that wasn’t such a bad thing, though. At the end of every kung fu movie I could remember, there was some sort of return that made the whole thing feel like it had come full circle. Going back to the village to restore the holy treasure to its rightful place, coming back to your village with your family’s honor reinstated, standing triumphant in the same place where you got the beatdown at the beginning, master of the art you couldn’t figure out before.

Except I wasn’t the master of anything, and instead of going back home, I was headed somewhere I’d never been before with no idea what was in store. But then maybe this was just the beginning of the movie.

Warcry stuck his upper body out a window halfway down the car. “What’re ya doing, grav? Let’s go already!”

“We saved you a seat,” Rali called, leaning out, too.

“Yeah, yeah, I’m coming!” I grinned and hopped the train to Bogland.

Books, Mailing List, and Reviews

IF YOU LOVED Death Cultivator and would like stay in the loop about the latest book releases, promotional deals, and upcoming book giveaways be sure to subscribe to the Shadow Alley Press mailing list: Shadow Alley Press Mailing List. Sign up now and get a free copy of our bestselling anthology, Viridian Gate Online: Side Quests! Your email address will never be shared and you can unsubscribe at any time. You can also connect with us on our Facebook Fan Page: Shadow Alley Press.

You can find even more books and awesome recommendations over on our Facebook Group Page, Fantasy Nation! Home to the best Epic, Urban, and LitRPG Fantasy around!

Word-of-mouth and book reviews are crazy helpful for the success of any writer—or in, in our case, Publishing Company. If you really enjoyed reading about Hake and his adventures, please consider leaving a short, honest review—just a couple of lines about your overall reading experience. You can click here to leave a review at Amazon, and thank you in advance: Death Cultivator.

Looking for more awesome cultivation, and need it right this minute? Check out: Hollow Core (School of Swords and Serpents Book 1). Or keep reading to take a sneak peek.

JACE WARIN NEVER WANTED anything more than to attend the School of Swords and Serpents to escape the labor camps and restore his family's stained honor.

But the determined young martial artist soon discovers the school he's always dreamed about is teeming with secret plots and sinister designs. To survive, he will have to master long-lost jinsei techniques, repair his wounded soul, and face down a most unexpected enemy: The Academy's ruthless headmaster and cunning professors.

Hollow Core is the first book in the School of Swords and Serpents series, a tale of wuxia adventure, cultivation mastery, and lurking threats.

Chapter One: The Champion

THE APPEARANCE OF A full-fledged member of the Resplendent Suns in the arena had whipped the crowd into a frenzy. He was larger than life, a mountain of a young man with channels so filled with jinsei that his blond hair practically stood on end from the energy coursing through his flesh and bones. His white gi shone like a beacon against the ancient polished wood beneath his calloused feet, and the bold scrivenings that ran down each of his sleeves blazed with so much sacred light they seemed to have been poured from molten gold.

I’d never seen an Empyreal before, but now I understood why the defender clans thought they were better than the rest of us.

They were.

But that didn’t mean I couldn’t defeat one of them. And if I ever wanted to earn a place at the famed School of Swords and Serpents and heal my wounded core, I’d have to beat the man at the heart of the arena.

The trip from the undercity had taken far longer than I’d anticipated, and by the time my mother and I had reached the arena, it was already packed to the rafters with rowdy spectators who’d overflowed their seats and formed a human traffic jam in the aisles between the bleachers. While it wasn’t the most honorable thing to do, I forced my way through the crowd and ignored their angry shouts and curses. These strangers could be angry at me, I didn’t care. My only chance for a brighter future was to reach the registrar before the challenger window closed.

For a fatherless son from a disgraced family, that chance was too valuable for me to miss.

“Watch where you’re going!” A fat man shouted at me as I brushed against his back on my way down the steps toward the arena’s floor.

“I am!” Before he could shout another insult, I’d already pushed three rows deeper into the crowd.

“You’re going to hurt someone.” My mother didn’t shout, but her sharp, crisp voice reached my ears with ease, as if we weren’t surrounded by thousands of howling fight fans. “Slow down. Move through the crowd, not against it.”

“There isn’t time!” I’d begged my mother to please, please let me register early for the Five Dragons Challenge. Unfortunately, she’d refused to even consider letting me take the challenge until