First Foundation Establishment

"Ah."

Just one step short.

Even though I had succeeded at Foundation Building—the stage of refining the vital energy inside the body and laying down a proper foundation—it still wasn't enough. My mind and body simply couldn't sustain continuous Foundation Building yet.

"...Status Window."

The residual stats alone told me everything I needed to know. Under normal circumstances I could have leveled straight up to 149—right before mid-stage Foundation Establishment—but the rest of my stats had lagged behind, so I couldn't break the level-100 wall.

The one silver lining was that I had overshot the conditions for the guaranteed event by a ridiculous margin. Seeing how the guaranteed event that hands out one residual stat on the first terrain transition had already fired, I figured this one would work properly too. I took a moment to catch my breath in the middle of the forest thick with acrid smoke.

Then, right on cue, the guaranteed event I'd been waiting for finally showed up.

"Thank fuck."

The guaranteed event you need to raise your ceiling. The kind of artifact you can only equip one of per character—mods call them vessels or relics or whatever. In xianxia mode they just call them Dharma Treasures. Thanks to the spaghetti-code nightmare that is this shitty net game, even cheats and mods tend to explode the whole thing, so without this event you simply cannot raise the maximum number. Think of it as a special equipment slot. And free sixty points of raw stats this early is nothing to sneeze at.

"Nice... and since I don't need to hoard residual stats anymore, might as well dump everything."

Only after confirming the Status Window maxed out to the absolute limit of Qi Condensation did I give a satisfied nod. All that remained was to find more slaughter energy to rekindle the spark of Foundation Building inside me.

"No need to go looking far."

I level up by stacking and refining experience—slaughter energy. That means residual stats are basically the pure essence of that refined slaughter. And the Status Window itself is an innate ability born from my twisted spiritual root. The Status Window is my power.

"By consuming residual stats..."

If I burn the essence of experience—that omnipotent force that can ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠freely raise Body, Mind, and Resistance—to refine slaughter energy and begin Foundation Building, just how rock-solid a foundation can I lay?

Crack—

A sound like thunder rolling inside my body rang out as one residual stat split apart. The experience and slaughter energy within it became a spark and began to burn. A flame of an entirely different dimension from the tribulation fire I'd kindled by sacrificing a field boss leapt onto the slaughter energy inside me, roaring to life. At the same time, the spiritual core formed of pure slaughter began to glow with a faint blood-red light deep within my body.

I broke the limit and hit level 100.

With Foundation Building now flowing stably, I felt my body start absorbing the surrounding slaughter energy on its own without any conscious effort or force. I finally realized I had reached Foundation Establishment.

If my spiritual root hadn't been twisted, if I had entered as a disciple under that ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠immortal who looked to be mid-stage Foundation Establishment and managed the village, joined a sect and cultivated by taking in spiritual energy... would I have reached Foundation Establishment this fast?

"Tsk."

I shook off the pointless sentiment and opened the mini-map, now fully revealed after I'd filled terrain reconnaissance to 100% by devouring the field boss.

Hmm. Sixty percent of the mini-map had burned to ash.

Not a dungeon, so the map probably wouldn't restore. Pushing that thought aside, I checked the three blue dots marked on the mini-map. Those hadn't existed in the original game. One of them was extremely close, so I decided to go take a look and see what it was.

Judging by the detailed explanation and the suspiciously helpful tip, this was clearly a tutorial device from the xianxia mode.

"Completely fucking useless to me!"

Places where pure heaven-and-earth spiritual energy pools are called spirit lands, and the sects where cultivators gather are basically giant spirit lands they've claimed. But for someone like me who grows a spiritual core out of slaughter energy, they were utterly worthless!

"Real pie-in-the-sky bullshit."

I couldn't flip the table so no one else could eat it, and I couldn't just sprinkle ash over it either...

"Wait... can I?"

I carefully pushed a thread of slaughter energy into the spirit land. It sank in and lurked there like poison dissolving into water. The moment any ordinary cultivator trained on this land, the slaughter energy would be absorbed right along with the spiritual energy. And slaughter is reverse-heaven power born from the death of living things. If a normal cultivator tried to refine spiritual energy or build a foundation with that force, they'd go straight off the deep end. A cultivator dyed in killing intent would start scattering slaughter energy everywhere they went.

"Would that actually help me?"

Maybe. Either way, if I can't eat the persimmon, I might as well sprinkle ash so nobody else can either. That always puts my mind at ease. Quietly adding "poison the other two spots with slaughter" to my to-do list, I started walking again.

"Fuck."

No real effect, but it still pissed me off. If this were vanilla, a "morale has dropped" message would have popped up. With that thought, I finally headed for the border that would take me out of the [Forest].

According to the mini-map, there were three zones I could move into. One pure white, one pitch black, one gray—obviously good-aligned, evil-aligned, and neutral faction territories.

"Affinity Window."

"Figured as much."

I vaguely remembered a message about my affinity tilting toward Demon when I killed a neutral NPC for health recovery earlier, but I hadn't expected it to be this lopsided.

"Hmm."

If I walked into the white zone, the good-aligned NPCs would probably flag me as hostile, so I could farm slaughter energy... but if some high-tier NPC showed up I could also just die. And the black zone? Could I really guarantee the evil-aligned NPCs wouldn't turn on me? There were definitely stronger ones than me in there.

"...Now that my realm's gone up."

After chewing on it for a while I reached a conclusion. No matter where I went, the real problem was running into an NPC stronger than me, becoming hostile, and dying.

"Mod Tool! Mod Manager! Mod Check! Mod Hook!"

Spiritual power drained away in a rush as the messages appeared. From them I learned that Mod Tool—for editing mods—and Mod Hook—for managing compatibility—simply didn't exist as functions. Mod Manager, for turning mods on or off, still required a higher realm. But I could check the mods currently applied to me, so I nodded to confirm—then immediately screamed.

"Don't! Check! Stop! Halt!"

My innate ability ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠had already sucked up every drop of spiritual power and was starting to pull on my life force itself. I panicked and forced it to stop.

"Almost fucking died."

I simply didn't have enough spiritual power—more precisely, enough slaughter energy—to review every mod currently applied to me. Early Foundation Establishment wasn't even close.

"Maybe once I hit late Foundation or Core Formation I'll be able to check."

‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠

I dithered over whether to head into the gray zone that looked like neutral territory, then made my decision.

"Let's grind a few more levels before I cross."

Terrain reconnaissance was finished after the field boss, but even if no dungeons remained in the [Forest] map, the monsters and NPCs that had fled the earlier flames seemed to have clustered pretty thickly in the surviving areas.