The Ironman's Legacy
Level rises dramatically!
Limit breakthrough required!
Remaining experience is converted to residual stats!
Limit breakthrough required!
Remaining experience is converted to residual stats!
…
…
…
"What the hell all of a sudden."
The cheerful ding-ding of climbing system messages finally dragged me back to something resembling consciousness.
I'd been drawing the purified slaughter essence that had naturally settled and compressed in the abyssal depths of the multi-layered Seas of Slaughter surrounding my Golden Core, hauling it up through the tower and the wheel, disguising it as spiritual power, and pouring it straight into the Golden Core to fill it. The more slaughter essence I packed in, the heavier it grew, until the Mental World itself felt like it was crushing my mind from the opposite direction. I ignored it and forced more in anyway — and at some point, my consciousness had simply checked out.
If it hadn't been for the system messages, I would have touched something in that blackout. Touched what, exactly? Wait—
I tilted my head, fully waking at last, and checked the Golden Core.
It was packed full of slaughter essence disguised as spiritual power — things that sat somewhere between residual stats and the Status Window itself. The Core had gone a little murkier in color, but it now shone a far brighter reddish gold, glowing like a sunset in the sky of the Mental World.
"What about the Inner World?"
The Inner World inside the Golden Core was where the Humanity Clones lived. Because the Golden Core sat within the Mental World, the Mental World formed from the Golden Core's own spirit — with the Core as its body — was the Inner World the Humanity Clones occupied.
Chicken or egg.
In other words, I hadn't created an Inner World inside the Golden Core for the Humanity Clones. The Inner World had only been possible because the Humanity Clones were already inside the Golden Core.
So now that I'd filled the entire interior of the Golden Core — the place the Humanity Clones were supposed to be — with slaughter essence… what had happened to the Inner World and the Humanity Clones inside it?
"Somebody answer me? Hello?"
But from within, there was only silence.
The Humanity Clones were gone.
"No. No, no, no."
I shoved a hand into my chest, roughly yanked out the golden barcode scanner, poured spiritual power into it to reshape it into something like a telephone, and pressed it to my ear.
What if they didn't answer?
What if the Humanity Clones from my past life had vanished?
What if I had to carry a conscience again?
"What happened?"
"Main body? You're awake!"
"Wait, we can reach the main body? Main body! Main body! We're trapped in here!"
"Put in some real spiritual power, not that slaughter essence dressed up as spiritual power!"
"Gyaaah! We're dying! Hurry!"
The chaotic clamor of Humanity Clone voices finally let me feel a scrap of relief. I immediately poured spiritual power into the Golden Core, and the Core drank it straight down.
"We were stacking slaughter essence disguised as spiritual power when a squid invaded!"
"We built a shelter out of spiritual power and we're evacuating!"
"What are you doing?! Reinforce us already!"
"Ack! Main body! Call us back later!"
"Hold the line! Kyaaaaah!"
The voices cut off with a sharp click. I tilted my head.
I had no idea what any of that meant! Still — thank god. I'd genuinely thought packing the Golden Core with slaughter essence disguised as spiritual power had wiped the Humanity Clones out completely.
Anyway, they were fine. That was a relief.
Yu I-seong had to be fine too — her dedicated weapon was still intact. With that thought, I casually dusted off my hands, shifted the telephone back into a golden barcode scanner, and shoved it straight into my chest again.
"Nnngh—!"
I stretched, nice and easy.
A quick change of pace — go check on the prisoners' faces, inspect the base, then head off to meditate for enlightenment!
I tracked down Cheon Nan-cho, Elder Togo, and San Gi-yeon one by one, gave each of them a proper greeting, checked the base status, queued building upgrades, and opened the warehouse.
I needed to inspect the items Elder Togo and Cheon Nan-cho had scavenged on their prisoner expeditions, after all.
The items an NPC saw and the items I saw were not the same thing. What I looked at was the Effects section. What NPCs looked at was everything buried under —View Details—: all that useless flavor text.
Honestly, my expectations were still rock bottom. Cheon Nan-cho kept hauling back junk with grandiose item descriptions whose actual effects were garbage like "increases renown" or "boosts morale."
But every so often, one of those runs hit the jackpot — like the random skill book that had once given me the Soft Body Art, the one that let me establish Laws the way I could now.
Then again, thinking about it, I'd just rolled something good off a random skill book. So was that my luck?
Either way, grade was just an aggregation of spiritual energy, so everyone could tell whether something was high-grade or low-grade. But the effects that actually applied to a player — only I could read those.
"Oh, hell yes."
◈ Restriction: Golden Core realm
◈ Effect: Raises level by 1 on use
— A residual soul fragment crafted during the Golden Core stage by a legendary cultivator who later ascended to the upper realm at the Nascent Soul stage. It carries the power to twist the laws of the upper realm. —
I dumped the Strange Candy straight into my mouth.
The soul fragment that dropped through my mouth into the Mental World plunged into the Sea of Slaughter with a splash, thrashing and screaming as it tried to claw its way free — only to be swept under by the waves of slaughter essence, sink into the depths, and become part of the Status Window.
Limit breakthrough required!
Remaining experience is converted to residual stats!
A consumable I wouldn't be able to use once I hit Nascent Soul anyway — so I converted it straight into stats.
Fired up, I went through the warehouse items one more time.
"…Huh? Why is there a magic-grade item in here."
I found a green magic-grade item jammed into a corner. If I hadn't turned off the item filter while checking the warehouse stock, I never would have seen it.
I picked up the small hand mirror with one corner cracked off and checked it.
◈ Effect: Acquire one random technique on use (Normal ~ Magic)
— The techniques I created must be passed on. And so I record them — who will recognize them is for Heaven to decide. O Heaven! I pray that the techniques I made may continue! —
"It's a skill book."
Why was a skill book sitting in here.
And before that — why was the skill book a mirror instead of a book…? Come to think of it, most of the basic skill books Cheon Nan-cho had brought me before hadn't been book-shaped either.
This skill book cannot be used!
Of course it couldn't. Just as I'd half expected.
Another spiritual-power-based skill — and it called itself random!
Or wait. Maybe no skill came out because there simply weren't any slaughter-based skills in the Normal-to-Magic range? The thought crossed my mind.
To settle the curiosity, I immediately dug through the inventory the Humanity Clones had so diligently organized.
Even unusable skill books — there had to be some I'd left behind to grind in the millstone and convert into spiritual power!
◈ Effect: Acquire one random cultivation method on use (Rare ~ Legendary)
— View Details —
This skill book cannot be used!
This one didn't work either.
Had the transformation skill worked before because its grade was Special? Well — it was a mod skill, so ignoring restrictions made sense.
◈ Effect: Acquire one random special cultivation method on use
— One of the legacies left by the legendary cultivator known as the Ironman. It is said he placed restrictions upon himself in order to wield mighty Laws. Many of his legacies remain, yet it is told that no one has ever properly claimed them. —
"Hsssss."
It said special cultivation method, but just the name of this consumable already rubbed me the wrong way.
What was this? A hint that it was going to force Ironman Mode on me? If I used it, it wouldn't just activate Ironman Mode against my will… right?
I used it with my heart in my throat.
Honestly, if it just popped up "This skill book cannot be used," I'd have been relieved!
A bizarre aura burst out of the consumable — a worn black chess-piece-looking thing — and coiled once around me. A chilling murderous intent rose off it, and my Mental World happily drank the killing intent right in.
Wait — hang on. The quality of this killing intent was way higher than expected. It was enough to raise my level on killing intent alone, but the level cap blocked it and converted everything to residual stats. Was the original owner around Elder Togo's level? I was still thinking that when system messages started cascading.
Checking conditions…
Confirming successor of Hwanga-gongdong!
Escaping the crisis of death!
Acquiring a random special cultivation method.
"…What."
Hold on. This piece-of-shit consumable was an instant-death event if you failed the condition check on use? The item description never said a damn word about that—?!
No one had ever claimed it?!
Yeah, of course they hadn't! They all died!
GYAAAAAAH!!!