The Birth of the Nascent Soul

How long had Yu Hee been cycling slaughter energy and spiritual power in that trance? Golden spiritual energy and crimson slaughter energy clashed inside her body, wounding her flesh and regenerating it over and over again.

They circulated through each other even as they rejected each other — and what that process produced was experience.

Cheon Nan-cho and Togo simply watched in silence.

"Hehe. And to think the little newborn hasn't even cultivated for two hundred years, yet she has talent like this."

He wanted her. His lifespan was nearly spent, and he had planned to raise the newborn, to be her fence and her fertilizer — but here she was, less than a decade after they'd met, already climbing toward eternity. He wanted to watch her longer. He wanted to stay with her longer.

"Once I ascend to the upper realm and recover my cultivation…"

If he could restore his realm — fallen all the way to Nascent Soul — even just to early Deity Transformation, he could use reincarnation arts or transmigration techniques and be reborn. Starting over from the beginning wasn't the hard part. Raising one's realm was easy enough; crossing into the next realm was what killed people. Most died without even forming a Golden Core.

In game terms, it was like handing a Deity Transformation cultivator a reset coin — except using it turned the difficulty ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠to Hell Mode.

"Ack! Kyaaah! Senior Cheon! Help me!"

A desperate scream for rescue cut through the air. Cheon Nan-cho, who had been staring at the newborn as if something had just clicked into place, glanced at Togo — still watching only Yu Hee — then rose at once and headed for San Gi-yeon, who was holding the line against the invasion pouring into the sect grounds.

How these packs of aberrant monsters kept finding a sect that was supposed to be sealed off, she had no idea. Watching San Gi-yeon flee for her life alongside her giant chick, Cheon Nan-cho half-lidded her eyes and focused spiritual energy into her gaze.

Flowers and grasses blooming from the corpses of fallen puppets surged up and attacked the monsters as one. The moment San Gi-yeon and the chick broke free, Cheon Nan-cho opened her mouth and drew out her Natal Dharma Treasure.

The surrounding spiritual energy poured into it of its own accord.

A flower that had bloomed from a fragment of a Golden Core — that was Cheon Nan-cho's essence, and with it came the power to absorb spiritual energy. Her Natal Dharma Treasure was specialized for exactly that.

The only problem was that the treasure took the form of a round sewing box, and Cheon Nan-cho still hated that fact.

Needles and thread, a thimble, a few scraps of cloth, and a tiny pair of scissors, all housed in a round box woven from grass and flowers — and that was the shape of her soul?

Wasn't that a little too random?!

Still grumbling, she opened the sewing box and aimed it at the monsters. Needles linked by thread shot out, punched straight through the creatures chasing Yeona, and shriveled them into mummies as their spiritual energy was drained dry — until they vanished completely.

"What about the other puppets? Why are you out here alone, Yeona? Did another big one show up?"

"Senior Cheon… well, you see…"

Hair wild from running, San Gi-yeon fumbled something ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠off the chick's back and held it up.

It was the hairpin that held her hair in place — originally one of Hee-a's chopsticks, now as good as San Gi-yeon's own Dharma Treasure. Something about it felt different.

A silver pattern of the character for "three" gleamed along the crimson chopsticks. Cheon Nan-cho finally understood and nodded.

"Hee-a's breakthrough affected it."

"Yes… all of a sudden the chopsticks sucked up every last drop of my spiritual energy…"

"Makes sense. You refined it yourself, so when the treasure grew stronger under Hee-a's influence, it needed more of your energy to match."

Stripped of spiritual energy and left completely defenseless, she had been stranded among the monsters and come running to Cheon Nan-cho for help — chick and ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠all.

"Well then. These ones are mine?"

"Yes, please!"

She had been leaving the invading monsters alone so the puppets and San Gi-yeon could grow — but under normal circumstances, Cheon Nan-cho would have eaten most of them herself.

Honestly, like Hee-a, the best meal is still a cultivator…

Thinking that, Cheon Nan-cho pulled a bolt of cloth woven from the monsters' spiritual energy out of her Natal Dharma Treasure, took up needle and thread, and casually embroidered a few characters.

The words stitched into the cloth read: Sacrificial Offering.

She tossed the cloth like a talisman. It unfurled like an illusion, spreading wide enough to blot out the sky, and swallowed every last invading monster still fighting the puppets.

"That hit the spot."

One meal for Cheon Nan-cho.

With the bulk of the monsters erased in a single move and the puppets happily dogpiling the stragglers, Cheon Nan-cho collected San Gi-yeon and headed back to where Yu Hee was breaking through.

"Is Senior going to be all right?"

"Eh, any heart demon that shows up around Hee-a gets crushed to death, so there won't be any more interference. From here on it's purely a matter of her enlightenment."

"I see…"

"You sit down and cultivate too. Your Dharma Treasure will block the leaking slaughter energy, so just gather spiritual power and make it your own. That alone will help you raise your realm a lot."

"Thank you for looking out for me, Senior Cheon."

"It's nothing. Hee-a told me to take care of you."

And just like that, Cheon Nan-cho and San Gi-yeon sat down together and began cultivating while watching Yu Hee. They would have to stop if another invasion came, of course — but opportunities to gobble up even the crumbs of high-quality upper-realm spiritual energy in bulk like this did not come around often.

Especially not after a Heavenly Tribulation so ferocious that late-stage Nascent Soul Togo had needed to throw everything he had at it — plus more than a dozen ordinary tribulations piled on top. Far more upper-realm spiritual energy had been dragged down than a normal tribulation would bring, and the area was practically swimming in it.

Time inside the sect grounds flowed on, Double Speed Mod running the whole while.

Half a year passed.

Pillars of gold and blood-red light erupted from Yu Hee at the center.

Split cleanly in two around her, the golden light and the blood-red light were forced to circulate by Yu Hee's will alone — never coexisting, never harmonizing, only biting and rejecting and destroying each other.

The unprecedented force born from two opposing powers annihilating each other kept growing, crushing both the gold and the blood-red under its weight, and still it did not stop.

As if harmony or unification had never even been on the table, they killed and destroyed each other — and from that destruction, unprecedented power, which was to say experience, was born.

Then, at the heart of where gold and blood-red had clashed themselves to death, something new stirred to life. A spiritual pulse thundered out like a heartbeat —

— and Yu Hee, who had sat in wordless concentration for more than half a year, opened her mouth. Characters the color of red-gold, mixed of blood and gold, poured forth and unfurled as a golden seal.

"Where there is death, there is life. Where there is life, there is death. Climb a mountain and you must come back down. Leave home and you return home. In the end, when things reach their extreme, they reverse ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠— wujibifan. Endless cycles are just like that."

Even though the Erosion skill had spent itself and vanished, the Golden Core that had never returned to the Mental World pulsed as the golden seal adhered to it, transmitting enlightenment.

The Golden Core, having swallowed a vast mass of experience whole, used that enlightenment as a catalyst. Its shell cracked open like an egg, and from within emerged a tiny newborn infant — cradling a blood-red wheel rimmed in gold.

Then, as if overjoyed, the infant giggled and burst free of the Golden Core's remains. In the real world it spun giddily around Yu Hee a few times before diving straight through her forehead, back into the Mental World — and Yu Hee felt every vivid emotion of her newly born Nascent Soul.

At last, Yu Hee had set foot in the Nascent Soul realm.

"Status Window."

What the hell? Why is my race still Young Giant?

Oh, right. The tower.

She hurriedly shut her eyes again and looked into her Mental World. At the center of a realm split between a golden sky and a blood-red sea of slaughter energy stood a colossal tower like a pillar linking heaven and ocean.

The newly acquired laws and the original ones manifested together through that pillar of a tower.

Cheok — environment settings.

Hwan — save and load.

The tower drew in and absorbed the vast sea of slaughter energy, pulled spiritual power down from the golden sky, and smashed the two together at its core. The experience generated that way wrapped the entire tower — and the great tower standing in the Mental World was lightly refined.

The newborn Nascent Soul went beh, spat a tiny tower-shaped stick from its mouth, and held it up. Only after confirming that did Yu Hee withdraw from the Mental World and rise to her feet.

Finally! Nascent Soul realm!