Cosmic Fortune, Cosmic Misfortune

I shoved the two selectable events aside for later and checked the one that had been forced on me right away.

"Why the hell are these ones locked?"

Annoyed, I tapped the non-selectable options, and the conditions popped up. Affinity with Good-aligned NPCs, intimacy with Evil-aligned NPCs, favor with Neutral NPCs — those were the requirements.

Naturally, not a single one of them applied to me.

At least the last option only required hostility with NPCs of every alignment, so of course I qualified for that one.

"More importantly, is this a mod conflict or what? Affinity, favor, intimacy, relationship — these all look like they crashed into each other from different mods. Goddammit."

I sighed and turned to the early-crisis rewards I'd been putting off.

Cosmic Fortune started with one free pick, and for every Cosmic Misfortune I selected, I could choose one additional Cosmic Fortune. A trade-off menu.

The first option — increasing the Dharma Treasure max — was locked in for sure. As for Cosmic Misfortune, I sat there chewing on it.

Should I sacrifice every piece of gear and every Dharma Treasure currently equipped just to delete the Eok-kka Dharma Treasure that had been forced on me? Or should I go with the combat proficiency seal, since I barely had any skills anyway and could just grind them in the Training Ground?

No residual stats on level-up, deleting an equipment slot, three random permanent debuffs — those weren't even worth considering. The risk on all three was way too high.

A powerful mid-grade Dharma Treasure was a shame to lose, sure, and you could argue this was the perfect chance to destroy the Five Great Calamities — that Eok-kka treasure packed with nothing but demerits the second I got it.

The problem was that everything currently equipped would be destroyed along with it.

I could live without the rest. But the belt?

Destroy the Predatory Headhunter — a near endgame piece? That was a unique item. It could take hundreds of years before I ever saw another one.

Carry the Five Great Calamities, or give up the belt. I sat there grinding my brain over those two choices for a long time.

If this were still a game, I'd just eat the loss. But with the reality patch in place, the decision was loaded. The value of that endgame belt was just too massive.

When I put it on the scale against the Five Great Calamities — the Dharma Treasure forced on me by an Eok-kka event — the needle tipped slightly toward the belt.

The elite-mob prefix theft only sped up my hunting. The real prize was the recovery effect: killing an elite restored one point of equipment durability.

But wait. Now that I had the Spoon, didn't that equipment effect become completely meaningless? Using the Spoon shredded a weapon's durability in a few hits anyway. Recovering one point did nothing.

Its only remaining value was keeping armor and accessories from falling apart — and my defense ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠was already in the gutter thanks to the slaughter energy buildup.

Did my build even need this belt?

"Not really."

Not now that I had the Spoon. Weapons had already become disposable consumables.

The reality patch had me fretting over way too much useless crap. Optimization, efficiency, and a little romance — those were supposed to be the only things driving a build.

From a pure efficiency standpoint, then — even if it made me emotionally sick, even if it twisted my guts and forced me to clench my teeth through a face-crumpling grimace — the Five Great Calamities could, arguably, fit my extreme build to some degree...!

The only real problem was the gut-level revulsion of carrying every single one of the Five Great Trash Prefixes — the kind of loadout that got you laughed out of the community for owning even one.

Strip away that emotional rejection, and the belt was still the one that hurt to lose.

"Misfortune select."

"Fortune select."

"Status Window!"

Surviving the early crisis had only netted me three levels. Proof that leveling was getting steeper by the day. Ordinary cultivators could sit around eating spirit stones and training in place — I had to grind kills the hard way just to grow, which meant I was going to suffer even more.

Still, I'd just pulled a full two hundred points across every stat. In pure level terms, that was two hundred levels' worth. Not that it made me as strong as a level-four-hundred character. Most of my stats had come from events in the first place.

That was the nature of this garbage game: how many fortune events you'd hit, and how well you'd kept your character alive through the Eok-kka events, mattered more than anything else.

"...Alright. Time to move on to the next map."

And then — for the first time in who knew how long — a Fortress appeared. Unlike villages or cities, shop-grade weapons and armor here went all the way up to Unique, and the NPCs ran significantly higher level. That was the whole point of the place.

Of course, thanks to my mods, I couldn't buy shop weapons anyway. The whole fortress was a pie in the sky. If it had at least been a city, I could've eyed the guards and started spinning the Wheel of Slaughter Karma. But this was a fortress.

I tilted my head this way and that at the fortress squatting dead center on the map and muttered to myself.

"Actually... is it doable...?"

"What kind of awful scheme are you cooking up now?"

"You sleep for days and the second you wake up it's nonsense. I'm just sizing up whether I can level here at the fortress, that's all."

"That 'leveling' of yours means starting a slaughter, doesn't it? It's not like you're taking the lives of mayfly mortals — you're planning to turn every cultivator who's built up their practice into an enemy?"

"Are you stupid? Killing cultivators is way more XP-efficient than killing the mortals you're talking about. That's the whole point. Mortals and cultivators are the same NPCs anyway."

"Sometimes when I listen to you talk, I feel like my entire value system is collapsing."

"Well, yeah. I'm a player."

Inside this game, I was the correct answer. The path I walked was history. The things I did were achievements. Reality patch or not.

"You might get away with it here, but if you run your mouth like that in the Upper Realm and a True Immortal overhears, you could drop dead on the spot."

Was she actually worrying about me? Telling me to watch my tongue?

The Upper Realm. The Upper Realm, huh.

"Is the Upper Realm supposed to be special?"

A different sky? I'd come from an entirely different dimension.

Enough chatter. Time to go in. I needed to walk around inside the fortress to fill out the area reconnaissance, after all.

"Core Formation Mid Stage... impressive at such a young age. Which sect do you belong to?"

"Skip."

"I've never heard of a sect called Skip. First time at Muam Fortress? Allow this senior to personally show you around!"

I'd paid the spirit stone entry fee and walked in, only for some weird guy to latch onto me.

I shook my head at that same goddamn message window that kept popping up, then slammed him with a [Disappointment]. He recoiled and fled, and after that I wandered the fortress without further incident until I found the building marked with an inn icon on the minimap and took a room.

"This might actually work."

"For real? You're seriously going to do it?"

"If I reverse-complete the Wheel of Slaughter Karma, it should be fine."

The Wheel of Slaughter Karma normally spun to draw in and refine slaughter energy, converting it into residual stat points once enough had been gathered. If I spun it the other way and spread the slaughter energy outward instead, it might work.

To a cultivator who handled spiritual energy, slaughter energy was pure poison. Absorb it or even touch it the way you'd handle spiritual energy, and you'd be instantly overrun by every debuff in the book.

Come to think of it — couldn't this wheel count as a skill?

I sat in the room and rolled the slaughter-energy wheel back and forth. The wheel — something I'd built to kill living things, rapidly reclaim their slaughter energy, and refine it at the same time.

It had started as pure mental imagery, but at some point, whenever I reclaimed a massive amount of slaughter energy, the stuff would form into the shape of an actual wheel and sit spinning behind my back.

Had I been an idiot for never thinking of this as a skill?

Either way, I ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠was rolling a small wheel around, cooking up a scheme to efficiently and stealthily spread slaughter energy disguised as spiritual power — when the door suddenly exploded inward and a man stormed through.

"So it was you, you little bitch — our youngest junior brother—!"

I checked the minimap. A red dot. Hostile NPC. Equals a monster I was allowed to kill.

The simple conclusion formed in my head at the same instant the small wheel in my palm rolled forward, cutting off his words and charging in.

He swept a hand down as if the attack were beneath him — and his spiritual energy was punched clean through by the Wheel of Slaughter Karma. The little wheel smashed into his hand, and in the same breath—

"Auto-Battle."

"See? Killing cultivators really does give decent XP. More importantly, the door's wrecked — think the owner will fix it if I tell them?"

"Forget it. Sleep."

"Oh?"

Cheon Nan-cho flicked her hand, and the shattered door rewound like time itself, restoring to its original state. What the hell? That was cool.

"It's a basic foundational technique. You could probably do it too if you tried."

"Teach me!"

For several days I threw myself into learning foundational techniques with Cheon Nan-cho — and failed to master even a single one.

Why?!