The Slaughter Wheel Scheme

The basic techniques Cheon Nan-cho had been trying so hard to teach me were genuinely simple stuff. Restoring broken objects to their original state. Channeling spiritual energy into something you owned so you could ride it. Sparking a little fire, drawing out water to wash with—that kind of thing.

"Why isn't this working?"

"I copied it perfectly and it still won't work!"

"Hmm. Then maybe it isn't my problem—it's yours, Hee-ah. You don't even use spiritual energy the way I do in the first place."

Ah. So the basic resource we burned was different, which meant I couldn't learn it at all! I used slaughter energy, not spiritual energy!

Damn it.

Remembering how I'd wasted time with my eyes spinning over learning basic techniques for no reason made irritation bubble up for no good reason, and I was blankly rolling around on my blanket when a familiar sense of déjà vu hit me. I pulled a pair of Chopsticks into my right hand.

"Senior Sister! What have you done to Senior Sister?! Huh?!"

One look at the man frozen stiff from a Chopstick hit, plus the door and wall smashed to pieces yet again, and I immediately triggered Auto-Battle.

A tiny cart wheel rolled back and forth over the dead cultivator's corpse, fully absorbing the slaughter energy, then blasted the leftover traces away with more slaughter energy until every scrap of evidence was gone.

Watching Cheon Nan-cho restore the door and wall again, I tilted my head.

"How do these guys keep finding me?"

Maybe they'd put a tracking technique on me.

Either way, this worked out fine.

Instead of gulping down the refined slaughter energy from the cart wheel in my hand, I slowly brought the wheel to a stop, then carefully started turning it the other way.

Red slaughter energy bloomed out into the air the way paint spreads unnaturally across a surface.

Just before that life-killing energy could take on direction, writhe, and surge all at once toward the nearest living things, the cart wheel rolled rightward again and reabsorbed the slaughter energy.

Yeah—I needed to spread it even thinner.

At minimum, thin enough to rise like mist, so I could scatter slaughter energy without getting caught right away.

So I was stuck here for a while longer, playing with a cart wheel, huh.

"Doesn't look like there's a boss-tier in the fortress."

There was a powerhouse at early Golden Core, sure, but not a boss. In that case, Auto-Battle was doable. The stats I'd been stacking so diligently were already so absurdly strong for my level—even with every mod cheating for me—that it was hard to believe.

Even ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠with mods spamming good events, growing this far was no easy feat. I was only just past the early two-hundreds, and my all-stats were already over eight hundred, closing in on nine hundred.

At this rate I'd hit four digits before I even reached level three hundred. In practice I'd slam into a limit break wall again, but still.

I'd been focusing on the cart wheel for about a month—using Double Speed Mod all the way up to twenty-one times—when it happened.

"Cheon Nan-cho! Look at this!"

"Whoa. You finally flew."

I was flying! They said even Foundation Establishment cultivators could lift their bodies and fly, and only now was I finally soaring through empty air! Wait—before, I'd just been floating my body around all soft and bobbing. This was the real thing. I was actually flying through the sky!

The enlarged cart wheel spun behind my head, granting me both lift and thrust. I'd been wondering why I never got a movement skill—turns out I already had one, so it never dropped!!

I! Finally! Had! A movement skill! Aaaaaah!!!!

"But I don't think this is what you were training for."

Only the wheel's ability to devour energy had gotten stronger. Floating in midair was probably just it swallowing the gravity of a set space, converting that into lift, and dumping it back out.

Obviously that was just a guess!

Experimenting with this and that in a bedroom was way too conspicuous.

I spun the cart wheel the other way. It scattered thinner than the paint-smear from before, sure—but it was still visible. At this rate it felt like I'd wasted all that time.

I'd trained hard, so it wasn't actually a waste, but the disappointment still sat there. I'd already finished scouting the terrain while stuck here. Maybe I should just hop to another map.

"...Wait a second."

An old memory surfaced out of nowhere. I was pretty sure I'd scattered slaughter energy across a territory once, way back when...? And Cheon Nan-cho had the power to create territories, didn't she?

"Cheon Nan-cho, can you make me a territory?"

"Here?"

"I've got an experiment. Is that a no?"

"If I make one here, every other cultivator will sense it and come looking. We'll have to clear out of this room."

Yeah, that wouldn't work.

Cheon Nan-cho and I left the room, found a secluded corner of the fortress, and she threw up a simple barrier. She took spirit stones and consumables from me, used them, and generated a territory.

Luckily it wasn't low-grade—a mid-grade territory popped out. I immediately floated the slaughter-energy cart wheel over it and spun it in reverse.

The slaughter energy scattered across the territory turned into a deadly poison and melted into it as naturally as breathing.

"It works."

Oh, for fuck's sake—so everything I'd been grinding myself into the dirt over until now was for nothing?!

But watching the slaughter cart wheel roll along so nicely cooled the rage a little. I'd just call it skill mastery grinding for a new ability!

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

Anyway, all that was left was to burn through my remaining spirit stones, plant territories all over the place, and seed them with slaughter energy. Aside from the one-week cooldown every time I made a territory, that is!

In less than a month, fights between cultivators broke out twice at Muam Fortress. True to dumb NPC form, the second they thought something might benefit them even a little, they fought over a territory or tried to hide it for themselves!

And both times, the fights started because I'd deliberately left traces so the territories' locations would get found!

Now all I had to do was wait for the cultivators training in slaughter-laced territories to start rolling the slaughter cart wheels for me.

The moment someone gave a wheel that first little shove, slaughter energy would chain-detonate and sweep this entire map clean.

And in the end, that slaughter energy would become one single cart wheel.

"And that becomes my experience!"

Ah—experience that multiplies itself!

Even setting training time aside, if I'd just cleared the map the normal way, I obviously wouldn't have gained even ten levels. I knew my level-up speed cold. Of course I did.

Places packed with neutral NPCs—villages, cities, fortresses like this—barely ever triggered events, and the ones that did were limited in type, which made them great for settling in and training.

More precisely, using the [Rest] emote in places with that kind of judgment basically locked the event triggers—but either way, I held my breath and waited for the slaughter to go off.

"...We're out of spirit stones."

"That's a problem... munch munch..."

"That spirit stone in your mouth is the last one..."

"I'm eating it like a last meal, okay? Can we talk after I finish?"

"No, because without spirit stones we get kicked out of this fortress."

I'd burned through spirit stones so cheerfully that we were now staring down eviction. The cost of staying in the fortress, the cost of this inn-ish room, Cheon Nan-cho's food budget, and the spirit stones for making territories—

In the time it took to go "huh?", every last spirit stone had vanished.

"Why won't it detonate already?!"

"Maybe something's wrong?"

"No way. My slaughter energy isn't that simple. I scattered it too thin for stealth, so I can't trigger it myself—but if there's any living thing nearby, they're supposed to feel killing intent on instinct!"

"Hey, Hee-ah."

"Yeah!"

"When cultivators hole up in a territory to train, how many years do you think they spend cultivating?"

"Ah."

I'd never cultivated spiritual energy, so it never occurred to me! Come to think of it, cultivators who locked themselves into a territory basically sealed themselves away and just trained in place for ten years, a hundred years, forever, right?!

Only then did I realize the fatal flaw in my plan—but if I barged into a territory and woke the slaughter energy myself, I'd be the one taking concentrated fire first.

Hmm. Was there some other way?

"Tsk. So my disciples' trail ends here."

Oh? Looks like a method just showed up.

Four cultivators had come looking for me over time, gotten Auto-Battled to death, and been converted into slaughter energy snacks. Only much later did a master arrive searching for his disciples.

As I recalled, master–disciple relationships in this xianxia world were closer to emergency sacrifices or errand-running underlings than anything else.

If you really thought about it, weren't disciples basically property with a nicer name? How was that different from a prisoner?

"What business brings Senior here...?"

I started reading the room carefully. He was early Golden Core. Even with a surprise attack and Auto-Battle, whether I could win was murky, so my instincts went straight to testing the waters.

"Hmm. Mid-stage Core Formation, is it. Good. The ones who used to wait on me have all vanished, and at your realm you wouldn't be half bad."

Out of nowhere he drew up spiritual energy and tried to crush me under it. I flicked a glance at the minimap—still a gray neutral dot, not the red of a hostile.

"Follow me."

Naturally? As if it were a given I'd tag along, he turned his unprotected back and strolled off at a leisurely pace. I hurried after him, slaughter energy rising in both hands, and pulled a rare weapon from my inventory.

I even layered on Spoon, then drove the spear I gripped in both hands straight into him. Spiritual energy at the Golden Core realm rose as if it had instinctively sensed danger and tried to block the attack—but pure spiritual energy alone, without a physical guard, couldn't stop slaughter energy.

The spear stabbed through the nameless Golden Core cultivator's back and punched clean out the other side. Only then did he realize something was wrong, but before he could do a thing I confirmed the minimap dot had flushed red and opened my mouth.

"Auto-Battle."

"Oh. I leveled up."

Why could I kill an early Golden Core? Because his insides were already soaked in slaughter energy, so he couldn't even use techniques properly; his defense had dropped from taking slaughter hits; and the opening strike had put a hole through his body. Even Golden Core couldn't shrug that off.

Plus the Spoon-buffed spear, which dealt fixed damage, had been aimed at the Golden Core from the very first thrust.

"Hah. That was close."

If I'd fought him head-on, Auto-Battle or not, I definitely would have lost. I was only mid-stage Core Formation, after all.

"Didn't look dangerous at all from where I was standing."

"I just stabbed him while he was wide open, that's all."

Getting hit first while completely unprotected stacked the dual debuffs ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠[Defenseless] and [Ambush], which doubled the bonus damage. On top of that my stats were high for my level, and both slaughter energy and my Dharma Treasures had disgustingly high attack power—so of course it was a fight I was going to win.

Anyway.

"I made money!"