Heavenly Tribulation the Instant I Left

"My sense of time feels completely broken."

Was this the power of Double Speed Mode?

I'd gone into the Training Ground and come back out, and the flow of time inside versus outside had been wildly different. It was a kind of instinct I'd only picked up because of the mod.

"Still, it feels great to be out of the Training Ground!"

A refreshing wind sweeping across a disgustingly vast wasteland! An open blue sky! And black storm clouds gathering rapidly right over my head...?

"Huh?"

To a cultivator's eyes, those black clouds were no ordinary storm. Clouds that were sucking in the primordial energy of heaven and earth couldn't possibly be just weather.

And the moment lightning began to crackle inside them, I felt the spiritual core of slaughter energy inside my body react — and I nearly jumped out of my skin.

"Heavenly Tribulation? Here!?"

Why?!

An event the second I leave the training area?! Normally, once you clear the tutorial, the event counter is supposed to reset—!

The same instant I remembered how I'd used mods and bugs to dump a ridiculous fifty thousand hours into growing my spiritual root far beyond anything normal, Heavenly Tribulation came crashing down from the sky straight at me.

"...Is this... cough... really... a game..."

I almost actually died.

I'd seen Heavenly Tribulation once before. The fragment left behind by the spiritual beast that died to it had, of course, been a piece of a body that had withstood the tribulation — so I figured something on a much smaller scale than that one should be able to tank this. That single thought was the only reason I was still alive.

If I hadn't pulled that Epic item out of my inventory — my backpack — and used it as a shield, I would have literally evaporated on the spot!

The brilliant purple Epic-grade item had crashed down to yellow Unique, but at least the spiritual root I'd forced into shape with slaughter energy had fully settled into my body as a hardened, permanent part of me — the price of surviving the tribulation.

"Don't you fucking start with me?!"

Fortune?! I almost died!

And after all that, the stat boost is two? And it's random?! Without that Epic item I would have evaporated on the spot! And even the Epic item got wrecked down to Unique!

"You've got to be kidding me!"

I couldn't have blocked that with my own skill! That event was never going to end as a permanent injury! At minimum it was an instant kill! I almost evaporated!

Goddamn piece-of-shit event!

"Event ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠Probability Mod!"

"SON OF A BIIIIITCH!!!!!"

The mod that converted event probability from 50% all the way up to 1000% was still locked behind my level, which only made me angrier and more pissed off!!

"Who the hell does this over a little bug exploitation?!"

If I'd actually used bugs to dupe items or money, or jacked my stats and levels sky-high, I wouldn't even feel this wronged!

It called it a "minor injury," but both hands I'd been gripping that Epic item with as a shield had been carbonized jet black.

It hurt so much.

"If I just had a skill!"

If I at least had a basic skill that auto-recovered HP, I wouldn't be stuck sitting here in this much pain — I was so bitter I could almost cry.

I was using spiritual energy to slowly, bit by bit, repair my body, but nearly all the slaughter energy I'd stockpiled in the Training Ground had been poured into expanding my spiritual root. What little spiritual energy I could generate was pathetic, and the healing crawled.

Monsters! I needed mobs to hunt!

More than leveling up for experience, I needed ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠to fill my slaughter energy and generate spiritual power so I could fix this body at all!

But no matter how hard I stared at the minimap, there wasn't a single hunting target in sight. This was a wasteland with almost no primordial energy of heaven and earth — finding any living creature wandering around here was hard enough to begin with. Case closed.

In the end, I had no choice but to keep walking with both hands still blackened until I could get out of the Wasteland. At least, when I finally saw greenery ahead and the wasteland starting to give way to forest, some of the exhaustion seemed to lift — and then my confidently moving feet locked up mid-step in empty air, and I toppled flat on my face.

"What the hell?! Why?!"

Wandering around this empty wasteland with zero mobs wasn't enough to fill the terrain scouting meter? So there was a hidden zone? In this uselessly vast, completely empty wasteland?! There was nothing like that on the minimap!

No matter how hard I stared at the minimap that tracked the path I'd already walked, the "Wasteland" map looked almost entirely lit up — enough to finish terrain scouting.

"...No way."

With my trembling, jet-black hands, I tapped the minimap over and over until it inverted.

Far, far from the green dot marking my position, the minimap helpfully highlighted a single pure-white "entrance" — the one remaining unscouted starting point. A wave of rage-induced vertigo hit me so hard I just collapsed weakly where I stood.

"An underground map is crossing the line, you absolute bastards?!"

The godawful realization that there was an entrance leading underground at the center of the Wasteland — right where the Yeongsan-gwi had emerged before dying to Heavenly Tribulation — combined with the fact that walking all the way back there would take another eternity, made me want to pass out just to escape reality.

"A movement skill... I need a movement skill..."

Fucking reality patch.

Fucking garbage game.

Cursing myself raw on the inside, I had no choice but to turn around and walk back across the empty Wasteland the way I'd come.

I hadn't expected three events to pop on the way back. And of course the Stranded Debuff was the one that cut terrain scouting by 50% — so the over-60% scouting progress I'd busted my ass building across the Wasteland evaporated down to a pathetic 12%.

"Out of that entire mountain of possible debuffs, how does that one land every single time."

Grumbling the whole way, I finally managed to pass the place where the Yeongsan-gwi had died to Heavenly Tribulation and crawl into the massive hole in the Wasteland it had burst out of.

"What a waste of a route."

Would it have been easier if I'd gone into the hole from the start? Probably not — back then all I'd wanted was to escape this godforsaken Wasteland, so I would've made the same choice either way.

The moment I set foot on the spiral slope leading down into the hole, a grand sound effect blared and a message window filled my vision.

"A dungeon?!"

And what's with that level restriction?! I'm still only level 14! Wait — but the sound effect just played, which means I already entered the dungeon?

So it was a dungeon you could only enter at level ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠40 or below!

The same moment that realization hit, something in the pitch-black hole below seemed to sense my presence and began to vaguely take shape.

A flat, elongated oval of pure white came hurtling toward me at high speed, radiating clear murderous intent!

"A giant pillbug?!"

I yanked up spiritual energy in a panic and hurled it straight at the thing. Because it was forged from slaughter energy, the red mass of power slammed into the fist-sized pillbug — and the pillbug didn't so much as flinch.

"What the hell kind of mod is this?!"

Before I could even process the panic, the pillbug was right in my face. I had no choice but to call on a mod's power.

"Auto-Battle!!!"

When I came to, I was covered head to toe in insect fluids. I recoiled from the sticky, vaguely lukewarm transparent pillbug goo and forced spiritual energy through my body to scrape it off however I could.

"Aaaagh..."

Maybe because I'd grinded my spiritual core so hard, the muscle ache was less than before — but my whole body was still trembling the same way. I wanted to scream, but every part of me hurt from the vibration!

But what the hell was that mod just now?

A message window had popped, so it had to be a mod — which meant I needed to level up fast, if only out of sheer disgust, and unlock the mod that let me check my mods.

And the moment my eyes hit the minimap, I froze solid at the spiral of red dots rising up it.

"Ughck."

Bugs were crawling up the slope, pouring out a murderous aura.

I forced my shaking mouth open and shouted for dear life.

"A-Auto-Battle!!!"

"Uweeeegh..."

Auto-Battling dozens of bugs left me buried under a heap of insect fluids and shredded flesh, weakly dry-heaving over and over.

I feel like I'm going to die.

"Status Window..."

Looking at a Status Window that had jumped a full six levels filled my chest with a warm sense of accomplishment. My body still hurt like it had been smashed to pieces, but still. Terrain scouting still wasn't finished, though — which meant I had to push past these bug corpses and go deeper into that hole.

The terrain scouting progress on the minimap was showing a pitiful 14%.