A Decade of Spinning

Something felt off — the kind of feeling that makes the hair on the back of your neck stand straight up.

That familiar, chilly sensation I didn't miss one bit…

A premonition of an Eok-kka event?!

This kind of ominous feeling was never wrong, and yet it was so faint I couldn't be sure. I scratched my head, wondering what the hell it even was.

It was unsettling.

Filthy, suffocatingly unsettling.

"Fine."

I couldn't just ignore the gut feeling. This was basically a warning that an Eok-kka event might be about to go off! Of course, dodging the event didn't mean I could actually dodge it…

I dug into the ground right where I stood like a mole, carved out a hole, and crawled inside.

Just making a tiny space, sitting down, and using Rest was enough to freeze most event triggers.

Might as well grind some proficiency while I was at it and then move on to the next map!

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

It was a completely impulsive decision based on nothing but a bad feeling, but I didn't regret it.

Besides, I needed time to refine the slaughter energy I'd picked up cleaning out Muam Stronghold anyway.

The wheel. Why a wheel, of all things?

From the moment I started rolling slaughter energy, the image that vaguely settled on me had always been a wheel. I'd never even seen a real wheel in my past life, so if I had to pin down something that would make me think of one…

If I really had to stretch ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠it, maybe that anecdote about the Mongols — the Tatars — slaughtering anyone taller than a cartwheel.

Maybe that was why, after I'd spent so long picturing myself rolling a wheel of slaughter, I eventually became able to pull an actual wheel out of thin air.

Come to think of it, the reason it got registered as a skill was probably back in the Training Ground, when I'd refined a mountain of piled-up slaughter energy into residual stats through the wheel and gorged on so much training experience that it hit proficiency rank.

I'd heard about something from Help.

There was a thing called a Natal Dharma Treasure. A type of dharma artifact that you buried into your soul and linked to yourself, creating a growth-type personal weapon that developed alongside the cultivator.

Because it was tied to a cultivator's lifespan, damaging the artifact could injure the cultivator, and if it got sealed or stolen, the cultivator would weaken — but that was exactly how powerful it was supposed to be.

"If you think about it, isn't this my personal weapon? No — my Natal Dharma Treasure?"

Unlike the chopsticks that vanished the moment I threw them, or the spoon that was done after a single use, the wheel had a whole arsenal of functions and was endlessly useful.

Compared to the chopsticks for ranged attacks or the spoon for weapon buffs, this thing was packed with every convenience imaginable, so of course my thoughts ran long.

I could use it for movement, slap buffs on myself or debuffs on enemies, and even refine massive amounts of slaughter energy into residual stats.

That said, given the nature of a wheel, it wasn't exactly ideal for ambushes.

Maybe it was because I'd stepped onto the path of cultivation so young that I still looked like a kid, but people almost never expected me to strike first. By now I'd gotten into the habit of opening with a sucker punch, which usually let me seize a huge advantage right out of the gate.

The ambush advantage was great. The fact that everyday life was a pain in the ass was just something I had to live with. My arms and legs were this short, after all.

Not like I'd expected my body to half-lock in place after becoming a cultivator and jump realms before it even finished growing.

Anyway, I rolled the wheel this way and that.

I'd learned this from dumping slaughter energy like an idiot in the first place — that slaughter energy actually split into "experience" and "karma."

That was why I refined it through the wheel.

When slaughter energy divided into experience and karma, boosting the efficiency meant that much more of both came out. That "karma" was tied to the maximum slaughter capacity and realm limits was something I'd learned from Help's passionate lectures.

I'd already sent Cheon Nan-cho out on prisoner exploration, so I spun the wheel in a complete trance.

The karma and experience contained in the slaughter energy separated and refined.

I spun the wheel even faster.

The formed core inside my body poured out slaughter energy, and that slaughter energy was swallowed by the wheel.

Urgent system warning windows flooded the air.

And the moment the wheel spun so fast it looked almost like a solid sphere, the endless shrinking of the core inside my body stopped all at once.

The sphere of the furiously spinning wheel followed a flick of my hand and was sucked into my body, seeping into the formed core—

Looking at the system alone, nothing had changed except my level dropping and climbing back up. But the truth was a little different. Innate ability only showed a slight dip in level, yet I could feel that the quality of the slaughter energy itself had risen a notch.

"…Refinement, huh."

The slaughter energy I'd gained this time hadn't come from slaughter I'd personally caused, so the efficiency felt even higher — but either way, I'd found a method to temper and raise the quality of slaughter energy itself.

Remembering how meditation still gave experience but hunting mobs always gave more, and how that was why I'd run maps in the first place, I spun the wheel again.

I'd finally set aside the time and made the decision. Now was the moment to refine slaughter energy without limit.

Even if this whole training session had started on nothing but a gut feeling that an Eok-kka event was about to pop. At least doing it in a map with nothing left was the least dangerous option!

What finally broke Yu Hee out of her trance-like training, after a long stretch of time had already passed, was a flood of system messages announcing that Cheon Nan-cho had finished her prisoner exploration and returned.

I'd only sent her out to explore while I trained for a bit, and somehow this Help character had gone and lived out another grand adventure epic.

"I'm back, Hee-a! It's been so long!"

"What? How ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠long was I even training?"

"Uh… ten years?"

What the hell? Why did time get deleted again? No, no need to look — the culprit was obvious. Double Speed Mod!

I'd been so absorbed in dropping and raising my level over and over by refining slaughter energy, dissecting my innate ability and the whole structure of how leveling and innate ability applied to me, that I hadn't noticed time passing at all!

"What were you doing that took ten whole years… ah, right, you said you got lost."

"The stars tell you that kind of stuff too?"

"More or less? Anyway, what did you bring back this time?"

"Heheh. Ta-da!"

"Body Cultivation Technique? What's that?"

"If you cultivate techniques with spiritual power, you're a cultivator. If you train Body Cultivation Techniques instead of spell arts, they call you a body cultivator."

"No, I mean what is a Body Cultivation Technique?"

"It's when you temper the flesh itself into a core and cultivate through that, instead of spell arts. You know?"

"Ahh, got it. So if I eat this, I go from pure mage to magic swordsman."

"It's called dual cultivation of technique and body — practicing spell arts and Body Cultivation Techniques at the same time. Growth slows down and reaching true mastery gets harder, but within a given realm it's also the strongest path."

"So dual-classing has an experience penalty and is a pain to level, but the ceiling is higher. Got it!"

Every time I opened my mouth with more nonsense, her expression got worse and worse, until she finally sulked her way into the inventory. I had to coax her for a long time after that.