The Tower of Slaughter

In a far corner of the Sea of Slaughter, a tiny reef jutted out of the waves. My Golden Core rested atop it, and countless chopsticks whirled around that little reef, pouring down in an endless rain.

What those chopsticks were building was a tower.

Using the reef that could withstand even the waves of slaughter as their foundation, the chopsticks fell without rest, slowly stacking the tower from the bottom up.

And inside the tower they raised, a path was being carved.

A path for slaughter to flow.

The work was pure, grinding misery. The moment the path was laid wrong and the flow broke, the whole structure collapsed like a line of dominoes, forcing me to start the tower over from scratch. Even so, I kept building and demolishing in silence.

I was trying a dirty little exploit: artificially etching the Soft Body Technique—the path of flowing slaughter—into my Mental World by means of a tower made of chopsticks, then linking that path to the Sea of Slaughter so it could shoulder the technique’s explosive consumption for me.

Of course, the whole thing was based on nothing more solid than a vague feeling of “this might just work.”

Whether it was because I had come to understand the path of slaughter more clearly after the Soft Body Technique—whose original name I could no longer even remember—had collapsed and been rebuilt dozens, then hundreds of times, or simply because I had gorged on the experience of repeated training failures and become a master craftsman, I couldn’t say.

There were moments when the work of opening an artificial path of slaughter inside the chopstick tower suddenly felt far easier, as if the skill level itself had risen.

Spiritual energy scattered from the Golden Core braced the tower of chopsticks. From beneath the reef that supported it, the sea of slaughter surged upward through the tower’s interior as though ascending to heaven.

The seawater that climbed the imitated path of slaughter never quite reached the top. Somewhere midway, a misaligned section of the path failed to hold the pressure and burst, and the tower once again crumbled into nothing.

Yet with every failure, chopsticks, spiritual energy, and slaughter collided and collapsed, leaving behind the debris of experience. That experience raised the proficiency of the transformation skill while simultaneously expanding the reef that propped up the tower of slaughter.

The count of towers raised and destroyed passed one hundred, then two hundred. The pace quickened, the numbers climbing faster and faster, until in what felt like an instant I had attempted it more than five hundred times.

At last the ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠seawater of slaughter climbed the path all the way to the summit, then spilled back down toward the sea once more.

It was no longer a mere current circulating between seas of slaughter. Through the structure of the tower, an artificial path of slaughter had completed its cycle.

Unfixed slaughter flowing endlessly, yet drawing a fixed form—this was, of course, the complete mastery of the transformation skill.

Unless the entire Sea of Slaughter heaved and smashed the tower to pieces, I could now use the transformation skill without consuming any slaughter at all.

“Hoo…”

I slipped out of the Mental World and opened my eyes. Building a tower of slaughter-chopsticks atop the Sea of Slaughter would have melted them instantly, so I had used chopsticks of pure killing intent instead. Sure enough, the spiritual vein of the killing-intent attribute had dried up completely and vanished.

It had been a vein forged by consuming an entire Extreme-grade Spirit Stone, yet I felt no regret. In its place I had raised a tower that would permanently sustain a transformation skill that was, for all intents and purposes, a perpetual-motion engine.

And as if they had been waiting for me to regain consciousness, system messages flooded my vision in a cascading wall.

First, the failure experience had fed me a ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠full three levels.

Along with the levels came the massive backlash from tearing out stats—parts of the Status Window that also propped up the great sea—in order to widen the reef that would serve as the tower’s foundation.

Unlike the wheel and the chopsticks I had created myself, the transformation skill properly belonged to the special skills of Immortal Cultivation Mode. Whether it was because I ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠had maxed it out, or simply because the skill itself was special, the generous stat rewards that came with mastery almost made me laugh out loud.

“Status Window!”

Huh? The state of my Body stat…?

A cultivator’s body was mostly composed of spiritual energy, and in my case it was made of slaughter, yet this still felt wrong. I raised one hand and clenched it hard.

Kiiiiiiik!!!

Pure Body stat of two thousand, plus the permanent fifty-percent boost from the maxed-out transformation skill always being active—three thousand raw physical power. The sensation of crushing something that didn’t even exist inside my empty fist startled me so badly I let the strength go at once.

If I equipped gear on top of this and added the equipment stats before swinging a basic attack, just how high would the damage coefficient climb?

Of course, unless Auto-Battle was running I never got into melee anyway and only flung chopsticks, but still—mastering a single skill had given me a truly absurd surge of power.

Even for Immortal Cultivation Mode, it was enough to make me tilt my head.

“The effect of skill mastery is way bigger than I expected.”

It had been the same with the chopsticks, and with the wheel I had turned into my natal Dharma Treasure. Seeing the special skill of transformation do the same thing, I figured it had to be the influence of the Reality Patch.

Because of event eok-kka, averaging stats was safer, and more importantly, stats were capped unless I raised my realm. From that ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠angle the uneven growth might look bad…

“Fuck yeah, this is it.”

Just the raw stats alone—adding the three categories—had jumped by more than five hundred. How could that possibly be bad? Hell yes! Jackpot!

I trembled with pure, unfiltered joy. With stats like these I could charge straight into a high-level map, crush the level correction with raw numbers, and still pop a Decisive Victory.

I staggered.

“Eek.”

What the hell? Even as the thought formed, my consciousness was already fading. Only then did I realize that the extreme concentration of the training had left this new body of mine utterly drained.

I tried to stand, collapsed instead, and blacked out on the spot.

“Hee-a’s spiritual energy…! It’s gone…?”

Cheon Nan-cho came flying in a panic, confirmed that Yu Hee was only unconscious rather than dead, and let out a sigh of relief—then immediately screamed. After all the spiritual energy and time she had poured into forging that Extreme-grade Spirit Stone vein, watching the entire thing vanish in one go was more than enough reason to shriek.

“Senior! What’s going on, Senior!”

At the sound of that scream, San Gi-yeon came racing into the training ground, clinging to the back of her giant chick. Cheon Nan-cho finally pulled herself together and steeled her heart.

“I’ll look after Hee-a. Yeona, you call the spare puppets and dig around this area. If there’s an ore vein, strip the whole thing!”

“They don’t listen to me, Senior!”

“They’ll listen to that one, though.”

The rabbit that had been sitting cross-legged atop the chick’s head opened its crimson eyes with a glitter, rummaged through the feathers, and pulled out a toy-like green gem pickaxe. It looked ready to dash off and start mining the vein all by itself—until Cheon Nan-cho’s terrifying gaze landed on it, at which point it plopped right back down on the chick’s head.

“Just mark out the mining zone for the kids and keep an eye on them. Report if anything unusual happens. And don’t forget to call the ones who fought hard during the invasion—tell the horse that the tin can rides and it’ll sort them out for you.”

Having roughly dumped the cleanup on San Gi-yeon, Cheon Nan-cho scooped Hee-a up and headed for her own territory. Even so, she kept glancing uneasily at the sky.

“How did she master it so damn fast…”

Complete mastery of the Soft Body Technique, and with it evolution into a transcendent species.

And transcendent species were not permitted to exist in the lower world.

By the laws of Heaven, the moment of mastery should have forced her to ascend to Eternity and be cast up into the upper realm.

Yet Yu Hee had completed the evolution into a transcendent species with astonishing smoothness—and still remained at the early stage of Golden Core, still present in this lower world.

Cheon Nan-cho could not even begin to guess the reason. All she could do was tremble with unease.