Ten Years Until the Season

Back at the base, I buried the small ruin I'd brought along in one corner of the grounds. Only after packing it away with meticulous care — sealing it permanently beneath the weight of my authority and slaughter energy — did I feel something in my chest lighten, if only by a fraction.

I considered putting up ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠a headstone, then decided against it. It didn't matter if no one else knew. As long as I knew — as long as I didn't forget — that was enough.

Which left one thing still to do.

"Yeona. Come here a second."

Time to repay the girl who'd stirred my dead humanity back to life and scrubbed away even a sliver of the hesitation and guilt rotting inside me.

I looked up as San Gi-yeon approached, clinging to the side of her giant bright-yellow chick — only for the chick to shake itself out mid-approach, fling her clean off, and bolt in the opposite direction.

I glanced down at San Gi-yeon sprawled on the ground like discarded trash, eyes brimming with the purest sense of betrayal, then ignored her completely and got on with what I'd come to say.

Let's see. I was pretty sure I still had some Strange Candies left.

I pulled out the leftover consumables — the ones that raised your level, now useless to me since I'd long outgrown them — and set them floating one by one in the air. There were only about a dozen left, low-level junk by any measure. But for San Gi-yeon, who was still stuck at early Qi Condensation — somewhere between level 39 and 45 if I had to guess — those dozen candies were enough to rocket her straight into mid Qi Condensation in a single gulp.

"Here. A gift."

"Thank you, Seonbae-nim...!"

Even using every last one of them, she'd barely crack level 50. She really didn't need to look that moved about it.

"Anything uncomfortable around the base?"

"No... as long as I stick to the areas with spiritual energy, I'm fine!"

"And the places without?"

Outside the buildings currently under construction — the ones I'd dumped spirit stones and materials into — most of this sect's land had zero spiritual energy whatsoever.

"This junior's cultivation is still too shallow..."

So her level was too low to handle it. Come to think of it, Cheon Nan-cho had said the same thing when she first arrived — complained about the lack of spiritual energy and then proceeded to devour spirit stones by the armful.

Hmm. I really did want to power-level her, but the system still classified her as a prisoner rather than a fellow player. Beyond handing over consumables, I had no way to interfere.

"What about Cheon Nan-cho?"

"Senior Cheon takes good care of me as well!"

Well, ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠that settled that. Her adaptability was faster than I'd expected.

"If you're short on anything for training, just grab it from the warehouse. And if the decorations — I mean, the puppets — give you any trouble, stab them with my chopsticks."

I reached for the chopsticks nestled in Yeona's hair like a hairpin — she was half-bowed, knees not quite on the ground, as if trying to keep her eye level below mine — and tried to breathe a little slaughter energy into them to top off what had been spent. A small sound of surprise escaped me.

These chopsticks had been forged from my slaughter energy, spun out of my own skill — and yet right now, they were asserting with absolute conviction that they no longer belonged to me. Just how obsessively had she been cherishing these things?

I could actually feel it: the chopsticks' faint self-awareness, making some absurdly solemn declaration of independence.

Which meant I couldn't pour my slaughter energy into them anymore.

And it wasn't as if Yeona — a non-player prisoner, common-grade, low-level to boot — could go roaming the map hunting monsters to restock slaughter energy on her own.

"Yeona, do you happen to have any slaughter stones?"

"Pardon? Senior Cheon once ordered the puppets to mine some, and I helped dig them up, but Senior Cheon and the puppets took them all."

"Hmm."

I opened my inventory. Even running a full sort-and-search, not a single slaughter stone turned up. Cheon Nan-cho — who came and went from my inventory as freely as she pleased — had clearly cleaned them out.

No helping it. A handful ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠of unused consumables wasn't nearly enough of a gift to call us even.

I grabbed Yeona, floated the wheel above my head, and flew straight up, heading for a quiet corner of the training grounds.

"Wait here a moment."

I closed my eyes and descended into my inner world.

In the Mental World — that vast Sea of Slaughter, the Golden Core shining above it, and the small tower built beneath — my consciousness sank toward the abyssal ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠floor far below.

The foundation of the Mental World itself, the bedrock supporting that great ocean. From the Status Window, I peeled away a single, precisely measured fragment: one point of Body Stat.

A tiny shard of stone, cradled in the wheel's protection, climbed back up through the Sea of Slaughter, broke the surface, and shot skyward toward the Golden Core. Spiritual power enveloped it. At the same time, a portion of the slaughter energy drawn up through the tower was refined, compressed into a sphere, and launched from the tower's peak — colliding with the spirit-wreathed stone.

I felt the impact send waves rolling across the once-still Sea of Slaughter.

Then I opened my eyes and spoke.

Body Stat: one.

I flicked away the misfortune-event message announcing the permanent loss of a portion of my attributes, then spat the refined blood from my mouth and poured it onto the training ground floor.

Handing slaughter energy over myself would trample the chopsticks' declaration of independence — and might shatter the very pair Yeona had been so carefully tending. Better to just manufacture an artificial spirit-vein mine outright.

"There. Mine this with your own hands — use it to reinforce those chopsticks, use it for training, whatever you want. This is entirely yours."

I opened the base settings, transferred ownership of the tile to San Gi-yeon the prisoner, and then met her gaze as she stared at me with a strange look in her eyes.

What? Why are you looking at me like that.

"Thank you, Seonbae-nim! I'll work hard!"

"Yeah, good. I'll be off to train, then — wait."

I caught San Gi-yeon just as she charged the spirit-vein mine with chopsticks raised like she intended to dig with them, and pressed a diamond pickaxe into her hands. It bounced right off — level too low to equip. Gold and silver pickaxes were also out of her range, and I wasn't about to hand her a wooden or stone one, so I reluctantly offered an iron pickaxe with trembling hands. That one, at least, she managed to equip.

Whew. Friendly NPCs really were high-maintenance!

Leaving Yeona industriously swinging her pickaxe behind me, I planted myself in the training grounds and got to work.

"...?"

Season...?

I'd been holed up in the training grounds, training flowing so smoothly for once that I'd lost myself in it completely — and this message shattered my concentration in a single blow. I tilted my head.

I wasn't sure what it was about, but the Quest Window was blinking insistently, practically screaming at me to open it. So I did.

I took one look at the quest condition slapped onto this out-of-nowhere Season Event and smacked myself in the forehead. So this was an Immortal Cultivation Mode event?

The kind that only appeared once you'd joined a sect and unlocked the Quest Window?

Part of me wondered whether it was even worth doing — but the fact that I could stack two Great Fortunes in the Quest Window was an awfully strong pull.

Hitting View Details dumped a wall of text on me. The gist: once every few thousand years, a mysterious secret realm opened, and cultivators of Core Formation and above gathered to hunt for treasures. The most tired, cliché premise imaginable.

In other words: level requirement 200, a special map opening for a limited season, competitive neutral NPCs pouring in to snatch the rewards.

Hmm. What to do about this.

Since it was a Season Event rather than a Season Quest, participating would lock out every other event trigger — which meant I probably wouldn't get hit with any event-style Eok-kka. That was something, at least.

When in doubt, ask Cheon Nan-cho.

"What the hell? You've been holed up in the training grounds this whole time — where did you even dig up information like that..."

My innate talent told me, obviously. I said nothing and just tipped my head back toward the sky. I couldn't see them myself, but according to Cheon Nan-cho, the stars were watching me.

"The stars told you again? Seriously, how bored must a star up in the upper realms be to bother feeding you trivia about this lower world? Or wait — do you have some kind of foresight or information-gathering technique?"

"Never mind that. What should I do? Going would make me stronger fast, but..."

"How about you go first, grab all the rewards yourself, and bail, Hee-ah?"

"It's a map with a fixed opening window — I mean, a secret realm!"

"Hmm. Do you really need to take the risk? Honestly, people enter secret realms for rare high-quality cultivation resources to raise their realm, for hidden techniques and manuals, or to train faster in the dense spiritual energy inside. But you, Hee-ah—"

"Ah."

High-quality cultivation resources? I could farm materials and craft them myself, or just duplicate consumable training resources through Farming Mode.

Hidden techniques and manuals? The odds of a slaughter-energy-based technique or manual conveniently sitting inside that secret realm? Be serious.

Dense spiritual energy? I ran on slaughter energy.

So the only thing I could reliably get out of the secret realm was the guaranteed Random Season Special Reward listed in the quest rewards. Everything else was scattered across the map, which meant competing with every neutral NPC who showed up.

"Wait — no. Thinking about it, there is something I can definitely get."

"What?"

"The cultivators who walk into that secret realm."