I'll Think About It Later

"...?"

"The massive experience and slaughter energy you can farm by slaughtering high-quality cultivators in bulk."

Any neutral NPC stubborn enough to crawl into a Secret Realm would have decent gear on them, and the killing karma they'd piled up over a lifetime would be more than enough — which meant the experience and slaughter energy I'd harvest would be enormous.

And if I wiped out every neutral NPC who'd entered the Secret Realm, every mission reward still sitting on the map would be mine alone.

Well — everything they hadn't already burned through, at least!

The humanity Yeon-ah had helped revive picked up a little awl called conscience and tried to jab me from the inside, but even so — half the season-event rewards that raised every single stat still added up to a hundred and fifty points total, and I really, really wanted to swallow that giant Fortune boost.

I stopped greed from snapping conscience clean in half, somehow managed to rouse the humanity that greed had already flattened into a wrinkled mess, and tried to negotiate a compromise.

Can we at least settle for not randomly attacking neutrals on sight? Once the event trigger locks, the option of just murdering every neutral NPC becomes a lot less necessary anyway.

My past life's humanity shook its head. Not good enough. Even for a modern person's selective, double-standard brand of conscience, it wasn't so completely incompetent that it couldn't see through my real plan — pick a fight on purpose, take the first hit, then kill them with a clean conscience.

I'll try to resolve things through dialogue.

Humanity, looking like it was calling me a liar, laboriously picked conscience back up and jabbed my insides. What? Had I equipped Chinese-gamer personality just because this was a xianxia world? Hey, fuck off, that was way too harsh!

The humanity of a game-addicted shut-in who was basically still a Mortal declared that my current personality didn't look any different from a Chinese gamer's — and the critical hit slammed into my inner world so hard I reeled from the shock.

"I'm worse than a Chinese gamer…?"

"Ah — she's seizing again. Here, Hee-ah, drink this and calm down."

Only after I downed the sap Cheon Nan-cho handed me — cold even to a cultivator's senses — in one shot did I finally claw my way free of the shock.

So this was why cultivators discarded their humanity. I'd nearly let mental trauma shake my Mental World. If that ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠had happened, the waves would've toppled the tower I'd only just built and dealt me serious damage.

What? But my personality really was trash, wasn't it? No, fuck that — I was just being an asshole to NPCs in a game, so what the hell was all this personality talk about—

Then are you going to claim you're not an NPC? If this world is a game and everything in it is an NPC, then what about you? You? Me? Me? Me? Can I even say for certain that I'm not an NPC?

Something cold circulated through my body, surged all at once into my head, and flash-froze the inside of my skull.

"What the hell did you feed me, Cheon Nan-cho."

"An awakening agent?"

Why the fuck was that a question.

Anyway — I pulled myself together, firmly locked down my swaying Mental World, patched the fine cracks the waves had left in the tower, thawed out each of my frozen humanity clones one by one, and then made my decision.

"The season event doesn't even open for another ten years, so I'll think about it later!"

Postpone it for now.

Ignoring the way every humanity clone in my inner world shook its head in unison, I flopped flat on my back. I was exhausted. Mentally filthy exhausted.

I was about to use a rest emote when Cheon Nan-cho climbed up onto my stomach and sprawled out with me.

"What."

"Nothing. Just… it feels like you're loosening up more and more, Hee-ah."

"You can feel that?"

"Of course I can. We've been together for years."

Yeah, fair enough.

Whether reviving my humanity had been a good choice or a bad one, I still didn't know. But at least it hadn't been empty — and compared to mechanically grinding levels, it felt like I'd actually gained a goal. That didn't seem so bad.

If only I'd bought the Emote DLC. I never imagined I'd regret skipping it this hard just because I'd gotten salty over community flame wars about the DLC and sworn I'd rather die than purchase it.

The reason I — someone who'd tried to see everything as a game, think in game logic, and understand the world through game systems — was acting like this now was, of course, because I'd brought my humanity back.

Even if my past life's humanity clones, limited by their Mortal origins, couldn't invade or taint the self and thoughts of a Golden Core cultivator, they could still arm themselves with that powerful weapon called conscience and stab at my insides — which meant they functioned as a kind of brake.

I didn't find them annoying. I didn't find them irritating.

Because even the humanity of my past life was still, unmistakably, me.

If I, as a cultivator who had defined this world as a game and accepted it as such, was the thesis — then my past life's humanity clones, as humans who insisted this world was reality, were the antithesis denying that thesis.

And to overcome the contradiction of that self-negation, I had to pass through an endless cycle of thesis and antithesis repeating. In the end, the process itself became the state of reaching synthesis—

"Ah, fuck."

The insufficient-realm alert from being underleveled tore a curse out of me before I could stop it. The enlightenment that had drawn right up to my face for a single instant had been kicked out cold by the system for not having enough levels.

My Golden Core had been tingling — and unlike simply growing by killing living things and harvesting slaughter energy and experience, this had been a chance for the Golden Core that grew through enlightenment and ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠cultivation to surge forward all at once. Gone.

"What is it this time?"

"I was mid-enlightenment and the Star kicked it out. Said my realm was insufficient."

"Hmmm. The Star really does cherish you a lot, Hee-ah."

"Isn't getting enlightenment a good thing?"

"Enlightenment that doesn't match your realm is poison to a cultivator. To put it in terms you'll understand — if you grasp an enlightenment beyond your realm, Heaven will start taking you a lot more seriously."

"Heaven?"

Was I getting put on some celestial bureaucrat's blacklist?

"Your Heavenly Tribulation gets massively stronger, that kind of thing. You know how they say that even among Mortals, the ones who are too smart, too beautiful, or too talented die young? Same principle."

"Ahh."

So if I'd landed an enlightenment that didn't fit my realm this time, I'd have gotten blacklisted by our heavenly civil servants and died!

Fuck, that was insanely dangerous!?

"Is there a way to make Heaven take me less seriously?"

"Even if you die once and resurrect as a complete Mortal, or reincarnate, or get possessed into a new body — enlightenment doesn't weaken. So not really?"

Ahh. So even dying and coming back still put you on the blacklist. Heaven boasted a thoroughness not even Jesus could dodge.

And even if I did die — factoring in dying in a dungeon and resurrecting with ten percent of my Mental World ripped out, or permanent damage to my Golden Core — there was no real way to escape Heaven's eyes.

"Enlightenment shows up ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠whenever it wants. So what am I supposed to do?"

"Raise your realm to match the enlightenment before you die, what else. Raise it and you live. Can't raise it and you die. On the flip side, if you obtain the enlightenment and survive the stronger Heavenly Tribulation, you'll be that much more powerful when you do break through."

A timed challenge, then! And surviving came with a reward, so it felt like a giant difficulty-boosting mod.

My inner humanity clones jabbed me with conscience like they were scolding me for insisting on understanding even this in game terms — but since those past-life personalities were game addicts too, the jabs were pretty weak.

"Alright. Break time's over."

After lying there for days on end, I finally got up. Training was training, but right now I needed to clear the map and level up. The season event? Still ten years out — I could think about it later!

"Auto-Battle!"

Look at these beautiful result screens — overwhelming victories for the most part, with the occasional decisive one sprinkled in! And these weren't even low-level trash. Every single one of them was a monster several levels above me!

Tough! Invincible! Strongest! That was me in Auto-Battle talking!

At equal level, the monsters facing me were all beasts with Golden Core–tier power. Spirit beasts and fiend beasts that had condensed Heavenly Origin Qi inside their bodies to form a Golden Core — and despite being monsters, they even spat out dialogue and tried to interact.

Of course, the moment they were red dots — hostile NPCs — I had zero reason to entertain their interaction!

Either way, I harvested their screams, their hate-soaked curses, and their wails as slaughter energy, swallowed it all down, and diligently cleared the map, reaping slaughter energy and experience for the next level.

My inner humanity clones were quiet, like they were holding some kind of private meeting, so they didn't even get in the way. Nothing to feel guilty about. Modern people had played their little color games and flung around racial slurs ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠— sure — but species discrimination against intelligent races? That was uncharted territory.

And so.

Figuring my inner humanity clones had no reason to raise the weapon called conscience against things I'd clearly classified as "monsters" — spirit beasts, fiend beasts, the works — I mechanically tracked them down through the minimap and shouted:

"Auto-Battle!"