Heave-Ho: The Tower That Would Not Hold

Heave-ho, heave-ho. The Humanity Clones helped raise the tower with their little fern-like hands.

They'd been dragged into hard labor and tried to protest, of course — but I'd spent so long actually listening to them that I managed to ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠talk them around. That was the only reason this clone technique was even possible.

Still, the Humanity Clones from my past life were all Mortals, so all they could really do was lend a hand. Even that much was only possible because this was the Mental World.

Mortal or not, they were still my Humanity Clones, and the system seemed to register them as "me" — which meant they could move the Chopsticks. That alone made the work feel like it was finally moving forward.

Using Togo's teachings and advice as a foothold, I slowly remodeled and stacked the tower higher and higher. At last it stood complete, and the Humanity Clones cheered in triumph — so I drew the Sea of Slaughter up through the tower.

It collapsed on the spot.

Right. Back to square one. Built on slaughter energy as it was, raising the tower was a nightmare of a job. That was also why I couldn't fully absorb Togo's teachings — his methods were rooted in spiritual power, so of course they couldn't run on the same structure as my slaughter energy.

Leaving the Humanity Clones crushed and vanished beneath the falling tower behind me, I started over from scratch. I raised the tower and knocked it down more than a hundred times, until at last it stopped collapsing completely and only half of it gave way.

With every attempt, the tower's craftsmanship climbed higher, and it began, bit by bit, to hold.

And finally — I succeeded in circulating slaughter energy through the tower. I left the Mental World, opened my eyes, and—

A full eight levels, gone in one shot.

The tower had grown so massive that failure experience couldn't cover the damage. Ripping pieces out of my innate talent — the Status Window — just to prop the thing up had hit far too hard.

Last time, mastering a skill had triggered a reverse jackpot and dumped a mountain of experience and stats on me. This time, it felt like I'd face-planted into the dirt with almost nothing to show for it.

At least finishing the tower's reconstruction was something.

Far from raising any skill levels, tearing down my carefully built tower and raising it again had dropped them instead. I'd also undone the trick of burning slaughter energy straight from the Ocean of Slaughter to make transformation skills cost almost nothing — that cost was back up. In exchange, though…

I could now fuel the Law of Scale with slaughter energy, not just mental power.

In plain terms: a Law whose skill coefficient had scaled purely off my mental stat now had a slaughter energy coefficient stacked on top.

And my slaughter energy was vast and ferocious far beyond my realm — which meant the Law itself had grown that much stronger.

"You're awake already, newborn."

"Togo!"

Wait — when did I even get back to the base? My last memory was a friendly NPC calling me over, scooping me up, and petting me through an interaction prompt.

Ugh. My head…

"Looking at how your Law's power has changed, it seems our little newborn had a breakthrough in that short span of time."

"Short span?"

Huh? What? I'd been lost in a trance rebuilding the tower in the Mental World, and it had felt like forever.

"It didn't even take one shichen."

"One hour?"

"Mm… one shichen is two hours, newborn. It seems you need a bit more study — to think you wouldn't even know something so basic."

Basic knowledge? Learning a bunch of background lore like that doesn't make you stronger. I couldn't exactly tell Togo no, though, so I just rolled my eyes around and nodded.

More importantly — less than two hours? That had to be the Double Speed Mod firing off on its own again. But if you accelerate time with Double Speed Mod inside the inner world, does real-world time not speed up the same way?

Does the system even count the inner world as its own map? I had no idea how the judgment worked.

I had a bad feeling my Help menu's common-knowledge study sessions were about to get replaced by Togo's lectures — but he pulled me into a hug and stroked my hair as if that weren't the important part at all, and asked me ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠a question.

"So. Have you grown a little more familiar with your Law?"

"Well…"

The Law I held was Scale.

Using my own body as the baseline, I could expand or shrink myself — and it worked on inanimate objects too. The limits were clear, though, and the mental drain was brutal, so I hadn't used it much.

Now that I could run the Law itself on slaughter energy, its range and raw power should have skyrocketed. As for whether I was familiar with it? Not really. Not even close.

"Togo, now that I have a Law… does that mean I've become one of the giant race?"

"That's right. It's the first step toward reaching Nascent Soul in the first place. The Law our newborn obtained is the simplest of Laws — and for that very reason, one of the hardest to acquire."

"Why? Isn't it just making your body bigger or smaller?"

"Hmm… very well. Let me explain it in a way our newborn can understand."

He smoothed down the hair he'd mussed while petting me and launched into an old-storyteller's lecture on the ancient origins and development of Laws. I finally couldn't take it anymore and hit skip — no, the rest emotion emote — and fled.

"Heh heh…"

Every bit of that sulking ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠was plain as day to Togo, of course. But the old man already had rose-tinted glasses welded firmly over his eyes, so he simply kept stroking the newborn nestled in his arms with careful affection.

What snapped me out of it was a nasty, hair-raising sensation — a wrongness crawling across the sky over a base that was supposed to be pure comfort. I tried to scramble out of Togo's arms and failed, still held fast.

And before I could get a word out, the barrier and seals Cheon Nan-cho had so carefully decorated into place over the base shattered all at once. A mass of spiritual power, unmistakably locked onto me, came plummeting from the sky.

"A fortuitous encounter aimed at our newborn… still, this is a bit much, isn't it?"

Togo's hologram peeled away like a shed skin, and a machine of pure metal revealed itself beneath.

The SF-mode decisive battle weapon, powered by Togo's Nascent Soul as its core, seized spiritual power as fuel and cast a vast, intangible net of energy — snatching the falling mass of spiritual power clean out of the air.

Huh. So that lump of spiritual power that could have killed me… Togo just casually caught it.

"Here, newborn. This is the fortune the star sent down for you — you should be the one to take it."

"Thank you, Togo! You know what I really like, right?"

I flashed him a grateful [Greeting] emotion emote, drew on the power of my Law, and seized the mass of spiritual power held in Togo's net with both hands.

Not stats, not level — spiritual power. So this was a xianxia-mode event! But why did it have to go off at the base like that? I nearly jumped out of my skin!

And why — of all things — spiritual power?

Slaughter energy had me so thoroughly pinned that I couldn't learn or use a single spiritual-power technique or cultivation method. More precisely, nothing would even register in the skill window!

It wasn't completely useless… but for an Amazing Luck roll, it felt pretty underwhelming.

"Looking at how our newborn's Golden Core has grown a little, this truly is a star's fortuitous encounter."

"But I use slaughter energy, not spiritual power…"

"Our newborn needs spiritual power to grow as well. The star was a bit rough about delivering the fortune, so you seem sulky — but it couldn't be helped, I suspect."

"I'm not sulking! Togo!"

"It seems the star sent this fortune down this way to solve, all at once, the problem of your Golden Core being unable to accumulate spiritual power under that thick slaughter energy — and thus unable to advance in realm."

"…What?"

So if I followed Togo's words — all those times a luck event spat out a Heavenly Tribulation and I tanked it for stats, spiritual power, or levels… that was because of the slaughter energy?!

And wait — low spiritual power was cutting my experience gain rate? No wonder experience had been crawling in so painfully slowly!

If the Golden Core couldn't stockpile spiritual power because of the Ocean of Slaughter… then how had I been growing at all until now…

Obviously the Golden Core had been eating the experience. Experience getting burned twice over — of course level-ups would drag like hell!

Gyaaaaah!

So that's why my level refused to budge!

I screamed on the inside, pouring out pure injustice, but Yu Hee's blank face never cracked. Togo moved to pull her close again — then saw his own hand pass through her like mist, and withdrew in quiet relief that the newborn hadn't noticed.

Even a Nascent Soul cultivator like Togo, drawing that much spiritual power from his Nascent Soul alone in Yu Hee's desolate sect grounds, couldn't help running short on strength.

"Togo! How do I cultivate spiritual power?!"

"To cultivate spiritual power, you need spirit stones. There's a reason cultivators use them as currency. But with our newborn's slaughter energy, ordinary spirit stones look like they'd have a hard time building spiritual power."

"Mm. So something other than the ordinary method, then!"

"And what do you intend to do, newborn?"

"Huh? Well, spirit stones are just rocks with spiritual energy packed into them, right? So as long as I grab something loaded with spiritual power and eat it, shouldn't that work?"

A cultivator's spiritual root, for instance. Or a Golden Core!