The Wheel Turns

The wheel turned.

The sky of my Mental World stained itself with thunderclouds. Clouds woven from slaughter energy took on a sickly yellow lightning that dyed them crimson red.

Even as that red lightning poured down like rain upon the tower standing at the heart of the Mental World—a catastrophe aimed as if with deliberate malice—the Seas of Slaughter did not so much as tremble.

And between the tower and that rain of red lightning, my Golden Core scattered the light of spiritual energy in precarious, flickering bursts.

"Kh...!"

Blood overflowed from my mouth, my nose, my ears. I didn't dare pull up slaughter energy for regeneration—doing so would wreck the spiritual energy absorption I'd worked so hard on—but every time the Golden Core took a hit from the lightning, blood surged up and burst out of me all the same.

Just the dampness of blood on my body was enough to block the lightning erupting from my spiritual veins. I roughly wiped the blood away and swapped my gear through Quick Slot Mode.

Items, equipped gear—anything interfered with spiritual energy, so I switched to the lowest-level decorative equipment I had. Why register that junk in a quick slot? Disaster-event prep. Those goddamn misfortune ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠events that nuke your equipment durability aren't just one or two, you know.

"Urgh."

The price of ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠letting my mind wander for even a second was another mouthful of blood. The blood that hit the floor eroded and weakened the spiritual veins.

What the hell? Even bleeding is an interference? Fuck? Is this difficulty even fair?

I forced myself to refocus. The Golden Core surviving the lightning strikes was only possible because the slaughter-energy clouds had dyed the bolts once already. Now I had to take the next step and actually absorb the spiritual energy.

I couldn't do this inside the Mental World alone. For a normal cultivator, this was basic work they should have been able to handle.

It was the kind of process you were supposed to get used to step by step starting from Qi Condensation—except I'd cheesed the entire thing with experience points and slaughter energy as cheat keys. This was me finally paying off that side effect.

I kept absorbing spiritual energy with Double Speed Mod running until I burned through an entire spiritual vein, and then I felt it. That was as far as my Golden Core could go.

It was already smaller and more fragile than a normal cultivator's Golden Core. Taking spiritual energy directly through the lightning had expanded the vessel a little, but apparently I couldn't enlarge it too much all at once.

Slaughter energy wasn't going to run short anytime soon, but growing the Golden Core had burned through so much of it that the lack of spiritual energy left me exhausted. I opened my inventory at once.

"Munch munch..."

In a hurry I pulled out material items, crushed them between teeth wrapped in slaughter energy, and swallowed them whole. These were material items still packed with residual spiritual energy and qi that even slaughter energy hadn't erased, so fewer than ten of them were enough to fill the slightly enlarged Golden Core.

"Hee, what the hell are you eating?!"

"Material items?"

Crunch! Crack!

"That does NOT sound like something edible!"

"But if we're only talking spiritual energy recovery, this is the fastest way."

Relying on the Golden Core's natural recovery was out—mine was currently overworked to the point of filing for annual leave and going completely offline. Force it awake and I wouldn't like the results.

So I was physically chewing and swallowing material items to pour spiritual energy straight in. This was filling an empty tank, not stacking extra on top.

It tasted like nothing. Of course it did—rocks, metal, charred bone fragments, claws. Why would any of that taste good?

I was just scarfing them down to restore spiritual energy as fast as possible. If a material item wasn't high enough level to withstand slaughter energy in the first ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠place, the slaughter energy would devour it before any recovery happened.

Anyway, the effect of growing the Golden Core showed itself with brutal clarity.

In two days of hard work I cleared an entire map and leveled up.

I'd left the base with an experience bar under ten percent and still leveled just by clearing the map—that was a terrifying level-up speed.

"I really do need to start stacking spiritual energy too."

There was an experience penalty if you didn't stack it at all. If Elder Togo hadn't told me, I would've just assumed it was a mod bug and idiotically moved on.

"Experiment's done enough. To stack spiritual energy I need to farm a ton of spirit stones, but hunting just piles up slaughter energy."

Most of the spirit stones I'd accumulated so far had been cheerfully burned through by Cheon Nan-cho and the decorations. Hmm? Yeona was still such a low-level scrub she hadn't even started gathering qi, so she hadn't finished using the slaughter stones from the mine I'd given her earlier either.

Elder Togo was way past the level where he'd use spirit stones this low-grade.

"Hmm.... Check Show Me the Money mode."

Cheat modes still unavailable. It still wouldn't even show me the level restriction. What the hell? If I have to hit max level before I can use a cheat mode, what's the point of the cheat mode in the first place?!

I tried calling up convenience modes from various other packs that just inflate your held currency, but got no response. That would've been jackpot if it worked.

"Hmmm...."

In a normal game you could just wipe a decent Village or Fortress and loot a reasonable amount of cash. The problem was that in this piece-of-shit xianxia mode, the currency wasn't regular money—it was spirit stones.

A currency that, for some godforsaken reason, eats inventory slots! And it comes in every grade from the absolute bottom tier up, the higher ones have abysmal drop rates, and you can't even exchange them properly. What a fucking currency!

You can break a mid-grade spirit stone down into about a hundred low-grade ones, but the reverse doesn't work. Makes sense—as a cultivator's realm rises, low-grade spirit stones become useless for training.

In short, the currency itself has a level restriction bolted on.

And not the kind where you need to reach a level to use it—the kind where once you surpass the usable level, you can't use it anymore!

"To get spirit stones I can actually use, I'm going to have to hit somewhere big...."

Isn't there a map somewhere packed with cultivators?

If I drive them off with slaughter energy they won't be able to take their items, but ordinary currency like spirit stones should still drop, right? I never paid attention before.

Because I thought slaughter energy alone would be enough!

Plus, thanks to NPC Personal Trade Mode, I couldn't use shops at all, so I'd cared even less about currency. Personal trades were closer to bartering than actual money deals anyway.

"Even after becoming a cultivator in xianxia mode, you're always short on cash."

Fine. Maybe I'll just wipe a few Villages where the slaughter energy intake is low.

"Eeyaagh?!"

The Humanity Clones stabbed into my inner self, but something felt different from usual. Among the many Humanity Clones carving up my insides with their assorted weapons of conscience, one of them fluttered and danced.

It held a spear of conscience and simply danced, cutting empty air—but it hurt. Not physically. It hurt in the heart.

And yet the spear dance that Humanity Clone performed was so beautiful that even I, who knew nothing about martial arts, couldn't bring myself to raise a hand against them just to reject the pain.

"Hoo."

I pulled out my Chopsticks, gripped them, and stretched them with the Laws until they were spear-length. Martial arts. The help text had said it was a useless waste of time for cultivators.

The Humanity Clones were my past-life self. Mortals.

And they were still, strictly speaking, me.

On nothing more than the simple impulse that I wanted to try copying it, I took the Chopsticks as a spear and tried to move my body in imitation of the Humanity Clone still dancing with its conscience-spear inside me.

"...Can't do it."

How do I put this. It wasn't about talent or me not knowing martial arts. It was a completely different sensation. Even if that Humanity Clone was just a mortal version ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠of my past self, it was still clearly "me"—and I couldn't fully copy it.

Not "can't copy." Closer to "doesn't exist."

Like the function had been completely locked.

"Eh, if I can't, I can't!"

I'd only wanted to try because it was pretty. Pretty enough to make me forget even the pain inside for a moment. But that was all.

"Don't just grab your consciences and attack me because something's impossible—come up with a plan yourselves, yeah? Got nothing?"

Past-life me, mortal or not, all of them should still have the memories of clinging to that shitty game. If there was a game-logic way to solve this, that would be ideal.

"Treasure chests? Finding secret rooms is a pain in the ass, and those don't only drop spirit stones either. Hmm? Sell low-level junk through Personal Trade Mode? Find a neutral NPC who can trade, deal with them, then kill them to reclaim the goods—except wouldn't they just run before that? From the way people are talking about demonic cultivators and whatever, my bad reputation's already spreading."

After a long, earnest brainstorming session with the Humanity Clones, we arrived at a conclusion.

"So in the end, since the goal is to increase spiritual energy, use Heavenly Tribulations? Those only drop as guaranteed events when you break through a limit, right? Wait. Hold on?"

When a cultivator breaks through a limit, a Heavenly Tribulation falls.

When a cultivator reaches the end of their lifespan, a Heavenly Tribulation falls to take them away.

If you interfere with someone else's Heavenly Tribulation, your own becomes twice as strong.

"Right. So I just need to interfere."

I'll become a malicious complainant.

As if it had overheard me swearing to myself while staring at the sky, eyes half-glazed over with the thought of increased experience gains and longing for Heavenly Tribulations—far up in the distant sky, a red star twinkled.