Bait, Slaughter, and Honey Dumplings

"You're the only one who survived? And you expect us to believe that?"

"No need to look any further — let's just crack this guy's skull open."

"What the hell are you lot doing? We could still use him as a shield against the demonic cultivators."

The friendly NPC Yu Hee had left behind after casually wiping out an entire sect was about to have his head cracked open by other NPCs — or worse, refined whole into a dharma treasure.

"The help tip was right after all!"

I'd considered bringing him along since he was a friendly NPC and wouldn't trigger any eok-kka events, so I checked with the tip first. It advised that neutral NPCs and monsters would gather to go after a lone friendly left behind. So ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠I used him as bait — and sure enough, they swarmed in droves.

This works better than I expected! Thinking that, I detonated every last block of slaughter energy I'd been stacking up like Tetris while I waited.

The massive slaughter explosion that blanketed half the sect was eerily silent, as if it had swallowed every sound whole, and there was no aftershock at all.

Well, of course — everyone except the friendly NPC, who couldn't be targeted, had been wiped out by the bomb skill. Unfortunately I couldn't salvage most of the loot or drop items, but the sheer volume of simultaneous kills let me harvest a massive haul of slaughter energy and experience.

A flood of level-up messages and the swelling slaughter energy made my body shudder lightly. The mental high was insane. Over a month of being cooped up grinding slaughter Tetris had finally paid off!

"Yeah, thanks for helping out as bait! Want anything? I can pretty much grant whatever you ask!"

I could afford to be generous with friendly NPCs, after all!

"Please spare my life."

"Huh? What, you think I'm going to kill you? No way! You're green. Look, see?"

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I flicked my fingers and sent chopsticks flying, but since I couldn't attack a friendly NPC, they dissolved into thin air before they could even reach him.

"I can't kill green ones! And you risked your neck playing bait for me, so if it's something I can do, I'll do it. I'm in a really good mood right now!"

Part of that was the massive experience I'd just swallowed, and part of it was stacking a meaningful amount of slaughter energy. Of course, having piled up this much slaughter meant I'd have to go through hell again just to raise my spiritual energy…

"Why didn't you bring that guy back to the base?"

"Because he's not a prisoner?"

"Hmm."

"All he wanted was two unused low-level epic pieces of gear and a few consumables. His head's emptier than I expected! He should've demanded way more."

"No, anyone can see he's just terrified of Hia."

Ignoring Cheon Nan-cho, I finished grinding down the materials I'd scraped together from wiping out the sect this time, feeding them through the millstone.

Then I mixed the powder — ground from material items — into honey taken from the decorative ornaments that the reality patch had made edible, and clumsily shaped it with hands lightly coated in spiritual energy.

"Ta-da! Honey dumplings!"

"Why are you making spiritual elixirs barehanded…?"

"Auto-crafting through the production window is convenient, sure, but the grade locks at Magic. Hand-crafting randomizes the grade, so efficiency-wise I'm forced into this. It feels like doing handmade gacha and it pisses me off, but it's still better than not making them at all!"

If it failed, it just became plain honey dough with no item tag, so I could feed it to the decorations and call it a day!

The problem was the millstone's durability — I couldn't batch everything at once and had to grind steadily every single day. Where the hell did convenience go?

Roughly speaking, it felt like I'd picked up one extra daily quest.

"You can't turn this for me, can you, Cheon Nan-cho?"

"That rock was locked to Hia by the great senior. If I touch it, I'll go up in flames."

My plan to dump the daily quest on excellent workers like Cheon Nan-cho or Yeona and let it auto-run had also failed.

"Guess there's no helping it, then!"

"Heading out again?"

"No. I need to raise my spiritual energy for a while."

"Hang in there."

I swallowed a groan without meaning to. Raising spiritual energy was genuinely hard. There was a reason Cheon Nan-cho told me to hang in there.

Even with the millstone, I still had way too much slaughter energy. If I went back into the Training Ground right now and added another layer to the Sea of Slaughter, the Golden Core would fail to digest it and collapse in on itself.

"Hmm… I need to hit Nascent Soul soon. Status Window!"

My level bounced up and down on its own, but I'd only entered mid-stage after hitting level 400. Reaching Nascent Soul would probably take level 500, right?

I was just barely at the level where I could hunt at the entrance of the Abyss, but I'd have to burn through consumables and gear like water. The losses would outweigh the gains, and finding the Abyss itself took time.

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Thanks to the millstone Elder Togo had gifted me, I could grind high-spiritual-energy consumables and gear — meaning high level-restricted ones — to raise my spiritual energy, so I had to be even more frugal.

"It'd be nice if slaughter energy and spiritual energy showed up on the Status Window too."

The original UI that displayed HP and mana had vanished, but I could roughly sense them so I hadn't cared. Still, having concrete numbers would be so much easier to read.

Thinking that, I tossed a honey dumpling into my mouth.

Mm. This one's delicious too!

"Hey, are you guys even allowed to eat that?"

The humanity clones inside me had eagerly split the honey dumpling among themselves.

Well, technically, them eating it was the correct outcome.

My Mental World was a place made of slaughter energy. The space where the humanity clones — who were little better than mortals — could exist, the place I called my "inner self," was none other than the interior of the Golden Core.

If my plan was to have the Golden Core absorb spiritual energy and grow, then the humanity clones inside swallowing honey dumplings shouldn't be a problem.

Now that the Golden Core had grown, the humanity clones within were, for all intents and purposes, part of the Golden Core itself. Cheon Nan-cho's scathing term for them was "impurities," but still.

Well, reviving the humanity clones and arming them with the weapon called conscience had been my decision.

"But what happens when I reach Nascent Soul?"

Breaking the limit evolved the Golden Core into a Nascent Soul — so what about the humanity clones nested inside the Golden Core? Did they fuse-evolve or something?

Eh, better to hit the limit-break level first and think about it then, right?

"Yeah, that tracks."

At the humanity clone's words, I closed my eyes, shut myself into the spiritual field Cheon Nan-cho had prepared, and began spiritual energy training.

My usual training routine at the base was simple.

I'd train spiritual energy until the vaguely defined "day" cooldown reset — not at midnight, but around some fuzzy four o'clock — then feed spiritual energy into the millstone to restore its durability and solemnly grind the items I'd pulled from storage in order of level restriction.

Sometimes a material item would try to escape. As if running would help, I'd think, pinching it with chopsticks and grinding it down — only for the slaughter energy to burn off the spiritual energy and leave me with completely useless powder.

So every time that happened, I had to summon the decorations and stage a chase.

Anyway, once I had the powder, I'd turn it into various snacks and desserts that were easy to eat. Of the edible decorations, the only ones that never ran out no matter how much you ate — permanent food sources — were stew, honey, and chocolate.

And I was sick of stew. No matter what you put in it, the taste never changed.

So inevitably, I was stuck endlessly making desserts and snacks ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠with honey and chocolate.

After making the food, I'd use the emotion expression [Greeting] to fire off recommendations at Yeona, Cheon Nan-cho, and Elder Togo, then head straight back into the training grounds to resume cultivation.

Whenever minor little events popped up mid-routine and wrecked my training or made it impossible, I'd just hang out with Elder Togo, watch Yeona and the decorations run invasion defense, or spectate Cheon Nan-cho's training.

"Not going out on the map is so peaceful…"

Being at the base meant most misfortune events and eok-kka events wouldn't trigger. Stats didn't go up either, of course.

Once the ratio of spiritual energy to slaughter energy hit 1:9, I'd head back out onto the map and start stacking experience again.