dirk_grey
patreon
Immortal Freeloader 149
🕑 Added 2024-09-07 03:50:01 +0000 UTCI retreated back to Markas once the mystic land had collapsed, but it wasn’t an escape. No, it was just a momentary retreat until I could come up with a new strategy.
But, my heart was still beating hard, still trembling at the risk I had taken. It was the most impulsive decision I had ever made. It had been profitable. With hundreds of disciples shouting their biggest secrets to desperately ruin my chances to get the big reward, I had managed to learn everything that covered the basics of cultivation, from mainstream activities like smiting, to more niche aspects like puppet-making and soul attacks.
Even as I activated them one by one, expanding my understanding of every single cultivation topic I could imagine. Well, everything that could conceivably be learned by a bunch of outer disciples. Luckily, every single one of them seemed to have a side vocation, probably as a way to earn resources to support their cultivation.
The idle commentary I had heard while working showed that their life was more similar to a college student who was desperately trying to pay for their tuition fees by working three jobs and trying to keep their grade average up at the same time.
Ironically, that seemed to help them reveal their secrets. Desperate not to lose the opportunity, they spat everything.
Including, some demonic techniques!
My eyes widened as multiple demonic techniques filled my mind, just the knowledge alone was enough to make me sick. There were many methods to cultivate there, the kind that could bring any cultivator to Golden Core in a matter of weeks assuming enough resources.
Resources being humans!
I shivered in disgust even as the understanding of those techniques became a part of me just like everything else. Yet, I couldn’t help but wonder why I had them.
Had some of the outer disciples learned only fragments of it, unaware of its true nature, and I received the complete version? Or, where they preparing to use them as a last resort to break through, willing to commit unspeakable evil just to live a few years more.
If it was the latter, it meant the cultists teaching around suddenly stopped being my biggest priority. Worse, now that I knew what such demonic techniques did to their victims, destroying not only their bodies but actually torturing their souls, I couldn’t just ignore it.
“Ignorance is truly bliss,” I muttered, the realization enough to make me revisit my perspective on not killing people. For the first time, I felt like I could kill. Luckily, I didn’t need to. I had thousands of Blood Essence Realm martial artists, looking to stretch their newfound power. It would be a good test for their abilities, not to mention a good way to gather some Providence.
I doubted that the Heavens rewarded people who casually tortured the souls of the millions.
Yet, even as I made the decision, I couldn’t let it wonder about what it meant. The fact that they shouted the demonic techniques to me despite the risk of getting caught meant that, it might not be as big as a taboo among the cultivators.
Maybe it was like taking steroids as a college athlete. Yes, it was forbidden, but whenever I saw another athlete taking it, I just acted like I hadn’t seen anything rather than being a snitch. Yes, it was a bad idea to compete with steroids, as it eventually came out — unless one could access really expensive designer ones, but they were outside a college athlete’s budget — but some students’ circumstances justified it.
Trying to intervene was a good way to get ostracized back then.
It wasn’t impossible for the outer disciples to have the same attitude. Worse, everything I had seen about them showed that they treated mortals slightly more valuable as bugs, meaning the moral weight of killing millions didn’t matter to them as much as the side effects of the demonic techniques.
“Disgusting,” I growled even as I finished absorbing every single technique I had collected and started working. While the existence of the demonic cultivators was disgusting, it wasn’t as critical as refurbishing the mystic land and adding a second floor.
Luckily, my expanded techniques meant that I could position the first fake layer as the hall of the palm. First, I started forging several artifacts to act as pillars of my formations. Up until now, I had been building my formations directly linked to the spiritual vein. While it meant it was strong, it also had some critical limits.
Mixing my newfound ability to forge with alchemy, I was able to fashion several very handy artifacts, both as storage and as a way to empower the attacks from the formation.
Too bad those storage items required to be huge to store any meaningful amount of Qi, which meant I couldn’t fill my ship with it. Qi Gathering grade techniques, even after bypassing Perfection, had their limitations.
Once I completed my preparations, I returned to the mystic land, the cultivators around it acting in panic. There were already a dozen Golden Core Cultivators around, carefully poking and prodding, but the state of their clothing showed that my alchemical traps were working excellently.
“Cheating is fun,” I muttered, trying my best to feel amused even as I started my very expansive underground construction process. First, I added seven more outer halls, namely sword, saber, spear, staff, bow, fist, and kick. Added to the palm, it reached eight, covering the main categories.
In those seven other halls, I spread around in a circle, like it was an outer circle. Then, inside them, I added four more halls. Formations, alchemy, artifact forging, and talismans. Four main crafting arts. Each of them had tests similar to the combat techniques, and once again, it was forbidden for anyone but Qi Gathering cultivators.
Then, at the center, I put another room, one that was for ‘real’ inheritance. It was an empty room, but with the number of protections I had piled around, no cultivators would think that it was empty. I was hoping that dangling such a reward would prevent them from acting invasively.
Then, I added another, even bigger prohibition, one that made the whole structure shake the moment a nascent soul cultivator approached it … I was able to do so thanks to Kartpa alchemy, though it required a bit of unorthodox thinking.
The sheer presence of a Nascent Soul cultivator triggered a reaction from the Providence. It was unnoticeable to weaker cultivators, but for the others, it was near impossible to hide. And, my Alchemy knowledge allowed me to fashion a few items to feel the general approach, and make the whole formation shake and tremble.
At least, that was how it worked once I recycled them through Janassa, turning them into much stronger items. However, I did that only for the most critical pieces, as even to produce the tiniest Nascent Soul Grade items, the Providence around me had dipped noticeably.
It was not a trick that could be replicated often.
Hopefully, it would be enough to intimidate them.
It took a week for me to put together everything, and that was with me spending every single hour working without sleeping. But, when combined with the parts I had improved thanks to Janassa’s unwitting assistance, I had something that would hold against even an expert Golden Core cultivator.
At least, as long as they tried to follow my restrictions to open it carefully, and not smash it with brute strength.
“Finally,” I muttered as I moved away. Unfortunately, halfway in, I had felt one of the formations I had triggered. One that I had set across a wide area … where I had followed three cultivators that were responsible for my demonic techniques.
They weren’t the only ones who had given me demonic techniques, but it was the only group that was exclusively made of demonic cultivators. Technically, only one of them had used it as a weapon, but now that I was an expert in the techniques, I could see the signs easily.
And, that allowed me to see that, the number of demonic cultivators among the outer disciples was suspiciously high among Kartpa Valley disciples. Not exclusively, and not enough to be the majority, but around ten percent was still a scary number.
The three of them weren’t the only ones I had been following, but they were the ones that acted most suspiciously. Just to make their intentions more suspicious, all three of them were near the limit, to be kicked out of Kartpa Valley if they failed to break through.
I had already placed a hundred Burning Ice Blood Essence cultivators in the area, and isolated the whole region with formations, in case they acted while I was busy with something I couldn’t interrupt, so technically, I could just stay away, but I still wanted to go there.
Just because I had their main cultivation technique didn’t mean that I could predict every little trick they possessed. My presence might mean the difference between the success and the failure in case they were able to reveal an unfortunate surprise.
Comments
RedFaux
Smiting the unworthy. Very mainstream lol
