Chapter 853: The Karma of a World Savior (Patreon)

A/N

Sorry for the late chap, I had to go back and edit yesterday's chapter since I completely forgot to give an update on the Leech-Kin. Be sure to check that out, I added it just before Ke Yin checks up on Yggy.

Chapter 853: The Karma of a World Savior

The conversation with the Sect Master had taken place as soon as I finished making sure that the purple ball inside the Genesis Seed wasn’t some complicated ruse by the lich to come back to life in my inner world or something just as ridiculous.

When I opened my eyes, I found the Sect Master sitting cross-legged on the other side of the array with a fresh stick of incense burning on the low table by the door that sent a thin line of grey smoke up between us.

“Is everything well with your inner world?”

I nodded.

“Then start from the beginning, tell me everything.”

Honestly, I had given it my best shot, but fitting more than half a year of events into one conversation wasn't easy, it had taken us into the middle of the night before we were done. And as usual, throughout the entire time I was speaking, the Sect Master didn’t interrupt me even once. Instead, he sat there with his hands resting on his knees without moving a muscle. In fact, the only thing that did move were his eyebrows, they had climbed higher and higher until I thought they were going to leave his face.

“A world soul had revealed itself to you?” he whispered at last. “In all my years, I have met two cultivators who claimed to have seen one, and one of them was found to be lying.”

“And the other one?”

“That was my master,” he sighed. “And he had spent four hundred years trying to understand what it had said to him.”

I had wanted to ask more about that, but the Sect Master shook his head and continued.

"You did well, Ke Yin. Most cultivators never achieve a fraction of that in ten thousand years." He raised a finger. "Though I will admit, I still do not understand the part about the chicken and what it wanted with the cactus."

"Honestly, neither do I."

That earned me a short huff, which, coming from Sect Master Yuan, was practically a belly laugh.

"There's something else," I said carefully. "I met Sect Master Li Tianyu. Well, an avatar he had left behind. It only kept the memories it needed for its mission, so it had no idea where its main body had gone, but it still remembered you. It called you little Yuan."

For a moment, the Sect Master didn’t move, and a variety of emotions crossed his face, then he let out a long breath through his nose.

"Little Yuan," he whispered, sounding tired and fond at the same time as he looked down at his hands. “It had been many years since I last heard that.”

I stayed silent, giving him the time to absorb that, since I knew that the relationship between them was complicated.

"That is a matter for another day," he waved his hand. “Is there anything else?”

With a thought, I drew Tomas's gift out of my Golden Sun, from my inner world into my palm.

“There’s enough energy to push my Golden Sun cultivation to Rank 6, but the real treasure is the knowledge of all three paths up to Rank 9.”

“Rank 9?” the Sect Master’s eyes widened fractionally at that. “Do you understand what that means?”

“That if people knew I’d be a target?” I raised an eyebrow.

“A target is an understatement,” he corrected me. “You would be the most wanted person in the Cultivation World. The knowledge to break through to a realm equivalent to Civilisation Realm is something that any sect would go to war over, righteous or demonic.”

I nodded. Morality was usually thrown out of the window when the stakes were high enough.

"Tell me,” the Sect Master said, leaning forward. “Are you planning to use the energy any time soon?”

The second of hesitation to answer told him everything he needed to know.

Honestly, any protagonist from the webnovels I used to read back on Earth would have swallowed the thing on the spot, broken through by the end of the chapter, and slapped the face of some arrogant young master in the next.

But I knew better than to do that, no matter how tempted I was, because those were the type of protagonists who had to spend the next three arcs trying to save themselves from either being devoured by their own cultivation or imploding.

“I thought about it,” I admitted. “But there’s no point rushing.”

“Yes, right now, your cultivation systems: qi, Blue Sun, Red Sun, and Golden Sun, all sit around the Stellar Realm.” The Sect Master raised four fingers. “Since they are close enough in strength, one cannot push the others around, and that balance is the only reason four different paths can share one inner world without tearing it apart."

“But if one of them jumps to Life Realm, it’ll cause issues…”

“Eventually, yes,” he lowered three fingers to leave only one standing. “The way of the world is that energy flows from the weak to the strong. So, at first, the stronger path will take a little from the others, so little you won't notice, but then it will take more. And one day, you will reach for your qi and find nothing there. The weaker paths will become food for the stronger one."

I swallowed at the cannibalistic image that came to mind.

“There was a cultivator in my generation who practised a fire method and a water method together. Even I have to admit, he was a genius amongst geniuses, the pride of his sect. At least he was until he found a fire treasure and broke through on that side alone. Within a few years, his inner world had cracked down the middle, and he spent the rest of his life unable to find that balance ever again. His potential had been cut off for the sake of a quick breakthrough. And he was never ever able to enter the Civilisation Realm.”

I nodded slowly. I couldn’t count the number of times cultivators chased after a breakthrough at the risk of destroying their future. I didn’t want to become one of them.

“Your Golden Sun was born by devouring the other two.” The Sect Master looked me directly in the eye. “Do you really believe it has forgotten how?”

He wasn’t wrong. I could just imagine the Golden Sun in my inner world growing brighter and heavier, then dragging the Red Sun and the Blue Sun out of orbit, making my Cerulean Vein dim and the Fundamental Rune go dark.

“I won’t use it unless it’s an emergency or I’m ready for it,” I promised.

"Good." He had nodded once. "Now, what else are you hiding? I feel like there is more to the story.”

I knew better than to hide it from him, Sect Master Yuan had proved himself to be trustworthy, and he had knowledge that surpassed anything that a Stellar Realm cultivator, even a unique one like myself, had.

So, I told him about the purple fruit growing in the heart of the Genesis Seed, and how when it ripened, it would give me the opportunity to walk into what I called the World of Sorcery. For a while, the Sect Master didn’t say anything, he seemed lost in some faraway memory.

“In all my years,” he began quietly. “I have heard whispers of true worlds built on other paths, but I never heard of a whole world built on a path that spends life itself. I…I didn’t think it was possible for a world to reach that state on such a troublesome path.”

“Why do you think that?”

"We cultivators are greedy creatures, Ke Yin. We take in the energy of heaven and earth, refine it, store it, and hoard every scrap of it for ourselves.” He pointed at his chest. “But from what you saw of the lich, this thing that you call sorcery does the opposite. What it does is it pays for every technique with flesh, with blood, with years, with the soul." He tapped the floor beside the array. "A world built on that path would be filled with beings who are very, very good at staying alive, or who have found others to pay the price for them. It is hard to believe that on such a concept they have reached a level that surpasses even this world.”

I understood what he was saying. That way of life wasn’t sustainable. Which begged the question how they managed to get that far.

"If you world walk to such a place,” the Sect Master continued, “you will be in more danger than ever before. Your soul could be used up as fuel for what those beings would deem a minor technique.”

The very thought of it made me shiver. In all my world walking trips, I had only travelled to inner worlds, or a true world similar to the level of the Cultivation World. If I ever decided to visit the World of Sorcery, that would be my first time entering a higher level realm. I would be a small fish in a large pond. No. I feel that even that comparison doesn’t do complete justice to how insignificant I would be.

"I'm not planning to go anytime soon," I said finally. "The fruit isn't even ripe yet, and honestly, I've had enough of worlds ending to last me a decade. I want to spend a few months worrying about normal things, such as my formation certification and which disciple I should recruit."

“You say this, but there will be a time where you will need to,” he said in a matter-of-fact tone, "promise me you will speak to me before you leave."

"I promise."

With that conversation done, we moved onto something that I had been wondering about since I opened my eyes. "How's Wei Lin?"

“There have been no changes.”

I sighed.

The last time I had seen Wei Lin awake, he had been forced to his knees at our celebration, clutching his chest while red and blue light swirled in his eyes and the fireworks he had built with Lin Mei went off above our heads.

Since then, he’d spent the following weeks in a coma, while I had been off looking for a cure and saving other worlds. But I needed to go see my friend. It was the least I could do even if he wouldn’t know I was there.

"Any news on the Realm Stabilising Trees?"

Out of everything we had come up with, a Realm Stabilising Tree was the only cure that made any sense. Those trees held entire realms steady by anchoring the laws of a world with their roots, and I had seen with my own eyes what a purified one could do in the Realm of the Chosen. If we could find one completely free of corruption and plant it inside Wei Lin's inner world, it could push the poison out from the inside while I absorbed it from the outside.

"No," the Sect Master shook his head. "Nothing yet."

My shoulders dropped since I had hoped there had been some development.

"Do not lose hope," he continued. "The last time you saved a world, you said that five Stellar Realm souls fell into your inner world out of nowhere. This time, the debt is far greater due to the size and quality of the Two Suns World. I am certain that a solution will present itself. It is only a matter of time."

As a karmic cultivator, this was his speciality, and I knew that he wasn’t exaggerating the power of karma.

After having detonated every scrap of my own to blow up an Otherworldly hand, the week that followed had been the unluckiest period of my life. I had tripped over flat ground three times, my tea had gone cold the moment I poured it, and I had lost a beast-taming bet to a badger. Yeah, I was not proud of that last one.

“How much karma do I have now?” I asked, wondering what saving a world the size of the Two Suns World would generate.

“I was about to ask if you would allow me to check,” the Sect Master responded, the hint of a smile on his face told me just how much matters related to karma excited him. “Stay still.”

With that, he stood up and closed his eyes, and when he opened them again, his irises were now a pale silver with thin golden threads drifting across them in a pattern that I couldn’t identify.

This was Karmic Sight.

As soon as the man, whom many would define as a god-level being, made eye contact with me, he stumbled backwards with a suppressed groan as both of his hands jerked up to cover his eyes.

“Master!” I shot to my feet.

For a few seconds, he stood there with his palms pressed flat over his face as a curl of smoke slipped out from between his fingers, and the smell of something burning filled the room. Then, slowly, he let his hands drop, revealing that where his eyes should have been, there were now only two black, smoking hollows.

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