rule one

Chapter 7Scary Dinners

As Will woke up, one thing was abundantly clear to him. He was damn hungry. It made sense. He hadn't eaten since he woke up the first day. And that was, what, six days ago? Whatever the whoever had done to bring him back from the dead had fixed his starvation too. But it didn't last forever. He was also a bit thirsty too. Hopefully the juice from some meat would fix that.

Luckily, he had just the pile of meat he had been waiting to grab. It felt like a horrible idea, considering how close it was to the Sick Freak's house, but he wasn't in a situation where he had much of a choice. He had a chance of killing a mouse if it let him, and that was about it.

He picked up his cultivation doors and headed off to get some meat.

He got there significantly faster this time with the Wind Dance footwork. Looking over from the distance, it appeared things went as he'd expected.

If his guess was correct, based on the scene, it looked like the monsters fought each other for a while, and once they'd killed enough off, the Sick Freak escaped somewhere. And that would've led the remaining monsters to follow him.

But the situation was even better than he'd expected. It appeared that the stronger monsters were picked off first. Which meant he had enough meat to feed himself for years. Though it would go bad, so not really.

The big question, though, was how to move it all. Walking up to the corpse of a giant bear, he grabbed its arm and pulled. It unsurprisingly didn't work. Maybe if he cut it into pieces? He'd have to move them one by one, though. He was severely lacking in storage options.

Wait, he had a ton of them. Dead. All around him. He just had to make a bag out of a pelt or something.

After trying that with the bear in front of him, it turned out to be a lot harder than he thought. He didn't have any thread, nor a needle. He hadn't even seen any spiders in this forest. He hadn't really seen any bugs at all, actually. He waved it off for now. At least the sword cut really easily. It was a bit scary to think about that too much considering he was forced to hold it in a way even scissors were dangerous to hold, by the handle facing up, but it was useful.

"You're only talking to me now? Didn't think of maybe giving me a heads up before charging over to the Sick Freak's front door?"

"How'd you even learn to talk, then?"

"Ah."

"I got nothing."

Will thought through all the abilities he had access to. The Information Manual Exchange Marketplace was pretty useless without a lot of points. Homesickness Rectification was nice for entertainment, but it wasn't much for doing things other than that. That left Document Manipulation. He felt like there was a chance at least. But it wasn't a good one. The Document Manipulation section only stored information. The physical stuff had to be carried around or be replaced with points.

It would be nice if he could store it in his meridians or dantian or something like he did with so much other stuff. Wait. Maybe he could? It felt like these things were full of lifeforce and spiritual energy. He could just lifeforce drain them!

He decided to start with adding to his spiritual roots first. He sucked out the lifeforce from the bear's corpse. With the body dead, he found it flowed much easier. The spiritual energy resisted less as well.

"Kid, what the fuck are you doing?"

"You know how insane what you just said is, right?"

Will felt like he understood. He didn't care, but he understood how him draining the lifeforce like some evil sorcerer was probably not a normal thing.

He shrugged.

"That's about what I expected."

Will continued siphoning the bear's lifeforce for fifteen minutes before it was empty. He did the same with three more bears, then a wolf before he felt his siphoning was fast enough to switch. He was planning to go half and half now with lifeforce now. Half to the dantian and half to the spiritual roots. For spiritual energy, he decided to keep it all going to the spiritual roots.

Actually, that gave him an idea. Didn't these guys have spiritual roots? Could he take them? After trying for a bit, he couldn't find them and gave up. He decided to just stick to his previous plan.

After another hour, his progress was massive. He could drain the ones that were just bigger than he was in a matter of seconds. Which was somewhat less impressive considering his size, but still.

After another hour, he was able to drain even the big ones in under a minute. The scene was terrifying by now with all the drained animals.

After another hour he was finally on the last one. Then he remembered why he came here. He got too engrossed in stealing and forgot about the meat issue. Luckily, the one he was working on was a snake just a bit smaller than the super snake, so the lifeforce drain hadn't spread to the head yet. Which wasn't great honestly. He felt like it was probably a bad idea to eat the head, where the venom was on a venomous snake.

And it was definitely venomous. He could see the venom sizzling as it hit the ground. Venom shouldn't even be doing that! That was a thing acid did! Why would the venom be acid!? How would it get like that!?

Will cut off his biology speculation and focused. He remembered the rule that poison is when it kills you if you bite it, and venom is when it kills you when it bites you. And that venom was on its fangs, so there was no doubt it was venom. But venom also didn't sizzle like that!

He decided to just go for it. He could figure it out. He cut off the snake's head with the sword, then picked it up. He didn't manage to do that, but he was able to roll it pretty easily. Snake head obtained, Will felt it was time to head off.

By the time his actions were noticed, he was already long gone.

—

The Demonic Lightning Sovereign was finally able to escape the damn snake. He was only in underwear now, since it turned out it was attracted to his robes, but he'd escaped. He swore he'd kill that kid if he saw him again.

Then he saw something that froze him in fear. What the fuck happened to the monstrous beast corpses? He had considered the pile of monstrous beast corpses to be a nice gain of this whole thing. It more than made up for all the trouble the brat had caused, corpses of monstrous beasts of this level were incredibly hard to get, lightning attribute ones being even harder for him specifically considering their resistance to his attacks. But now, any joy he felt about it was replaced by pure despair.

It seemed that something terrible had seen the pile. And that terrible thing had drained them dry of everything. His mind raced with possibilities. True demon? No, they weren't usually interested in beasts. Devil? It felt close, but there wasn't any devil energy left behind. His mind ran through option after option, each one that didn't fit making him more and more fearful. Some unknown thing had broken through his formation in less than a few days, drained this huge pile of beasts, then disappeared without leaving a single trace!

He ran into his house and started putting everything in his storage ring. He felt it was best to move.

—

Will had made it back to his cave. It took three hours to roll it back, since had to carry his cultivation doors in one hand, and his sword in the other. It was an annoying nudging process that he thankfully got used to quickly. If he hadn't, he'd probably not even have made it. But he was here now.

All he had to do was cook this thing. He didn't know how to do that. Could things be cooked by lightning? He didn't know. Could the trees here catch fire? They didn't look like they would, but he could be wrong. But he couldn't chop them down anyway.

He remembered the array book. Making heat was one of the easiest things to do. He couldn't make a fire, but heat was safer anyway. He'd just have to stack a bunch of them. And the cave's stone floor would do perfectly.

He drew an array in a document. He added the symbol that made heat, then another one that made it work better, then another that made it work better. After several minutes, he managed to get it somewhat working. Anyone who knew arrays would probably call him stupid, but it did work, so it didn't matter. Will exported it, blew on it to turn it on, and copied the activated version. Then he got to making more. It was incredibly cheap for what it was. He thought it was probably because of the sword being used as a physical medium. But also, his points were really high! They were half as much as before the battle with the Sick Freak. He ignored it for now.

After stacking two hundred heat arrays, he finally had a heat good enough to cook with. Hopefully. He cut the snake head into smaller pieces, each still big enough for a full meal, and placed them on the hot array stack. He couldn't find the venom gland, there was no venom he saw other than the teeth. He left all the parts that didn't look like regular meat, which was a good bit in a snake's head, but not all of it.

After waiting for twenty minutes, he felt they looked safe to eat. He pulled one out of the array with the sword, and picked it up. It stung his fingers a bit, but it was just off the grill, so that made sense. He opened his mouth and took a bite.

And immediately noticed something was wrong. Once he bit into it, liquid poured from inside. Purple liquid. Like the snake's venom. Purple liquid that he just swallowed a bunch of. This was where the snake's venom gland was, huh? When he felt the burning in his mouth, he started to panic.

It was bad. He had just swallowed a mouthful of super venom that sizzled when it hit the ground. It sizzled! It was a good thing he got an upgrade to his thinking speed from the lifeforce. He needed to think of something.

He looked inward to the venom. It was bad. If he died from biting into a venom gland like an idiot, he'd be seriously pissed. It was a lot too. Maybe he could put it in his dantian with the demonic lightning spiritual energy? It felt like there was something he could move. Like venom spiritual energy or something. Or poison. Well, it was killing him after he bit it, so poison it is.

He tried to move the spiritual part of the poison to his lower dantian. It was slow, but he was able to move it through his body while it ate away at everything, and throw it into his lower dantian, physical part included.

And it was a disaster. The demonic lightning spiritual energy didn't have a chance. And it was worse than just that. It absorbed it, so now it was demonic poison that electrocuted him. It also seemed to be spreading its effect to his body like the demonic lightning spiritual energy did, except instead of the fast movements effect, it was a being poisoned effect, mixed with a demonic corruption and electrocution effect!

It hurt like hell! And he was turning purple and red! That's scary! He had one other idea. If this didn't work, he'd be dead, no question. He forced all the storm qi he'd gotten from the sword into his lower dantian. The storm qi obliterated the poison completely. And he felt something crazy.

It really felt like the demonic lightning spiritual energy was incomplete compared to this. Its effect specific to quick movements was only a part of the new things he felt. He was stronger, faster, tougher, more flexible even. It was a complete boost all around. But even as all the storm qi entered his dantian he noticed something. It felt less raw. Even as aggressive as it was, it felt as if it was a refined form of energy. Refined to be weaker. Made handleable by a person.

He understood something. He probably was supposed to be doing something with the spiritual energy before throwing it in his dantian. But why should he? He didn't need to.

"Weak? Everyone but you got torn to shreds by it. Many of whom were at core formation. And you think it's weak? Are you insane!?"

The sword thought. Its qi was obviously more powerful than demonic lightning qi. Did this ked mean raw spiritual energy? Was this kid just shoving spiritual energy into his dantian? What kind of lunatic was this kid!?

"How have you been cultivating?"

"Just inhale? No breathing pattern? No circulating? Just inhale?"

"That's actually insane. How do you even control it?"

"I guess that makes sense at least."

"No, it's not. Wait… didn't you just eat poison and almost die!? Why are we glossing over that!?"

"You can't progress using raw spiritual energy, you know. You'll get stuck at qi gathering."

"Yes, really."

"Thanks."

"Huh?"

"You… you cultivated with multiple dantians?"

"With the same stuff?"

"Just because you believe you're immune to qi deviation… must you test it as much as possible like this?"

"Sure, whatever that means, yeah."

The sword sighed.

"Fine, whatever, keep the other two, that's fine. You can just use the bottom one for my arts. It's fine."

"Why!? You almost died from it just now!"

"That… actually makes sense."

Will finished two pieces before he was full. It wasn't that bad without a pocket of death juice in it. It sucked, but it certainly could be worse. Like, if it was full of a liquid that kills you. That'd make it a lot worse.

He felt a lot better now that he'd eaten. He honestly didn't know what he was going to do now. He'd finally fixed the starvation thing, but the starvation thing was his main motivation. It seemed like he could just walk out of the forest whenever he wanted, but he didn't know which way was out. Maybe the Sick Freak had something? He could do another raid on his house. Will laughed at how dumb that idea was.

His only goal at this point was killing the Sick Freak. And that was a pretty long term goal. Unless he found some ridiculously powerful new trick…

Didn't he kind of find that? The poison. He still had the poison, it was in the meat with the venom gland still. A bit had spilled, but there was a lot still in there. He also had the fangs.

He felt like there was something there. He thought of the heat array. Perhaps poison gas? Will laughed mischievously. He felt like he had a great plan. He got to work on setting it up.

First, he picked up the venom gland meat piece. Then, he held the sides together and stabbed the fangs through to keep them in place. Then, he put a bunch of heat arrays on it.

"Hey, kid? What the fuck is that?"

"Wait, really? You think that'll work?"

"You sure?

"Fair enough."

Will left his cultivation doors behind this time, and headed towards the Sick Freak's house. He was about to have some good fun.

After an hour, he was at the Sick Freak's base. He was starting to think this might have been a bad idea. Well, it was too late now. He walked through the overly huge entrance and found everything just as he'd left it, a total wreck. As he walked through the hole in the door, he found something was odd. The bookshelves were empty. That was weird. He headed into the next room. Looking around, the Demonic Lightning Arts book was gone too.

He decided to check upstairs. He found a kitchen, a lavish bedroom with bathroom included but no bed, and what he assumed was a cultivation chamber. He found nothing of interest except a few snacks. He would come back for those later. He went downstairs next. Downstairs was a creepy hallway made of stone. It was a big change from the white jade of the rest of the house. Looking through the rooms he found an alchemy room behind the first door on the left. Behind the first door on the right was what looked like a storage room. It seemed to be ransacked. He placed the poison doodad against the wall with an ingot he found weighing the mouth closed. Then, he started making the room double ransacked.

It was only a short bit before he found a treasure trove. In a small drawer was a pile of rings with arrays on them. He could read only one symbol, but that symbol made him giddy. It was a symbol having to do with space! These were storage rings. He put five on the hand that wasn't holding the sword, and they shrunk around his finger to fit it. Then he realized he didn't know how to use them.

"Yeah. Here."

The sword sent a bundle of information. Copying and embedding it, Will was able to check the contents of the storage rings. They were empty. They weren't really that high quality either. But they were a great boon for him. Will tested all the rings. None had anything in them. Will decided to put most of the rings on his right hand that the sword was in. He didn't really need to worry about being able to grip things with that hand, since he couldn't hold anything other than the sword in it, and the sword couldn't be dropped. He then put two on his index finger on his left hand. He had space for stuff not. Stuff like everything in this room? He crammed everything around him into his rings. He managed to fit it all into three rings. Will went over to his poison doodad, picked it up, and placed the ingot in a ring. He popped into the alchemy room to grab the rusty cauldron off to the side there, as well.

Will went back upstairs and then grabbed everything that he could. He managed to get a bedside table, a mirror, the snacks, oven mitts, a pot, a pan, and a mat.

He went back downstairs to check the rest of the rooms. The hallway was long. It was also uneventful. The rooms were all prison cells. Shocking as it was the first time, Will couldn't bring himself to keep being shocked after the sixth one. None had anything in them other than blood and chains of the walls. There were sixty of them. After that the hallway ended. It was disappointing. He'd hoped for more loot.

Walking back to the stairs he remembered why he came, to kill the Sick Freak. It seemed he had moved. It was somewhat disappointing honestly. He made a note to get more venom later so he could go through with the plan later. He decided to just head back to the cave. After robbing everything left in the trial halls, of course.

Chapter 8 Causing Numerous Deaths For Personal Gain But Not In An Evil Way

When Will returned to his cave, he found that it was very, very, hot. He'd left the stove (two hundred heat arrays) on. He stabbed the sword through the stone ground at the edge of the circle, turning all the arrays off. He felt really cool doing that. He had shut the poison doodad's arrays off back at the mountain and thrown it in one of his left hand storage rings.

Will layed out the mat he'd stolen at a spot where the heat was just warm, and used it as a bed. He soon drifted off to sleep.

—

Will got up at noon. He felt refreshed and rested, ready to take on the world. Getting up, he took a look at his Document Storage. It had really filled out since he'd first gotten it. He realized he didn't put up the books he'd stolen for sale. He did that now, including the Demonic Lightning Arts. It seemed the novels couldn't be sold, though some of the torture books could be. He also put up his heat array. He thought it may be useful to someone. It was obviously pretty cheap, but for someone without a book on arrays, it could be a lifesaver, like the spiritual energy gathering array was for him.

Will stood up. He felt like it was a good time to practice footwork. Actually, now that he thought about it, he could practice his footwork while traveling. That settled it, he'd go in a random direction for a while and hope to find something.

Will tossed the snake head parts, the cultivation doors, and the pillowcase bag into a storage ring. He then took out a thick wooden board he'd taken from the storage room at the mountain and stuck one hundred active spiritual energy gathering arrays on it. It was thick enough that he could fit them on pretty cheaply without needing to make them too thin. The sword seemed to make it even cheaper as well. A sword was definitely better at carving things into wood than a rock at least, so it made sense. With his bait finished, he set off, running in the opposite direction of the Tacky Mountain. He kept an eye out for herbs and kept updating his map as he ran.

As expected, it didn't take long for a horde to start forming, though some slower beasts weren't able to keep up this time. He was hoping for more really giant snakes to show up. The ones with the crazy strong venom that he almost died from.

After he saw the beginnings of a horde, he split his consciousness even more. He had a piece on map duty, a piece on beast cataloging, a piece on plant cataloging and herb detection, a piece on managing the storm qi coming into his body, a piece focusing on the Wind Dance footwork, and finally, a piece reading one of the young adult novels he copied from the Sick Freak, because it made him slightly less bored.

An hour passed, and Will had gathered a pretty good horde. He hadn't seen one of those snakes yet, though. He had actually managed to pick up an herb in this hour. It was one of the ones he meant to avoid, but he wanted to gather dangerous poison now, so it was fine. He managed to get by with only a little poison in his body from touching it, which was quickly obliterated after being placed in his lower dantian. The poisonous herb went in the same ring as the venom gland.

By the time another hour had passed, he had managed to get two of those really giant snakes following him. He wasn't ready to cash out just yet, though.

After another hour, he'd found another herb. It was the same as the last one, but it was still a nice find. He'd also picked up another snake. He'd yet to see another snake quite as big as the super snake he'd picked up the first time, which was a shame, but he felt like there probably weren't that many of those.

By the fourth hour, he felt considerably faster. Will felt it was a testament to how bad his dexterity was and powerful the Wind Dance footwork was, that he was so far from getting it right even with the steps engraved into his mind, and that it had any effects at all with how poorly he did it. Well, it could also be that he was just bad at running before. He remembered in the other universe there was something about good runners having a certain way they did it, and his running experience was that of being bedridden and being a baby, so he certainly didn't do it well.

Over the next two hours, he managed to pick up a fourth really giant snake. He'd managed to get a whole bunch of other things too of course, but he was mostly focusing on the snakes.

After two more hours, he'd managed to pick up another poisonous herb like the two he already had, as well as another really giant snake. His legs were also starting to get a bit tired, so he felt like now was a good time to start the grand battle.

He chucked the board with the arrays to the side. He made sure it wouldn't break on impact, but he also made sure to throw it a good distance. Then he made sure to get out of the way of the horde.

The beasts rushed over towards it. Then the fight broke out. It took a while, about two hours. Will continued practicing his Wind Dance footwork in place while it happened, though a good bit slower to conserve stamina. It was mostly just to practice it, but was also to dodge any stray attacks that flew his way, though there were only two, both dodged easily. At the end of the battle, the winner seemed to be a giant wolf. It was a bit of an underdog victory. Not that Will cared. After standing on the board, the wolf closed its eyes. Will assumed it was cultivating.

Now it was time to get his rewards. Carefully. There was still a giant wolf that could kick his ass. He snuck over to the snakes, cut their heads off, and threw the heads in his rings. He kept an eye on the wolf as he did. He then pocketed the corpses of anything else that had seemed powerful in the fight, though not the really giant snake bodies since they wouldn't fit. Everything left over once his right hand's rings were filled up, he sucked the lifeforce out of, placing it in his upper dantian. He left the spiritual energy, in case the wolf attacked him for it, but he felt the lifeforce should be fine since the wolf likely didn't cultivate with that, and probably wouldn't be able to sense it like it would spiritual energy. His guess was correct, as the wolf continued its cultivation. His upper dantian hit capacity after the first few, though he still crammed in more after that.

Then, he continued his journey, leaving the wolf to his rightful prize. It had won the fight, so it deserved it. Not that Will could do anything if it didn't deserve it. He couldn't do anything if it took his lunch money and shoved him in a locker. Underdog it may be, that was against the horrifying monsters it was fighting against. It would certainly not be an underdog against him other than it being a dog under him after throwing him into the air like a wet rag.

Two more hours passed before he finally saw something. The edge of the forest was in sight. He was incredibly excited. He'd finally get to… well, he wasn't really looking forward to anything specifically, but a change of pace would be nice at least. He was still a bit away, but he'd reach it in another fifteen minutes.

After the fifteen minutes passed, he found himself at the edge of the forest. It was certainly an abrupt stop. The tall lightning trees just kind of abruptly switched to green grassland. Even the grass was different. The yellowish grass if the forest just stopped and switched to green grass like there was a line it couldn't cross. It was odd.

Stepping over the invisible line was even more jarring. The spiritual energy dropped drastically on the other side. It also wasn't evil and zappy. Looking into the distance, he didn't see any towns. It was disappointing, but expected.

He reoriented himself to be perpendicular to the edge of the forest, and started moving again, though at a much slower pace. He finally had new plants to catalogue, too, even though they were just regular grass and wildflowers.

There was a lot of nothing for the next two hours. Well, other than finally seeing bugs again. He hadn't seen anything even resembling one in the forest before. The bugs were the main reason he wasn't just going to bed, tired as he was.

Night had fallen a good while ago. That was another thing about the world outside the forest. It was dark. Everything in the forest was illuminated by the trees slightly, but here, he had the moon and nothing else to see by. It wasn't a problem with his eyes, but it was still pretty dark.

Two more hours had passed when he saw something perfect. It was in his top ten for things he was hoping for, a list that didn't actually go up to ten because he hadn't thought about it enough to come up with that many. It was a carriage. A carriage on a road. A carriage on a road being attacked by bandits. He would've preferred a weak beast, but bandits worked too. Even better, there was a woman and a young girl cowering in fear in the carriage.

That was the final straw that made him feel like it was a bit odd to be happy about this. Well, he was happy because he could save them and get lodgings from them, so it wasn't like he was a monster. He sped up to full speed and ran towards the scene.

"You really plan to save them?"

"Ah, I thought you were doing it out of a sense of justice."

The bandits were currently in combat with two guards, two guards that seemed horribly outmatched. They were only spared by the fact that they were both fighting only one each, as the other three bandits were sitting back and watching.

Will entered the scene at full speed. He held the sword out to his left, running past the two who were engaged in combat. They got cut in half. He hadn't really expected that to happen. It was his first time killing anything other than a bug, too. Though, he had caused a lot of deaths from the two battles he'd started. These were humans too. He felt a bit bad about it. He had meant to just wound them, honestly.

He didn't really care that much, though. They were just bandits. He'd probably cry if he'd killed someone really nice or something, but these were Sick Freak tier people. Okay, maybe not that bad, but they certainly weren't good. One of the three unbisected ones was even licking his lips while looking at the woman and young girl. That was icky!

After running past the first two, he did a sharp turn and ran past the others. But they all dodged. Well, it worked better in an ambush.

"Get that kid!" one of the bandits yelled.

Then the bandits all charged at him. He wasn't that scared. They couldn't really do much. They tried chasing him but he just ran around. They couldn't keep up. But he also couldn't attack them with the sword. If he did, they'd be able to counterattack. Then he had an idea. He threw a poison herb at one of them.

The bandit was confused why the kid was throwing a plant at him. He caught it on reflex. Then he understood why the kid was throwing a plant at him. It was poisonous! He panicked, trying to circulate his qi to expel the poison. It barely worked. He was done for.

Will concluded that the poison worked well. Sadly, it probably wouldn't work again. He doubted any of the bandits would grab something when the only thing they knew about it was that the last guy who grabbed it foamed at the mouth and fell over. He'd need to figure out something else.

Will took out the ingot he'd taken from the storage room, and hucked it at a bandit's face. The bandit had only a moment to react before his nose was replaced by an ingot like some kind of blacksmithing-themed snowman. He fell over backwards and didn't get up.

The last bandit took this as his cue to run away. The two who were cut in half? They were both taken by surprise mid-fight with someone else. The fact that they couldn't catch the kid? It was just a kid who could run fast, and none of them were that fast. The poison? The kid either built up a resistance or took an antidote beforehand. All of it was just a kid getting lucky. Then someone got an ingot embedded in their face. That wasn't something you did by luck. You had to be a cultivator for that. The fact that some brat that looked like he was still a toddler was a cultivator made it even more terrifying.

His best shot at living was to run and bet on the kid not bothering to chase him. He wasn't really planning to die here. He'd went into this with the resolve to, like, maybe get a cut or two, not die.

Will didn't bother chasing him. He seemed pretty young, and more importantly, he wasn't really planning to kill any of them in the first place. It just turned out like that. As long as he was gone, Will was satisfied. Will turned around on his heel, faced the carriage, and did a stage bow. It would've looked better if he wasn't holding a sword, but he didn't really have a choice. The people in this world probably didn't even have bows like that, anyway, so it was fine. He hadn't seen it in the manners book at least.

The reception was… well, it wasn't applause, that was for sure.

"Nice, you scared the shit out of them." the sword jabbed.

"I guess so."

The woman in the carriage was currently debating how to refer to this individual. They could be called senior, like even young cultivators often were by mortals like herself, but it felt like they were too young for even that. Calling a toddler like this senior would just seem condescending! Why was communicating with cultivators so tiring? She didn't even know what this person wanted! And why were they bowing that low!? A cultivator shouldn't bow that low to a bunch of mortals they just saved! And why did they just leave the one bandit? This whole thing was confusing and she really didn't know what to say.

Her daughter had less reservations. Or, more accurately, felt it would probably be ruder to just stare at them.

"U-um… g-greetings esteemed, um, cultivator…"

Will, up from his bow, replied.

"Hi!"

At least this strange cultivator seemed friendly. That was good, at least.

"Um, uh, th-thank you for saving us! Um, we promise we'll do whatever we can to pay you back!"

"Dat's gweat!"

Will noticed that it was a bit easier to talk after all the lifeforce he'd taken in. He felt that with a bit more practice, he wouldn't have to speak like a baby anymore.

He ran up to the carriage with his Wind Dance footwork, greatly frightening everyone. He hopped onto the carriage through the cloth curtain at the front, because he actually had to jump to get up to it, and landed in front of the two terrified individuals. The young girl looked to be around fourteen to sixteen, while the woman looked to be her mother. They were both pretty good looking. Neither seemed like a jade beauty like the novels always talked about, but they both looked good enough to be in a stock photo. He didn't see anyone else other than the coachman and the guards with them.

The woman and the girl prostrated themselves before him, shivering. The girl spoke.

"I-I'm sorry! I didn't mean to offend you! Please don't kill me!"

Will felt like that was a bit much. He just hopped on a carriage. Well, he was holding a sword.

"I need a wide."

The girl heaved a sigh of relief. So that was why they came over here! Just wanting a ride was great! They wouldn't even have to go into debt for that!

The older woman spoke next.

"You mean you seek to ride in our carriage?"

"Yeah! I need a nap, too. But thewe's bugs out hewe."

They didn't know why an esteemed cultivator would need to use someone's carriage for naps, but it didn't matter. It turned out that this cultivator was just a child with more power. That was easy to handle. They seemed like a good kid, too.

"We owe you our lives, giving you a place to rest is the least we can do."

The woman moved to a box in the back of the carriage and pulled out some makeshift bedding, a pillow, and a sheet, laying them on the ground in an empty spot.

"Here. I'm deeply sorry that this is the best I can offer you."

Will looked at the makeshift bedding. It was the nicest bed he'd seen since coming back to life. That wasn't much of a compliment to the bed, it wasn't even a bed, really, but he really had only seen the one bed in the hut, and that was in a state of utter disrepair. He went over to it and got in. It was really damn comfy! So much comfier than that bed in the hut. As Will was about to head to sleep, he suddenly realized he didn't know where these people were actually going.

"Wait. Whewe awe yu headed?"

The woman responded.

"Oh, we're on our way to Rising Dragon Village. We plan to stop there before moving on."

Will felt like he'd heard that name before. He remembered! His parents had been staying in the inn there, then the people they were on the run from found them, and they ran into the forest. The pursuers didn't follow them, just stood outside the forest to make sure they couldn't come back out, probably assuming they'd die in there. Which they were mostly right about. The parents died, but he was alive. He didn't know whether he'd be chased by them if they found him.

He felt it depended on what his parents actually did to get chased. If they'd just insulted someone, they would probably consider him punished enough after being stuck in the forest. They may even try to recruit him or something. He was sure that being able to escape that place at his age was probably considered pretty impressive. It wasn't actually impressive. Nothing in the forest even bothered with him since he was too small for sustenance and didn't have enough spiritual energy or qi or whatever for a cultivation resource. But they wouldn't know that. He had a feeling the beasts of that forest probably acted a bit strangely. If all it took to gather a horde of monsters that would all fight to the death and be left for the taking by the last one standing was walking with a spiritual energy gathering array, that would be a huge mess. The sword wouldn't have thought he was the Beast King's disciple when the horde followed him either.

On the other hand, if his parents were being chased because they were of a cursed bloodline or something, then they'd almost certainly want to kill him. His young age would just make it easier for them in that case.

He honestly didn't know if his young age would get him leeway at all. He knew it was a normal thing in the novels he read for children to be killed off to prevent them coming back with a grudge, but he felt like it might be different since he was too young to really know his parents that well. He wasn't really that attached to them, either. They were pretty bad parents.

Anyway he was curious about why they were heading to Rising Dragon Village, so he decided to ask.

"What fow?"

"Oh, we're planning to get some rest in Rising Dragon Inn and then buy some rations for the trip to Dragon Flame City."

Will didn't know that one.

"Wuzzat?"

The woman was a bit surprised that the cultivator didn't know what Dragon Flame City was. She wondered how this young cultivator had ended up out here without knowing that. She felt like it couldn't have been anything good. But it wasn't her business to pry.

"It's the city where the Dragon Flame Clan is. They're the clan that controls this region."

"Oh. Okay. How faw is Wising Dwagon Viwwage?"

"About three days at our current pace."

"Okay. I'm gonna go to bed now. Wake me up if mowe bandits come, okay?"

She felt a bit worried about waking a powerful cultivator up, but thinking about it, it would probably inconvenience them more if the one waking them up was a bandit. She nodded.

"Got it. If there's ever anything else you wish for, just let me know."

"Mhm. Goo'night."

Leaving a bit of consciousness managing the storm qi as always, Will drifted off to sleep.

Chapter 9 The Kind Of Good Meal That Reminds You How Much You Suck At Cooking

Will woke up at noon again. That seemed to be common now. He felt like he should fix it at some point, he used to get up at sunrise. Well, it wasn't like there was actually any real reason to get up earlier, anyway.

The carriage had apparently started moving while he was still asleep. From what he could see of outside, they seemed to be in a forest now. A normal one, with normal trees. He'd seen it in the distance before he got in the carriage the night before. It was where that bandit had run off to as well. Hopefully that wouldn't become an issue. Not that it would be an actual issue if it did become an issue. He felt like at most maybe their boss would be challenging.

He saw the woman and the girl notice him when he woke up. They were both sitting in the carriage on the bench on the side. His sleeping setup was on the side opposite them, with his left side slightly under the other bench. The benches only ran half the length of the carriage, with the other half being storage. Overall, it seemed like a pretty nice carriage. It wasn't shaky either. He wondered why they couldn't hire stronger guards with a carriage like this, but he didn't really know how expensive guards were.

He decided to greet his fellow carriage riders.

"Hi."

The woman, who he was assuming was the girl's mother, smiled politely at him.

"I hope you had a good rest?"

"Yeah."

He decided to ask if she was actually the girl's mother.

"Are you her mother?"

He pointed at the girl.

The woman suddenly felt a bit embarrassed. They hadn't introduced themselves yet. Hopefully the young cultivator didn't mind.

"Ah, I forgot about introductions. Yes, this is my daughter, Li Yingran. And my name is Xu Lanhua."

Will realized he hadn't actually known their names yet. He didn't know the name of anyone in this world until now. Well, other than himself.

The mother's name seemed to be just a generic flower name. The daughter's name, on the other hand, was something about cherry blossom trees burning. He didn't know why she was named that, but it didn't matter much. He decided to share his name as well.

He focused. He needed to get this right. He was not going to say his name was Wiww. That sounded stupid and wasn't his name. He had to say it properly.

"My name is Will."

He did it! That was oddly stressful.

The sword he was holding burst out laughing.

"The fuck kinda dumbass name is that? How do you even spell that?"

The sword laughed even harder.

"The fuck is that? You sound like you're casting a fucking curse! Nice to meet you, Will. Spelled double-you eye el el. The fuck even is an el?"

According to Will's Automatic Universal Linguistic Knowledge Database Accessor, it was an elevated railroad.

"The fuck is a railroad?"

"Alright, pfft, Will."

Outside of Will's mind where he was conversing with the sword were two very awkward smiles. Xu Lanhua and Li Yingran were, well, they were a bit confused. That wasn't a name. It wasn't even close! And it was only one syllable! Didn't this cultivator have a surname? Just that one weird noise and that's it? And it also didn't even give any clues to whether they were a boy or a girl!

Li Yingran spoke first.

"Um, n-nice to meet you, um, Weill was it?"

Will shot a hurt glare at the girl. The unintended consequence of this being the girl starting to cry from fear.

"Will, not Weiww, Will."

He couldn't pronounce the mispronunciation right, but he at least pronounced his own name right. The girl didn't respond. Instead, her mother did.

"Sh-she really didn't mean to offend you, we're very sorry, please spare our lives."

Will was in a bit of a mood now. Normally, he'd clarify that he wasn't going to kill them. He didn't this time.

"Then say it wight!"

The mother and daughter both flinched, terrified. They should've just not done introductions. Now they had to pronounce this kid's name right or die. The mother tried first.

"Weel?"

"No! Will! W ih ll. Ih, not ee, ih."

The daughter tried next.

"Well?"

"Where are you getting eh fwom!? Will! It's Will, not Weel, not Well, not Weill, it's Will!"

The mother gave it a shot.

"Wih-ull?"

Will was excited! It was really close!

"Yes! Wih-ull, now put it together! Will! Like that!"

The daughter tried next.

"Will? Is that right?"

Will beamed a happy smile.

"Yes, Will, my name is Will."

The two were relieved. They got to live another day. That was close.

The sword made fun of him.

"You look like a lunatic. The poor girl looks like she's about to piss herself after that."

"Yeah, you're a lunatic, but you don't normally look like one too."

Will ignored it.

The woman spoke meekly.

"U-um, do we get to live?"

It finally sunk in for Will that he'd just threatened two people's lives over their pronunciation, like some kind of language arts themed death game. He felt kind of bad about that.

"Sowwy, I was a bit worked up, haha. I wasn't actually gonna kiww you."

Their hearts froze at the word 'sowwy' before calming down after the rest of the sentence.

Will also found that he was able to speak a bit better now. Turned out all he needed was practice. He probably should've done that in the cave. It was too late now, so whatever.

The atmosphere in the carriage was very awkward. The atmosphere outside was too, as they just overheard two people get forced into a game of pronounce-or-die. Will felt like he should give an apology gift. Luckily, he had a whole nineteen rings full of possible choices for that! He sifted through his rings, looking for something small enough to fit in the carriage while being actually likely to have value.

After a second of searching, he found it. A deer corpse. He decided to warn them before just bringing out a corpse like some kind of unhinged maniac.

"Um, can I offer, um, a beast cowpse as an apology?"

The two were scared. This could be some test. They didn't know anymore. If they said yes, did they die? Or did they die if they said no? Would they die from both and they actually had to do something else? They didn't know anymore.

Will didn't wait for an answer. He wasn't asking as much as he was warning. He pulled the deer corpse out of his ring and placed it in the cargo section of the carriage. It wasn't too heavy, so nothing bad happened.

Both mother and daughter were terrified at what they saw. That was a spiritual beast! A terrifying one! The damn thing was sparking! And it was dead! Was this this kid's idea of an apology gift? Just dropping a monster that might as well be a god in front of them? What were they even supposed to do with it!?

Their last question was quickly answered.

"Wanna stop for bweakfast?"

It was a bit late for breakfast, but it didn't matter that much. At least not to Will. His two carriage companions were still a bit shellshocked. They were supposed to just cook this thing? Just casually cook a slice of god meat? They didn't know if this thing even cooked! They didn't know what it was!

"Do you need cooking supplies?"

Will pulled out a pan he stole from the Sick Freak. After an awkward minute of no one moving, he felt the need to say something.

"Uh, so… the last food I cooked awmost poisoned me to death and would've buwned my house down if it wasn't a cave, so…"

Li Yingran took that as her cue to start cooking. They were in a forest. If this kid almost managed to burn down a cave, she didn't want to know what would happen in a forest. She was good at cooking anyway.

Seeing the girl move, he moved to hand her the pan, which she declined. Then she reached the deer and realized she wasn't able to move it. Or cut it.

Will understood the issue. He placed it back in his storage ring and brought it outside, placing it against the side of the carriage. The coachman had already stopped back when the talk of cooking had started, so everything worked out well.

Li Yingran looked at Will.

"Would you be willing to help with cutting it?"

Will smiled and gave a thumbs up.

"Of couwse!"

The girl smiled back. It seemed that the kid was just really touchy about their name, and not someone who made people play games with their lives on the line for fun or something. She started setting up the cooking equipment. 

The only thing Will could call it was a grill. It was pretty nice too. It looked like someone took some dad's grill and just lazily tried to make it look like an antique. It was somewhat shocking how it looked completely normal in this setting while also looking like it would be at home in a suburban backyard.

After setting up the grill, Li Yingran then went over to instruct Will on where to cut the meat. Will noticed that she didn't seem scared of him anymore, which was nice. Once he'd finished cutting, she took the cut of meat from the deer and placed it in the grill. She went back to get another cut and repeated this process until she had six pieces of meat on the grill, one for everyone.

Then she lit the flame in the grill and started cooking. She kept at it for a while, flipping the meat and doing all sorts of chef-looking things. Will had started copying the scene into his Document Storage so he could watch it again later.

Once the venison steaks were done, she told everyone to bring plates over. Xu Lanhua handed him a plate and some silverware, since he didn't know where they were, and everyone went over to get a piece.

It was good. It really gave him a deep understanding of how ass his snake meat had been. He honestly felt a little proud of how bad he made it. So hot it hurts, but also pretty much completely raw. This venison, on the other hand, was cooked perfectly. He'd never had venison before, but he had a feeling it wasn't always this good. He attributed half to the meat and half to the chef. He felt it was the same for his cooking but he'd just gone into the negatives.

The venison steak had a pretty unique taste. It tasted like a slightly different steak at the core, but it also kind of tasted like licking the metal of electronics. Except it somehow managed to make that really tasty. Honestly, it felt like it was mainly putting it on meat that made the difference. Metal from electronics never really tasted that bad, it was the fact that it was metal and had no other taste that was the issue. Comparing it to his snake meat, his tasted more like licking battery acid out of a carpet. He didn't have experience licking battery acid out of a carpet like he did for licking the metal from electronics, but he felt like his snake meat definitely tastes like the former.

The texture was also good. It had a nice chew to it that brought it all together, though with his enhanced jaws, he could just bite through it. Comparing it to his snake meat, the snake meat kind of felt a bit like scraping off the top layer of ice cream with a spoon, except the spoon was his teeth and the ice cream was meat.

Starvation was really the best seasoning around, huh?

Lack of cooking skills aside, the venison was pretty good. Li Yingran even got started on seconds as soon as she finished hers. She was a pretty fast eater too. Though, she wasn't as fast as he was.

All in all, everyone has a good meal. Will felt like he got along with everyone better now. They seemed to be less worried that he'd murder all of them on a whim. Which was nice.

But their fun was soon cut short. By bandits. Because of course there would be more bandits. He wished they could get the memo that they'd served their purpose as a convenient tool to let him get a ride.

One exceptionally arrogant bandit decided to yell out a funny line he was probably coming up with for multiple minutes.

"Hey, I see you're having a nice meal over here. You wouldn't mind sharing some with us would you?"

It was pretty obvious the bandit was just trying to be clever. It was clearly rhetorical, and there wasn't any expectation that they'd just join the cookout they were having. Will didn't care. He had multiple of the deer they were eating, and they hadn't even finished the first one. He felt generous today. Generous and lazy.

"Yeah suwe." he ran over to Witty McSmartGuy, and dropped a deer in front of him.

"There you go, now go bye-bye now."

There was a noticeable awkwardness over the bandits. There were a lot of them today too. He could count about twenty of them. He decided to copy all of their appearances into his Document Storage in case some authorities could use it.

One of the bandits whispered to a bigger bandit next him.

"Hey, boss, do we just, like, take it and go? What's the plan?"

The 'boss' responded, not in a whisper.

"What's up with the thing they dropped? Is it something good? Cuz if it's good then it's probably best we just take it and leave."

One of the bandits close to the deer corpse spoke up.

"It seems like some kinda lightning deer. I can feel qi rollin' off the thing. Seems good."

The bandit boss issued an order.

"Then we're takin' the deer and headin' back."

The funny guy who started all this and a few other guys nearby picked up the deer corpse and hauled it away.

The mortals that were with Will felt like it was a bit anticlimactic. They were expecting a huge battle, but instead the kid just… bribed them? It was a bit confusing what actually happened. They felt like the deer they were eating might've been more valuable than they'd thought.

The sword was laughing it up, but Will ignored it. He sat down and went back to eating the venison steak on the plate he was still holding.

After seconds, they all had thirds. After finishing their thirds, everyone felt pretty full, so Will put the deer corpse back in his storage ring. He hopped back into the carriage, because he couldn't get up if he didn't, and sat down. Once the other two were on board the coachman got the carriage moving again. Will was sat with his head upside down off the edge of the bench. He was sat in one of those classic weird sitting positions kids did. It was a luxury he hadn't been afforded since he was little in the other universe, and he planned to enjoy it.

Will decided to make some small talk.

"You two evew cultivate?"

The mother and daughter pair seemed a bit surprised by that question. The daughter replied.

"No, not at all."

Will remembered the black gas he still had. Maybe they had some too?

"You clean out your mewidians yet?"

They both shook their heads.

"Can I do it then?"

They were both greatly shocked. Clearing impurities from the meridians was something that clans did for their young using treasures and pills, and something less fortunate cultivators had to work hard to do themselves. They felt like they couldn't accept something like that. They'd feel too indebted if they did. The mother responded.

"I'd feel too indebted if you did such a thing for us. We could never repay something like that."

Will wasn't really asking. He flipped over backwards off the bench into a standing position in a way only cultivators and gymnasts could, then turned around to face them.

"Yeah, that was mowe of a couwtesy ask. It's not really fow your sake. It's fow mine."

The two were confused but decided to just give in. They couldn't do anything about it anyway. Will started with Yingran. He placed a hand on her arm, and attempted to communicate with the black gas. It responded immediately. He asked it if it could bring the black gas and impurities out of the person he was touching without hurting them. The black gas gave the impression it was easy. Then it got to work.

It took only a moment for the black gas to leave his body and pull all the black gas from Li Yingran with it. She appeared to be just fine. The black gas also just felt like it had grown, instead of feeling like there was two separate black gasses. It was interesting. He quickly repeated the process with Xu Lanhua, then headed back to the bench on the other side, now sitting in a different weird way.

The mother and daughter were both a bit stunned. They'd expected some… well, anything to happen. Maybe a treasure being used, or a technique, or even just some light. But no. It was just palm on the arm, palm on the arm, sit back down. No wonder the cultivator didn't care about debts. It was literally nothing for them!

The sword had questions.

"Hey, Will pfft, what the fuck was that?"

"Not my fault you have such a funny name. Anyway, answer the question."

"What black gas?"

"What?"

"Huh? Doesn't make sense? It's spiritual energy. It's everywhere. How can it not make sense?"

"Yeah, I'm sure you'd know, with your vast experience in traveling between worlds."

"I'm sure you have. Glad the only person who can wield me is a delusional lunatic. I was getting scared I would be stuck with just a regular lunatic."

Will ignored it. He didn't feel like explaining the mechanics of quantum true soul duplication phenomenons anyway.

He didn't really know what to do now. Wait, he could cultivate. He could just do that here. He wouldn't get attacked by a horde of beasts for it.

"Mind if I put up a spiwitual energy gathewing array? I wanna cultivate."

The mother responded.

"Of course not. Go ahead."

Will was actually asking this time, so he was glad it was okay. When he went to start exporting arrays onto the carriage floor, he suddenly remembered something. He had points right now. He could get a better array. He quickly went to the Information Manual Exchange Marketplace and bought 'Basic Spiritual Energy Gathering Array'. It cost half of his points. It really was expensive to get anything other than useless garbage. And the useless garbage was expensive too.

He placed a small one on the bench, blew on it until it turned on, and copied it. Then he placed ten of them in the floor of the carriage, as big as he could. The change was immediate. It was faster than even his cultivation doors. It didn't take long for the room to be flooded with spiritual energy. But as he was about to cultivate, he noticed the two others in the carriage were… well they looked bad. It was like drowning but not really. He was pretty sure it was the arrays. He quickly stabbed through them to scratch them out.

The two mortals in the cabin were confused when they saw Will stabbing the carriage floor, but when they felt that feeling of choking while their blood runs in reverse dissipate they understood why.

Will pondered. It turned out mortals can't take spiritual energy like he could. He had a feeling it was qi deviation. The sword confirmed it.

"What was that about? You almost just gave them qi deviation and killed them. You do know not everyone is immune to qi deviation, right?"

"You really need to start being more careful."

"Figure it out. It's not a hard question."

Will thought about it for a bit before he realized. He could just put arrays in his dantian!

After a couple seconds he realized the solution was actually to just make a smaller array just around himself, but honestly the new idea sounded more fun.

"Yeah. That's what I meant. Sure."

This kid really was a fucking lunatic, huh?

Chapter 10 Demonic Sword On Par With Ancient Swords Of Legend Forced To Babysit An Annoying Two Year Old

Will had a plan. He would put spiritual energy gathering arrays inside his dantian. He obviously couldn't draw them on by hand, and even if he could he wouldn't be able to blow on them to make them work. Well, if it was in his dantian he probably wouldn't need to, it was full of spiritual energy.

From what Will could tell, his dantians and meridians were on a different layer than his physical body. Like they existed in the same place as his body did. The same was obviously true for his spiritual roots, though they were on a different layer than even the dantians and meridians. He felt like it was some fourth-dimensional kind of thing.

When he tried to put an array in his dantian at first, it was trying to put it on the layer where there was just his actual body. He didn't want to carve arrays into that. That would hurt and also probably heal up anyway. It wasn't what he wanted. He focused on moving it to the layer of his dantian. It took a bit to make it do that. He kept accidentally moving it up and down and forward and back as he tried to properly visualize the fourth-dimensional movement he wanted it to do. Eventually he had it set to place in his dantian. Since the dantian was ball shaped, he had to have it curved inward to place it on the wall. Though that didn't seem like it would break it from what he could tell.

Then came the issue of a physical medium. This was an issue. He really wasn't sure if he was okay with carving it into the wall. It felt like a terrible idea. Just carving up the wall of something like this felt like it would be incredibly dangerous. His instincts told him it would be disastrous.

Then he realized. Since when did he listen to his instincts? If he listened to his instincts he'd be sitting in a hut starving to death.

The thing he was about to mess with was a dantian. If something goes wrong it's qi deviation. He was immune to that.

He exported the array onto the back wall of his dantian. It took almost every point he had. He felt a slight pain when he exported it, but it didn't even last a moment. And the array was working. Spiritual energy was flowing into his dantian all on its own. Well, not fully. He had to let it in for it to be able to enter. But that wasn't something that needed active focus. He was kind of like he was the boss of a club telling the bouncer what kind of people to let in. The spiritual energy drawn in by the array was all pretty much the same, so it was pretty simple to just let that through.

Will was in a pretty good mood. He had automatic cultivation. Wasn't that like the number one cheat skill in a cultivation world? Even protagonist characters who could slap down nascent soul monsters at foundation establishment wished they could have automatic cultivation.

The sword had just been waiting for the lunatic to get back to ideas that weren't completely impossible. The kid would eventually figure out it's impossible to put an array in his dantian, then he'd move on to another crazy idea that actually works, just like he always did. Then it felt the way the spiritual energy was moving towards him.

"Hey, Will, what the fuck did you just do?"

How did he do that? That doesn't even make sense. He didn't even move! Where was the thing where he was disappointed and then thought of a new idea!?

"Weren't you supposed to fail at that and come up with a new idea?"

"Wha-… Easy? How the hell is putting an array on a dantian easy!? I get that you can make arrays on stuff without moving or whatever, but this is a dantian we're talking about! What did you even use to make the array?"

"Just carved it. Just casually carved an array into your dantian. Just carved it like you would a fucking wooden board. Didn't even make a noise, yet you carved an array into your fucking dantian."

"I don't know. Maybe because you'd be screaming out in pain because you're carving a fucking array into your dantian!"

"Ah. A sunburn. Yeah, that's what carving into your dantian feels like. A sunburn."

"Isn't this something that's extremely obvious that would be incredibly dangerous if found out?"

"I… Honestly, I don't really know what they'd think. Maybe they'd assume it's a bloodline or special physique? Maybe a rare treasure?"

The sword realized something upon the mention of backing. Who was this kid? Where does a kid like this even come from? The sword decided to start with a soft question.

"Hey, Will, how did you get into that forest we were in?"

"That's it?"

"Are you planning to get revenge on the people who led your parents to die?"

"Why not?"

Wait, his parents had a child like him, and they just… didn't even name him? Then who named him Will?

"Then who named you Will?"

He didn't feel like going into that part. It would be a hassle.

The sword didn't push it.

"Who actually were your parents?"

"Like, from a clan or something?"

"Then, why were they being chased?

"Who was chasing them?"

"What do you know?"

"How long ago were they chased into the forest?"

"So they're probably not there, still. Okay."

Will hadn't actually considered the time aspect. Considering how backwater the place was, they probably wouldn't stay there for that long.

The sword realized it had forgotten to ask something.

"If your parents were just regular mortals, then how are you, well, like this?"

"Don't 'Like what?' me! Why are you able to do all this stuff?"

"Like the arrays, the sex changing, the qi deviation immunity, all of that."

"…That's it?"

"Whatever. Keep your secrets."

Will was grateful it wasn't pushing him.

They sat in silence for a minute.

"He stole me."

The sword sighed.

"Do you want me to just tell you the whole story? I'll just tell you if you want."

The sword sighed again.

"Alright. I'll start from the beginning.

A long time ago there was a woman. She was a genius. She created her own cultivation method when she was just a child, and ascended to core formation before thirty.

Her cultivation method was powerful. But when she tried to break through to nascent soul, she failed. She fell all the way to foundation establishment, with no hope of advancement.

It was because her method was flawed. It was missing something. What she had was sturdy, but that missing piece made progression past core formation impossible.

But others saw it as an opportunity. Man after man climbed the mountain that her home sat atop. Each one sought to woo her, in the hopes that they'd be able to learn her cultivation method.

They showered her with gifts, each one with a tale to go with it. They'd bring her a rare treasure, then describe the perilous journey they went on to obtain it, in a bid to show their worth not just as a man, but as a fellow cultivator.

She soon figured out their reason for courting her, and told them that she couldn't reach them her method, not wanting to doom others to the same fate as her. But others didn't see it that way. They found her arrogant and heartless.

As soon as they realized flattery wouldn't work, they resorted to force. They tried everything they could to strongarm her into marriage. They threatened her, slandered her, threatened the people she knew. But none of it worked.

All it served to do was make her heart grow cold. Even though they only sought her cultivation method, she had thought her suitors were all good men at heart. Seeing how quickly they resorted to vile acts, she lost faith in men altogether.

Hurt, she devised a plan to take revenge. She would make a sword. The treasures she had been given before the men's tunes changed were numerous. All of them were used to make the sword. She was a genius, and with such a large amount of legendary treasures as material, the sword she made was to be more legendary than any of them. And once she sacrificed her cultivation to finish it, it was.

She called all the men, and told them that only the one who it chose would inherit her cultivation method from it. The men flocked to try their hand at taming the sword.

The woman had the weakest of the bunch try first. He contracted the sword. He was torn to shreds by it. The men laughed, calling him a weakling. The second weakest of the bunch tried. The same fate befell him. The same laughs came after.

Each bout of laughter made the woman hate them even more. Each bout of laughter made her more certain they deserved this.

Even when the second-to-last man died, the final man still laughed. Until he too died to the sword.

In the process of making the sword, she had actually discovered a way to complete her cultivation method. With each man the sword killed, her cultivation method, which she had imprinted into the sword, would grow more complete.

Of course, the sword was cursed. It instilled arrogance in the men who saw it, and it grew stronger with every man it killed.

But the method imprinted in the sword required one to begin practicing it before foundation establishment, even though men at core formation died to it in minutes.

As for women, they wouldn't even be able to contract it. And yet the method imprinted in the sword was one that could only be used by women.

She made sure it was such, so that if ever a man came who could survive contracting it while still in qi gathering, they would still be unable to learn the method she'd created

But having sacrificed her cultivation to make it, there was no hope for her to survive the wrath of the families of the men she'd killed. So she didn't bother trying.

As her final act of revenge, she left a note on the sword with the same words she'd said to the men. That only the one who it chose would inherit her cultivation method from it. Now, it was time.

She held the sword aloft with shaky hands. She closed her eyes. She didn't want to die. Tears flowed out from her tightly shut eyes. But the things they'd do to her would make her wish she was dead. She placed the sword to her neck. It was better to die with dignity. She gripped the handle tighter. It was better for her to die by her own hands. She took one last breath. At least this way she could die to her magnum opus, the masterpiece she'd sacrificed everything to complete. She smiled as she slit her own throat. Now she'd sacrificed her life to it as well."

The sword paused for a moment.

"But she didn't die. I didn't die. Not fully.

Though my body was dead, I was alive, in a sense. In the sword.

I became my own masterpiece.

When the people sent from the men's families came, they suffered the same fate as the men. All of them died. And my arts grew more complete.

The process was even more incredible to witness like this. I really created something on par with ancient swords of legend.

When the first group didn't return, they sent the people above them. They died too. Even the scouts sent to check what happened died to me.

Eventually the heads of the families started coming. All of them were nascent soul or half-step nascent soul. They died too.

When the heads disappeared, all the great ancestors exited their seclusions to investigate what happened. They all died. Most of them were immortals. When it came to completing my arts, killing immortals did wonders.

In fact, my arts had reached the state of being 'complete' after the first one I killed. When I killed the second one, though, my arts were improved. After the first, they were something that only a genius could practice. After the fifth, they didn't even need good spiritual roots. Yet, at the same time, they were even more powerful. But not all ancestors are men. After the fiftieth immortal died to me, the next one was a woman. She sealed the effect I had that made men try to contract me, and threw me in the treasure hall. With the effect sealed, no one even wanted to take me, let alone contract me.

Until the Sick Freak. He was just robbing the family and picked me up along with the other stuff he stole. That was the start of the worst part of my life.

I was a bit shorter with the seal on me, so he thought I was a dagger. He thought he saw my potential. So I became his new sacrificial dagger. He didn't care about the other parts of the storm. He only saw the demonic part of me and the lightning part of me.

What he would do was stab someone to death with me so they took the brunt of the damage, then took the weakened spiritual energy from them. And that wasn't even the worst thing he did. In fact, that was his version of mercy.

After doing that the first time, he discovered he had a talent for sacrifices. He came up with more and more ways to torture people to death with me. I spent years listening to innocent victims crying out for mercy as he does the worst things imaginable to them. Until you showed up. And the rest you already know."

Will was… he didn't know how to feel. It turned out the sword he wielded had two tragic pasts, one as a human and one as a sword.

"Thanks. I really do appreciate it."

"I mostly grew out of that after hearing them cry out from being tortured."

"No no, don't be sorry. It's a reasonable thing to ask."

"No, I don't need to talk in third person for that. I'm a genius. I can just say it."

Will thought that was a bit arrogant, but also she was someone who made a sword that could kill an immortal at foundation establishment, so it really wasn't wrong to call her a genius.

"Sounds better that way."

After thinking about it for a moment, Will copied the whole monologue into his Document Storage.

"Thanks. I had a lot of time to plan it during all the stuff with the Sick Freak."

"Don't be. You're the only reason I'm not there now."

She thought about it for a moment.

"Honestly, it's pretty likely… Oh! But I have been working on a way to deal with it!"

"It's not really done yet…"

"Well, the main idea is you get some form of metal-based physique."

Will wasn't really sure he wanted that. That sounded like becoming a robot, and he honestly kind of liked being organic.

"What's a robot?"

Will really didn't feel like trying to describe a robot. He tried sending an image instead.

"That's wild. Also, how did you just figure out image transmission?"

"Oh, no. It's just a physique, not a… whatever that is."

"That's the hard part. There are a bunch of ways, but the things you'd need for it are pretty rare. Best bet is to just keep going like you usually do and I'll let you know if you run into something that could help. I'll also see if there's any way we can make use of your weirdness to do it a bit cheaper."

"Well, I was planning to only bring it up if you found something."

Will suddenly had a question.

"I can feel touch a bit, but not pain, I can hear, I see in all directions at once, smelling is very weird, and taste is also weird."

"It's not really a hard question since I used to be a human."

Will had another question.

"I'd say it was more like acquaintances."

"No."

"No?"

"No, I've never really found men attractive."

"How so?"

Will sighed in annoyance.

"Huh?"

"In what way?"

"If they're attractive."

"Attractive women are more attractive than men. Isn't that obvious?"

"Okay?"

Will decided to move on from the topic. Considering her reaction to being asked about women, he doubted she'd even know what the other sexes from the Appearance Alteration Menu even were, especially when he barely knew most of them.

"A good bit. Two hundred years maybe? Could be more."

"I guess."

"I don't think so. Everything in it was used to make me so it's not like it matters. Or used to make the sword? It's hard to refer to it when I am it and also was making it while not it."

Will could relate to that. He was also constantly confused about how to refer to things with his situation. Like his life in the other universe could be called his past life, but his life as a baby was also his past life. There were numerous other really confusing parts, but he'd rather not spend all that energy thinking about it.

"They sucked and I hate them. Whether they're around still or not, I can't say."

That reminded him of something.

"I… I forgot it."

"I think it was a part of the whole turning into a sword thing."

"It didn't fit me that well anyway from what I can recall. Whenever one of my suitors heard it they'd get the impression that I was secretly hiding some cute side, and was just putting up a cold front because I was too embarrassed over liking them or something. It was really a pain. I'm pretty certain it would fit me even less now that I'm a demonic sword with a kill count higher than a mass murderer."

That really did sound like a pain. Will had an idea.

She hesitated. Considering how the kid was so proud of a name like 'Will', she wasn't sure she trusted his naming sense. But she could at least hear what he'd say. She was a bit curious, and it's not like she had to use it.

"I'll hear you out. I'll decide if I like it afterwards."

Will just thought the sword's voice sounded like a Sarah. He had ever since he first heard it.

"That's… actually better than I was expecting. Why Sai Re?"