CHAPTER 10 - KILLING INTENT

After cramming the pizza down my throat, I returned to my apartment in a hurry.

Screw privacy, if the game wanted to read my mind, be my guest. It’s not like there was much going on in there to begin with.

I snickered to myself.

As for my children, I at least found solace in the fact that they were both adults. Although I wanted what was best for them, the reality was that it had been a long time since I played any meaningful role in either of their lives. If I contacted them now telling them to stop playing Cultivation Online, odds were it would just blow up spectacularly in my face. Ultimately, they’d wind up resenting me more than they already did.

Moreover, my ex-wife might be many things, but I could honestly say that an absentee parent wasn’t one of them. She’d notice immediately if our children started acting off.

And though I didn’t always like to admit it, her new husband James didn’t seem like a complete imbecile either.

In the corner of my mind, I wondered whether my decision to return was all the crafty result of some form of insidious manipulation. But if it was, I was already duly compromised.

“Worstcase scenario, I can just sue them.” I smiled at the thought. I’d never sued anyone before but I reckoned this was ground for a pretty lucrative lawsuit.

Thus, worried I'd wasted too much time already, I re-entered the exhilarating world of Cultivation Online.

…

I was already starting to become familiar with the login procedure. Shapes and colors manifested as the darkness-

“Fucking finally.”

Before I could wrap my head around what was happening, a sharp pain suddenly blossomed in my left shoulder.

“Shit.” I keeled on one knee, clutching my aching shoulder. “Is that blood?”

“Man, spawn camping feels a bit…” A second voice said, sounding remorseful.

“Meh,” The player who I now recognized as one of the 12-star talents from my evaluation shrugged. “In this world, ya’ do what ya’ hafta to survive.”

My attacker looked me in the eyes. “Ya’ agree, don't ya’, Mister-Blessed-by-the-Heavens?”

Just as I was about to open my mouth to respond, the spear lodged in my shoulder twisted agonizingly.

“It was a rhetorical question, ya’ fucking imbecile.” The player snarled with hatred. “But I guess Heaven does not give with both hands, huh?”

“Bart…” I recognized the second person as another 12-star talent from the evaluation. “Let's just get on with it, alright? No need to prolong this more than we have to.”

Another spike of pain erupted as Bart twisted the handle of his makeshift spear

[“Warning! An act fulfilling the stipulated criteria for torture has been flagged. Would you like to immediately terminate this session? Note: Death penalties will be applied.”]

Unconsciously, I dismissed the prompt in anger and contempt.

“Why shouldn’t we?” My attacker asked angrily as he turned towards his friend. “Aren't ya’ angry that morons like this guy get-”

Realizing that my attacker was momentarily distracted, my body acted before my mind did.

Maybe it was due to all the practice I had carried out, but I successfully drew my sword in one singular motion, and to great effect I might add.

My attacker didn't even have enough time to react before his dismembered body fell to the ground.

“Aaaarrrghhhh my arm!!! Ya’ will fucking regret that you piece of-”

[“You have kille-”]

“Later.” I decided; focus shifting to my second attacker. Yet, before I knew it, a cloud of crystalline pixels blocked my line of sight.

“Shit, I forgot about that!”

Fortunately for me, my second attacker was too paralyzed in shock to even think about taking advantage of this opportune window.

With a wince, I pulled out the spear from my shoulder. Noting half-heartedly that I was bleeding.

“Even the blood disintegrates into tiny pixels huh.” That was a detail I hadn’t known about before.

“You killed him.” My opponent suddenly mumbled. His eyes moved from where his friend had turned into pixels onto me. “You’re so dead.”

When he attacked, my body moved instinctively. First, I knocked aside the spear with my left arm, which hurt since my shoulder was still bleeding. Fortunately, however, his ‘spear’ was more of a sharpened stick. Then, before either of us realized what had happened, my sword had dug deeply into his neck.

Shocked eyes stared into mine before they turned into pixels.

[“You have killed a mortal human with a sword. Swordsmanship proficiency has increased significantly.”][“You have killed a mortal human with a sword. Swordsmanship proficiency has increased moderately.”]

[“Results: +1 Swordsmanship Lv. (Beginner 5 > 6). A nascent killing intent is starting to manifest.”]

Although a surprisingly anti-climatic ending, when I discovered that my two attackers were both dead, my body collapsed like a castle made out of cards.

“If it wasn’t for the game alleviating my pain receptors, I’d be dead right now.” I winced at the realization.

In reality, however, there were many factors that had contributed to my triumph. If the first attacker, Bart, hadn’t been so intent on torturing me. If the second attacker had been a bit more experienced in combat. If it had been my right shoulder instead of my left that had been wounded…

The if’s were way too many.

“Lesson learnt.” I pushed against the wound on my shoulder. “Do not log out where it’s not safe.”

Moving on, I felt an eyebrow rise when I read through the notifications prompts.

“Swordsmanship levelled up…” My eyes widened even further when I saw the second result. “Killing intent?”

I dismissed the prompts while thinking about the implications of the last prompt.

“So the more I kill, the stronger my killing intent will become?” Naturally, I couldn’t help but to think about all the PK enthusiasts who would rejoice at this discovery.

“This really isn’t a world for the light-hearted…” I sighed to myself.

“And speaking of a cruel world…” I muttered as I picked up two talismans and four copper off the ground.

This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.

[“Barthololol’s Provisional Outer Disciple Talisman (White Tiger Sect, Trial #224).”][“Deznut’s Provisional Outer Disciple Talisman (White Tiger Sect, Trial #224).”]

Just as I was about to pocket the two talismans, bringing my total up to three, a familiar voice resounded through the area.

“Bishop?”

Down the road, two dirty teenagers stared back at me. Their eyes widened as they noticed my bleeding shoulder and the two makeshift spears lying on the ground.

“Atom, Dark.” I smiled. “Long time no see.”

…

“So you passed the first part of the recruitment?” Dark didn’t hide his envy as he bandaged my shoulder with a strip of cloth I had torn from my tunic.

Apparently, since I last saw him, he’d unlocked the “First Aid” proficiency. Evidently, I wasn’t the only one who’d gone through a rough time lately.

Nodding, I answered truthfully. “Yes, the first part of the recruitment is an aptitude evaluation, similar to the one we theorized earlier. They check your talent and affinities to see if you match their criteria. You need to be either a 12-star talent with combat-oriented affinities, or 13 stars plus. However, even if you pass the first test, you still have to make it to the sect with at least two talismans to become a real disciple.”

I watched as Atom stopped fiddling with the two spears next to us.

“I hope we’re talented enough…” Atom muttered softly. Seeing his expression, I decided to wait before I revealed my own talent for now. For some reason, I really didn’t want Atom and Dark to give me the same look as the ones I’d received back during the evaluation.

“If only we hadn’t gotten lost.” Dark groaned with an exasperated expression. “Can you imagine? We actually wound up in the wrong town! You should’ve seen the look on the guard NPCs when I asked him if we’d arrived in Durnatel.”

“But you have to admit…” Atom added with a smirk. “It was pretty funny when that racoon creature attacked. Bishop, do you know what the racoon did to my older brother, it totally-”

“Shut up!” Dark glared daggers at his younger brother. “I thought we agreed on keeping that private?”

“But Bishop’s a friend, surely we can-”

“No.” Dark stood his ground.

Listening to the two bickering brothers, the stress of the ambush and the proceeding battle slowly started to dissipate.

I felt like I was recovering in more ways than one.

“So?” I decided to interrupt the two brothers before a brawl erupted. “Are you still heading to Durnatel?”

The two brothers exchanged a look before nodding simultaneously.

“Yeah.” “Yes.”

“In that case…” I looked up at the sun. Was it noon already? “I’d suggest hurrying, the cultivators did say they’d start the second recruitment an hour after noon.”

“Oh shit.” Dark’s eyes widened in realization. “You’re right, come on Atom, we gotta hurry.”

I looked at Dark’s younger brother. Sometimes, it was hard not associating the person with the age of their character.

“Don’t worry, we’ll meet each other again at the sect.” Internally, I debated whether I should wait for them, but ultimately I decided not to risk it. They were nice people, that’s for sure, but were they nice enough to risk failing the trial?

Thus, after giving the brothers some final warnings about what they could expect from the trial, we exchanged our goodbyes.

…

When the sun started setting on the horizon, I decided it was time to take a break that lasted longer than a few minutes.

Over the last several hours of walking, I had only encountered a single wild boar courageous enough to attack me. The rest of the animals I’d witnessed smartly remained in the forest.

Regrettably, the fight against the boar hadn’t lasted long before I had skewered it with my sword. And apart from a prompt telling me that I’d killed a mortal boar and a notification telling me that my swordsmanship proficiency had increased minutely, I’d found no other loot. Nevertheless, the fight did reaffirm a supposition I’d had since the fight against the two 12-star talents.

Ever since my sword affinity increased, I have felt like my combat instincts have heightened. Or more specifically, my instincts now included how to maneuver the sword properly in different situations whereas before my instincts only centered around my body. It was a minute and elusive feeling that took some time getting used to, but one that ultimately wasn’t adverse in nature. It was kind of like fighting with an instinctive autoaim on.

Admittedly, my proficiency with the sword still wasn’t on the same level as Hou Wen. Yet, with my heightened instincts ready at hand, I still felt more confident in my ability to survive an altercation.

And now that I had spent over six hours just walking, occasionally asking a passing NPC for directions, I found myself actually looking forward to another ambush and the opportunity to develop my so-called nascent killing intent.

During my journey so far, I’d had a lot of time to think. With three talismans I was now guaranteed a spot as an outer disciple. As long as nothing unexpected happened and I arrived at the outer courtyard on time, that is.

However, lately, my inner goblin has started emerging. So far, my impression of the other aspirants wasn’t exactly stellar. With the exception of maybe Grim, I was confident in my ability to take on any of the other aspirants one-on-one. Even against Grim, although I wasn’t sure of my victory, I was sure I would not lose.

Thus, I was now put in the lucrative position where I could theoretically extend my lead even further. All I had to do was kill some more of the opposition and steal their talismans.

I was under no illusion that it wasn’t a cruel and despicable thing to do. With every talisman I collected, I was basically throwing someone into the gutter. Every player killed was another player who would lose their chance to become an outer disciple of the White Tiger Sect.

I knew all of this… so then why did I find the prospect of being the hunter so exhilarating? In the end, I realized I wasn’t like Percival, someone whose moral compass dictated their actions.

No, I was more pragmatic than that.

“If I’m going to do this, I need to establish some ground rules.” I thought as I leaned against a tree, my body hidden from anyone passing by on the road.

“First, I’m not going to attack any NPCs.” Killing a fellow player was one thing, they’d respawn and have another shot at a lesser sect after waiting out the death penalty. But the notion of permanently killing an NPC when they acted so… human… instinctively left a bad taste in my mouth.

“Second, I should pick my battles wisely. No fighting multiple players at the same time if I can help it.” When one mistake was all it took to lose everything, I wasn’t going to take any exaggerated risks.

“Third…” Although despicable, this rule was warranted if I was going to do this. “No leaving any witnesses behind.” After all, any potential witness could have a negative effect on my standing in the sect later on. If I could help it, I didn’t want my reputation to be that of a deranged killer.

“Four, I’m not going to attack any of the players who participated in the same recruitment as I did… If they don’t attack me first, that is.” The crab cake grandma’s words echoed through my head: Durnatel wasn’t the only town hosting a White Tiger Sect recruitment. And odds were that the closer I would get to the sect, the more provisional sect members I would stumble upon.

“Finally, I should focus on making some serious headway before wasting time trying to off my competition.” I didn't want to take any unnecessary risks until my arrival at the sect was guaranteed. Moreover, I was certain that I wasn’t far away from Lingxin’s Pass, I could feel it in my bones.

And so, after a quick break to satiate my hunger and slake my thirst in-game and in real life, I returned to the road and continued my journey.

…