[382/1000]

[383/1000]

[384/1000]

Logan grimaced as his Heaven’s Descent slammed into yet another horned centipede. A small hole was drilled into where the whirlpool of qi entered the being, and everything the hardened skin contained spilled out onto the floor. After so much murder, Logan had begun questioning his sanity.

“The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results,” wrote one of the authors whose works Logan enjoyed reading, Gilbert Zweistein. That brought up the question, was he going insane? After all, he was killing insects over and over and expecting something at the end. The system had sort of lied to him before. What if it was doing it again, as an attempt to get him to switch?

Request acknowledged.

The system is not doing anything of the sort. You are not going insane.

Logan stared at the blinking rectangle invading his vision. For the first time in months the system had responded to one of his queries. He just looked at it in disbelief.

It thought I would believe this? Really? Does it think I’m stupid? It might be some kind of evil mind technique in the end…

He had little choice at the moment so Logan decided to keep hunting down the insects. It was more time consuming than difficult, if anything. Now that he thought about it, he might actually be going insane. He let out a laugh. The little Lo Guan from the sect was nowhere to be seen. Logan had gone from being a stick to a psycho who hunted innocent creatures because… some hallucination told him to? Because he found them disgusting? Or maybe it was to satisfy his insatiable urge to kill. One that he had developed recently. Was it the system’s doing? Logan shook his head. Too many questions, not enough answers. He surrounded himself in a barrier of pure qi, as he had learned to do recently.

***

The qi vortex of Logan’s technique, Heaven’s Descent, mercilessly slaughtered three more centipede-like creatures. The system’s beep said there were around three hundred more centipedes to kill, then he could leave this hellhole. Logan’s mind had been scattered the entire time he was in the final stage of the tutorial. His inner philosopher had awakened and reflected on his entire life in the past month.

Eight hundred killed; two hundred left. Logan mindlessly killed centipedes, to the point of having stopped thinking. He hoped to leave this endless tunnel soon. Logan’s brain restarted. It was a tunnel. He realized just now that he didn’t have to kill the centipedes, there was a chance to get out without murder. The cultivator’s mind pounced at the idea. Legs moved on their own and there was a boom as the sound barrier was broken. He kept accelerating, accidentally ramming into a few of the insectoid creatures, splattering his qi-infused grass robes with their green blood.

Logan jumped, becoming a missile and tearing through the moist air of the cave. He learned from his techniques and began removing the air in front of him from existence. Anyone watching would have seen him teleport tens of kilometers at a time. His feet touched the ground at last and Logan looked ahead. There was indeed a light at the end of the tunnel. At last being cursed with the knowledge that he could have just done that instead of losing his mind knocked the light out of his eyes and Logan collapsed on the floor.

When he woke up, Logan’s eyes didn’t open. His spiritual self stood, gazing upon the shaking white sun that was his quivering core. It was slowly filling with more white qi, . The system had cursed him by bringing him to this world. Of course, he probably would have died in the sect but that was an arguably better fate than this torture. He was mentally, physically, and spiritually tired. In the end, he survived. That made him stronger. “Status.”

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Status for user Logan:

Approximate Level: 100

HP: 5000 / 5000

STR: 450

DEX: 420

INT: 300

WIS: 850

CHA: 200

VIT: 500

Logan felt that checking his inventory was useless, as all he had done was take 600 qi-infused grass blades out of there and crafted robes out of them. Now that he thought about it, nobody had ever taught him how to weave grass. Matter of fact, nobody had really taught him to do anything but cultivation. It seemed that the sect wanted mindless warriors to send on missions so they could “die an honorable death.” Logan could hardly believe that his younger self believed those lies. Death was death, no matter how honorable.

***

At last Logan’s eyes took in the dim light surrounding him, and the infinitely brighter spot of sunlight at the end of the labyrinthine tunnel. There were green splatters of blood on his grassy robes. They were woven but they held up well because of the anomalously high amount of qi in them.

The adrenaline rush from the long jump was already long gone but Logan was admittedly a little scared to go out into the light. His mind was imagining all sorts of things that could happen if he went through. What if it was a trap and he got swarmed by more powerful bugs? What if he turned into a bug? What if his counter reset and he had to kill more? What if it drained his qi? What if he died instantly? What if he had to fight himself?

Logan shook his head. It didn’t matter, he thought. He already felt like he was at his lowest point. Nobody around to comfort him, nothing to do but kill, no motivation for anything. The point of life was to die, wasn’t it? He just stretched his legs, and walked toward the light at the end of the tunnel.

As the light overtook him, Logan saw his life flashing before his eyes. Then, he understood. The feeling couldn’t be explained in words. The muscular husk of a man fell over in a heap. He had seen the entirety of his life flash before his eyes. He wouldn’t give up. His mother, his childhood friend, his younger self. He wouldn’t abandon them. Logan felt rejuvenated as he realized how stupid he was. The point of life was to survive. Not throw it away.

His dantian screamed at him. Logan’s core had turned to steel. The path to the body went through the mind. For the first time in a year, he smiled, and as if on cue, Logan fell again. This time with a grin plastered on his face.

***

A man lay on the ground, near the end. Unconscious. Bug 910 watched in fear as the man’s body moved unnaturally. His limbs bent in all directions as if his bones were made of rubber. His skin turned a pure white as if he were made of light itself. Eyes and hair made of pure black, he looked like he was glowing.

No, Bug 910 realized. This was mana. His body was made of pure mana. The man’s mana grass robes also turned a pure white, and began moving. They weren’t really moving, but the texture looked like it was flowing along invisible streams of mana. Bug 910’s brother, Bug 911, sent through the antennae-phone that his hair, robes, and skin all looked like they were flowing along the mana streams that he could sometimes channel.

Bug 910’s short life flashed before its eyes. A vortex of the white substance that it now identified as mana exploded out of the man and smashed into bug 911. One moment he was there, the next he was gone. Bug 910 felt no real attachment to his family. They were all spawned from the broodmother. Another small whirlpool appeared and where Bug 910 stood, the next moment there was nothing.

***

Logan stretched his arms and legs. At last, he got ready to kill the last few bugs. He determined it was to kill or be killed, and these things couldn’t think anyway. That’s what he wanted to believe. The Qi Void killed a hundred of the bugs and dissipated after a minute.

[999/1000]

One more. I can do this.

Logan looked with his eyes and spiritual sense. Nothing. The entire tunnel was empty. There was nobody left.

***

Broodmother 1 opened its eyes and flared its mana. It felt a presence looking for it. It revealed itself and got ready to feast on yet another target.

New Quest! Kill user Logan.

Reward: Evolution