“In the lives of we cultivators, there is always one mortal reincarnation that defines us. In my case, it was my life as a girl in a ghetto in the most lawless part of the entire plane, I’m sure.

“The leader of the city was an important Devil path figure. The reason he was important was his research on hallucinogenic drugs. He grew acres of a plant he called Weed and used their extract to concoct a mixture which when injected, inhaled or smoked could improve soul cultivation.

“It was even good for breakthroughs to the next realm of the path of Heavenly Communion.

“The problem was that it was highly addictive and the withdrawal symptoms were horrific.

“I grew up watching promising young men and women become slaves to its charm. They came for a quick breakthrough, they returned with a broken life.

“When he passed away, his son took over.

“I was an introverted little girl and the only one who took the time to try and get to know me well enough to get past my shell was an older girl who had been put in charge of the children in our camp.

“Over the years our friendship only grew deeper and she was like an elder sister to me. One day, I started to notice differences in her behaviour. The usually cheerful girl was subdued and irritable and she had dark pouches under her eyes.

“I felt that something was wrong with her and confronted her about it only for my concern to be brushed away.

“It was only later that week that I learnt that she had been fuelling her drug addiction by selling herself. When I walked into her tent, I found that my elder sister was all but dead in name, replaced by a husk of herself.

“She soon passed away and at her funeral, I decided to take revenge for her passing: I decided to burn the fields of Weed to the ground.

“I sneaked a laxative in the food of one of the members of the camp who worked at the fields as a guard. That night I snuck into the fields from his vacant post and poured out a bottle of oil and lit it with a flint.

“To increase yields, they had spaced the crops close together and this helped them burn much faster. Even though I tried to run away, I was caught. I don’t want to talk about the next few days. Suffice it to say… it took a long time for me to die.

“After I passed on to the Ghostdom, the Fire of Karma began burning me… apparently, my burning of the entire field of Weed had left the addicts without a fix and they had cursed me for it, resulting me having accumulated a huge amount of resentment.

“Thankfully, my Light of Karmic virtue accumulated over my past lives was enough and I survived the ordeal intact but drained of Karmic Virtue.

“So, I went to work under the asylum of the nearest Tutelary God to earn some Karmic Virtue by slaying monsters for him.

“When I reached there I was shocked to see the deceased Devil Cultivator, the original perpetrator of the Weed farm, was the God of the shrine. Apparently, the addicts in their hallucinogenic haze never thought to blame the source of the drug.

“There he was a beast in human clothing laughing and talking with the ghosts who had taken asylum under him acting like a saint. That day, I lost all my faith in Karma.

“An idea began to form in my mind about a reincarnation system that would provide a body corresponding to the nature of the soul so everyone could associate an ugly exterior with an ugly soul. Then pretenders like him couldn’t get away scot free like he did. Thus, the seed of the idea of Samsara Reincarnation germinated in my mind.

“The next few reincarnation cycles for me were quite lucky and I was able to earn a lot of Karmic Virtue. So, I invested it all for the final reincarnation.

“There are three ways to spend Karmic Virtue: Firstly, reincarnation itself uses up some. Then, one can choose to spend more to have the current reincarnation remember something from its past lives. The more the memories, the greater the cost. I chose to keep my memory of my time as the girl. Finally, by spending Karmic Virtue, one can improve the circumstances of birth.

“I was born as the daughter of the head of a sect and had enough talent and resources to cultivate to the Shattered Void realm.

“The first world I ended up in after my ascension was a low-level plane with a generic system of sects and kingdoms. I spent my time in this plane learning to wield all kinds of weapons from halberds to gauntlets along with unarmed combat.

“By the time I had reached mastery in all known forms of combat, I had reached the peak of the Shattered Void realm. Fully equipped, I set out on my path of the Asura.

“I stabbed people with my knife until it was too dull to be used. I hacked at people with my axe till its haft shattered against my opponent’s weapon. I wielded my halberd, leaving great swathes of carnage, until it snapped in two trying to cut through full plate. I killed till blood was all I could see. Then, when I ran out of weapons, I used my fists.

“Finally, atop a hill of corpses, I knew what an Asura was. I stepped into Grasping Principles realm bathed in the blood of millions.

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“The next plane I ended up in didn’t have humans, only beasts. After I condensed the principle of the Asura path, I realised that I had a talent in splitting my soul. I split mine into two, fusing one part with the principle, leaving it in charge of my body, while the other part tapped into the cycle of reincarnation and experienced the livelihood of the beasts from their perspective in the course of multiple reincarnations.

“It took me a hundred years to finally condense the principle of the Beast path, which I fused with another portion of my soul, forming the Beast path soul clone.

“The next plane I visited was another generic cultivator plane and there, I set about collecting soul cultivation sutras and trying to comprehend the principle governing souls. After all, my goal was to create my own form of reincarnation cycle.

“While I did this, my Asura path and Beast path soul clones went into the cycle of reincarnation and indulged in all sorts of vice like alcohol, drugs, lust in all its forms from the perspective of both genders, overeating and so on.

“I discovered that my talent in splitting souls came from my affinity to the principle governing souls and it was quite easy for me to condense it.

“By the end of my stay, I had congealed the principle of the Preta path, which governed an overindulgence of desires and fused it with another soul fragment. I found that the more principles I had, the easier it was to condense principles that had the same theme.

“The next world I visited was a scientific civilization which was reaching its decline having used up all its resources. It was the third planet in a solar system with a red giant star.

“It was a cesspool of drugs, corruption and slavery. I posed as a deity descended to save them and started a religion in my name while bringing salvation to as many as I could with my strength.

“By the time I was done, I managed to condense the principle of the Deva path and its associated clone. I also improved my Asura path by integrating the mastery of scientific weapons.

“Landing in another low-level cultivator plane, I sent my soul clones into the Ghostdom to study its workings. After a few tries, I got them to become Tutelary Gods by having them reincarnate into the bodies of future clan heads and after death, having the members of the clan consecrate them.

“Using this experience and a thorough understanding of the Ghostdom, I condensed the principle of the Naraka path.

“By this time, I had five out of the six paths as soul clones fused with the principle. As I pondered over them, I was struck with the epiphany that each of the paths depicted a human excess. Excess violence for the Asura path, excess compassion for the Deva Path, excess indulgence for the Preta path and so on.

“Thus, the Human path referred to a principle which had all these traits in moderation. Thus, I condensed my final principle. Leaving me with six concurrent souls.

“By this time, I was already a thousand years old and nearing the end of my lifespan. Thus, I decided to try and condense the life principle. Having no ideas on how to go about it, I decided to try and condense its reverse. The principle of Death.

“Reaching a scientific world, I used my soul principle to release tiny clumps of soul mass all over the planet with instructions to attach to sentient beings and started meditating on the feedback from them.

“They were programmed to return to me at the point of their host’s death with the last few minutes of experience.

“In the time I spent there, I experienced all types of death starting from natural senescence to heart attacks, diseases, murders, suicide, the list went on.

“By the time I finally condensed the principle, I was mildly insane from too much death and needed to relax and just live.

“So, I scouted out a planet in the cosmos with only primitive tribes on it and began to live a simple life in isolation, experiencing the beauties of nature.

“Over time, I began to notice the changes, my appearance was restoring to my past youthfulness and flowers and plants bloomed wherever I went.

“Unknowingly, I had condensed the life principle just living my life to the fullest.

“By this time, I was already famous among the tribes as the Mother Goddess and they worshipped me along with the Heavens. I liked it there and I guided their civilization until they overspread the planet.

“The planet was slowly condensing its own Will due to the consistent prayer. Due to my status as the Mother Goddess and my Deva path principle, the Will acknowledged me as its mother and I decided to remain there and establish my new reincarnation cycle on this planet and in the process, condense all nine of my principles into a Divine Dao.

“Over time, the world vitality concentration increased and one after another, several people broke through to the Shattered Void realm, donating their nascent Void Force. My child started absorbing its own Void Force and started evolving into a plane.

“By closely following the entire evolution process, my outline for my own reincarnation system was almost complete and only a spark of inspiration was required to condense all nine of the principles into a Grand Dao.

“At this critical juncture, the Otsutsuki clan found me. They are an agglomeration of Dao Seeking cultivators who call themselves a clan because of their use of a strange body modification that can help them sense principles better. It has the side effect of making them grow horns on their head.

“The ones who came were two Dao Seeking experts and I hadn’t even condensed my Dao at that time. My comprehension of nine principles made me capable of holding both of them off while coordinating with my child, due to their Daos only being mortal tier Daos with four and five principles respectively.

“While we fought, another expert from the Otsutsuki clan, one with a Divine Dao with seven principles arrived and subdued me.

“Divine Daos are called as such because only experts with a Divine Dao with seven, eight or nine constituent principles are strong enough to allow their possessor step into the next realm of Demiurge.

“The Otsutsuki expert wanted to assimilate my child and use the boost that would give him to step into the next realm. My child was on the cusp of becoming a plane and thus, was strong enough to resist his attack, though it was falling leeward.

“Finally, he stepped into the realm of Demiurge by devouring my child right in front of me by planting a parasitic tree that absorbed the entirety of its strength. All the while bragging to me about how he had obtained it from a plane containing a race called elves who worshipped it and called it by many names such as Shinju or Yggdrasil meaning Divine tree.

“He spoke of how he had massacred all its protectors and taken the seed.

“He coveted my beauty and talent so he made me choose between swearing a soul oath of servitude and annihilation.

“I wanted revenge for my child and I hadn’t yet created my reincarnation system and validated my Dao. I had a lot to live for… so I swore a soul oath… but using my soul principle to camouflage my deceit, I only swore using my Human path principle… the principle I needed the least effort to condense again.

“Oh you don’t have to worry. I have condensed my Dao now so unless I want to discard it, I can’t break the soul oath with you. You can’t swear on individual principles after they condense a Dao.

“Thus, when he relaxed his vigilance, I detonated my Human path soul and escaped in the ensuing confusion. On the way, I managed to grab the seed of the Shinju.

“I was seriously injured at that time and I lost consciousness. When I awoke, I was on this world."