Elias sat quietly in a corner of the dimly lit warehouse, chewing on a piece of stale bread. Around him, other children were also eating their meals in silence.
It had been a few relentless days since his ascension to rank 2, and the adults were showing the strain of the constant attacks. There were dark circles under their eyes, and their movements were stiff. Everyone seemed on edge.
Elias turned his sight to the cultivators protecting them. They were all in a pathetic state. Even the cultivators who were supposed to protect the next generation of the clan were those who could no longer fight in the frontline because of wounds. Some had missing limbs, and others had lost their vision because of a recent attack.
Four days of non-stop attacks had taken their toll. Numerous cultivators fell, and even two elders had been killed by a sudden rank 4 beast that caught everyone off guard. The patriarch even had been forced to intervene.
"I wish we had duck soup," one child mumbled, staring longingly at her plate.
"I want some roasted pig... My mom used to make me one every month..." another added, his voice filled with despair as a few tears appeared on his face. "I miss her..."
Elias glanced at them but said nothing. These kids came from wealthy cultivator families, where food was never scarce. Some of them had even been spoiled by the endless luxuries they once had.
Meat, for example, was usually a rare treat reserved for special occasions or festivals. It was a luxury that most people couldn't afford, and the common folk rarely ate it. Although cultivators could eat beast corpses without consequences, unlike unawakened, it doesn't mean they would like it.
Beasts were primarily carnivorous, and most tasted like putrid flesh. Elias was talking from experience. And that was the best case. Sometimes, they could be poisonous and even if cultivators can reject the aether in the meat, they could die from poison.
Although none of the children were foolish enough to refuse the "only" food they had, even if it was just stale bread, they still missed meat.
"I'd kill for a roasted chicken..." a third child sighed, his voice full of longing.
Elias ignored them and continued to eat his bread. It was hard and tasteless, but he couldn't care less about the taste or texture. He wouldn't even be able to enjoy good food if he wanted to.
After the meal, the children sat down and began their usual routine, entering a meditative stance to absorb aether and grow their apertures. The room fell into a tense silence as everyone focused on their cultivation.
Occasionally, there would be a sound of muffled sobbing in the storehouse. Many of the children's parents hadn't made it through the attacks, and some of them didn't even know if their parents were alive. This included Elias. He didn't have much information about Yui... Nor that he cared.
But despite this, they were all future cultivators and knew that without strength, they couldn't do anything about it.
Even if they were young, they had already learned the harsh truth of this world. All they could do was cultivate harder and become stronger.
Elias stayed in his corner, watching other children cultivate.
In this world, cultivation was about expanding your aperture, the core that holds aether within a human body. Apertures were something unique to humans and their only way of surviving in this world.
Unfortunately, unlike others who could absorb aether and feed it into their apertures, Elias couldn't cultivate similarly. Though his body absorbed the surrounding aether because of his talent, it couldn't be used to grow his aperture. Instead, the aether was being converted into lifespan.
Over the past few months, Elias had tried everything he could to connect with his aperture buried deep within the rune. He'd meditated, pushing his focus inward toward his rune, and even tried forcing the aether into his aperture, only to discover that he didn't know how.
Nothing seemed to work. It was like his body refused to cultivate in the typical way.
"Perhaps if I somehow find manifestations of the law of Heaven?" Elias thought internally.
There were countless laws—some simple, others more twisted. Everything belonged to a law, and Heaven and Earth were no exception. The only issue is that...
"I don't know much about them either." Elias sighed internally.
Even Elias, who had lived countless lives, had not seen one or discovered any formula about them, no matter how many lives he had lived. He could only hear their stories and legends long before the start of the game.
Manifestations of Heaven or Earth law were said to have the power to shake the world and, quite literally, shake Heaven and Earth.
Elias quickly shook his head. It was pointless to dwell on such thoughts. He had to focus on the present and survive first.
He briefly considered using another awakening stone but knew it would be pointless. A person could only use one stone in their lifetime, and he'd already used his when he awakened his aperture.
So, instead of sitting down to cultivate like the others, Elias just stood there, watching them with what seemed like a lost expression to anyone looking at him. But in reality, his focus was elsewhere.
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- [CURRENTLY UNDER DISASTER]
- [Negative karma debt: 422]
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'It has decreased by a lot. Good.' he thought to himself.
Negative karma wasn't permanent. As more unfortunate events occurred, the debt would gradually decrease, and with it, the strength of the disaster would lessen too. Eventually, the disaster would fade away entirely.
Despite knowing the chaos, deaths, and suffering his ascension had caused, Elias felt no guilt. He had been fully aware of what would happen when he chose to ascend.
He could have stayed at Rank 1, living a quiet life, perhaps even starting a family and watching them age and eventually pass away of old age. But that wasn't his goal, and he would and could not feel any satisfaction in living such a life.
Winning the game was all that mattered to him. The destruction and suffering were just collateral damage. He had a choice: either stay stagnant or ascend. And he chose the latter. For him, there could be only two conclusions to his life. Either he wins or dies trying.
As Elias pondered, a sudden commotion outside broke the silence. The sound of hurried footsteps and raised voices echoed through the warehouse, and the children snapped out of their meditative state, looking around in confusion.
"What's happening?" one of the kids whispered.
Before anyone could answer, one of the guards stationed nearby hurried toward the noise, calling out to the people outside. "What's going on out there?"
"A fire! The eastern district is on fire!" someone yelled, panic thick in their voice.
The guard's face tightened with shock. "A fire? How did it start?"
"Some of those useless unawakened were fighting for food and somehow started a fire!"
The few cultivators guarding the warehouse cursed under their breath and immediately called to the others. "We need to stop it before it reaches the main building! If it spreads, we'll all be cooked alive!"
Without hesitation, a few cultivators sprang into action, rushing off to contain the blaze before it could reach the heart of the clan. The children in the warehouse were left confused and anxious, murmuring to each other in hushed voices.
Elias, however, remained calm. He watched as the guards left, leaving fewer people to monitor the area. His gaze shifted from the door to the high walls surrounding the courtyard.
As the commotion outside grew louder, Elias' eyes narrowed. He wasn't really worried about the fire. Fog-type manifestations were exceptionally good against fires, so it should be fine. But something felt truly suspicious.
Just as he was about to get up, his gaze caught on something that made him frown heavily. The part of his rune where his karma debt and disaster status were usually displayed was blank.
The information had disappeared.
It could only mean a single thing. His karma debt has been settled.
His debt had been steadily dropping for days, but for it to vanish completely? That only meant one thing: something catastrophic had happened, something severe enough to reset his debt to zero.