Chapter 4
What was it that made me familiar with the world of Murim so much? What reminded me of that world so much? Was it the cultivators? Was it the killing? Was it the fun and innovative ways to have sex? What was it?
The answer was this. This sound.
[Ding]
[Synchronization complete]
[System reboot successful]
Just when I was sure I wasn't dreaming, this showed up in front of me. Now what was I to think out of this? Was I still dreaming? Was all of that a dream and the overlords of Murim had cast some sort of illusion art around me? Did I never self-destruct? Did I not finish the quest? Was returning nothing but a dream?
A thousand questions formed in my head, all unanswered but I had no way of getting an answer except one. Pain.
I picked it up and stabbed it into my thigh, and as pain assaulted me, I received a notification from the system.
[HP -1]
The sharp stinging pain in my thigh made me aware that I was indeed not dreaming. Or maybe it was just a powerful illusion and I needed to do more.
Like, kill myself?
Yeah right. If I had that much courage, I wouldn't have lived past the quest completion in Murim. I would have killed myself the second day after that but I didn't. So there was no way I was going to kill myself now.
If that was the case, there was only one option left. Whether this was a dream or not, illusion or not, I would rather live here and slowly die than return to that world of cruelty.
And if I have the system here too, then as long as I became strong, I would have enough power to know whether this is an illusion or not.
I turned my attention to the system and muttered, "Status."
[Name: Jacob Conner (Kim Hyu Jin)]
[Age: 20 (1020)]
[Level: 1(0%)]
[HP: 9\10]
[Ki (Locked)]
[Class: Dark cultivator (Locked)]
[Secondary class: Monarch of corruption (Locked)]
[Stats]
[Skills]
[Titles]
[Achievements]
[Shop]
[Craft]
[Inventory]
I sighed and clicked on the first section, stats. As soon as I did, warm energy began to flow through me and I felt the familiar sensation of being filled with Ki.
And also the section in the main status window which represented my Ki also changed.
[Ki 100\100]
Haa… My Ki points at the max level and max Ki stat were one billion. And now I just have a hundred. But, I would trade it any day as long as it means coming back here.
As Ki automatically flowed through me to settle in my dantian, I also began to feel liberated of that stinging pain in my eyes, that darned headache, and in the thigh that I had stabbed with a used needle.
Now that I was feeling well, I turned my attention to the status window once again and checked my stats.
[Strength: 15]
[Agility: 18]
[Stamina: 19]
[Intelligence: 19]
[Charm: 21]
[Ki: 10]
[AP: 0]
A total of six stats. Strength was obvious whereas agility represented my general speed, my reflexes, and such. It didn't just give me speed but also determined my reaction speed, enhancing my senses to some extent.
Stamina, along with my general stamina, also represented my endurance to take hits. In other words, how sturdy I was depended on my stamina and playing lacrosse in college, I was pretty sure I could take a few hits.
Finally, my intelligence not only represented how clear of a mind I possessed to process something before me, but it also represented how enhanced my senses were. My five senses and my instincts were all honed by my intelligence.
Charm was self-explanatory which I was very proud of and finally, my Ki, which was at ten sadly while it was at the peak of perfection previously.
According to the system, an optimal human's stats were 10 for a strong human so compared to that, I would say that I was pretty fit prior to my transfer to Murim. But now, thanks to the reward that increased my stats by ten each after my stats were reset, I was now almost two times stronger than a human.
I wonder if I should try the Olympics to make my name next.
Seeing that my additional points were zero and my level was 1, I was sure I could still level up. I just didn't know what to do after that.
As much as I wanted to check the next tabs, I decided to cultivate for now to completely fix my body. Although I wouldn't gain a stat increase, there were still substances in my blood that were making me irritated.
I closed my eyes and approached that power in my dantian. Since I was cleansing myself, I also decided to increase a bit of my Ki since there was a chance.
I tapped into my core which was constructed thanks to the system otherwise, cultivators had to make a core and that was very risk-inducing.
As I grabbed the Ki from the core and began to circulate it in my body, I decided to burn the substances instead of expelling them because I couldn't afford to make a mess outside. The smell of my body waste would contaminate the entire building so I couldn't have that. I was in no state to answer questions at the moment. Not when my memories were still a little hazy and I only remembered a few key factors.
Burning waste instead of expelling it takes a lot more Ki but it is more efficient for now. Later, when I found myself a secluded spot, only then would I be able to do this freely. Until then, I will focus on just burning the waste.
[You have run out of Ki]
[Please recharge your Ki or consume an elixir]
What the…? I was pretty sure I was also doing the breathing to restore my Ki so why is it that I have only used it?
I decided to focus on just replenishing my Ki only to be surprised that I couldn't pull any Ki from the outside to fill my dantian.
Well, it's mostly my fault. I was still thinking like I was in Murim. I wasn't or at least I hoped I wasn't. But the fact that I couldn't feel any Ki in the air but I could feel the Ki inside of me meant only one thing.
There was no Ki in this world. Since there was none of it outside, I couldn't replenish it. since I couldn't replenish it, I couldn't use it.
Now what? No matter how I waited, I wouldn't be able to replenish Ki and I had only just started to expel the waste inside of me. I needed at least 1000 Ki to just clean my blood. After that, my bones, marrow, and internal would require me a total of 10000 Ki at least.
How the hell would I do that?
The answer was simple. Elixirs. And I had fuck ton of them.
"Inventory," I mumbled, making sure not to wake anyone up, though I doubt they would with how wasted they are.
The inventory tab expanded only to deliver another set of bad news.
[Inventory is locked]
[Please reach level 10 to unlock the first level of inventory]
Fuck. I must have sighed for about the tenth time since my return. I doubt I ever sighed that many times before in such quick succession.
Now, what the hell was I going to kill? People? Not if I wanted the police on my ass. This wasn't the world of Murim where the main weapon was Ki. This was Earth, a world of weapons and I doubted my stats were high enough for me to bear the brunt of bullets.
And not to mention that I wasn't alone in this world. My family was here. I couldn't put them in danger as well. So all that left me to do was to kill animals. The problem was that killing animals didn't earn me much EXP.
If I were to kill ten cows, that would be equivalent to killing one human. Or I would need to find a wolf or a lion, predator-type prey because EXP income matters on how powerful one is. A cow isn't powerful so I wouldn't gain much EXP from that.
However, a wolf was a predator, very difficult to be killed by a human so it would earn me a lot of EXP. But I doubt killing one wolf would grant me that much EXP to reach level 10.
I would have to kill at least 15-20 wolves to level up to that point. The same with lions with a little difference of 12-16. But the issue was, how the hell was I going to even find animals in the middle of the city? In the zoo? Good luck killing animals in the middle of the city with tens of cameras around.
Haa… I sighed yet again. Fuck my life.
*****
Comments!