Sunk Cost Fallacy

An avatar of a puppy licking a bag of doggy treats appeared.

: "What the fuck are you guys doing?" he questioned whilst looking at the screen share on the group chat.

: "One of Eduard's dumb fucking projects," Chunghee complained whilst continuing to use his power to remove dirt.

: "Ah Chris, you're here! Come and join us," Eduard was excited at the new arrival.

: "What exactly are you guys playing?" he asked again doubtfully. "It looked like you guys are fucking shovelling, and from the look of that moat, it seems like you guys have been doing this for a while already."

: "No wonder you are so smart, Chris," Eduard started to flatter his friend. "With your help, we will get this done."

: "Don't listen to him!" Chunghee cried, cutting Eduard off. "We have been doing this for a fucking hour. A FUCKING HOUR. SHOVELLING DIRT AND SHIT."

: "Well, we could finish faster if you don't complain so much," Eduard snickered and ignored his friend, who was in agony. "You know right, Chunghee. If Chris joins us, we will get this done a lot faster."

: "No, don't give me that kind of shit!'' Although mentally tired, Chunghee didn't want another being to suffer Eduard's schemes.

: "So are you assholes going to tell me what exactly you guys are doing?" Chris asked again for the 3rd time.

Chunghee decided to regale Eduard's tale of fuckery to Chris. From receiving an invitation from Stellarium to flooding the planet with nudists and cannibals. All of this happened less than 2 hours ago. Chris sighed and reiterated.

: "So you guys failed to push the island by ramming, shooting and throwing stuff at it."

: "Yeh! I told him to let's give pushing another go when I first join in," Chunghee earnestly replied. "Any projectiles we shot out instantly froze in place. Hence, only my soul manifestation can move independently of the body."

: "Remember his stupid ox manifestation that keeps chasing us during practice?" Eduard joked. "The moment it touched island outline, it instantly dissipated."

: "As if your gravity beam fared any better," Chunghee joked back. "Anyway, we eventually just throw our in-game bodies at it."

: "Why are you guys even trying this hard to save this shitty island? There is nothing here but a fuck off tree and snow," Chris looked doubtfully at the things his friends were trying to protect.

, : "Sunk Cost Fallacy."

: "I'm in too deep to pull out now," Eduard tried to justify his reasoning. "At first, I wanted to save the whole island. You know! After 15 minutes of constantly ramming into the island, it was bleak. Hence, I decided to cut my loss and save the damn tree instead. So, here we are."

: "How are you guys keeping up with your energy consumption?" looking at his friends constantly removing the soil around the tree with their power, Chris questioned.

They were moving like machines. Chunghee used his cultivation to plough away large chunks of earth. On the other hand, Eduard used precision beams to separate the soil from the tree roots. Chris was quite scared at how good Eduard was at multitasking his beams. Usually, in practice class, Eduard only used two beams at most. However, here, he was controlling eight simultaneously. The scariest part was each of them was moving in different directions.

'No wonder the teacher said Ed has the best energy control amongst all the students he knew,' Chris thought.

: "Err. In this frozen state, our energy is infinite," Eduard replied, breaking Chris out of his train of thoughts. "Are you going to join us? We need some helping hands here. I'll buy you dinner the next time we meet."

: "Maybe tomorrow bah. I am only here to ask if you guys have already finished your assignment."

: "I thought the deadline was on Tuesday?" Chunghee chimed in whilst bulldozing dirt.

: "Nah. It's tomorrow, fam."

: "Fuck! Alright, Ed, good luck with your shit. I am going to go do my assignment now," he quickly replied. "Did you finish yours already?"

: "Nah! I was going to DM Yixiang about it," Eduard calmly replied. "But, since you are here, Chris. I reckoned you already finished yours, right. Send me, eh!"

: "Yeh, I was about to ask if you guys need it."

, : "Thank you, Chris!"

: "Ok, bitches, I'm going off now."

: "Have fun with all your 'female friends'," Eduard joked.

With Chris out of the way, Eduard looked at the sight in front of him. A giant dry moat hugged the outline of the roots of the tree. From the top, Eduard looked down and asked, "How is it?"

Chunghee frowned at Eduard's question. "We are almost there!"

***

Two hours later, a floating tree hovered mid-air. Its roots were still attached to the soil. However, if you looked down, you could see a giant crater where the tree and its soil once were.

Eduard and Chunghee looked at their masterpiece. Exhausted, Chunghee laid flat on the ground. Chunghee looked at Eduard, who was staring at the floating tree like it was his Opus Magnum.

: "Hahaha!" as if going insane, he laughed. "Brother, we did it!"

: "Who the fuck is your brother?" exhausted and angry, Chunghee cried. "THREE FUCKING HOURS. I could be enjoying my novel. Give me back my wasted youth. T.T"

: "West well brother," ignoring Chunghee wailing, he laughed. "We still need to move it."

Chunghee wanted to cry, yet no tears came out. He laid there on the dirt and snow like a corpse. Eduard looked at his brother and smiled. Not a smile of man but a smile of a demon. A demon who just found its new toy.

Chunghee wanted to run, to flee, to escape it all. Yet even heroes need rest. No soldier could fight on forever. Like a brick, he laid there motionless, destined to be in others' architecture.

: "I'm not that heartless," he smiled. "Rest for 10 minutes, and then we move out."

Eduard dictated like an army commander. The moment Chunghee heard the word 'rest', he was over the moon. Like a patient who won his war against long term illness, the euphoria of being allowed to rest was divine. However, it was soon shattered by the '10 minutes' that followed behind.

***

Exactly ten minutes later, Eduard was hovering in the air looking at the floating tree. A somewhat recovered Chunghee laid on the ground nearby.

: "Let's get to work, Chunghee," Eduard urged.

: "Must we?" trying to dodge work, he replied.

: "This should be a lot easier than before," Eduard tried to persuade him. "All you need to do is to push it. This won't require precision control like before, whereby you need to dodge tree roots and try not to damage them."

Knowing there was no escape, Chunghee flew up in the air. He let out a long sigh and started his art, "A thousand souls, a single mind."

: "Soul Manifestation, Celucian Ox." he yelled at the top of his lungs.

A crimson coloured ox manifested from Chunghee and charged towards the floating tree. As it got further away from Chunghee, its size grew; from its initial length of 2 metres, it soon grew to 6 metres.

The ox features also became more prominent. Its four large red eyes seeped with malice. Its two antlers were sharp and cruel. An extremely thick layer of dark red fur covered its massive body. Four extremely strong legs with compacted steel-like muscle propelled it forward.

It charged forward with reckless abandon. Although this was not the first time Eduard had seen Chunghee summon this creature, it was the first time he had seen it at this size. The power that oozed from its body was many times stronger than its smaller counterpart.

'It seemed that I was not the only one to think the practical class was a waste of time,' Eduard laughed in his thought. He then turned to look at Chunghee, who constantly perspired from his head. 'I should move too before Chunghee gives out.'

Eduard flew toward his previous relaxing location by the tree. Once arrived, he looked at the result of his previous attempt at reinforcing the tree. The membrane was still there, attached to the tree. He sighed, knowing that he can't use any axillary methods.

Eduard sat down and closed his eyes. Energy rushed towards his sigil. Manipulating his sigil energy, he spread it across the floating tree and soil. It slowly spread from the trunk to the tree soil and branches. Eduard must constantly control this vast amount of energy. If the energy goes haywire, Eduard will have to start everything again. This process was mentally exhausting. He soon started to perspire.

After a while, as the bottom of the floating tree and soil was covered, Eduard gave Chunghee the go-ahead to start pushing. The angry Celucian Ox that had already arrived for a while and had been staring at the floating soil, as if it was its arch-enemy, started to push after receiving the order from Chunghee.

With Eduard reducing the weight of the floating tree and soil and Chunghee's Ox pushing, one might expect things to go well. However, the reality is often disappointing. After all, they were trying to push a colossal tree.

: "How much are we progressing, Chunghee?" after ten minutes of controlling his energy, an exhausted Eduard asked.

: "I don't know," a stuttered and exhausted reply could be heard from Chunghee. "I think we are moving. Wait let me check! Err! I think we got about a couple of kilometres north."

: "Fuck! How much is that in minutes? Let's just continue for a bit more," Although tried, Eduard continued, since he was so close to his goal.

***

And so they did. They soldiered on for another 30 minutes. Chunghee didn't complain along the way; since he was too tired and had to focus on controlling his Celucian Ox. Eduard also tried his best at managing this large amount of energy.

Although they both didn't know it, their skills improved astonishingly. Finally, the straw that broke the Ox's back was Chunghee. He was so tired that he collapsed mid-flight, crashing down on the snow-covered ground.

This caused a chain reaction. Since Eduard was in sync with the Ox pushing, the moment the Ox stopped, his synchronisation collapsed. His energy went rampant and might cause serious damage to the tree if let loose. Hence, he did the only thing a sane person would do.

Eduard started to recall his energy. Like a flood gate, rampant energy poured into his avatar's body. Although, Ostasien rules regulated that the maximum pain settings in-game was 20%. However, what Eduard was experiencing was worse than 20%. The massive rampant energy filled his avatar over its handling capacity. Like a balloon that was about to burst, yet not allowed to, his avatar body was swelling. The rampant energy started breaking down his inside, but the game kept regenerating them back.

Eduard laid sprawl on the ground in complete agony. Grey light of energy flooded towards him. Sounds of broken bones and body parts could be heard. Blood seeped out of his mouth and orifices.

Eduard bit his hand to remain calm and tried to analyse his situation. 'I'm bleeding, but it is honestly not that bad. When I first started playing around with the gravity sigil, it was a lot worse. What should I do about the excess energy though? Shooting it away is a simple solution, but wouldn't it be a waste? Since all of it is my energy. Or should I try it here and get some experience?' After pondering about it for a while, Eduard made his choice and pulled his body upright. He sat there for a moment to calm his breath and mind.

After a while, with his eyes closed, Eduard mumbled; yet no sound escaped. Strange symbols carrying the essence of archaic laws started to emerge from his mouth. As they escaped, they twirled around Eduard's avatar body. Looking. Seeking. Finding something.

After a while, they each found a place on his body to settle down. These symbols seared themselves into his body part. As if being burnt alive, the pain was torturous, yet Eduard continued.

His mumbling changed. As if reacting to his words, the symbols started to exude a purple glow. Rampant energy across his body stopped their destruction and slowly moved towards the symbols. As the symbol began to absorb more and more rampant energy, Eduard's avatar quickly returned to normal.

Seeing that his plan was working, Eduard let out a sigh of relief. After calming his mind again, Eduard proceeded with the final part. His mumbling changed for the last time. The symbols that had been absorbing energy released their content. Large waves of purple energy surged into his body.

Unlike its counterpart, this purple energy was extremely pure and condensed. However, like its counterpart, the purple was extremely destructive. It damaged everything on its way. And it was heading towards his heart.

However, Eduard was calmed. His mind focused on chanting and guiding the purple energy. As the waves of purple energy arrived at his heart, they surged in. His heart beat wildly like a cornered animal, defending itself against the impending tides of purple energy. As more and more purple energy intertwined with his heart, it started to change. Exact copies of the symbols seared to his body started appearing on his heart.

With every symbol carved, the heart began to mutate rapidly. Its size swelled to one and a half times more causing more internal injuries. Purple blood was also being produced to replace previously lost blood.

"Hahaha!" Eduard laughed as he coughed out a mouthful of red blood. "It's working!"

Using the rampant energy, Eduard was attempting to break through to first-tier, in-game. So, he can gain valuable experiences.

It seemed that his plan was working well. As the symbols absorbed the remaining rampant energy and converted the last of them into purple energy, this heart also began to stabilise and contract to its initial size.

However, since Eduard had scammed the game, it was time for the game to scam him back. When his avatar was cleared of rampant energy, it started to produce energy again.

Hence, the cycle continued anew. Energy rushed towards the symbol; to be turned into purple energy; to be fed to his heart.

Like before, his heart started to swell again; however, this time, it was increasing at an alarming rate. Blood flowed openly through his orifices. Eduard was trying his best to recall the contents of his grimoire to alleviate this situation. However, it was stated in the grimoire that these symbols will disappear the moment the body runs out of energy. Yet, his avatar body could never run out of energy.

Before he could think of another solution, "BOOOOOM!" his heart broke through his rib cage and blew up. Eduard's avatar body was instantly evaporated, leaving only a few bits of meat and blood behind.