Chapter 36: The First of the Sussy Bakas

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The cultivation world, going along with the theme of being a ripoff of ancient China, had an incredibly long and complicated history in terms of military, philosophy, and dynasty.

Sure, Jin had inherited the memories of the previous owner of his body, but considering that the previous owner had been a justifiably depressed peasant who had been a disciple for a few years before committing suicide, meant that he wasn't the most well-informed of the bunch.

As Hashimi started telling him the tale of Shi Xin Zhe, he was slowly beginning to understand that it would be beneficial for him to read a few history books to understand the culture he had been plunged into better.

In essence, the crux of the matter in this world was the inequality of man rather than the equality of man that has been at the core of the issue on modern Earth.

On modern Earth, humans were limited by the fact that there was not much variation in intelligence and physical strength that could be achieved by two separate members of the species. At least the variability was a joke in comparison to the difference that could occur in the cultivation world where one person could be a normal human and the other could lift mountains with their pinky finger.

It was out of this difference that the culture and the resentment unique to the cultivation world came to be.

Some people were born blessed by the heavens. They had superior spiritual roots and encountered crazy amounts of luck when developing their strength. They became immortal, beautiful, untouchable, and almighty.

The others, those with no luck, or just less luck, were left behind and could only look as they were passed by. They could only curse at the unfairness of reality.

According to Hashimi, tens of thousands of years ago, cultivators had cultivated in harmony with no large conflicts between demonic cultivators and orthodox ones as it existed today. That was because of one simple reason. Demonic cultivators hadn't existed yet.

Back then, even the Demons hadn't yet descended, splitting the planet in two and creating a dark and light side of the world.

Resources had still been abundant, and those favoured by the heavens ascended and left to the next plane of reality.

However, back then, there had been a man, cursed with the most minor of cultivation potential, just enough to know how unblessed he was. He could only watch as everyone he met quickly surpassed him and left him behind.

He was not talented enough to join a sect and could only rely on secondhand texts that he was able to scrounge up to build a shaky foundation.

A wandering cultivator, essentially.

Every time he saw another heavens-blessed genius ascend before him, despite their starting point having come later than his, he cursed the heavens.

The heavens, of course, ignored him.

"If only I had been born with a better spiritual root," Shi Xin Zhe complained.

"If only I was more lucky," Shi Xin Zhe lamented.

"If only I was more favoured," Shi Xin Zhe bemoaned.

But no matter how much he grieved, the heavens remained callous, and the wandering cultivator could only watch as his skin slowly grew old and wrinkly, his bones started aching, and it became clear to him that he would die before ever getting even a glimpse of true power.

The world of cultivation was inherently unfair, and when a world was inherently unfair rather than just culturally unfair, it created a sort of resentment that a modern human could not even imagine. The sort of hatred and spite that could have blotted out the sun if it were to be physically manifested.

Shi Xin Zhe tried everything to gain the favour of the heavens. 

He tutored its blessed sons and daughters in the hopes that by building karma, he could pave the path for his ascension.

He ingested a variety of suspicious pills and cultivated in places that others would not even consider.

He chased after treasures lost for millennia, which could promise him at least a chance.

All for naught. His body continued decaying as everything he'd built up slowly crumbled.

It was as if he was almost on his deathbed, holding in his head more negative emotions than any other, and that a variety of information he had consumed over his life suddenly came together to illuminate a different path.

As told previously, Shi Xin Zhe had, if nothing more, had the most eclectic understanding of cultivation in the Empire due to his sporadic access to texts. Obscure, theoretical, straight up wrong- all of these things mixed in his head.

Wouldn't it make sense that there would be at least one idea that would come of it?

Hundreds of others must have had similar ideas and been just as desperate. It was just that they'd tried and failed. He would not fail, however. 

Shi Xin Zhe realised something as he approached death. He realised that the point of cultivation was to terminate the biological and become the spiritual. It all had to do with qi. It was because of this focus on the spiritual that the end goal of cultivation was to become a being that had left behind everything that was physical, which was what allowed immortals to cross over into different dimensions; they weren't carrying anything with them.

However, due to the will of the heavens and the spiritual roots one was born with, the mental qualities which were rooted in the brain rather than in the soul, the prerequisite for cultivation, for spiritual attainment, was actually biological.

And biology could be interacted with even by the most wretched and pathetic of cultivators.

If there was one thing that Shi Xin Zhe could say to be good at, it was the cultivation of mortals into products that sects would gladly accept into their halls.

That was why even in the end, as he was descending completely into madness, he still had a few disciples that he was slowly nurturing so as to hand them over to sects whom he knew would appreciate their spiritual roots. They had gathered some qi and refined their bodies somewhat.

They were not yet ripe, but they had potential.

The idea in his mind blossomed, and one night, when four of his other disciples were gone, he lured the fifth, the one whose spiritual roots he desired the most, into the ritual chamber. He struck them down, strapped them down and used their blood to create a scripture never seen before. It would have been insane under any other circumstances to see a room covered in squiggles drawn in blood by a man with more madness than reason. However, perhaps Shi Xin Zhe had been smarter than he'd thought, or luckier.

It would have been madness had it not succeeded.

Shi Xin Zhe ate his first disciple over the span of four days. He devoured him raw, from toes to scalp.

It was an inefficient method, an unrefined one. Shi Xin Zhe gained perhaps a hundredth of the potential that his disciple had lost by dying.

Shi Xin Zhe said at that moment, "Thankfully, I have four more disciples to refine the technique with."

Whatever had been human about him was lost in that one-year period where he slowly but surely butchered all of those who had previously relied on him to consume their flesh and, along with it, the beginning stages of their cultivation.

In the past, everyone had thought that there was only one thing Shi Xin Zhe was good at, and that was teaching the first stages of enlightenment to the downtrodden and bringing them to sects who would appreciate them. 

Now, there was a second thing.

He was good at eating the flesh of those with cultivation potential to subsume their future into his present.

He combined the two, and with these two skills, he created the first demonic sect. 

Thousands, no, tens of thousands, no, millions were eaten. The heavens were defied for the first time.

The decades that followed were some of the most turbulent that the cultivation world would ever experience as they suddenly had to band together and eradicate an abomination that they had never seen before.

Unfortunately, even if Shi Xin Zhe had been destroyed and his sect eradicated, once others had seen with what ease he had initially gained power, the world was changed forever.

It was impossible to kill an idea once it had spread to live inside the minds of thousands of people. An idea could only be killed if it was forgotten by those who knew it because it had no use.

But to some, the ability to steal the cultivation of others by consuming their flesh was unfortunately very useful.

"Demonic cultivation methods are still based on this simple principle," Hashimi elaborated as the story came to an end. "You have to consume physically what you wish to gain, and while the techniques are more complex and people can be reduced to blood pills and their value can be extracted more slowly through death coffins, it is still the eating of flesh that is the basis of going against the heavens," she explained.

Jin, meanwhile, could only listen while shaking his head with a grimace. He hadn't expected that there would be such a story behind her refusal to work on that particular arc of The Last of Us.

It made perfect sense, as well. If demonic cultivators truly sprung up from the act of consuming the flesh of another, then the entire cultivation world would likely be horrified at even the depiction of the act for non-cultivation reasons. 

"It's taboo then, for cultivators and mortals?" Jin asked.

Hashimi nodded. "Already the topic itself is controversial. Showing anything in that direction is…" she trailed off.

"Inadvisable," Jin finished for her before sighing.

He stood up from where he had been seated on the floor as Hashimi told him the story and dusted off his robes.

"You're going?" she asked curiously.

"You've given me something to think about," Jin replied as he went to the door of the apartment and put his hand on the handle.

"I'm sure my idea can be changed; the question is just into what. This whole scenario. I never wanted to do it in the first place," he admitted.

Hashimi reeled back as if struck. She was shocked. "How come? You have such a good idea!"

Jin gave her a bitter smile. "I obviously can't compete with those more experienced than me in modelling an enemy that already exists. This whole idea was born out of the necessity to stand out where we can't compete. It increases our likelihood of winning, but is also something that has value on its own if it's adjusted and put into the library after."

"Who's forcing you to do this?" Hashimi asked worriedly. "Can I help?"

"The only thing forcing me is circumstances, and what's the problem with wasting a few months on a project that has less likelihood of success than something else I could have done?" Jin asked rhetorically. "Let's talk later," he finished with a shake of his head. "I need some time alone." 

He left the apartment and the building and the girl to go walk into the woods next to the outskirts of the disciple village.

Once he arrived at a sturdy enough large tree, he punched it out of frustration. The only issue was that he'd forgotten he was now much stronger than he had been in the past, and an indent was formed on the bark of the leafy giant.

"Fuck," Jin cursed.

Developing Outlast had been a less frustrating experience than working on The Last of Us for the stupid competition, he determined.

It made sense in a way. After all, with Outlast, he'd simply been given a direction and picked what fit best from a vast library of works.

Here, he'd been plopped in front of a shambling rotting corpse and told that he had to compete with dozens of other teams much bigger than him with much more experience, all while being sabotaged.

How was he supposed to compete with others on the pure combat ability of his product? He'd never actually created something according to an existing creature. First, he'd made Ornstein and then Outlast.

Modelling existing difficulties was what the other disciples focused on, so why exactly was Flower wasting his time by making him compete in something he had a disadvantage in?

Maybe he'd have to tell her that if she was trying to use him, she was doing so incorrectly.

Or maybe, just like the protagonist of the story that Hashimi had just told him, he needed to shift his perspective and try a different approach.

Shi Xin Zhe had obviously been a monster, but his thinking had been non-linear, and he'd achieved success. 

Now, Jin just had to come up with something that could help him distinguish himself in this competition where he was severely disadvantaged.

The question now was just what he could do differently.

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AN: Hope you enjoyed the lore, arc is one chapter away from being finished on Patreon ;),