Seeing his character panel, Zhong Yu went straight for the shifting cultivation area. It had no cultivation methods but just a simple introduction.
‘A regent enjoys the wealth of the world, his hands hold ultimate control; an expert unto himself. By cultivating as well, he will sweep the world of its resources with his authority, gathering the great minds of the people to gain insight into the world’s nature. Once it starts, there’s no stopping him.
‘Cultivation will give him power and longer life, his might shaking the foundations of this world.
‘It makes the world envious, the people envious, the cultivators fearful, thus attacked on all sides. A monarch cultivating means going against the natural order, plunging his nation into turmoil, suffering calamities and the target of everyone’s hatred.
‘A monarch can’t cultivate by normal means, while special ones will have his authoritarian aura clash with it, only harming oneself. While a special cultivation method does not exist, with great perseverance, wisdom, luck and fate, one creates a monarch’s cultivation method to achieve the pinnacle of the world, control every being and tread places no one has ever seen before.
‘But the monarch cultivating earns the ire of everyone, the wrath of the world and sets himself against them as their enemy. Great luck is a must.’
The long introduction had Zhong Yu’s heart beating out of his chest. Now he understood what it meant by cultivating as a ruler would be a death sentence. His very existence and all he left behind would be purged from this world by the world itself.
But forgoing this path he would only increase his lifespan by a couple of decades through the magical treasures he found in the world. Yet even so, he’d still return to the mud after 100 years.
Going into the cycle of reincarnation, after living in the secular world and all its vices, his soul would be ground down until he wouldn’t even be himself in the next life. ‘The basic element of oneself is the spirit, and if its container, the soul, becomes someone else after the scrubbing, I will cease to be me.’
‘Is there no other way?’ Having tasted authority, he found he liked it very much and didn’t want to throw the power over another’s fate away. It was a drug and he was an addict.
Zhong Yu was conflicted only for a moment before coming to his decision.
“System, I have made up my mind to cultivate. Give me the contents of this cultivation method.” Zhong Yu’s tone was filled with determination and resolve.
“Host’s path ensures the power of a monarch. Choice is within authority.” The system replied with the emotion of stone.
“The cultivation method is revealed.”
Zhong Yu looked over the screen and the details of his cultivation method.
[Cultivation Method: Ultimate Emperor
[Description: the world has fifty paths. 49 of them can be nurtured and thrived by following them, except one. This path goes against the natural order, it steals the core of all the world’s creations for oneself.
[Instructions: take people’s faith by leading the people and gathering the nation’s fortune into its supreme monarch.]
Zhong Yu gasped at the fancy words, the more he read the more excited he grew. He knew this cultivation method would be awesome, but not so much.
He asked himself before, what was fortune? Why could he use it to exchange for something else? Was it the system’s function, or his ability the moment he got here? Just that he couldn’t sense it and the system turned it into something he needed.
Now he had the answer. ‘Fortune is the core of the world.’ It was what gave birth to all creation and kept it running.
Making such a fundamental element was hard even for a world.
Even reincarnation could only take the smallest fraction of the world’s fortune.
This reincarnation was often seen as a plot point. Everything one experienced in one’s life focused on one point and birthing the so-called chosen. It was also the source of the main character’s ordeals.
Calamities were the world’s way of removing its impurities and evolving. Then through the main character that triggered this evolution, it harvested him for the fortune.
That meant the main characters represented the world, its champions, making their path free and easy. As for those few obstacles that he bumped into , they were just checkpoints, tollways. The world’s way in making them pay in fortune.
Even after all this, some people are sure to not get the meaning of fortune even now. Think of it as the essence of one’s consciousness, or what is usually known as humanity.
Of course, it was not just human related, taking many shapes as well. The humans have their humanity, magic has its own essence and so did the beasts, gods and immortals. Every being with awareness had one way or another, thus forming their consciousness.
Then what did all these have to do with the world? The world sucked the energy from the void around it, but just like a human’s mouth, it was incapable of digesting it.
That was where the stomach came in. It contained some consciousness aggregation that through unknown means absorbed the void’s energy.
But it couldn’t take in this energy and needed the world to provide. While it gave in turn the fortune the world needed by purifying this void energy.
The two had a symbiotic relationship, but it was in every creature’s instinct to not let its meal escape its mouth.
The consciousness aggregates would never just hand over the purified void energy, fortune, so the world had to find another way. Hence the calamities, the plot twists all novels had.
The consciousness aggregates were formed by gathering a race’s people in forming stable places to live on, i.e society. And by throwing a wrench in this machine, it would incite chaos and destabilize the aggregate.
Allowing the world to steal fortune through the cracks for itself.
This time-tested method through eon never failed because when people gathered, they each had their own reason, beliefs and desires that sparked unrest. Nothing could escape this fate, only those driven by the most basic instincts.
Though the world knew to keep things in balance. Since they were its foundries, toying them till they broke would spell doom for itself as well.