One Wish to Own the World

Chapter 41 41 – Plundering Luck

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"So, what do you think, want to work under me?"

"What do you want me to do? Aren't you from a righteous sect? I thought you guys hated us Evil Cultivators."

"Righteous and evil sects are only different in one thing. The righteous sects know to make up reasons for killing people, while the evil ones aren't clever enough."

The man snorted when he heard it and agreed with those words. He saw plenty of "righteous" people perform massacres in the name of a "purge" or "saving mortals".

"Fine, how will you supply me with the Chill Pill to keep me alive?"

"Not that difficult, I will give you three of them every 3 months. When they're over, I will take a mission outside the sect to supply you with more. Before telling you what I want from you, answer some of my questions. First, what's your name?"

"I'm Nick Royse. Young Master, may I ask about your name?"

"No, you can keep referring to me as Young Master. Tell me, why did you kidnap mortals from that village?"

  "I…"

The man hesitated before answering. He didn't want to tell Ken about it but soon felt like he should tell the truth or else he will miss an opportunity and invite a calamity upon himself.

"I received a special technique from another evil cultivator. He was extremely powerful and even claimed to be at the eighth stage, although I couldn't tell if it was true."

"Why would he gift a special technique to you?"

"I don't completely understand his motives. He said he was reaching the end of his lifespan and wanted to help other evil cultivators to rise in strength and stand against the righteous sects. He said that if there won't be any powerful evil cultivators, the righteous sects will completely annihilate us."

Ken found this explanation extremely weird. The whole problem with evil cultivators was that they were selfish and killed others for personal gain, so why would one of them care about the legacy and life of all evil cultivators out there? 

He could understand if that cultivator's life was coming to an end and he wanted to leave his legacy behind, but there was no way he did it out of the goodness in his heart and do community service.

"What does it all have to do with kidnapping mortals?"

"This manual works on a special type of energy. It doesn't directly strengthen your cultivation and doesn't directly raise your prowess."

"What is it then?"

"It's about stealing the luck of others. The reason that I could advance to the Core Formation Stage is all thanks to this technique; after stealing the luck of a few dozen of mortals, I accumulated enough luck to encounter a lucky chance. That was when I found a gravely wounded fourth-rank alchemist and helped him recover."

"And he helped you back later?"

"Exactly, I received many pills from him that helped me later break through to the Core Formation Stage and improve my foundation of the first three stages. It's also one of the reasons I feel safe to assume that meeting you is a stroke of luck rather than misfortune."

Ken shook his head helplessly. It felt like watching some people from his previous world blindly believe God will save them from any kind of trouble. Even if Nick's luck was good, there was a limit to how much stupidity and carelessness it could save him from. 

He was even careless enough to hunt villagers under the protection of a top sect when he was a mere Core Formation cultivator. He relied on luck too heavily.

"Do you still have a copy of this manual?"

"Yes, I have four of them left. It also requires a pill made by that elder cultivator. I also have 4 of them left. He gave me 5 manuals and 5 pills and told me to pass them on if I ever find another promising youth to carry on his legacy."

"To whom did you give one set?"

"One of the four guys you killed. He was with me for the longest time. He told me he even found some resources with the luck he managed to gather by following me."

Ken assumed it was the guy who managed to block his first slash. He was indeed stronger than his teammates.

"Okay, give me all four sets."

When Nick gave them to him, Ken remembered seeing a book that looked the same when he emptied the storage rings of the guys he killed. It was in his storage ring right now.

"You can recover, let me experiment."

Ken ignored Nick and sat down on the floor while he read the manual. He soon saw a lot of shady parts all over the manual. 

'I need a better understanding of evil cultivation methods. I understand most of it from the orthodox ones and the darkness techniques, but it's not enough.'

The manual was extremely different from the rest of the manuals he saw before, and he still could understand at least 90% of it. He only needed more information because he noticed there were many parts that would make the user lose luck in the long run.

He soon took out all the evil techniques he plundered. There were 7 of them. 

"Nick, do you have any other cultivation manuals and techniques?"

"Yes, I have my main manual, which relies mainly on absorbing Qi from living beings. But I normally use beasts, not humans. I also have a few techniques."

"Hand them over."

After reading the manual and techniques, he felt like he was only missing one last piece of the puzzle.

"Do you know what those pills that man gave you are for?"

"They allowed me to cultivate the manual. Without it, it's impossible."

'Hmm, I can't trust an evil cultivator blindly, but I can at least use 2 of the remaining pills for reverse engineering.'

Ken took one pill first and sniffed it. He concentrated as he recognized the ingredients. He could tell there were 49 ingredients.

He threw it into his cauldron and slowly decomposed it, revealing more of the pill's secrets. He could recognize 21 ingredients as materials he already used before, and 20 ingredients just by comparing them to the huge database of ingredients in his brain after reading full encyclopedias in the branch sect.

There were still 8 ingredients he couldn't recognize. While he understood thoroughly 7 of them after seeing the way they interacted with other ingredients inside the pills, there was one last ingredient that was beyond him.

'What can be so complicated? I can't understand this last ingredient's role in the whole thing. I will have to experiment with the second pill.'

He decomposed the second pill he assigned for reverse engineering and tried every idea that came to his mind. Eventually, in his frustration, he released a bit of bloodlust and channeled it to the last ingredient. The whole pill was gone by now, and he only had a minuscule drop of that mysterious ingredient. It wasn't even tangible.

When his bloodlust touched the intangible essence, his bloodlust disappeared, and he realized what it was.

"Aura! It's the cultivator's aura! Hahaha, there are no free meals in this world."

Ken laughed when he looked at Nick with pity. Nick was oblivious to Ken's findings, but he could tell something bad happened.

"What is it?"

"You are being used as a cauldron of luck. The pill does allow you to sense luck, but when paired with the manual, you are used as a gathering tool. When the creator of the pill comes, he will suck out all your luck in a single moment and leave. You won't have a chance of resisting or running away. Did you really believe someone would care about the evil society?"

"No! You're just lying to control me!"

Nick was desperate when he heard Ken's statement. If he was working hard only to be absorbed and killed by someone else, it'd mean he was completely dumb and lived his life for nothing.

"Why would I need to do that? I already have you under control."

Nick just lay down quietly and stopped moving. Ken knew he needed hope, or else he wouldn't work for him even if he threatened him with poison. As they say, A dead pig is not afraid of being scalded by boiling water. (1)

"It isn't irreversible."

Nick quickly opened his eyes with excitement.

"You can save me?"

"Not just yet. The reason he can steal your luck is because of two reasons. The first one is that you allow it through some defects in the manual he gave you. The second reason, as well as the most important one, is the pill he gave you. It contains a bit of his aura."

·??m "What does it mean?"

"It means that you have his aura in your body, and he can use it to trace you at any time. Once he finds you, he can easily absorb everything you took until now. Although I have an idea about how to remove his aura from you, I can't do it just yet; I'm too weak. I will have to reach the fifth stage, maybe even the sixth."

"How can I know you're telling me the truth and not just trying to make me work for you?"

"Up to you, but I'm your only hope to be saved."

(1) A dead pig is not afraid of being scalded by boiling water – a desperate person with no hope doesn't care about anything.