One Wish to Own the World

Chapter 42 42 – Reverse Engineering

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

"Fine, I will serve you if it helps you get stronger. But I want you to promise to save me once you're strong enough."

He knew he didn't have enough leverage to demand an oath, but if Ken respected himself, a promise should be enough.

"You have my word."

Ken didn't worry about the possibility of Nick lying to him. He was sure Nick told him the truth throughout the whole conversation; he mixed a truth drug in the Qi Absorbing Pill he concocted as a demonstration of his skills earlier. He planned to do it since the beginning.

Since Nick agreed to serve him, it meant he truly meant it. If Nick wanted to lie to him, the drug would make him feel so horrible about it that he'd have to change his mind.

The truth was that Ken still didn't know how to remove the cultivator's aura, but he figured it must be something he will find out eventually as his cultivation progresses. He couldn't use his aura as an ingredient in his current stage.

"I'm going to experiment, so be silent until I'm done."

He took out a few third-grade pills and threw two of them into the cauldron. A pill consists of the combined essence of different materials. What he was trying to do was to separate those essences back without destroying them.

At first, it was almost a complete failure; he would finish the process with only around 10% of the essences while the rest were destroyed.

After multiple tries in which he kept learning and improving, he finally got it right and managed to save enough materials to recreate a single pill out of the other two pills. He trained more until he could finally save around 75% of the essences in each pill. He couldn't go beyond it; the rest was destroyed when he broke the pills.

Once he felt confident to do it on any third-grade pill, he started practicing on fourth-grade pills. 

2 days later, he finally stopped practicing. He couldn't practice the process on the fourth-grade pills efficiently. He had to take breaks every few attempts because he'd run out of Qi. He needed to form his core first.

"I need to go. Your task is to form a new team and collect unorthodox cultivation manuals and techniques. Use your team to buy them so it won't be obvious you're collecting as many as you can."

"Young Master, among unorthodox cultivators, we sell the manuals, which makes it more expensive. Each manual for the Core Formation Stage is around 10,000 medium Qi stones."

Ken poured on the ground 80,000 instantly.

"Take those and buy some manuals and techniques with them. I will visit you in 3 months. I will give you three new Chill Pills and take the manuals from you. If you do a good job, I will gift you some resources next time. Use this token so I can contact you when I'm out."

He gave him a black token. He used one of his free days before the clan's competition to study the formations on the clan's token and the sect's token. He also bought a pair of communication tokens that allowed long-distance communication. 

Later, he inscribed on two empty fourth-grade slates new formations to imitate the effect. He used his own devices to prevent any type of eavesdropping from the sect.

"Ok. Thank you, Young Master."

"Any questions before I go?"

"Yes, why did this powerful cultivator need me to collect luck for him?"

"First of all, cultivators of his stage have pride. They prefer to have lackeys do the dirty job for them rather than do it themselves, much like the reason you worked with 4 people from the third stage instead of going solo."

"Any other reason?"

"Yes, his technique is incomplete. Although he reached a significant and impressive understanding of luck, it was limited. The technique's name is 'Defying Heaven', but defying those above you has consequences."

"What type of consequences?"

"The manual mentions that everyone is born with a 'container of luck'. The meaning is that your luck capacity is limited by birth. When you get lucky in life without doing anything for it, it's the work of your luck, and your luck gets depleted, and it slowly refills with time naturally."

"I know, I read it too."

"Be patient. The technique allows you to steal others' luck and go beyond your natural maximum, letting you find more opportunities in exchange for your luck. However, the heavens don't like it when you defy them. You're cursed and your natural limit slowly gets smaller and smaller as you steal others' luck."

"And by stealing from me he can avoid this?"

"Yes. The defects he left in your manual combined with his aura inside you prevent the heavens to see it as him stealing others' luck. He gets to go scot-free from stealing it with you as a proxy, while you pay the price."

"Bastard."

"All right, I need to go. My mission to exterminate you guys is over, and I need to report completing it, so don't attack this village again."

He paused for a moment before continuing.

"That evil cultivator must be aware that his aura disappeared from 3 pills, so make sure to keep those other two that are still intact. If he comes to check just tell him your teammates to whom you gave the pills and manuals have died in an attack of the righteous sect, but you managed to save their manuals. Keep them on you all the time, just in case."

"He… he is coming?"

"I don't know, but it's possible. I gave you instructions just in case. Don't ever dare destroy the manuals or pills unless I tell you to."

He gave him back the pills and manuals before leaving for the village. Unfortunately, he couldn't deal with the pills for now. He didn't have enough Qi to work with some of the materials. Some of them were in the fifth and even the sixth grade.

But his trip wasn't for nothing, he did learn a lot about luck, and already had plans to create an alternative technique and pill for himself. Although it will be weaker at first, it will be complete.

He found the village in full activity, which was a complete contrast to the first time he entered the village. 

"Young Master! We are grateful! We are happy to see you returning alive and well."

"I've been chasing their leader in the forest for 5 days and eventually slayed him as well. Your village is safe now, I'd like you to report it to the sect."

The village chief was ecstatic to hear the good news. They were finally free of the evil cultivators' terrorizing.

"Yes, Young Master. We will make sure to report it."

The village had a token that could communicate with the sect. He didn't dare use it often; it was only meant to be used during emergencies or if something out of his understanding happened near his village.

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A young-looking man with clear green eyes and long black hair was sitting crossed-legged with a woman lying in front of him. The woman was screaming in pain as his finger was touching her glabella.

"Thank you for your service, you've done a great job in collecting luck for me."

The man told the woman once he finished absorbing her luck completely. He felt the surge of the mysterious energy when he collected it. 

The woman didn't go after small fries like mortal villagers. She was a cultivator in the sixth stage, and she hunted evil and righteous cultivators alike. She hunted cultivators from the first stage to the fifth but made sure to never aim at those with a backing of a sixth-stage cultivator or stronger. 

Cultivators have generally higher luck than mortals, and the higher their stage, the higher their luck is. After all, the luckiest thing that could happen to a mortal, is to be given the opportunity to cultivate, thus living longer and getting stronger.

"Why… why did you do it to me?"

The woman was sweaty, and her breaths were heavy. The process was extremely powerful, and she could only droop on the floor despite being a powerful cultivator.

"Your luck's capacity almost turned 0 from your excessive usage of my Defying Heaven Technique. When it turns zero, the heavens would proactively manipulate reality to send people to kill you. If you were to die after collecting so much luck, wouldn't it waste your efforts?"

"You never mentioned it when you gave me the technique."

"Of course not. Otherwise, you wouldn't work so hard to collect luck for me."

After answering the woman's questions, the man released a powerful flame that ate the woman's body and turned it into ashes. He knew that she would never practice his technique again, so she became a risk. A risk of letting the world know about his secret.

*Sigh*

"It took me nearly a week to finish absorbing all her luck. I really need to perfect my technique, or else I will reach my limit soon, too. Anyway, I sensed some of my auras disperse in the southeast. I should go and make sure that my manuals didn't land in the hands of some righteous cultivators."

He vanished from his spot and moved at extreme speed toward the territory of the Phoenix Feather Sect. 2 days after Ken left, Nick had another scary guest.

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A/N: I will refer to Ken's family as "clan" since it's too big to be called a family.