Chapter 948 Learning new things
" Karmic value? The same thing that generates karmic backlash, that terrifying punishment we get for altering reality?" Rudra asked as he understood exactly what Junfred and Enel were trying to explain to him.
" Alter Reality is a skill made for celestials. It was never meant to be used by monarchs or mortals who can die by using it.
Karma is inevitable.
It's also the reward us celestials get for governing the controlled universe.
If we choose life and good governance for the universe, we get more karmic value as the karmic value is directly proportional to blossoming life.
However, if we forcibly alter the fate of the universe and meddle with its natural flow, we suffer karmic backlash, a terrible fate that torments us for centuries.
Basically, karmic value is like a cheat, a cheat that we are given to beat the perfect warrior and move our universe forward, however, it's a cheat that can be only earned through time and good governance which is why it's extremely precious and time consuming " Junfred clarified as Rudra nodded in understanding.
" So us celestials can't die. No matter if our HP hits 0, we will be reset to our mountain peak without suffering a drop in tier.
But if we suffer karmic backlash, we will suffer as if we are in hell, but still stay alive, is that correct?" Rudra asked as he put forward his own understanding on the laws of the celestial realm.
" About right, except for the fact that we also have roles to fulfill as celestials and not fulfilling them will also result in karmic backlash.
It's a rotational duty and everyone does it once a year.
The duty includes supervising a tier8 promotion test or a direct tier6 promotion test or the like.
Usually the ones that involve high level talents.
Then there's things like mending the borders of the controlled universe, making sure that mortals swearing an oath on our names don't break them without consequences and stuff like that it's honestly nothing much and also the main reason behind why we don't let mortals know of our name.
We don't want mortals needlessly swearing by our names as then we have to forcefully act as the arbitrator.
That's mostly the reason behind why we installed the queen too, because she was supposed to eliminate all those who we deemed were not worthy of knowing our names.
The whole use of her becoming the universe's administrator and improving the karmic value farm came later. The original idea was only to use her as an eliminator.
We get enough headaches from the thousand or so individuals that do know our name, that just imagining a 100 trillion or more knowing it makes us want to puke" Enel explained as he made a puking expression to drive his point home.
Rudra suddenly remembered something that the perfect warrior said about him being the one on promotion duty this month which was why he was making Max's life harder.
At the time he lacked the context to understand it, however, it seemed like now he could understand it better.
Rudra did not mind these minor duties as the thought of suffering karmic backlash for not doing it seemed too extreme.
In any case it was only for a month a year which was not too bad considering everything considered.
In a way, the celestial realm itself was like a retirement home for the fighting enthusiasts.
Here, one could laze around on a peak, work for a month a year, and fight to their heart's content against the strongest opponent.
It was retirement 101 if one looked at it that way, however, the catch was that the only way to end this endless retirement was to beat the unbeatable.
Cracking his neck, Rudra began to loosen his joints as he said " alright-, teach me how to use the karmic value I've accumulated as a monarch to gain the strength boost"
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( Meanwhile Max )
10 days had passed since Max started liquifying his soul and finally his concentration was starting to break.
So far he had not made a single mistake and his body now felt intuned to doing the process, however, he felt lesser in control and more reliant on muscle memory.
Repeatedly doing the same steps created a small lag between his brain and his body as whatever his brain was thinking, his body was already performing a few microseconds before the command was given by the brain and that made Max more and more likely to make a mistake.
Although Max understood his predicament, he could do nothing about it as stopping even for a moment was something that he could not afford.
And his worst fears did indeed come true as after ten days of not failing even once, he failed twice in a row making him lose 26 minutes of his time as he was forced to take a pause and re-evaluate.
He was very close to the finish line and just needed to keep it together for 3 more days and he would be done.
He still had enough of a margin of error to not be too worried about these two mistakes, however, he could not get too complacent either.
Slapping his cheeks, he regained the focus he needed as he performed a few muscle exercises to regain control over his body's actions.
Once he was assured of his handfeel, he took a couple of deep breaths and got to the process again as the complexion of his soul vessel now looked more like a reservoir of ethereal green liquid than a green gas container.
There were still a few green fumes over the water surface level, however with over 4 liters of liquid condensed already, the container looked 60% full of liquid instead of gas.
Technically this much was enough for him to be classified as a monarch, however, for the purpose of this test he needed to go all the way and consolidate every last drop.
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/// A/N - Bonus chapter for hitting the GT target, good job everyone! ///