Andrew Robinson Leinbach
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Chapter 153: Sin Eater
🕑 Added 2023-07-04 23:34:15 +0000 UTCMila
The War of the Chosen simulated real war, so every army couldn’t just consist of combatants. No one started with any artifacts, so smiths, leatherworkers, and the like were needed to create them from the raw materials provided by the War of the Chosen’s various environments. Potions and other types of consumables were also incredibly useful, so alchemists were needed as well. And the true key to doing well in a war in the universe was unifying the power of an army into a singular whole, so masters of war arrays, arrays which could accept power from many cultivators at once, were probably the most useful individuals in an army, at least early on.
Most with these types of skills weren’t like Aalam, however, able to serve each crafting role all at the same time with multiple minds, so an army would generally have dozens of crafters at least.
Food was also important. Each battle in the War of the Chosen would take 3 to 7 days. And, while most E ranks could go for months without eating, it would greatly lower their power. So, keeping the entire army fed was a must, meaning cultivators with farming skills would be brought in as well.
Finally, healers were probably the most valued non-combat role after array masters, their usefulness not lowering the longer the war progressed like craftsmen and farmers, who would generally be eliminated by their own armies once they had enough artifacts and food to last them to the end. And Mila had joined the Violet Mountain Sect’s army in this role.
Most healers, however, had specialized healing classes, making their combat skills rather bad, so healers with actual combat talent, like Mila’s fake identity with the Contract War Healer class, were very much valued.
In fact, among the 1,741 cultivators in the Violet Mountain Sect’s army, their D rank teachers actually suspected Mila would go the furthest in the War of the Chosen, as her abilities as a healer and scout would both be valued by any army that could defeat them so long as she didn’t die. And, as a result, they had given her a commander position at the very start even though, due to her low level, she couldn’t yet beat more than maybe 25% of their army’s soldiers with the power she’d shown.
“Do you need any help?” she asked some of the crafters, looking for anything useful to do. During the three days they had in the mental space, there was no need for either a scout or a healer, but it was within the Sarra Lin’Talic identity’s nature to try and be helpful, so she had to keep up the disguise.
At the same time, however, one of her other minds was chatting with Aalam, Isaiah, and Diana.
Due to the way the System’s mental spaces worked, while they were within different instances, they were judged as being within the same region of a galaxy, so they could easily talk over their bonds. And, given the strength of her bond with Aalam, especially after they both advanced to E rank, they could even share their resources and she could send him over lust filled souls, solving the issue of him being able to eat during the war without making it obvious he was an incubus.
Name: Li Mila
Level: 37
Race: Sublime Soul Succubus Empress (E-Heroic)
Bloodline: Prime Servitor (Mythic)
Abilities
Omniglot Reader (Legendary)
Fairy Law (Heroic)
Master of Disguise (Heroic)
Sin Eater (Heroic)
Princess's Aura (Fabled)
Nascent Energy Converter (Legendary) [shadowed]
Class 1: Evil Eyes Diabolical Trickster (E-Heroic)
Skills
Advanced Artifact Enhancement (E-Heroic) 41% mastered
Advanced Devil’s Contract (E-Heroic) 53% mastered
Trickster’s Guise (E-Heroic) 52% mastered
Phantasmic Doppelgängers (E-Heroic) 34% mastered
Evil Eyes - Lust, Greed, Wrath (E-Heroic) 37% mastered
Shadow Stride (E-Heroic) 42% mastered
Class 2: Essence Chamberlain (E-Fabled)
Skills
Exemplary Chamberlain (E-Fabled) 48% mastered
Breath of Life (E-Heroic) 72% mastered
Law Infusion (E-Heroic) 45% mastered
Elevated Multi-Mind (E-Fabled) [shadowed]
Telekinesis (E-Fabled) [shadowed]
Sensory Domain (E-Heroic) [shadowed]
Laws
Law Larvae:
The Healer - Peak
The Reaper - High
Shadow - High
Illusion - High
The Tactician - High
The Courtesan - Peak
Cultivation:
Technique:
Yin Yang Cosmology - Mixed (Level 7)
Twelve Element Primal Code - Heavenly Spark [Weakened] (Level 8)
Foundation: Flawless
Stats:
Strength: 2,840 (+12.5%)
Agility: 2,864 (+12.5%)
Endurance: 3,092 (+12.5%)
Toughness: 2,840 (+12.5%)
Vitality: 3,068 (+12.5%)
Perception: 3,350 (+112.5%)
Magic: 3,710 (+12.5%)
Spirit: 4,130 (+12.5%)
Soul: 6,362 (+37.5%)
Aura: 3,288 (+312.5%)
Attunement: 3,252 (+137.5%)
Luck: 3,024 (+12.5%)
Free Stats: 0
Soulstructures:
Lower Dantian: 1 Huge Core Container
Middle Dantian: 12 Medium + 1 Large Mana Wells
Upper Dantian: 5 Huge + 2 Medium Mental Forges
Uniqueness:
Shadow Princess
Third Eye Princess
Assets:
32 C rank universal credits
807 D rank universal credits
12,634 E rank universal credits
5,827,283 F rank universal credits
26 D rank undead credits
27,894 E rank undead credits
37,766,349 F rank undead credits
Boons:
Personal Chamberlain of the Heavenly Spark Soul King: Increase the effectiveness of the Soul and Attunement stats by 25% and raise affinity with all Laws by 50%.
She’d advanced her race to match Aalam’s, empowering the process with a whole bunch of E rank souls she’d received from the Violet Mountain Sect and modified with her evil eyes, but that was only after maximizing her stats and upgrading Fairy Law to Heroic grade.
Fairy Law (Heroic): Markedly increase or decrease the power of all bonds and contracts you enter into or for which you provide the magic.
It had required her to max out both her Soul and Magic stats while also having her Law Larva of The Healer at high grade, the equivalent of a middle grade Law Larva of Bonds, but it now allowed her to not only increase the power of her contracts by more than before, but drastically decrease their power if she wanted to as well, and decrease the power of any contract she entered into.
Had she had this racial ability when she’d joined the Violet Mountain Sect, she and Aalam would have already been able to break her contract with the sect. And, given she was going to get a strong contract breaking skill at E rank, in the future this ability would allow her to join almost any force in the universe, get whatever she needed from them, and leave at will.
Then, after advancing her race, she also gained two new racial abilities.
Sin Eater (Heroic): You may slowly absorb the karmic sin or karmic merit of those whose souls are at your mercy, and you may also slowly transform your own karmic sin into karmic merit as well.
On Earth, the Buddhist and Hindu religions had apparently been the closest to the truth, as reincarnation was actually a thing in the universe. And karmic merit and karmic sin, markings on a soul based on the soul’s actions throughout its life, really existed, only they and reincarnation had absolutely nothing to do with each other, reincarnation basically just the universe reusing soul matter.
Each soul was formed around an intrinsic piece called a truesoul, life experiences, environment, et cetera then adding soul matter to the truesoul to form the soul cultivators were familiar with. And it was only the truesoul which was reincarnated, not the parts of the soul that had anything to do with memories, classes, or any form of actual power.
Effectively the genetic component of souls, a truesoul did, however, have a lot to do with natural cultivation talent, so certain forces with the ability would track the truesouls of fallen powerhouses and then take their reincarnations in as disciples, but, beyond that, reincarnation in the universe was mostly ignored. And there was basically no relation between the present and past lives of a truesoul.
Karmic bonds, karmic merit, and karmic sin interacted with the parts of a soul that were lost upon death, so reincarnation tropes like past lovers being reincarnated to meet again, an evil cultivator being reborn as an insect, or a saint being reborn as the son of a god were no more common than any other options.
Karmic merit and karmic sin weren’t even something intrinsic to the universe, but, like Territory, were a magical effect greatly influenced by the collective faith and will of living creatures, especially powerful ones. In an area of the universe that worshiped the bringing of death, a mass murderer would quickly gain karmic merit, and, in an area of the universe where survival of the fittest was heavily believed in, an active healer saving lives on the daily would quickly accrue karmic sin.
Both karmic merit and karmic sin were effectively just alternate forms of energy, and they had no effect on most paths of cultivation. Powerful cultivators and weaker cultivators specializing in karma would be able to see the amount of karmic merit and sin accrued by living creatures, so cultivators were encouraged to not act overly evil if they wanted to avoid being immediately arrested and questioned when entering into the domain of a truly powerful force, but otherwise they were mostly ignored.
Mila’s paths to power, however, were all about karmic sin and karmic merit. Her skills of the Evil Eyes and Devil’s Contract lines for example both required the accrual of certain types of karmic sin to upgrade and operate their skill runes.
Thus a racial ability of the Sin Eater line, while useless for most cultivators, was ideal for helping to speed up her cultivation, allowing her to absorb the karmic sin and merit she needed from the dead instead of having to accrue it through her own actions.
It was also no coincidence she awakened to such a racial ability. As someone born with the Shadow Princess uniqueness, Mila’s soul was completely primed for karmic related racial abilities. That was how she’d awakened the incredibly rare Fairy Law racial ability upon first becoming a cultivator, and that nature of her soul, where if she had enough Luck she would eventually awaken to a racial ability of the Sin Eater line, was one of the main reasons Aalam and Nana Xara had both recommended her current paths to power in the first place.
Princess's Aura (Fabled): Increase the effectiveness of the Aura stat by 100%.
Princess's Aura was then a racial ability she likely only had the chance to take due to her race, not having as high an affinity towards it as Diana or Aalam. But a 100% increase to her Aura stat was extremely useful, increasing the range on Telekinesis, Sensory Domain, and her own Phantasmic Doppelgängers skill, greatly increasing her power.
