THE GOD EATER

In response to being shushed, Loki huffed, but he took his seat and became silent. He was still glaring, though.

His glare as piercing as if he wanted to bore a hole with his eyes. Their words had only calmed him a little bit. The root of his anger and displeasure hadn’t been mollified at all.

As if sensing the anger in the air, the person on the other side said, “The information you want is very important. The two of them are both part of the secret cornerstones of the cultivation world, which is why it costs so much.”

Their words calmed him down a little bit. But what really made him decide to go through with the transaction was the memory of what Greg had been willing to do to keep his Floating Furnace Life Ability secret.

He wanted to know what all the fuss was about, so he said, “Fine, let’s do business. Give me your token for a transfer.”

The voice said, “Please wait a minute.”

Then the person behind the screen left to bring the token. They returned less than a minute later with the token, which they dropped into the cupboard linking both compartments of the booth.

He pulled the cupboard open from his side and took the token inside it. Next, he touched his token to this token and transferred 2 million energy stones to it.

After he did this, he dropped the token back into the cupboard and closed it. The other person took the token and left with it to have it checked for the money he sent.

They came back a little more than a minute later and said to him, “Your money has been confirmed. I will now give you the information you want. It was nice doing business with you.”

As they said, they opened the cupboard and put two parcels of rolled-up pieces of paper into it.

In response, Loki grunted an acknowledgement. He didn’t say anything more because his mind was too focused on the information he was about to receive.

So he was anxious as he pulled out the cupboard and took out the two parcels. One parcel said, “Pathway Predation.” The other parcel said, “The Potential In Life Abilities.”

Their titles confused him a little, so he asked, saying, “What are these two titles? They are not what I asked for?”

As calm as ever, the voice said in reply, “The package labeled Pathway Predation contains the answer you want about why information about Life Abilities should be kept secret, while the one labeled The Potential of Life Abilities contains the information about the secrecy of mutations of Life Abilities.”

He was satisfied with the answer, so he nodded in understanding before breaking open the package labeled Pathway Predation.

A roll of paper fell out of the package after he broke it open. He picked this piece of paper up and began reading it.

The paper said, “When cultivators advance to rank 5, they go on a quest to expand their existence. The material they need to expand their existence is the Core Metac of other cultivators. The more Core Metacs that they eat, the more powerful they become.”

His heart beat soared as he read this part. But there was still more to read, so he forced himself to continue reading.

“Rank 5 cultivators can only eat the Core Metacs that have fused with the life of another cultivator. Therefore, they can only eat Core Metacs that have developed Life Abilities. This makes both rank 3 and rank 4 cultivators viable prey to them.”

“Fortunately, there is another requirement that determines who can become the prey of a rank 5 cultivator. Rank 5 cultivators can only eat Life Abilities that are identical to themselves.”

“This second rule makes it so that rank 5 cultivators only predate cultivators of their pathway with the same Life Ability. This way, not everyone has to be afraid of becoming the meal of some rank 5 cultivators.”

“As long as there is no rank 5 cultivator above you with the same Life Ability, you are safe. But if there is a rank 5 cultivator above you in your pathway with a need to expand their existence with the Life Ability you possess, you will be targeted as soon as you advance to rank 3. This is why it is prudent to hide information about your Life Ability.”

This piece of information caused his mind to explode with enlightenment. His eyes shone with understanding as he thought of the events of the last timeline. He was finally able to understand all the secrecy around Life Abilities.

After a while of thinking about this information, he said to himself, “Not only do the rank 4 leaders of society use us as raw materials for their cultivation, even rank 5 cultivators above them are also on the hunt for rank 3 and rank 4 cultivators. Is there any fairness in this world?”

“The rank 4 leaders can go to hell, but we rank 3 cultivators shouldn’t be treated as livestock by everyone else. No wonder rank 3 cultivators don’t get to live long enough to have a level 4 Dao Heart. How can they live long when both rank 4 and rank 5 cultivators are out to get them?”

He doesn’t care about rank 4 cultivators being hunted by rank 5 cultivators because most of them deserve it for running societies where they raise others as raw materials or free labor, and because he is not a rank 4 cultivator yet.

When he advances to rank 4, he might care about rank 4 cultivators being hunted. But until then, he won’t shed a tear about it. What he is concerned about right now is how to survive to become rank 4.

As he thought of his situation, he said to himself, “On one side is the Rein Family. Those people will try to kill me at any opportunity that they get. They don’t need a good reason for that. They are my eternal enemies.”