(Author’s note, to clear any confusion on this, this mini chapter is written from the POV of someone we have not met yet in the story.)

  I don't want to be evil, but I am. It's not an opinion or a guess, it's a fact. It’s my job.

  When I was awakened my tier one talent was bad.

  Tier one talent: You will die at age 25.

  That didn't stop me, I thought I could be more than my talent, that reaching tier three would solve my issue. So I pushed, I delved , I slew monsters in the hope I would reach a brighter tomorrow.

  Tier three talent: Killing cultivators adds a number of years to your lifespan, the number is equal to their tier.

  Like that the realm itself showed me my path. It set me on it, made it my purpose. I needed to extend my life, so I needed to kill. Everyone and their mom has an AI, so killing in the open is a nonstarter, naturally I would need to do it in a rift. So what do I need? I needed a delve partner to sacrifice, for the greater good, no, it's just for me, I won't delude myself, I know what I am, and I accept that.

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  Larry was a likeable fellow, in another life I would have been his friend, but in the here and now, I wore the mask of that friendship. He was a stealthy type, he wore light armor, and his main defence was going unseen. That, and his lack of spatial awareness made him the perfect first kill. We delved for almost a year before the time came.

  “Larry, hold still, you have a bug on you.”

  He never noticed that I had palmed a dagger. His throat was slit, and I immediately stabbed him in the heart. The mild paralytic on my dagger held him in place until I felt the rush of essence, I drank deeply of it, letting the energy that would sustain me flow into me.

  Looking down at his body I said to Lary as much as myself, “Thank you Larry, I won't forget this, you saved me in a way.”

  I had added three years to my life, but to a cultivator that is a blink. Even as I walked towards the exit I was already planning. I kicked a bolder hard to break my foot, then I hit my forehead on a tree, I threw myself down several times to scrape up my knees and hands, I looked like I had been running for my life, and that is what I would tell people when I exited. Larry's family would be told that he and I tried to escape, and that he had been caught, that his dying words were for me to leave him and escape. This loss of a delve partner would damage my reputation, I will doubtless need to hop worlds before finding another such easy kill, so I would, and I would kill.