Xinyi Continent
Outside Pingchang City, Sword Casting Manor.
In an old courtyard under the manor, the sound of a rooster crowing can be heard early in the morning.
"Brother, it's time to get up for breakfast, we need to go up the mountain to cast swords, or else we'll be punished again."
The young girl appears to be seventeen or eighteen years old, named Ning Jiaojiao, her skin is fair as jade, and her appearance is sweet, with a round face exuding a hint of innocence, yawning while pushing open the door.
The man inside the door is sitting on a chair maintaining a Copper Coin Longsword forged from copper coins.
She seems a little surprised, teasingly says, "Brother, you're wiping your sword again?"
"The road to Sword Casting Manor is not safe."
Ning Zheng said as he put away the sword, then patted Ning Jiaojiao's head, and took out a little bamboo dragonfly, "This is a toy for you, when you go out today, give me a blessing, will you gather some good luck for me?"
"Okay."
Ning Jiaojiao knows that her older brother is a bit strange, asking for blessings every day.
Although she doesn't know what it means, as long as she nods, she can get tasty and fun things.
[Transaction established, deducting target's daily Qi Fortune.]
[Qi Fortune +100]
Ning Zheng feels the incoming points and nods with satisfaction.
He has been in this world for over ten years now, discovering upon birth that he possesses a special ability:
He can see others' Qi Fortune.
And can act as a Qi Fortune Trader, able to buy and sell luck with people.
A normal person's Qi Fortune is 10 points, Ning Jiaojiao's is apparently over ten times stronger than that.
As for the purchasing price?
The rules are set by both parties, willingly exchanging a bamboo dragonfly for one hundred Qi Fortune seems reasonable, right?
And what's the use of acquired luck?
If one is fortunate enough, almost anything is possible.
Similar to making wishes with the Dragon Pearl.
With enough luck, you can achieve anything, find heavenly and earthly treasures, cultivation techniques, all by happenstance.
Even if a Great Power descends intending to kill you, by spending accumulated Qi Fortune, a huge meteor might just land on them and crush them.
"Brother, let's play games in the courtyard today."
Ning Jiaojiao skips happily to the center of the courtyard, looking very excited, suddenly turns her head around, her expression becomes cold, and an eerie girl's laughter comes from her mouth,
"Be serious, hehe, if brother isn't serious, brother's taste seems quite nice..."
As Ning Jiaojiao speaks, she spins and jumps energetically, suddenly tumbles over, falling flat on her back, her head explodes abruptly, blood pooling in the courtyard, even some white excrement leaking from her head.
Ah! Ah! ~
Then a black crow flies past in the sky, its loose stool landing right onto her messy head.
Adding insult to injury.
Ning Jiaojiao, as always, had a run of bad luck today.
Ning Zheng, accustomed to such occurrences, frowns and scolds, "Jiaojiao, you unlucky child, I told you not to look around while walking, now you've fallen again."
"Ooh~ Brother, don't look, I'm so ugly now..." Ning Jiaojiao covers her face bashfully, her exploded head wriggling quickly back to its original form.
Yet she seems completely unaware, getting up to dust herself off, with an inexplicable eeriness, "Brother, help me check, feels like something crawled in... My head hurts, it feels itchy inside..."
Ning Zheng knows exactly what it is.
It's bird droppings that got in.
If it weren't for putting bird droppings in her head daily, she wouldn't be so simple-minded, foolishly adorable, and easy to control, easily bullied.
Normally, she could be quite a Great Calamity always wanting to "play" with her brother.
Therefore, it's necessary for her luck to be extremely poor every day, tripping while walking, bird droppings on her head, in a muddled state, with everything going wrong, she wouldn't harm him.
[Name: Ning Jiaojiao]
[Race: Human-Merfolk Hybrid]
[Status: Resentful Ghost (died 107 years ago)]
[Today's Qi Fortune: 5/105 (Plague God Attached)]
"Pick it up."
"Oh."
"Pick it up."
"Hehe~"
"Good girl."
After his usual doting on this unfortunate little sister, Ning Zheng then leaves the house.
Outside is a bluestone alley, covered with green moss, a hint of moisture in the air, most people have already risen for farm work, the fields are filled with stiff and wooden farmers planting rice.
A crow perched on the roof confronts a stray cat below.
Even after more than a hundred years, the people in this village still haven't realized they're dead, repeating their lives day after day.
Thirteen years ago, young Ning Zheng was trafficked far away to Sword Casting Manor, living a life of iron-smithing like a slave.
A year later, unable to bear it, he escaped down the mountain, hiding in this Spirit Manor.
Sword Casting Manor on the mountain is established by a group of powerful Evil Cultivators.
They used evil arrays to turn several villages below the mountain into Resentful Soul Spirit Manors, with thousands of resentful souls surrounding them, forming a unique natural protective mountain array.
If Ning Zheng wasn't lucky enough, any other slave running down to the spirit manors below would face certain death.
After he fled down the mountain and scouted around the spirit manor, he found this little ghost girl living alone, her Qi Fortune the highest at 105, thus decisively becoming Ning Jiaojiao's brother, hiding in her home.
Here lies lingering resentment from their previous lives, lacking self-awareness, leaving only basic logic.
According to Ning Zheng's investigation, these entities have no physical form but seem capable of turning into flesh through consuming blood and meat, just like a void bubble puppet filled with bloody clay.
It's quite bizarre.
Thus, he figured out the other's logic for killing.
Just a lonely ghost who wants her brother to play with her, before her outbreaks, was a silly and lively good little sister, with a childhood fear of bird droppings—bird poop, which greatly weakens her, thus a restraint method was found.
These residual thoughts of such evil entities are mostly influenced by psychological shadows; finding what they feared during life causes their strength to drop significantly.
Nowadays, she's even kept as a household pet.
Not for anything else.
Primarily because she is obedient and well-behaved; as long as she doesn't go nuts, she's very compliant with her brother's words.
Just control her fierce nature daily, and it's extremely safe.
Others fear what I crave.
Day after day, Ning Zheng extracts the Qi Fortune of his sister and neighbors, becoming a major bully in the village.
Now villagers often stumble, step into pits, break legs, or burst their heads while walking down the street.
Thanks to the selfless contributions of the villagers, Ning Zheng has amassed a huge fortune and can begin trying to gain a foothold in this world.
"Morning, Uncle Chen. Early again today, bringing Aunt Li to plant rice seedlings."
At this moment, he carries his Copper Sword, constantly greeting villagers like puppets along the road, heading towards Sword Casting Manor.
Along the way, he conveniently picks wild fruits, rubs them on his sleeves for breakfast.
Nominally going to do sword casting work.
Actually hiding in the corner under the mountain, cursing those Demon Men of the manor.
Those who persevere will achieve their goals.
Just yesterday, the Demon Men atop Sword Casting Manor, had terrible "luck" and died in internal strife.
A total of thirty-two people.
For five years, Ning Zheng secretly cursed them to fall into internal strife, resulting in misunderstandings due to various coincidences. As mutual suspicion grew, conflicts escalated, ultimately leading them to fight fiercely, very "luckily" achieving mutual destruction.
Five years of accumulated expenditure, over thirty thousand Qi Fortune.
This also made Ning Zheng realize how terrifying his ability truly was.
A mere small-time ironsmith can actually ignore realms and cultivation, cursing powerful cultivators to death remotely!
"Using the Qi Fortune collected from the villagers to attack the demon men on the mountain counts as avenging the villagers and my cheap sister."
His thoughts returned.
The sun was shining brightly.
Heading into the morning mist, Ning Zheng walked for over an hour on the mountain road, with Sword Casting Manor coming into view.
He stood at a distance, observing Qi from afar; the manor had no powerful Qi left—it should be safe now.
Ning Zheng lifted his sword, pushed open the shattered great hall, walked around, silently counting the fallen heads.
"The Manor Master is dead."
"The Vice Manor Master is also gone."
"Yesterday must have been a brutal fight."
For his first "killing," rather than feeling uneasy, he felt invigorated, causing his breath to quicken.
"Finally...it's all gone!"
"Good riddance, died well, died well indeed."
Staring at the bloody scene everywhere, Ning Zheng's blood surged in his head, tense yet excited; he felt no fear or terror.
Blood was everywhere—on eaves, in the mud; the cultivators' corpses seemed like wriggling tentacles, buzzing as flies surrounded them.
Even though he'd seen such scenes many times, Ning Zheng couldn't help but let out a breath of muddy Qi, "The cultivators in this world truly have tenacious life force."
Their consciousness dies, but their flesh remains undying.
It is simply ridiculous.
During the noon that followed, Ning Zheng cleaned up all the wriggling corpses into a vat.
[Name: Ning Zheng]
[Race: Newman]
[Spiritual Root: Shadow]
[Realm: Five-Body Realm First Realm]
[Qi Fortune Status: 15 (All is Well), Base Value is 0, currently controlled to daily consumption of 15.]
[Reserve Fortune Value: 200983]
Unlike ordinary people.
His daily base fortune is 0, his fate is never fixed, filled with variables.
Thus, he consumes 15 points daily to ensure a certain daily fortune and ensure safety.
Hoo!
Exhaling deeply, he tidied all the corpses into the vat, with difficulty covering the stone lid, as if to thoroughly rid the previous depression.
"Hoo! The former grievances are resolved; now it's time to use accumulated Qi Fortune to seek a grand opportunity and help me set sail, starting anew."
His eyes opened again, Ning Zheng found himself at a mist-enshrouded gambling table surrounded by bubbles, seemingly containing various people's lives.
This was the mysterious fortune table, where he traded Qi Fortune with others in the dark.
[Qi Fortune Value -200000]
He pushed forward fiercely; the round fortune chips fell forward like a mountain.
Going all-in is an act of wisdom.
He spoke to the opposite side of the empty table:
"I need an opportunity to provide a lasting, stable, and safe method to harvest others' fortune."'
With those thoughts, the scene opposite the gambling table blurred slowly.
Seemingly stirring the threads of fate into a chain effect, a sight of three great opportunities emerged, each lighting up with blinding brilliance sufficient to alter destiny.
[1. A budding Celestial Calamity Technique to transform into a Plague God, absorbing the Qi Fortune of all beings, causing disaster city-wide, drying waters, and shriveling forests.]
[2. A strange dressed mortal descending from the rent sky carrying mysterious Tao Fruit of Longevity, with a daily Qi Fortune Value consistently at 5000, possible to enslave and consume his fortune.]
[3. An unknown sword-casting auxiliary server capable of providing untiring and fortune-reaping unfortunate small ironsmiths from the Otherworld.]