32 I Don't Care About Being a Cultivator

Shura had become a Two Star cultivator. His sensations were twice as vivid. He felt that he had at least double the strength, agility, and resiliency he had possessed before. His strength increase remained within his body, he still couldn't affect the outside world with his cultivation.

He had stepped into the ranks of those who could look after themselves. Now that his strength had increased, Shura turned his attention to other things for the time being.

Shura needed to find someplace to stay. It would be a permanent settlement for the near future. He chose the smallest and least magnificent city nearby to settle down. His meager 'wealth' would not be able to afford houses in the larger and more opulent cities.

Shura felt something after he finished the purchase and moved into his new home.

The mundane action far removed from fighting, killing, and cultivating made a feeling surface within his heart.

Shura felt deep and mysterious fatigue. His body did not tire, because his body was overflowing with vitality. His mind was not dull or without clarity either. The mind depended on the body, and his body was teeming with life and energy.

Then from where did this deep fatigue come from? Shura was tired of cultivation and cultivators and everything related to them.

Shura was really tired. He did not want to think about cultivating or even to cultivate at all. In the past, no matter how hard it took him to make a breakthrough or get past a bottleneck, he would do it without feeling any tiredness or boredom. He single-mindedly cultivated. But now it was different. He was tired of them all and he didn't want to spend another moment immersed in it.

It was an expected, yet unexpected thing. Although his cultivation was high, in the end, he was still a person. All that time cooped up cultivating and brooding about his desire for greater and greater power had made him weary.

He needed a break. He needed to break away from all of these things for a time and do something else instead.

Cultivation was a simple thing. One simply absorbed the energy in the air into their body. This was a conscious act, unlike breathing where it happened automatically.

Yet Shura did not even want to do this simple action, even though he knew it was beneficial for him, this was how weary of it all he was.

'If only people could become strong without cultivating. If only people could obtain their wishes without having to toil for it,' Shura thought.

No. He was still thinking of strength, power, and his desires. If he continued, he would still be trapped in it all like he was in the past. He shouldn't. They don't matter.

For as far back as he could remember, Shura had been focused on only one thing: cultivation. This single-pointed concentration and obsession had burnt him out. Now was the time for him to rest. It's a good thing that he had a place to rest. There shouldn't be any problem with living in the city unless people came to him to find trouble.

'I hope nobody comes to disturb me,' Shura thought.

The enthusiasm and zeal for cultivation he had possessed were now gone.

Shura had become an almighty overlord of a world from a humble beginning. And now he had even moved to the Higher Realm. He had traveled far, both physically and mentally. The growth that had occurred to him wasn't small. Now that he had looked back on his past, he realized that it was he had never had a good rest. Perhaps this was his body's way of telling him to act in moderation and rest for a bit.

Shura also had the feeling that the way he was approaching things was wrong. He wanted time to think about himself. Shura decided that he would not cultivate for a time. There was more to life than the narrow space called 'cultivation' and 'strength' that he had confined himself in subconsciously.

Shura's wealth from his time in the Lower Realm was not much now that he was in the Higher Realm. But it was enough for him to purchase a home in a city.

The house was so expensive that he almost had nothing valuable left on him after the purchase.

'Was it worth it?' Shura thought.

After much thought, he decided that it was. This place would be his home, his safe haven from the hazard and chaos of the world. Unless war broke out and people started battling in the city and destroying buildings, life here would be calm and peaceful.

Using the entirety of his wealth had prevented him from using it elsewhere, namely to buy cultivation resources. But Shura was fine with it. For once, he didn't want to think about the world of cultivation and strength.

…

Shura began living his city-life free of cultivation. He immediately noticed that since he wouldn't cultivate, he didn't have an idea of what he should be doing at all.

He had forgotten something truly important. The ceaseless practice and cultivation had made him forget. He was going to rediscover that which he had forgotten. Only then would he be able to move forward with his life.

Shura let go of all of his bias and beliefs about cultivation, strength, and the world. It was now like how it was in the past when he was only a mortal. Although life was hard then, he wasn't lost in obsession and his mind was free.

There were no cultivators. There were neither the strong nor the weak. The world wasn't violent. The strong didn't prey on the weak. The world wasn't one in which strength was the only thing that mattered and people revered strength. The endless desire for the distant and highest peak was not present.

All of these things disappeared.

Only he himself remained.

His days passed by gently like this as he came to know himself more.

…

Although this was a cultivation world and the pursuit of fame and strength was paramount, there were still people who were born and died in one place, never leaving it. Then there were others that left, albeit rarely, and then there were the normal people, those who traveled everywhere.

Shura surmised that the people who never left didn't care about the cultivation world at all. He could slightly understand their feelings.

Shura was still alive. He had enemies that tried to kill him, but he was here and still alive. He didn't lose anything, but neither had he possessed anything to lose in the first place.

He recalled the fighting and the emotions behind it, it was all so meaningless now in this moment. His enemies were dead, he was still alive, but what did that matter?

But what did that matter?

Deep down, in the furthest depth of his consciousness, in a place that he wasn't aware of, he was apathetic to all those things.

Maybe him being unable to cultivate was the right fate for him. He would die one day. One did it matter if it was five hundred years or a thousand years or more instead of fifty, seventy, or a hundred?

Did he believe, subconsciously or otherwise, that he was special and he would become the most supreme one day, never aging nor decaying, lasting as long as heaven and earth? What did it matter if he could? What did it matter if he couldn't? What if he could and he chose to live a mortal's life and welcome a mortal's death anyway?

Life was only meaningful and precious because there was an end to it in death.

How long could he live now? As soon as he asked himself, he immediately knew the answer, it was as if his body had told him.

With his current strength, he could at most live for a few hundred years. He didn't care about this.

Then what had he been spending his life for? What was cultivation? Power! Strength! Greater power and strength!

What was this strength, and this power? To be stronger, faster, and more durable than other people, so that he could defeat them, kill them! Why? Why must he be strong? So that he can defend himself? So that no one else could take advantage of him? So that he can impose on others? So that he can control others?

"I don't care about being a cultivator," Shura said aloud.

"Fuck!" Shura yelled.

He felt that a heavy burden had been lifted from inside of him when he said those words.

He wasn't being true to himself and he was forcing himself.

Fuck cultivation.

He had cultivated and cultivated not because he had a reason to do it. He did it only because it was what he had lacked in his life. He thought that since he lacked it, and everyone else possessed it, then surely it must be important and worth doing.

Then was he doing it for something else? To be able to find Claira, and if she wasn't alive anymore, he'd trust in myths and legends about how the most mighty cultivators could even bring the dead back to life?

The world was vast. Where would he find her? Where would he find someone powerful enough to be able to tell him where she was and if she was still alive or not?

Yes, this was the only reason why he would seek strength and power, to cultivate. To do it just for the strength and power alone was not a reason. Claira was his only reason.

His conclusion was right then. Cultivation was worthless by itself. It was a mean to an end. It was nothing more than a tool to accomplish something. To focus his life solely on cultivation, on a mere mean, a mere tool, it wasn't right.

Cultivation would no longer be his everything, but he will do it. He could do it and perhaps do it better this time because he had come to understand his relationship with it. He would continue to cultivate and seek strength so that he could meet Claira once more. But not now, and not like this. He was still not ready to cultivate.

Shura believed that what he was doing was right. By distancing himself from cultivation for a time and being more introspective about himself, the gains he would obtain would be endless.

He needed time and space to calm himself, only then would he cultivate again with renewed purpose and energy.