Doing good deeds is great! So far, I’ve gotten rewarded with spirit stones for turning in some weak bandits. I got a cute little cat that people said was terrorizing villages—I’m not sure why. Sure, it might be a bit big, but it’s perfectly harmless! When it saw me, the first thing it did was run. How can something so cowardly be harmful? Anyways, after that, I did lots and lots of good deeds. Ilya gave me so many to do; it seems like she’s working hard for my forgiveness, and it’s working. Mm. After all these rewards, how can I still be mad at her?

Eh? What kind of good deeds did I do? The usual ones, of course! There was a city that kept getting raided by pirates and needed help. So I stopped the pirates, but they made me a really good offer, so I let them go. The good deed only asked me to help that one city, so I should’ve gotten good karma from it still. And once the pirates harass another city enough, I can shoo them away again for another reward, err, for good karma!

Then there was this tree. The people claimed it was demonic and eating people’s souls or something like that, but when I got there, the tree wasn’t demonic at all. It was growing the largest, fattest, plumpest acorns I had ever seen in my life! They tasted deliciouser than normal too! Mm? Deliciouser isn’t a word? Well, it’s the only word that can describe how good those acorns were. So, to fulfill the good deed without destroying this beautiful tree, I simply uprooted it and stuck it in one of my life pouches. I’m going to plant it somewhere later, preferably in an area with huge amounts of qi for the tree to be happier. In fact, I’m going to plant its acorns too. Softie said there was this elf named Mirta who could help me grow things faster, so I’ll have more than one soul-eating, acorn-producing tree. Ah? Did I say soul-eating? That’s just the name those people gave it; it doesn’t actually eat souls.

After the tree, there was a black turtle blocking a river at its source, and the people who made the request wanted me to unblock the river. But I couldn’t do anything to the turtle! It was so strange. I tried lifting it, but it was firmly rooted into place, almost like it was using my Footsteps of the Giant. I tried hitting it because hitting things always solves my problems, but for once, it actually didn’t! No matter how hard I hit the turtle, it didn’t even react. When I used my Unrelenting Path of Slaughter to look for where to cut or smash to kill it, there actually wasn’t one. I almost thought I was trying to remove a rock that looked like a turtle, but Softie told me it was a holy beast called the black turtle or something like that. Apparently, these holy turtles are supposed to be as strong as phoenixes, but they seem stronger. Maybe this one was really old. Maybe it’s immortal? Hmm. I’m not sure. In the end, I broke the mountain it was on and stored the turtle in my life pouch before it could get on the ground. If I can’t unblock the river, then I’ll get rid of the river! Aren’t I a genius?

Anyways, now I’m at an evil cultivator’s lair. He’s supposed to be a sky-realm expert who eliminated four sects by himself. They were weak sects, worse than the ones in Kong County. I’m supposed to turn him in without a reward once I catch him, but the request didn’t say anything about the stuff on him. I’m going to strip him naked, take all his stuff, and then turn him in. It’ll be a completely justified robbery! If he has his stuff, he might be able to escape to hurt more people, and leaving him with his stuff is practically helping him escape. I would never do something like that.

“He should be right inside, Lucia.” Softie was holding onto a jade disc. It was a tracking device. The person who made the request tagged the evil cultivator with some kind of technique, and the jade disc leads us to the tag. I’m not sure how it works, but it doesn’t matter as long as it does.

“Come out…! Err, what’s his name?”

“It was never announced,” Softie said in almost a whisper. “If he’s doing evil deeds, he’d do his best not to let people know who he is.”

Mm, that makes sense. It reminds me of the time I disguised myself on that battlefield. But I wasn’t doing evil deeds! I was just maneuvering around dumb rules. Mhm, not evil at all. Rules aren’t always meant to be followed. What if they were made by bad people? Then breaking them would make me good. See? “Alright. Come on out, evil cultivator!”

There was a rustling sound followed by footsteps, and a man with a nice-looking robe appeared by the entrance of the cave. It seems like he’s one of those cultivators, the ones that like living in the ground. When he saw me, his eyes narrowed, and he took a step back. Only taking one step back isn’t enough to escape from me! “Punch!”

That’s right. I didn’t use any techniques and only punched him. I noticed whenever I use my Flaming Hammer Strike, Mrs. Feathers always feels the urge to incinerate my opponents when I’m not looking. She thinks I won’t notice or something, but I do every time. I’m not sure why she does it. Anyways, I have to capture this person alive, so one punch to his dantian is enough to disable him! …Do guys even have dantians? How do they cultivate? Aren’t dantians wombs? Err…, that doesn’t matter for now. “Alright, I caught him!”

“Wait, that wasn’t him,” Softie said. “This person must be a collaborator. The tracking device says the target is deeper inside.”

“…Oh.” Well, punching the collaborator of an evil person still makes this a good deed. Now, if I punched an innocent person who happened to be inside this cave…. Mm. Unfortunate victim of circumstance, I can’t be blamed. It’s still a good deed.