Chapter 20
Karma is a trace and a trajectory.
As tree rings grow and flowing time carves rocks.
Specks gather and grow with time to create form.
Remember.
Although seeking the Way is not only through karma.
Those who have accumulated karma correctly have attained the Way.
* * *
Many mysteries that were once passed down secretly were revealed to many in modern times under the name of supernatural abilities. As a result, what was called esoteric knowledge combined with science to become disciplines, and what was called secret techniques were downgraded to self-defense or combat techniques and spread to people.
Along with this, energies that were called various names in different countries and regions were systematically organized, utilized, and established, and people no longer considered supernatural abilities as unknown. For modern people, supernatural abilities were powers once called mysteries, and now closely related to daily life.
Magic combined with science to become magical science.
Martial arts were even taught in schools as self-defense techniques.
Summoning became a technique to summon bodyguards cum pets.
As soon as you turned on the TV, you could see advertisements for magical science beds good for sleep, and on home shopping channels, you could see them selling secret family medicine that had been used by martial arts families for children's studies.
On entertainment programs, you could see stories of people living with cute summoned creatures, and witches showing off their appearance with honed beauty techniques working as celebrities.
However, even in such a world, elements that people still considered "unknown" clearly still existed.
Soul.
Fate.
Karma.
The thing that was common between them was that they "cannot be clearly confirmed".
Stories of people suffering from evil spirits or demons were passed down as ghost stories, and ability users who claimed to exert power by training their souls often popped up. However, although this soul clearly existed, the fact that it could not be observed made people consider the soul an unknown element.
It could not be perceived by the five senses.
Even if you wanted to measure its energy, it couldn’t be measured.
It seemed to have weight, but it fluctuated when you tried to measure it.
It seemed to be able to interfere with physical laws, but those boundaries were not clear.
The soul was something that clearly existed but could not be proven. However, people were still confident in the existence of the soul because even ordinary people could see evil spirits and demons, and practitioners who had opened their spirit eyes or reached the level of the Ajna Chakra could see souls routinely.
When it came to fate, it became even more ambiguous.
Sorcerers and transcendent beings mentioned it and spoke about it, and those who called themselves prophets occasionally popped up to warn about preparing for calamities, so the element of fate clearly existed. However, it was not absolute, and it could be changed if one wanted to, so it was truly ambiguous.
It was so ambiguous and vague that if you threw these two questions - "Is the nature of fate immutable or variable?" - at a gathering of scholars, it was said that a fight would surely break out.
It was said that the prophecies issued from the Temple of Apollo that had existed in the past were so absolute that they were notorious under the name of the Oracle of Delphi. The foresight given by Apollo, classified as a demigod, was almost like a curse, so that if one tried to avoid it, they would meet that fate because they tried to avoid it, and if they didn't avoid it, they would inevitably meet the predetermined future.
Because of this, scholars who argued for the immutability of fate cited this as an example and argued loudly.
However, there were countless cases of fate changing to argue that fate was immutable. Just recently, ability users gathered to prevent a future where the United States would be devastated by a tornado by extinguishing the tornado, and before that, they prevented a future where some monster would pop out of the Bermuda Triangle by erasing the area with nuclear bombs and grand magic bombardment.
No, even without citing the above examples, the immutability could be refuted with just one word.
Doomsday prophecies.
Seeing that none of the frequently occurring doomsday prophecies had come true, one could confidently argue that fate had variability.
However, if asked whether fate exists, it was said that the same answer always came back.
That it exists.
It had been proven by transcendent beings, proven by history, and was being proven by sorcerers.
It was just that it couldn’t be perceived and its nature was difficult to describe, so if not called unknown, what else could it be called?
But karma was different from these two.
While people only considered soul and fate as unknown elements but didn't doubt their existence, this element called karma was one where people doubted its very existence.
This karma was so abstract and vague that even ability users who had reached high levels couldn't properly answer when asked if karma exists. Even martial artists who claimed to have contained nature in their bodies, or grand mages who could cause natural disasters on their own, couldn't properly answer when asked to explain about karma.
Karma was largely divided into two:
Karma, meaning fate and destiny.
Dharma, meaning possibility.
As these two elements overlapped a lot with fate, some scholars argued:
『 Karma is just another expression for fate in some cultures. 』
However, the reason why people were still saying karma existed was because transcendent beings could observe this karma in their own different ways.
Some transcendent beings as a form of light.
Some transcendent beings as a form of letters.
Some transcendent beings as a form of color.
Although the method and the scene they saw differed for each transcendent being, they could clearly see it.
And this was also true for the demon contracted with Lee Serin.
[ Now it's certain. That guy is strange. ]
The demon commented thus after seeing the karma of the one called Park Jinseong.
Lee Serin looked curiously at the demon who said such a thing out of the blue.
She was on her way back after telling Jinseong to have breakfast together as he seemed to have some free time after a while, but as soon as the demon saw Jinseong, it had stared at him for a long time and then said that.
"Suddenly...?"
Moreover, the demon's expression wasn't good. The demon's face, which usually looked at Jinseong like it found him cute, showed slight disgust. This change in emotion, clearly recognizable despite the camel's face, was enough to make Lee Serin think it strange.
[ Contractor, my contractor. You... I. No. How much do you know about transcendent beings? ]
Transcendent beings.
In the human world, gods, demons, demigods, dragons, spirits, etc.
Beings with strength that could only be seen in myths or legends.
Humans often expressed respect by calling beings that frequently appeared in myths and legends as transcendent beings, those of a different class from themselves, with awe.
However, strictly speaking, the expression "transcendent beings" was a bit different from the essence. Although non-human beings could exert strong power initially due to their higher existence value than humans, they were far short of being described as having "transcended".
For example, if you looked at the records, you could often see stories of monsters or yokai being subjugated by humans. In Europe, it was dragons that were constantly being subjugated by heroes, and in the East, there were plenty of stories of passing sorcerers or martial artists sealing or killing them.
Therefore, it might be more correct to call them "transcenders" rather than "transcendent beings". Because transcendence was a realm that couldn't be reached by being born into a species, and was something that could only be obtained by surpassing the limits of the species.
Transcendence had to be achieved purely as an individual without any help from anything else.
But once you transcended like that, a problem arose.
That is boredom and loneliness.
As they transcended their species, transcenders gained an overwhelming lifespan. It increased as the level got higher, to the point where it was said that eventually they became bodies that didn't die except by violence, so it was clear that their lives were vastly different from ordinary beings.
And inevitably, boredom and loneliness followed.
The subjects of their affections died with time.
Things they found interesting inevitably reached an end.
Thus, with time, things that were valuable wore out and disappeared. It would be better if they could go mad, but their minds, which have far surpassed limits, didn't even allow madness. The powerful rules of causality constrained their power, preventing them from interfering recklessly with the material world, and they could only do things befitting the level of transcendence.
They gained power and long lifespans that left nothing to be desired by transcending, but in return, they were deprived of amusement.
"Um... how they like humans?"
[ Yes. We like humans. ]
However, there was one hope even for such transcenders, and that was humans.
Humans.
Beings that were incomparably weak.
But for transcenders, they were excellent sources of amusement, and beings that could alleviate loneliness and boredom just by quietly watching them.
Let's give a simple example.
Imagine being trapped in a gym for life without books or TV. The only food available is chicken breast and protein shakes. You can't expect stimulating tastes, and there's nothing to do except exercise. And imagine spending 10 years, 50 years, 100 years, 1,000 years in that state.
Moreover, the only people you can talk to are people with bulky muscles and rough appearances.
Isn't it bleak?
You might spend time fighting with each other or making bets, and you might find someone you click with. But that too gets boring after 100 years, 1,000 years... As time passes, even that becomes tiresome.
But right at this moment, imagine if smartphones were provided according to the number of people in the gym, and you could see cute animals on them.
Baby cats.
Baby hedgehogs.
Hamsters.
Puppies.
Cute birds.
...
You can see many cute animals, and even interact with or raise animals that suit your taste.
How do you think they would react?
This was exactly how transcenders felt.
No entertainment, nothing stimulating. Most of the transcenders they could mingle with had different appearances and natures, making it difficult to think of them as even colleagues, let alone the same kind.
Some transcenders were surrounded by light, some were in animal forms, some were in monster forms…
Among them, there were some who got along well and banded together, but how often did that happen?
Now imagine cute creatures catching their eye in the midst of this.
Wouldn't it naturally be healing?
[ For us transcenders, humans are... yes. To use an analogy, they're like baby cats. ]
A city where humans gathered?
It was a place where baby cats gathered in groups.
A human swung a sword?
Imagine a cat walking on two legs, holding a sword and dancing.
How cute would that be?
A mage?
Imagine a baby cat wearing mage clothes, using magic, and putting on a solemn expression.
Of course, they couldn't help but like them.