Bone Painting Coroner (Web Novel CN) - Chapter 21: Two Blooming Mulberry Flowers

They say luck is an uncontrollable force and karma is nothing but a cycle of cause-and-effect that depends on one's deeds. But what if luck somehow really could be manipulated while the way karma worked could be changed?

With the appearance of the Realm Games where every life became worthless and Artifacts that granted various powers, humankind was pushed to the ultimate path of evolution for one last time!

Raven, a simple young man, was also forced to walk on such a path, which with his cursed bad luck became even more difficult than for others!

However, what he did not know at that time was that it was not only humanity that was coerced with such a cruel fate but every living being in the far cosmos too!

Come and follow Raven on his journey and witness how he struggles his way through hardships and how he shifts his seemingly already decided fate that the Gods have destined him to walk from the very start!

Crimson Vale Academy—where reputation is currency, and failure is a stain you wear on your sleeve.Behind gothic walls and spotless uniforms, students aren't just educated—they're measured, ranked, and pitted against each other in a brutal meritocracy. Privileges are earned, not given. The strong rise. The weak vanish.Enter Kairon Vale, a transfer student marked Rank D—the bottom of the bottom. No badge. Just a stitched black fang, branding him as “Obsidian”—a warning to others.In a system where points dictate your value, Obsidian-ranked students claw for every opportunity to ascend into the prestigious Golden or Platinum ranks—where comfort, power, and influence await. But for most, it’s a losing battle.Yet Kairon isn’t here to fit in, impress, or play by their rules. Cold, calculating, and impossible to read, he watches the system… and waits. Because while the academy judges worth by numbers and names—he understands something deeper:Everyone wears a mask. And every mask can be cracked.Let the games begin.

Meet Gu Yu—a college dropout and a talented incense maker, and at the same time, the rather stoic protagonist of this story. Despite his somewhat introverted manner, he has a tendency to make sarcastic remarks in his thoughts. One day, after saving a squirrel, a windfall (metaphorically and literally) dropped into his lap. Stumbling into the cultivation world with little help, he was not turned into Superman overnight (as he would like). Apparently, becoming a cultivator would not make your life easier, at least in the beginning.

Somewhere along the road, he ran into Jiang Xiaozhai, a young woman who’s got the brains, the beauty, and maybe one or two secrets of her own. As it turned out, the two made a perfect team—Mulder-and-Scully style. Motivated by many unanswered questions, they had been running up and down the country, getting into all kinds of trouble, and learning more of the modern cultivation world, which is by no means the same as in the ages long past…

- Description from Novelupdates

In an alternate world, a demon disrupts dynasties, harvests souls, and refines a banner of ten thousand souls.Under the heavenly tribulation, his body and soul are destroyed, but the Ten Thousand Souls Banner protects his undying spirit. Unable to possess a body, he's countered instead.A laid-back young man in society, wielding the Ten Thousand Souls Banner, roams the human world.With the Ten Thousand Souls Banner in hand, I refine a Golden Core with good deeds.A slice-of-life story with no ambition for conquest, helping the departed fulfill their wishes, gaining merit to repair the Ten Thousand Souls Banner, and enjoying a laid-back life.