Avery believed everyone was talented at something, and to excel at an unrelated task, one had to find a way to leverage their advantages in unexpected ways. He had no one he could read his fortune to, but he could reuse his virtual world he had spent so much effort making.

  He even suspected it might be more effective than fortune-telling real creatures. After all, the creatures of the mental world were both intricately connected to the Tao, while still being fake and inferior beings, with practically no protection from the probing of their creator.

  Taking out the silver coin, Avery attempted to reach out to it spiritually, not really knowing how he was supposed to establish a connection with it. It took a little bit of fiddling around with his mind during which he felt silly, but he was soon ready to begin his first divination.

  He reached out to the coin, and pictured his target. Since his mental world was fixed, what he really did was “zoom in” on the Black Turtle, while describing all of its attributes.

  At first nothing happened, but he continued trying, and after only a handful of attempts, he got a response from the coin. He had learned the skill with relative ease. He was pretty sure it was due two both his uncommon knowledge of the Tao, as well as his one-of-a-kind connection with the subject of the divination.

  What he did not expect was the hard part of divination was not establishing a connection, but using that connection. When he peered into the turles fate, He was falling into a river of knowledge, with endless data rushing downstream around him. Avery had no way of processing all of this data, every time he tried to hold on to something, it would dribble out of his cupped hands.

  It was as if he was hearing an epic orchestral piece, and he had to single out one one instrument, to ascertain a few specific notes. There was too much information, flowing past too quickly, and nothing could be gained.

  It was also more dangerous than he had anticipated. This world of information paled in front of the majesty of the Tao, but it was still enough to put Avery under its spell. This was a part of what he was chasing after, and he was expected to simply give it up?

  It was too hard for him to do, and he was only saved because he had not managed to dive deep enough to lose contact with reality. He was able to instinctively buy time warps until the connection wavered and the vision faded.

  In the end, the only thing Avery got was a single word, “sleepy”. That was the extent of his gains, but it was enough for the system.

Ding, Congratulations, you have completed an inferior divination. +1 Points

  Disappointed by the results of this low-tier divination, he was about to try again, wanting to practice and get better at it until it became actually useful, but decided to check the store before that.

  He pulled up the system catalogue, wanting to see what seer-specific manuals had become available now that he had changed jobs, in the hopes some of them could help him.

  He did not find anything like that, but he got incredibly excited when he saw the description of the “cutivating Yuan Shen” skill manual.

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  Cultivate your mind into a spirit, entrust it to the Avenue and travel the Three Realms through the Dao.

  Reading this line, and seeing it cost a million points, he was about to enter into a mad rush to gather those points at the fastest speed possible. He was about to give in to that impulse, but he stopped himself, and decided to take a step back, think about it thoroughly and properly plan for the future.

  The first thing to do was to take stock of the entire situation. What were his goals, what were the obstacles preventing him from accomplishing them, and what tools did he have at his disposal to surpass those?

  He realized that he had only two goals in life. First and foremost, he wished to get accepted by this world and rejoin the Tao, so that every waking moment was spent in the company of the Truth. In practice, he was pretty sure that meant he had to become a Saint.

  A lofty goal, but since there were already seven saints, why couldn’t he become the eighth?

  His second goal was to escape. He wanted to explore this fantasy land, he wanted to experience human contact again, to make friends and enemies, to just live a human life. He felt like he had become a robot, doing the same thing over and over again. Even his intelligence was robotical, filled with incredible knowledge but no wisdom. He was not living in this Chasm, he was surviving, and he wanted out.

  This used to be his dearest wish, so much so that he had seriously considered escaping reality through death, but now it was a mere afterthought.

  The Avenue had recontextualized everything, and he could only laugh in derision at his previous ambition, casting it aside as a secondary goal. Now, he would gladly give up his freedom and remain in exile for eternity if it meant improving his chances of becoming a saint by 1%.

  Those were his only two goals. Freedom and Sainthood, both extremely difficult to attain, but at least they were not contradictory. Indeed, Freedom would presumably come naturally on his path to sainthood, without him needing to make any special efforts towards it.

  As for obstacles, they weren't that numerous either. He was not sure about how to become holy, but becoming an immortal would be a good first step, and that would not be too hard. The only thing he needed was enough time to grow closer to the Tao, and maybe to survive a tribulation.

  Meanwhile, the only thing inhibiting his freedom were two unshakable walls and a dragon preventing any low-level magical solution. Both would become irrelevant if he became an immortal capable of walking the skies.

  Taking into account all of the ways he knew of achieving those goals, he struggled internally for a few minutes, but finally decided against buying the skill.

  It was absurdly expensive, and there was little doubt it would also be incredibly hard to master, but that was not what made Avery give up on it. It was simply unnecessary, and at this point, it would be a mistake to scatter his interests around, as it would only end up wasting time.

  Seers could be very powerful, and their unique skills were full of temptation, but Avery made the decision to set the profession aside. He was still going to keep the job and use it to gain points, but it would remain a background activity.

  Instead, he would take becoming immortal as his short term goal, as it perfectly aligned with his two major goals. Avery already had a steady path to immortality, in the form of his mental world, and from now on he would wholeheartedly focus on it.

  The divination skill was full of potential, and he would see if he could find a way to use it to help his contemplation, or speed up his enlightenment, but he would not prioritise practicing it.

  Again and again, he had paid the cost of wanting to do too much too quickly, and with how his previous shortcuts had panned out, he believed a slow and steady approach would be best. With a reliable way of gaining points, he had eternity in front of him and a clear path to follow.

  The Tao was waiting for him, and he would walk towards it at his own pace, without trying to jump the boat every few years because a nearby path looked easier.