After Elijah logged out, he didn’t feel drained or tired. If he wanted to, Elijah could immediately head to the backyard and partake in another cultivation session. However, Elijah decided not to cultivate for two reasons.
Reason number one, he recently became a cultivator less than twelve hours ago and he wanted to give his body and mind time to adjust. Of course, there was nothing actually wrong with Elijah’s physique and he could immediately continue cultivating. However, Elijah didn’t want to risk bringing harm to his real physique and decided to play it safe.
Reason number two, Elijah was considering improving his cultivation technique before he continued raising his cultivation. He couldn’t apply this idea in the game, so he decided to try it in real life. Of course, doing so would slow down Elijah’s cultivation speed. However, Elijah wasn’t bothered because focusing on his cultivation technique could be viewed as sharpening his axe.
Plus, the cultivation journey wasn’t a race anyway. However, if it was, it would be considered a never-ending race with no finish line in sight. Since there was no finish line there would be plenty of time for Elijah to take first place after falling behind. This thought brought a smile to Elijah’s face.
Now, Elijah only needed to pick something to pour his astral energy into. Although Elijah could let the astral energy his cultivation technique summoned disperse into the air, he thought it would be best if he could find something like his village core that he could pour the astral energy into. Elijah pondered on this problem while he spent the next two hours handling non game related task. Once he was done, he logged back in.
Back in the game, the first thing Elijah did was head to the village core and feed it astral energy. Little by little he would provide the core with the energy it needed to awaken. Once he finished providing the core energy, he rested for a few minutes before leaving.
Currently, it was still nighttime since Elijah didn’t spend much time outside of the game. At this time some of the villagers were asleep, but there were more than a few villagers up and about taking care of different tasks. Elijah knew the villagers wouldn’t need his help with their tasks, so he focused his attention and energy on something else.
You have unlocked the badge system. You can now create and hand out badges. To create a badge, you must sacrifice 1,000 points of astral energy. Would you like to create a badge? Yes, or no?
After Elijah returned to the village, he neglected the badge system. Now that he had time, he directed all of his attention toward it. Elijah spent a few seconds trying to figure out the badge system before a message appeared in front of him.
The message that appeared in front of Elijah was both helpful and discouraging. The message gave Elijah a brief and simple explanation on how he could make badges. Sadly, the cost was too high and Elijah wouldn’t be able to equip all of the villagers with badges.
Creating badges required Elijah to sacrifice astral energy that he acquired through cultivation. Although Elijah wouldn’t lose any levels or stats by sacrificing his astral energy, he would need to make up the lost energy before he could continue improving his cultivation. Shaking his head Elijah hoped he could find a way to lower the cost of the badges. With the current cost, Elijah’s only option was to quickly awaken the core of the village.
To lower the amount of astral energy needed to create a badge look for suitable materials to aid in the creation of the badge.
As the good book says, ask and you shall receive. A huge grin spread across Elijah’s face when he saw the message. If he could reduce the cost of the badges by half then with his current total of astral energy, he would be able to at least create a badge for all of the village warriors. Now, he only needed to find some suitable materials.
“What do you think?” Elijah asked. “Are there any suitable material that we can use?”
“I can think of a few.”
It didn’t take Elijah a long time to find the person who was best suited to helping him create badges. Currently he was speaking to one of the village elders. Her name was Catharine and she was in charge of keeping account of the various village materials. She had short dark grey hair that matched her dark grey eyes. She had more than a few wrinkles on her face, but they couldn’t cover up her kind smile.
“But I don’t think the materials we are going to use is the only thing we should focus on.” Catharine said.
After half a second of thought Elijah responded. “Should I be looking for a special area to lower the cost of the badges?”
“No, I was thinking of finding someone to create the shape of the badge. The badge system allows people to use badges through your recognition or the villages recognition. Of the one thousand points of astral energy, you are supposed to sacrifice, most of it will most likely go to the creation and shaping of the badge. The remaining amount will be used to establish the connection to you or the village,”
Elijah mentally reminded himself to always ask questions. If he had dived in head first without asking, he would have spent a lot more astral energy than he needed to. Elijah let out a sigh of relief before he continued questioning Catharine.
“Do you have any suggestions on who we should ask to shape the badges?”
“My son Caleb. He studied wood working under his father before he passed. He still sleeping right now, but if you give me a few minutes I could wake him up for you. He definitely won’t refuse a request from our new chief.”
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“Thank you.” Elijah answered with a smile on his face. “If it was a personal request, I would definitely let him sleep in. But these badges can help improve our ability to fight against the goblins.”
“No need to say anymore. I’ll get my son to help you even if I have to drag him here myself.”
A few minutes later Catherine returned dragging a middle-aged man that was a head taller than her. His dark gray eyes were hidden by his droopy eyelid and his messy bed head was dark and cut short. One look and it was obvious that Catharine dragged her son out of his bed.
“Hello Caleb, I’m Eli.” Elijah walked up to Caleb and greeted him with a smile. “Sorry to disturb your rest, but I needed your help with something.”
“If you were really sorry, you would let me go back to sleep.”
WHACK!
“Don’t be disrespectful.” Catharine scolded Caleb. “The chief has called you to do important work. This will affect the safety and lives of everyone in the village, so you better take this seriously.”
“Alright.” Caleb replied with a yawn. Although Catharine slapped him on the back of his head, there wasn’t much change to his posture or expression. “Tell me what you need me to do.”
Elijah, Catharine, and Caleb spent some time ironing out the details for the creation of the badges. Actually, it was more like Catharine and Caleb were having a discussion with Elijah occasionally nodding along. They asked Elijah if he had any preferences and his request was simple and straight forward.
“I would prefer you use materials that would reduce the astral energy I sacrifice to the lowest amount possible. Until I awaken the village core, I am only able to use a small amount of astral energy. For now, all of the astral energy is coming from what I gained through my own cultivation.”
After Elijah finished speaking, he realized he sounded like some of the business owners in the real world. Doing everything to cut the cost of operating their business. However, Elijah wasn’t running a business he was running a village. At this moment, it felt like he was the sole person bearing the cost for running the village. Also, it was at this moment Elijah came into contact with the second greatest sin of the cultivation journey.
Poverty! As a cultivator, to be poor was a sin. Without wealth it was impossible for a cultivator to continue making strides on the cultivation journey. Astral stones, rare fruits and plants that could strengthen a cultivator’s physique or increase their cultivation lever and high-quality cultivation techniques were all examples of wealth. Regardless of what realm a cultivator was at, wealth was absolutely necessary.
“The chief is a saint.” Catharine’s eyes were overflowing with respect and gratitude. “Very few leaders would be willing to sacrifice their own cultivation for the sake of their people.”
“There’s no need to praise me,” Elijah responded with a smile on his face. “Caleb how long will it take you to make the badge?”
“Hmmm.” Caleb head was bowed and he stroked his chin while he thought to himself. “Well, first I need to establish a proper plan for creating the badge. Then I need to create a few test models before creating the actual thing. And I should probably grab a meal before I even start.”
Caleb had his head down, so he wasn’t able to see the frown that appeared on Catharine’s face. Seeing Catherine raise her hand up, Elijah decided to immediately take action to save Caleb’s life. “A man can’t do good work on an empty stomach. Just tell me the most amount of time it will take for you to give me the finished product.”
“It should take me four hours.”
“Great. Then as the chief, I’ll leave the making of the badge to you and we can meet up again in four hours. Agreed?”
As a chief, you have asked a villager to complete a task on your behalf. This task can now be turned into a quest. Do you wish to issue a quest? Yes, or no?
Right, as a chief, Elijah was able to issue quests. Although Elijah would love to say that his future self failed to give him this information, the truth was he forgot. Of course, it wasn’t completely Elijah’s fault that he forgot.
After all, Elijah didn’t have the intelligence and wisdom to perfectly recall the huge quantity of information that he received from his future self whenever he wanted to. Also, he received the memories of his future self more than two weeks ago and it was normal for him to not remember everything. Also, he didn’t… well there were plenty of excuses he could give for why he didn’t remember. Plus, it wouldn’t have mattered much even if he did.
Without any hesitation, Elijah agreed to issue the quest. Elijah could feel excitement bubbling up from within him as he imagined how quickly his villagers would grow with the quests, he was going to give them. Sadly, Elijah forgot a small, little, tiny, key important detail.
When issuing a quest, the rewards for a quest are determined by the amount of astral energy you sacrifice. The minimum amount of astral energy you can currently sacrifice is 10 points, and the maximum is 500 points.
He was poor. He was a sinner that committed the second greatest sin a cultivator could commit. The best thing he could do now, was pray for forgiveness and repent by snatching up as much resources as possible. The system even gave him an item that would help him in this endeavor.
Quest: Create a Badge
Description: Your gracious and generous chief has tasked you to create a badge for him. This badge will be a symbol of his strength and the strength of the village.
Reward: 2,500 points of astral energy, experience
Penalty: None
Would you like to issue the Create a Badge quest? Yes, or no?
Elijah wasn’t able to change the name and description of the quest. However, he was able to affect the reward of the quest by increasing or decreasing the amount of astral energy he was sacrificing. After playing around a bit, Elijah figured out how the reward system worked.
Every point of astral energy he sacrificed, was rewarded as five points of astral energy to Caleb. Once Elijah sacrificed two hundred and fifty points of astral energy the quest started rewarding experience. However, Elijah wasn’t able to see or change how much experience was being awarded.
Another thing Elijah noticed was that the amount of astral energy he sacrificed affected the description. Since he sacrificed the maximum amount, he was called a gracious and generous chief. When he sacrificed a lower amount of astral energy the adjectives used to describe him were a lot less flattering.
When it came to the penalties, Elijah had absolute control over it. If he wanted to, Elijah could give out harsh penalties like losing several job levels, losing cultivation levels, banishment and death. Elijah could give out silly penalties as well. He could force Caleb to stand in a corner, use a silly name when he introduced himself and anything else he thought of.
During Elijah exploration of the quest giving mechanics, time was frozen. Or it at least appeared to be so. It was similar to what Elijah experienced when he was about to undergo his first battle of will.
Once Elijah was done exploring the quest mechanics, he agreed to issue the Creating a Badge quest after he sacrificed the maximum amount of energy. The moment he chose yes everything returned to normal. Caleb was about to respond to the question Elijah asked before the first message appeared, but he suddenly froze, and his eyes became unfocused. Looking at his expression, Elijah smiled and waited for the praises and gratitude that he was about to receive.