Elijah was blind. Again.

Before dusk, after a full day of work, everyone gathered at the communal area to eat. At that time, Elijah made sure that everyone received a copy of the three cultivation techniques. Once dinner was over, everyone quickly left the communal area eager to practice their cultivation techniques under the power of twilight.

Following the actions of his people, Elijah went to cultivate as well. He continued the process of tempering his five senses and he lost the ability to use them at the end of his cultivation session. This happened despite his cautious approach to tempering his senses, and continuous improvements in the understanding of his cultivation technique and his physique.

Of course, the damage Elijah did to his senses could be completely blamed on his lack of understanding. If he wanted to, Elijah could have avoided or at least lessened the damage to his senses. However, Elijah decided to forcefully practice beyond the limit he deemed safe.

Why would he do that you ask? One reason was because he wanted to get a better understanding of what he should and shouldn’t do for when he tempered his senses in the real world. Another reason was to push his cultivation technique to the next stage. Finally, he was able to use the astral energy he gathered during cultivation toward his village core.

Unfortunately, Elijah was unable to increase the stage of his cultivation technique. However, he was able to improve his understanding on how to temper his sense and send the majority of the astral energy toward his village core. The portion of astral energy he used for his own cultivation was enough to raise his cultivation by one level.

Congratulations! You have reached level 37 (Early Senses Tempering). +1 to all stats, +4 free stat points

Now, some might ask why Elijah was feeding astral energy to the village core when it was already awakened. The answer was that he was trying to push his territory to the next rank. With a bit of concentration, Elijah opened up his territory page to see the results of his efforts.

Territory

Name: Supreme Twilight Village

Territory Astral Energy: 41,000/100,891

Population: 300

Astral Vein: Supreme Twilight

Rank: Small Village

Reputation Level: 0

Upkeep

Total Upkeep: 100,000 Astral Energy/day

System Upkeep: 20,000 Astral Energy

Heaven Upkeep: 20,000 Astral Energy

Erath Upkeep: 20,000 Astral Energy

…

Resources

5x Blessed Fields

Buildings

None

Astral Energy

Maximum Astral Energy: 100,891

Core Upgrade: 100,891/ 200,000

Daily Population Contribution: 936/day + 300 = 1,236 Astral Energy/day

Astral Energy Recovery: 100/min

Astral Energy Conversion: 100:1

Unique Structures

Total Unique Structure Bonus: 300 Astral Energy/day

Chief’s Hut

Martial Arena

Twilight Pillar

Looking at the increase to the maximum amount of his territory’s astral energy brought a smile to Elijah’s face. Although it didn’t look like much the eight hundred and ninety-one points of astral energy was a decent increase. After all, Elijah was now feeding astral energy to an awakened village core.

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Unlike when his village core was unawakened, now Elijah’s village core was only able to receive one point of astral energy for every one hundred points of astral energy he gave it. This meant Elijah would have to put in a lot more effort, but Elijah wasn’t deterred. After all, this time he was able to make use of his people.

Daily Population Contribution or DPC allowed Elijah to receive a certain amount of astral energy for every adult cultivator in his territory. The amount of astral energy each adult cultivator provided would be determined by the realm and stage they were in. Body Tempering realm cultivators at the Skin Tempering stage provided Elijah’s territory with one point of astral energy and Body Tempering realm cultivators at the Dantian Tempering stage provided ten points.

Qi Condensation realm cultivators could give eleven to twenty astral energy points. The realm after that would give twenty-one to forty points of astral energy. As for the specialty and class, they didn’t have any bearing on how much astral energy Elijah’s territory received.

Now, what determined whether a cultivator was an adult? According to the system, a cultivator had to at least be eighteen years of age or be at the first tier. Elijah called bullshit.

For the members of the human race, this requirement made sense. However, when it came to the goblin race that requirement made a lot less sense. Elijah was certain that it didn’t take the goblins eighteen years to mature. However, Elijah knew that any complaints from him would fall on deaf ears and the system wouldn’t care if he suffered.

Sadly, Elijah’s suffering wouldn’t end there. In addition to what Elijah considered a strict requirement for adulthood, there was another restriction placed on people that were slaves. Every slave was only valued as three fifths of a free cultivator at every stage.

Where did that number even come from? Elijah was vexed when he found out about the ridiculous way the system valued slaves. However, there was no way for him to change the rules of the game.

The combination of restrictions left Elijah unable to make use of the true population of his village. His true population was actually over five hundred people. Sadly, the restrictions limited him to three hundred people which also limited the number of DCP he gained.

Limiting the number of DCP Elijah gained meant that it would take him longer to upgrade his village core and territory rank. In addition to upgrading his core, Elijah needed to increase his population to at least one hundred and fifty people. Thankfully he already met that requirement and only needed to work on the second.

DCP was used to upgrade the village core, but that wasn’t the only thing it could be used for. DCP was a purer form of astral energy, and it could be applied to several things. Some examples are unique structures, astral veins and individual’s cultivation.

Unlike normal astral energy, DCP didn’t suffer from the conversion ratio. For example, if Elijah was to absorb the DCP he currently had, his cultivation would improve by one thousand two hundred and thirty-six. Not even astral stones were able to replicate this effect.

Of course, Elijah didn’t need to use DCP to boost his cultivation like other leaders might. If Elijah had more DCP he would use it to upgrade his unique structures after he finished upgrading his village core. As for the amount of astral energy he needed to upgrade his village structures, it was a grand total of… one million points of astral energy. Each.

To many people, this would seem like an insane number, and when Elijah first saw this number, he was inclined to agree with them. However, he quickly changed his tune when he saw the price for upgrading his astral vein. It would cost him one billion points of astral energy.

Elijah wept.

Once Elijah finished sending or assigning his DCP to his village core, he began to look over the rest of his territory window. The territory window gave a brief view into the different aspects of Elijah’s territory. Specifically, it focused on the things Elijah could control or influence. Even then, it only gave a limited amount of information about the things under Elijah’s influence.

Currently, Elijah’s territory screen showed that he had zero buildings, but all it took was a quick look outside to see that that was not true. If Elijah didn’t have the memories from his future self, he would have wasted a lot of time and energy trying to turn the houses in the village into proper buildings. However, Elijah knew he needed a blueprint or someone with a tier one job related to construction to build proper buildings.

Resources displayed the five Blessed Fields. These were the five fields that Elijah obtained earlier, and they were capable of growing herbs, crops and other things from the ground. Looking at the information on his territory screen reminded Elijah of what happened earlier in the day.

When he visited the villagers working on the farms, now known as Blessed Fields, he was told that they were still unable to figure out exactly how well the fields helped plants grow. However, they were able to figure out the region that the Blessed Fields covered. They discovered that the fields were overlapping with each other and if they rearranged their current farmland, they could fit all of it within four Blessed Fields.

Naturally, Elijah was happy when he heard this news, and he gave out several quests for making adjustments to the area. Elijah would be able to maximize the area for all four blessed fields and he would have one empty field that he could take back. However, Elijah didn’t plan to take back the fifth Blessed Field. Instead, he would use it to grow more crops or make it a special area for unique astral herbs.

Speaking of quests, Elijah was able to finish his One Hundred Quests quest before dusk. He had no problem with putting forth the maximum amount of astral energy he could use to assign quest. However, he still had to make sure the quest he assigned made sense and were suitable for the individual he was giving them to. Otherwise, it would negatively affect his reward.

Congratulations! You have completed the One Hundred Quest quest.

Congratulations! You have reached level 40 in the Chief job. +1% to all stats.

Due to your outstanding performance, the amount of quest you can assign to one person each day has been increased to three. The amount of astral energy you can spend when assigning each quest has been increased from 500 to 1,000.

Elijah was very satisfied with the rewards of the quest. The increases he received would be very beneficial for the future development of his villagers, his village and himself. After Elijah finished looking at his territory page, he was ready to log out for the day.

Upkeep was something that was straight forward, and it didn’t require much thought from Elijah. However, he was a bit worried about paying the daily upkeep since he was a bit low on energy. Elijah didn’t plan to leave the game until he received an answer to this question. Thank fully, he wouldn’t have to wait long since-

You are now in charge of an official territory.

Ah yes, welcome back old friend. Elijah quickly scanned through the next few messages which was basically the system telling him it was robbing him of his wealth. He quickly arrived at the part that contained the information he actually wanted to know.

You currently do not have sufficient astral energy to cover the upkeep of your territory. Until the upkeep is paid, all astral energy gained from Astral Energy Recovery will be appropriated. You can stop this, but doing so will cause you to incur harsh penalties.

Elijah was satisfied with the answer he received. He wasn’t sure if he would always use up his astral energy and pay the upkeep later, but he was glad he had the option. With everything settled, Elijah laid down and logged off.