In the absence of an emergency arising, Benton was done with his spending spree of Sect Points. He’d just utilized a massive amount for improving himself and wanted to get used to the changes before adding any more. Besides, he’d overspent his personal allotment by quite a bit.

Unlike previous times when he’d dipped into the sect’s funds for his own use, he didn’t plan on paying the sect back. Instead, he thought of the expenditure as a bonus allocation and intended to go back to spending two of every ten points gained.

He did, however, need to determine his next steps for what direction to take his ultimate juggernaut combat build in order to spend those future points.

First up was Body Cultivation. Sixteen points would get him to the peak of Silver and another four would get him to Gold. If he wanted to max out his combat potential and he hadn’t yet met the requirements to advance to Nascent Soul, increasing his strength and toughness was a good option.

The problem was that Benton didn’t know if it was a good option long term. Body Cultivation was its own thing and not necessarily something used to supplement Spiritual Cultivation. Up through the peak of Golden Core, he was one hundred percent positive that each realm of Body Cultivation gained was an asset.

The question was what happened upon the transition to Nascent Soul?

Su had vaguely learned from his sect that cultivators got a new body upon reaching that realm. Benton had no idea if that remaking meant all the points he put into Body Cultivation would then become worthless or if the new body incorporated those benefits somehow.

The good thing was that he had a method to find out—create a technique on Nascent Soul cultivation just like he had for Golden Core. That idea was probably a good one, anyway.

An obvious area of immediate improvement was a shield for area of effect attacks. That weakness was his biggest vulnerability and should be high on his list to mitigate.

Adding new Concepts whenever he had the available points was definitely a good thing as well.

It also occurred to him that he now had a buttload of qi available, over half a million. He naturally regenerated five percent per hour, meaning that, if he used his entire pool, it would take him twenty hours to regain it all. That was a long time.

Of course, he had very little occasion to completely drain his qi pool to that point, so the high recharge time hadn’t been an issue. One idea he had might change the paradigm by giving him an outlet for unspent qi—creating spirit coins.

Spirit coins were amazing things, essentially qi manifested into solid form in easy one thousand, five thousand, and ten thousand qi chunks. Cultivators could use them to quickly replenish their pool, very efficiently if the spirit coin was of a corresponding qi aspect to the one used by the cultivator and a lot less efficiently if it wasn’t. Because the coins were so useful, they were also traded as currency.

Benton not only had a huge pool, but he could conceivably create spirit coins of any qi aspect. By making a technique that allowed him to do just that and another technique to regenerate his qi pool faster, he’d basically be giving himself a license to print money and to create a strategic resource for his sect members.

“System, can I create a technique to make spirit coins?”

Host currently has 195 Sect Points.

Spirit coins are manifested corresponding a specific qi aspect. The qi aspect must be selected when creating the technique.

Spend two Sect Points to attain (Qi Aspect) Spirit Coin Manifestation – Small Success?

The response was exactly what Benton had expected. The technique involved external qi manipulation and was thus ranked as Foundation Establishment, so relatively inexpensive.

There was no way, though, that he was going to create a separate technique for each qi aspect.

“Not quite yet, System. Can I create a technique to make a spirit coin of any aspect that I specify at the time of coin creation?”

The Sect Leader System has previously authorized the creation of variable aspected techniques. The requested technique is judged to be of a similar nature. Since such a technique has never been seen on this planet, creation will require fifty percent more Sect Points per stage.

Perfect. Instead of spending eight points per qi aspect, he only needed to spend twelve points once to achieve the same end result.

He still didn’t know everything he needed to about the technique, however.

“System, in order to create a one thousand qi spirit coin at Small Success, how much qi must I input? And is that input dependent on the qi aspect at all?”

This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

At Small Success, creating a 1,000-qi spirit coin requires 2,000 qi.

The efficiency of the technique is not dependent on the qi aspect.

Wow. That was very inefficient.

“System, how do the required inputs change at Large Success and Mastery?”

At Large Success, creating a 1,000-qi spirit coin requires 1,750 qi. At Mastery, creating a 1,000-qi spirit coin requires 1,100 qi.

From an efficiency standpoint, Mastery was definitely worth it.

The spirit coin technique would give him a valid use for his massive amount of available qi, but his long recharge time would eat into his profits. He couldn’t, after all, drain down his pool too low because he couldn’t risk not being ready for a surprise attack.

Benton needed a more efficient way to replenish his pool than his natural regeneration. Normal cultivators simply cultivated to recharge. There had to be something he could do.

“System, can I create a technique to quickly replenish my qi pool?”

Host currently has 195 Sect Points.

Spend two Sect Points to attain Meditation – Small Success?

Benton laughed. Sweet.

He was confused by one thing about the System notice, though.

“Not yet, System. Can you please explain why Meditation is rated as Foundation Establishment. It involved internal manipulation, doesn’t it? So shouldn’t it be Qi Gathering for one point?”

Meditation involved pulling more qi from the environment into your body and, thus, involves external qi manipulation, making it a Foundation Establishment technique.

Two points are correct.

Wow. The System didn’t like to be questioned. Good to know.

“System, can you please tell me how effective Meditation is at Small Success, Large Success, and Mastery?”

At Small Success, Host’s qi regeneration is increased from 5% per hour to 10% per hour. At Large Success, Host’s qi regeneration is increased from 10% per hour to 20% per hour. At Mastery, Host’s qi regeneration is increased from 20% per hour to 35% per hour.

Nice. Instead of refilling his qi pool in twenty hours, he could do so in three at Mastery.

Another possibility for a technique he’d been thinking about was healing. It was all well and good to be able to kill rival cultivators, but being able to heal his sect members was also important. After all, Shop Points were limited, so he couldn’t always rely on buying Healing Pills. It would also be a long time before he had an Alchemy Pavilion that was capable of producing any pills he’d be willing to let his sect members use.

After a few questions, he determined that Healing could be performed by a number of qi aspects, such as nature, body, water, etc., but the best one was the actual aspect of Healing. If he really wanted to be good at it, his best bet was to form a Healing Concept and then max out a Foundation Establishment technique in order to use that qi.

And lastly, he definitely needed to get to peak Golden Core at some point.

Oops. He almost forgot. Now that he had so much qi available, he’d be able to create a technique to slow or speed time, which would be a huge benefit in any fight.

Best of all, for being so potentially overpowered, there was no variability or specialness to it. It should cost just the standard eight Sect Points for a garden variety Foundation Establishment technique. Definitely add that one to the list!

That was about all the future needs he could think of at that moment. He compiled them in a list and had the System generate a table.

Gold Body Cultivation: 20* Nascent Soul Cultivation Knowledge: 4 Area of Effect Shield: 12 New Concepts: 16ea Spirit Coin Creation: 12 Meditation: 4 Healing (Plus Concept): 24 Peak Golden Core: 32 Speed/Slow Time: 8 *Depending on what Nascent Soul Cultivation Knowledge told him about the practice. Otherwise, a waste of points.

He needed to set priorities.

First up was either the area of effect shield, time manipulation, or spirit coin creation. The former shored up his defense but might not ever even be needed while the latter was immediately practical even if it wouldn’t help much in a fight. The middle was the wildcard that would greatly help him in fights if his opponent was faster than him. Like the area of effect shield, that was one of those things that may never happen or might happen often.

It was a tough call, and he honestly wasn’t sure. Of the entire list, he was positive that those three techniques and Meditation would be his first buys in some order.

Second—uh, fifth?—was getting to peak Golden Core. It would directly increase his power and qi pool size, which was always a good thing.

Next would have to be Nascent Soul Cultivation Knowledge. It was the quite cheap, and it would help him prepare for his next major realm and tell him if continuing on the path of Body Cultivation made sense.

Final was Body Cultivation, if useful, new Concepts, and Healing in some order. The latter was just so expensive and not an immediate need, considering the existence of Healing Pills. He did resolve, however, to designate some nature aspected villagers from the next round of recruitment to form a Healing Pavilion.

Benton rubbed his hands together. Next time he traveled to Vermillion Incomparable Rain Town, he’d have to grab a clinic or hospital or something from the sect grounds.