After an hour of nonstop screaming, cursing, and soft sobbing, the white cube finally slowed down in its rotation, returning to its original speed as a pile of dust magically appeared near it. Just like the color of the energy that entered the cube, the pile of dust also took on a light hint of gray, giving Arthur the feeling that he was the parent that birthed the child that was the pile of dust in front of him.

Feeling the energy contained inside it, he could easily tell that it was definitely compressed. Though, he kind of expected it to be a bit more compressed than that. Then again, Inferior Spirit Slag, from what the name suggested, was just the most basic type of qi conversion.

Other than that, there was a glaring issue with the conversion.

“Why is there… so little of it?” Arthur could not help but ask, looking at the pile, or better yet, the smattering of fine gray dust near the white cube. If one didn’t know any better, one would think he had some leftover cocaine in his mind.

“Well, that would have something to do with your Qi Purity,” Sisa told him. “As I’ve stated before, 1 point of qi for you is equivalent to the amount of qi 10 people without cultivation have inside their bodies. Are you actually expecting people without cultivation to store a ton of qi in their bodies?”

“Anyways, Qi Purity determines how much of the stuff you can produce with [Qi Conversion],” she continued. “In other words, upgrading Qi Purity would increase your yield, turning that pitiful aftermath of a snorting session you see in front of you into what would look like a drug lord’s wet dream.”

‘I have no clue why she used that analogy to explain how the system works, but damn does it make a lot of sense,’ Arthur could not help but mutter inwardly, wondering if Theresa gave Sisa knowledge from Earth in order for the latter to say stuff like that from time to time.

“Oh, I also forgot to mention this earlier, but…” Sisa said all of a sudden, catching his attention. “If you upgrade your Qi Purity to Tier 0, Grade 1, 1 point of qi becomes equivalent to the amount of qi 10 people would have at the 1st stage of the 1st cultivation realm. Hopefully, that motivates you to work harder. ”

Hearing how his Qi Purity was related to cultivation, Arthur’s interest was easily piqued, with his motivation quickly rekindled. After all, his initial dream in this new world was to cultivate the various cultivation realms the world had to offer and eventually reach immortality. Even though that dream was quickly crushed by being reborn as a spirit vein, the fact that even one stat was analogous to cultivation was more than enough to look at his current situation from a more positive perspective… even if it brought a constant amount of pain for him.

“Speaking of which, where’s my System Point?” he asked not long after, recalling that the reason why he put with that much pain was to obtain System Points. However, he soon inwardly regretted asking the question as Sisa told him, “Er… about that. You’ve only made about 10 grams of Inferior Spirit Slag. To gain one System Point, you would need to make… 10 times that much.”

Letting out probably the longest sigh he could ever muster, Arthur’s enthusiasm to activate [Qi Conversion] instantly fell to the abyss. After all, he would have to put up with nine more hours of constant yet tolerable pain as the qi was converted into Inferior Spirit Slag.

‘It seems I have to focus on upgrading Qi Purity for a while,’ he thought, asking Sisa soon after, his tone slightly defeated, “If I upgrade my Qi Purity to Grade 1, how much would the yield per conversion increase?”

“It would go from 10 grams to 20 grams,” Sisa quickly responded, instilling a bit of the lost enthusiasm back into Arthur. “As for every grade after that, it increases it by another 10 grams, with each conversion making 100 grams of Inferior Spirit Slag with Qi Purity at Tier 0, Grade 9.”

“Totally analogous to cultivation,” Arthur could not help but say. “Is it safe for me to assume that tiers are equivalent to cultivation realms and grades are equivalent to the stages?”

“You’re basically right to see it that way,” Sisa said in response. “Now go and convert your qi into some Inferior Spirit Slag!”

With Sisa psyching him up, Arthur went ahead and activated [Qi Conversion] once more, instantly feeling pain envelop him once more. However, the amount of pain he felt was considerably less than before, allowing him to relax a bit. Then again, he knew he couldn’t lose focus, lest he wanted to scream or yell out profanities again.

And so, with each activation of [Qi Conversion] gradually lessening the pain Arthur felt while the process happened, about 5 hours had unknowingly passed since he had been reborn in this world. During that time, he decided to occupy his mind by talking with Sisa regarding the world he was in, as well as the system that he would’ve originally gotten if Theresa didn’t tamper with his original intentions.

“So, considering the fact that my Spirit Improvement System has been modified for the usage of a spirit vein, how does it differ from the Spirit Improvement System a cultivator would get?” he asked, quickly obtaining an answer from her not long after.

“Well, first off, the Size stat wouldn’t exist. Instead, it would be replaced by the Bloodline stat, allowing the user to enhance their capabilities to greater heights,” she explained. “As for Qi Capacity, Qi Purity, and Qi Recovery Rate, the first and last one stays the same, while the last one would be replaced with the Cultivation Realm stat. However, that’s not to say the user doesn’t have a way to refine their qi as well.”

“With that said, the way the user can refine their qi is through the Aptitude stat. The higher the user’s Aptitude, the cleaner the qi, and the faster they cultivate. Of course, there’s also the skill section wherein they could see their cultivation technique and the other techniques they learned.”

“But rather than seeing the techniques in levels like in your system, the user of that system would instead see their mastery over that technique. Well, there’s also the fact that they can upgrade their skills, but so can you.”

“Other than that, there’s also bloodline modification, constitutions, professions, and other stuff that something like you wouldn’t necessarily bother with, so your system is modified to not have that,” she concluded, enlightening Arthur on how simple his system was. Now that he knew more of the differences between his system and the system he would’ve originally obtained, although he would’ve preferred the latter, he was quite happy that his current system was very simple.

“Ah. It’s finally done,” he said sometime later, noticing that the white cube had finished converting his qi into Inferior Spirit Slag yet again. With him activating the skill five times in total already, the initial smattering of dust near the white cube had now turned into a small pile of dust. Well, it still didn’t look any better compared to how it initially looked, but progress is still progress.

Just as he was about to activate [Qi Conversion] yet again, noting the fact that he was halfway to obtaining his first System Point, he could not help but find it satisfying that the qi he consumed would recover near or at the very exact moment the conversion process was done. Of course, if he could upgrade his recovery rate, he totally would. No one would shy away from having a little bit extra, after all.

Ding!

You have obtained a system quest.

“Hoh? A system quest?” Arthur could not help but say. “But why now, though?”

“I’d suggest reading the description,” Sisa said in response to his words. “In any case, it’s about time for one to pop up.”

Hearing that, Arthur went ahead and commanded the system to show him the quest he had received, slightly surprised at what the quest gave him as a reward.

[System Quest: Adjusting to a New Life]

As a human from the previous world, the user of the Spirit Improvement System now has to quickly adjust to his new life as a budding spirit vein. Although the future seems bland, the user would eventually come to realize that this world may offer them things they didn’t expect.

However, to eventually reach that point, the user would have to convert the qi inside their bodies into tangible items first, exchanging them for System Points. In order to make the user’s experience easier, the system has decided to offer a quest wherein they would obtain more System Points than usual at the first exchange.

Mission Prerequisite: Activate [Qi Conversion Lv. 1] 5 times.

Mission Requirement: Activate [Qi Conversion Lv. 1] 5 times (0/5), exchange Inferior Spirit Slag for System Points (0/1)

Mission Reward: 5 System Points

“In other words, once I amass 100 grams of Inferior Spirit Slag, I’ll get six System Points instead of one,” Arthur said, to which Sisa agreed with. “Pretty much.”

“Well, before I continue converting my qi, what does the quest mean by ‘things that I didn’t expect?’” he asked soon after. In response, Sisa lightly giggled as she told him, “Although I can tell you right now, I won’t. It’s more exciting if you find out for yourself.”

‘Figured she would say something like that,’ he muttered inwardly. In any case, the quest’s description was enough of a reason for him to keep on doing what the system wanted him to do. Or in other words…

“[Qi Conversion].”