Commanding the system to show the details of the quest, just like the first quest he had obtained on his first day, a screen appeared not too far away from him, allowing him to read through the necessary tasks he had to achieve, as well as the rewards that he would obtain. In any case, the rewards for this quest was quite unexpected, prompting him to say, “Well, this is quite the drastic increase.”

Ding!

[System Quest: The Makings of a True Spirit Vein]

Now that the user has become more used to how a spirit vein works, they must now try to become more and more like a spirit vein, with one of the skills the user has unlocked being the bread and butter of all spirit veins. Naturally, larger and stronger spirit veins can do so much more than just increasing the density of qi in the surroundings, but that’s better saved for a later time.

For now, the user must have to start acting like a true spirit vein, lest they fail to integrate with the world around them. With that, the user’s goal is to be noticed by the human race, no matter how weak or strong they may be.

Mission Prerequisite: Have [Spirit Aura].

Mission Requirements: Be noticed.

Mission Reward: 100 System Points, upgrade to the [Spirit Aura] skill

Although the goal of the quest was quite difficult for Arthur to achieve, the rewards that he would obtain from it definitely made up for that fact, already making him wonder as to how he would spend those 100 System Points once he obtained them. For one, he could allocate almost all of those System Points towards Qi Purity. Of course, the thought of allocating it towards Qi Recovery Rate and Qi Capacity also lingered in his mind.

Nevertheless, even though the reward was quite enticing, and the part regarding an upgrade to [Spirit Aura] also intrigued him, Arthur could not help but feel like something deep inside him told him to reject. After all, if there was one thing that Arthur hated more than the fact that he had been reborn as a spirit vein, that would be human interaction.

Well, of course, as an introvert in his previous life, that did not mean that he wanted to truly isolate himself from people. However, from what he read in the past regarding spirit veins, as well as what the quest was trying to insinuate, it seemed like it was unavoidable for him to interact with them one way or another.

“Then again, I don’t really have a way to speak to people as a spirit vein, so I shouldn’t think about it any further,” he muttered to himself, commanding the system that he would be rejecting the quest. However…

Ding!

The user cannot reject the quest. It is a mandatory system quest.

“Well, this was definitely within my expectations, so I’m not too surprised,” he said, letting out a sigh soon after. He then asked Sisa, “Is there really no way for me to escape this quest?”

“There is none,” Sisa replied. “In the first place, why don’t you want to do the quest? It’s not like you’ll have to interact with people or anything. You’re a spirit vein. You can’t really interact with them.”

“Well, that is true. However, how would I get them to notice my existence in the first place?” Arthur said in response. “It’s not like I have a skill that would do exactly that.”

As he said that, he could not help but remain silent for a bit, eventually saying, “Alright then. The world just made me realize I’m stupid once more.”

“As long as you’re aware,” Sisa said, chuckling soon after.

Ignoring Sisa’s response to his words, Arthur went ahead and closed the quest details before opening up the description to [Spirit Aura]. Although he had already read through it before, he wanted to double check that he knew how the skill operated.

After reading through the skill’s description a couple more times, he closed it as he let out a sigh, saying, “And so, I return to converting qi into Inferior Spirit Slag. If I want to finish this quest as quickly as possible, I’ll have to do it.”

With that, he activated [Qi Conversion] once more, prompting the cube to start spinning faster as strands of his qi were being absorbed. As he watched the process of converting qi into Inferior Spirit Slag spring to action once more, he could not help but say, “Then again, the process of converting qi into Inferior Spirit Slag is quite therapeutic in a way. I don’t really have to think much… or think at all.”

And so, Arthur mindlessly converted his qi into Inferior Spirit Slag, reminding to pace himself as even with the doubled qi recovery rate, he would eventually run out of qi to convert. While doing so, he could not help but think about how he would allocate the System Points he would obtain.

There was one part in his mind that told him that he should allocate all of his points towards [Spirit Aura]. After all, upgrading the skill would increase not only the effectiveness of the domain he’s passively exuding, but also its range. With that in mind, he thought to himself, ‘Wouldn’t it be better if I just focus on pure range, then?’

With that in mind, it was no surprise that he thought that the best way to go about progressing through this quest was to upgrade his qi capacity to unimaginable levels. After all, now that he had doubled his original qi capacity, he had now figured out the progression of cost for the stat. From what he had deduced, the cost would move onto the next step of the sequence for every 10 points of capacity he bought. Currently for him, Qi Capacity costs 2 System Points to upgrade.

Considering that the price to upgrade [Spirit Aura] stayed the same at 10 points, and each upgrade would increase the range by a meter, then the best option for him was to spend all his points on… [Spirit Aura].

Wait. That doesn’t seem right.

Figuratively shaking his head a bit to clear his thoughts, Arthur thought about the problem once more, thinking that he would not only have to increase the range of the skill, but also its effectiveness. After all, a 4% boost to qi density was barely noticeable. If he were to upgrade it to at least thrice of what it currently was, then it would be easier for people to notice that a spirit vein was right below them.

Thus, he pondered over the problem a bit more, judging the pros and cons of the situation, considering whether it was better for him to focus on Qi Capacity first, Qi Purity first, or [Spirit Aura]. In the end, the conclusion that he had arrived at was that he would benefit the most if he were to upgrade… [Spirit Aura].

“Then again, it’s also a bet of sorts. After all, I still don’t know how much the range and effectiveness would increase if I upgrade the skill,” he said, leaving it up to fate as to whether this decision of his would actually be good or not.

As he already had 4 System Points left over from upgrading Qi Capacity and Qi Recovery Rate, he only had to convert qi into Inferior Spirit Slag for half a day. Quickly converting the fresh Inferior Spirit Slag he had just converted into System Points while 40 grams were still left behind, Arthur went ahead and commanded the system to upgrade [Spirit Aura] to Level 2.

Ding!

Would you like to upgrade [Spirit Aura]? This will cost 10 System Points.

“Yeah.”

Ding!

[Spirit Aura] has been upgraded to Level 2.

The range factor of [Spirit Aura] has been increased from 10:1 to 8:1. Current range is 2.5 meters.

The boost factor of [Spirit Aura] has been increased from 0.01:1 to 0.0125:1. Current boost is 5%.

“Oh” was the only thing Arthur could say after reading through the notifications from the upgrade. After all, he was expecting a flat upgrade to both range and effectiveness once he upgraded the skill. Only now did he realize that there was another way for skills to improve when upgraded.

Scaling.

“In the end, all of that thinking I’ve been doing as to what would be the ideal thing to upgrade in order to progress faster was all for naught,” he said sometime later. “To think the answer to the question all this time was to just upgrade all of them.”

“Then again, that choice was already available in the first place,” he said, letting out a mocking chuckle towards himself for being slightly narrow-minded. With that, he went ahead and continued to convert qi into Inferior Spirit Slag once again, thinking that there was no other way for him to finish the quest other than to upgrade [Spirit Aura].

However, as he casually activated [Spirit Sense] to check his surroundings like he usually did while converting qi, his senses could not help but focus on an item that was already there but was usually overlooked. After mulling over it in silence, he could not help but feel like the answer to his first question had taken quite the convoluted route to arrive.

“Scratch my previous thought, I guess. I’m going to have to focus on improving Qi Purity,” he told himself.

As to why he had said this, that was because there was one other thing that would allow him to be easily noticed, even though it did not have the best of images.

A mountain of energized shit.