Noticing Arthur’s reaction towards the thing [Qi Conversion Lv. 11] brought, Sisa could not help but tell him before things got out of hand, “Arthur, if you were expecting that you would be able to convert your qi into Spirit Stones just because you leveled [Qi Conversion] to Level 11, as you could see, you’d become sorely disappointed. Do note that everything has a process to it. Of course, just because the word ‘Inferior’ was removed from the next tier of items you could produce, that doesn’t mean it would be just as bad as the first one.”

“Well, I guess I was just expecting something else than other variants of Spirit Slag to be available for me to produce,” Arthur replied, his tone naturally that of disappointment. After all, now that he had access to Spirit Slag, didn’t that just mean that he could now produce literally slightly better shit than before? “Say, Sisa. How high of a level would I need [Qi Conversion] to be before I’d be able to produce Spirit Stones?”

Although Arthur knew that Sisa wouldn’t give him an exact answer, he knew very well that it wouldn’t be impossible for her to give a vague one. With that, he could not help but suck in a breath of cold air as she told him, “At the very least, you’d need the skill to be around Level 50 or so. The really effective ones wouldn’t even come at least until Level 80.”

“That high?” Arthur couldn’t even fathom how many points he would need before he got to that point. If every 10 levels of [Qi Conversion] necessitated an increase in cost by a factor of 100, then wouldn’t that mean that he’d be dealing with millions of points by Level 40? Naturally, reaching Level 80 would be worse, needing him to amass billions of points just to progress one level.

To the current him, such a thing was naturally impossible to achieve. With that, his motivation to continue was deflated as he said, “I think I’m regretting this decision more and more by the second. Sisa, before I fully wallow in despair, could you tell me how Spirit Slag is better than Inferior Spirit Slag?”

While he forced himself to listen as he battled with the utter despair he felt, Sisa went ahead and did what Arthur asked of her, telling him, “Well, there’s not much of a difference between Inferior Spirit Slag and Spirit Slag. If Inferior Spirit Slag is the usual cheap manure you could get at any farmer’s market, then Spirit Slag would be the ones packaged in a slightly better sack with those colorful logos on them to make them stand out more. Oh, almost forgot that obnoxiously cheap perfume they’d spray on it just to make it smell nice.”

“I appreciate the comparison, Sisa,” Arthur said in response. “However, please tell me the actual benefits of converting my qi into Spirit Slag instead of Inferior Spirit Slag, lest I lose all mood to continue trying.”

“Geez. And here I was, trying to add a bit of flavor text to make you not regret your choice that much,” Sisa said with a light sigh. “Anyways, as for the tangible benefits Spirit Slag brings to the system, if exchanging 100 grams of Inferior Spirit Slag yields 1 System Point, then exchanging the same amount of Spirit Slag yields…”

“100 System Points.”

“I knew my decision to upgrade [Qi Conversion] was correct,” Arthur said all of a sudden, letting out a cackle as all of the despair he was feeling a moment ago had magically disappeared. Naturally, Sisa knew that Arthur was just boasting, not actually thinking the decision was worth it until Sisa explained it to him. Of course, with that in mind, Sisa knew that her next words would make him feel great despair again.

“Well, before you become too eager in converting your qi into Spirit Slag, I just wanted to let you know that converting your qi into Spirit Slag right now would only yield one gram of the stuff.”

At that very instant, Arthur’s mood returned to its previous state once more as he asked, “…why?”

“You lack the necessary Qi Purity to convert qi into Spirit Slag. At the very least, you’d have to reach Tier 1 Qi Purity for a point of your qi to yield 10 grams of Spirit Slag,” Sisa responded. Soon, she added, “That’s why I told you earlier that you’d eventually arrive at the same point in the long run.”

Hearing that, Arthur could not help but let out a long sigh. If that was the case, then he would have probably focused on upgrading Qi Purity in the first place. After all, upgrading that would bring him more benefits than upgrading [Qi Conversion] to Level 11. But since he had already upgraded [Qi Conversion], then there’s no point for him to cry over spilled milk.

Trying to distract himself from the seemingly bad decision he had just made, he decided to focus on the two new things that he had just bought from the system. Namely, [Spirit Analysis] and the knowledge [The Basic Realms of Cultivation].

As one was a skill, he decided to check that out first, prompting a screen to appear in front of him with the skill’s description not too long after. Reading through it, he quickly understood why the system gave him access to the skill once he had received the system quest. “So, this is the system’s way of telling me that this is how I’ll check my progress on the current quest.”

Ding!

[Spirit Analysis Lv. 1]

A spirit vein usually does not have any clue about the various things in the world they reside in. For the most part, they only care about the state of the world, as well as the amount of qi that is available to them. This skill aims to alleviate that.

Through this skill, the user now has the ability to analyze any object or being, as long as the amount of qi inside the thing being analyzed does not go any higher than 2 tiers of Qi Purity than the user. Do note that some objects and entities have resistance and immunity towards skills like these.

To enhance the power and range of the skill, the user could opt to upgrade their Qi Purity, or enhance the skill as is, increasing the range of things they could analyze, as well as the power of their analysis.

Current limit: Any object or being that goes beyond Tier 2, Grade 9 Qi Purity.

Upgrade cost: 25 System Points

“By Tier 2, Grade 9 Qi Purity, the system is telling me that I can only identify people that are at the peak of the third realm at most,” Arthur muttered to himself. “Though, for objects, it’s probably more vague than that.”

“Of course, it’ll probably be better if I try and assimilate the knowledge I bought from the system,” he said soon after, allowing the information he had processed and organized sometime earlier to truly fill his mind, allowing him to become engrossed in it as Sisa said, “He’s definitely going to enjoy it.”

And surprisingly, he did.

From what the knowledge told him, the system decided to go in-depth regarding information towards the various cultivation realms. Of course, that did not mean that the system went into abstruse topics. Instead, it explained the cultivation realms, as well as the process of cultivation more thoroughly, allowing him to compare it to the cultivation novels he had read in his past life.

As for the cultivation realms he now had knowledge of, there were three. Namely, these three realms were the Body Refinement Realm, Essence Gathering Realm, and Essence Condensing Realm, in that order.

Just like the cultivation novels he had read in the past, the Body Refinement Realm was the realm where the body would be refined and tempered in order to be more perceptive towards the presence towards qi. Indeed, the main goal of this realm was to make the body more perceptive towards qi and not strengthen his body. From what the system told him, the part where the body became stronger was just a positive side effect as the structure of the body was becoming more optimized.

After that, once the cultivator had reached the peak of the Body Refinement Realm, their sensitivity towards qi would have reached the bare minimum, finally allowing them to slowly pull in qi from their surroundings and assimilate them into their bodies. Of course, the qi in their surroundings was different from the qi they had assimilated. It could be said that the qi had taken on the identity of the person that had absorbed it through a series of processes, prompting those to call this qi their ‘essence’. This was also the reason why the next realm was called the Essence Gathering Realm.

As for the purpose of the realm itself, it was more or less self-explanatory. The goal of the Essence Gathering Realm was to make cultivators be more familiar with the process of absorbing qi, as well as the feeling of qi inside their bodies. After all, the feeling of something filling up your entire body isn’t really a pleasant feeling… except if one were to head in that direction.

Once the cultivator had filled every nook and cranny inside their body with qi, well essence, they would now try to exert control over this energy and try to compress it into a more stable form. At the same time, they would pull in more qi from their surroundings and continue to compress it. This was why the third realm, the limit of what Arthur could identify at the moment, was called the Essence Condensing Realm.

From what the system had told him, the essence in the body before the Essence Condensing Realm was in the form of ethereal wisps that felt like it would crumble apart at any time. However, once a cultivator had entered the Essence Condensing Realm, their essence would undergo a qualitative change, transforming into strands of essence that the cultivator now had the ability to release outside their body.

Well, for the most part, that was all Arthur needed to know now. Though, the system did tell him of the next cultivation realm, even if it was just briefly mentioned. In any case, after assimilating the knowledge he had bought from the system, Arthur felt like his horizons had been widened, while at the same time feeling a bit glum that he had no way to cultivate himself.

“I guess I can consider upgrading Qi Purity as a type of cultivation,” he said to himself, trying to cheer himself up. Fortunately, he did not dwell on the matter too long as he decided to focus on another thing altogether.

The system quest.