“Oh?!” While in the midst of their prayer towards the great God of Spirit Slag, Jian could not help but feel a surge of qi enter his body all of a sudden, prompting him to stop praying to the god as he wondered where it came from. However, with not much else in their surroundings being a possible cause for this surge, it naturally made sense that he attributed it to the only thing that had the ability to do so.

‘The God of Spirit Slag!’ he inwardly shouted with glee as he stopped kneeling on the ground and instead made himself comfortable, sitting cross-legged before closing his eyes. Soon, the qi he had assimilated in his body, which was his essence, and the surge of qi he had received just now were getting to know one another as he tried to absorb this surge of qi for himself, allowing him to quickly progress through his cultivation.

Of course, after noticing that her husband had stopped praying to the God of Spirit Slag, Qin eventually stopped praying as well, wondering why Jian decided to stop praying. Though, once she opened her eyes to look at him, she did not expect that the first thing she’d see would be the fact that her husband was assiduously cultivating, seemingly circulating the essence in his body as his cultivation progressed in just a short amount of time.

Although she was curious as to why he had decided to cultivate all of a sudden, it did not take long for her to have a hunch as to why. With that in mind, she could not help but inwardly praise, ‘To think the God of Spirit Slag is so benevolent!’

…

While the couple were thinking that the God of Spirit Slag was so benevolent that the god would help out in their cultivation, the true being behind the deity could not help but frown as he targeted [Spirit Analysis] on Jian, intently watching the process as he looked at the percentage beside the man’s cultivation realm from time to time.

Eventually, Jian stopped cultivating, seemingly assimilating all of the qi that Arthur had infused into him, transforming it into essence. Seeing that, Arthur went ahead and looked at the final reading brought by [Spirit Analysis], only to become disappointed as he muttered to himself, “Why is it so… low?”

Ding!

[Xu Zhoujian]

[Race]: Human

[Cultivation]: Essence Gathering Realm, 4th Stage (52%)

With just one activation of [Spirit Aura: Infusion], Jian’s progress to reaching the 5th Stage of Essence Gathering had increased from 36% to 52%. To any normal person, experiencing such an increase like that in such a short time would only be possibly done by supreme geniuses, if not a miracle to say the least. But of course, with Arthur wanting to finish the system quest as fast as possible, he thought of this progress as too slow.

“Is it because my Qi Purity is still at Tier 0, Grade 9?” Arthur muttered to himself, wondering if that was the case. However, 4 points of his qi still amounted to the qi of 40 people at the Peak Stage of Body Refinement. Surely quantity would make up for quality, right?

Unfortunately for him, Sisa decided to give him a wake-up call, telling him, “Yes, it’s definitely because your Qi Purity is at Tier 0, Grade 9. Although the Peak Stage of Body Refinement and the 1st Stage of Essence Gathering is only separated by one stage, or in your case one grade, the amount of energy the former has is nothing in comparison to what the latter was.”

“From what the name naturally suggests, the latter focuses on actively gathering qi from the surroundings to transform into essence. At the very least, a cultivator at the 1st Stage of Essence Gathering would have at least ten times as much qi inside them compared to someone at the Peak Stage of Body Refinement,” she added.

“Even more reason for me to upgrade Qi Purity to Tier 1, then,” Arthur said in response, letting out a light sigh. “Then again, it’s not like I can’t finish the system quest right now. After all, I would just need to use the skill a few more times to do so. It’s just that…”

“I’m still waiting for my qi to be filled up,” he murmured, letting out a sigh once more. “If only I could regenerate more qi.”

After saying those words, he could not help but think that it wouldn’t be a problem for him to take a small detour, focusing on upgrading Qi Recovery Rate before continuing to amass enough System Points for Qi Purity. Though, he could not help but wonder sometimes if there was any way for him to regenerate qi even faster than just upgrading Qi Recovery Rate. From how the progression of cost for the stat worked, it would take a long time for him to reach a level where he wouldn’t have to worry about having no qi to use.

Placing the thought aside for now, he decided to use the skill once more, not on Jian, but instead on Qin. Right now, what he wanted to know was how much Qin would benefit from the surge of qi in comparison to her husband, having a higher cultivation realm and all that. Naturally, Qin could not help but become surprised as a surge of qi entered his body sometime later after her husband was finished cultivating, quickly attributing it to the God of Spirit Slag.

Watching her cultivate through [Spirit Sense] while checking her progress through [Spirit Analysis], Arthur could not help but be surprised that she was able to increase her percentage from 10% to 30%, which was 4% more than what Jian was able to do. ‘I guess it has something to do with their cultivation techniques,’ he thought.

As he thought about it some more, it seemed like that was the more likely case. After all, the world wasn’t fair. Those with stronger cultivation techniques would be able to cultivate faster, while those with weaker cultivation techniques would be left behind, their peak only being average compared to those that have a silver spoon in their mouth. Then again, it’s not like a weak cultivation technique dictated how strong a person would become in the future. At most, it would just temporarily limit their potential if they worked hard enough.

Moving that aside, he thought that he would stick using [Spirit Aura: Infusion] on Jian instead of Qin. Of course, one might think that Arthur was biased towards him since he was at a lower cultivation realm. But in actuality, the reason why he chose him was that he would need to use the skill less in order for him to break through compared to Qin, even though Qin would benefit more from each skill activation. Unfortunately for her, Arthur had to activate the skill four times for her to breakthrough while Jian only needed three.

Yes, the difference of one skill activation was all it took for him to finalize this decision.

‘In any case, I should really focus on upgrading Qi Recovery Rate first,’ he thought to himself, really feeling the side effects of not being able to use his qi as liberally as he previously could. Nevertheless, he was quite satisfied with the results of his first activations of [Spirit Aura: Infusion]. Not only was he able to find out which one between the two would be a better recipient to complete the quest faster, but he also made the two believe in the God of Spirit Slag even more… which was a win?

Confusing questions aside, he allowed his qi to recover once more as he used his one attempt of [Qi Conversion] for the hour, leaving him with 9 points remaining. After waiting for three more hours, he now had 15 points of qi, which would have been 18 if not for the fact that [Spirit Sense] constantly reactivated itself. In any case, he still had enough points of qi to obtain the remaining System Points he needed to upgrade Qi Recovery Rate.

Feeling a bit of pain as he converted his qi into Inferior Spirit Slag, he watched as the amount of qi in his storage gradually neared zero as 1.5 kilograms of Inferior Spirit Slag was eventually piled up in front of the bluish-white cube. Seeing that the couple were doing other things at the moment, Arthur did not hesitate to exchange the Inferior Spirit Slag for 15 more System Points, bringing him to a grand total of 30 System Points.

As for what Arthur did next, well… that was already obvious.

Ding!

Would you like to upgrade [Qi Recovery Rate]? This will cost 30 System Points.

“Yes.”

Ding!

[Qi Recovery Rate] has been upgraded to recover 4 points of qi per hour.

“Now that I think about it, I still don’t have a skill that scales off Qi Recovery Rate,” Arthur could not help but mutter to himself, deciding to ask Sisa some other time if he would unlock skills that did scale off the stat eventually.

But for now, with his storage at 5/40, he patiently waited for his qi to recover, deciding to not use it at all… except for replenishing [Spirit Sense].

“Note to self, upgrade [Spirit Sense] sometime in the future,” he said to himself before deciding to pass the time by watching what was happening through the sensory field or by talking with Sisa about mundane things.