Purchasing a Cultivation Method

Purchasing a cultivation method.

A sum that nearly brushed against a hundred thousand. It was a fortune one could barely hope to touch before the late stages of Qi Refinement.

And yet Nain pouted as she scrolled through the section labeled My Bookmarked Methods.

"Hmm…"

These were the methods she had carefully stockpiled for the day she finally stepped into Qi Refinement—each one optimized to fit her as perfectly as possible.

The Clear Cloud Seal, a qi-refining method for tempering spiritual power. The Dragon Form Seal, a body-tempering method for forging ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠the physique. The Solar Enlightenment Seal, which elevated spiritual force, and the Fire Imprint Talisman Power Seal, which contained talisman arts.

They were the fruit of years of painstaking deliberation…

"Hmmm…"

Nain narrowed her eyes, caught in a fierce internal struggle over something that simply would not sit right with her.

She glanced once around the dark cultivation chamber, ran a hand over her transformed body, and shot a look at Pou, who ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠was loitering at her side.

"Figures. They're not even the right tier for me to learn right now, are they?"

The Clear Cloud Seal, the Dragon Form Seal, the Solar Enlightenment Seal, and the Fire Imprint Talisman Dao Seal—all fine methods in their own right. But for Nain, whose talent had blossomed through Pou, weren't they just a little… lacking?

"In the end, they're still only Seals."

She left the bookmarked list behind and turned her gaze to the Real-Time Method Rankings.

Baekgan Sacred World was the monopoly platform used by every cultivator on Earth—and even those from the outer star systems. Its live rankings listed every method that could be cultivated at the Qi Refinement stage. Even Foundation Establishment methods held places on the board.

"Woooow…"

It was genuinely magnificent.

Nain's eyes sparkled as she drank in the detailed description of the Dragon Elephant Prajna Art. Crush mountains. Vaporize the sea. Even the words alone made her chest swell with overwhelming grandeur.

"Sigh."

But she let out a light breath and tapped the filter window. For someone still at the Severing Longevity Stage, a Foundation Establishment method sat higher than the stars in the sky.

Ssshk.

The Foundation Establishment methods that had dominated the upper ranks vanished in a cascade. Only Qi Refinement methods remained. With a serious expression, Nain scanned the newly ordered list.

"Hmm, this one's iffy, and this one doesn't suit me. Wait—the Child Art? People still cultivate that…?"

Thud.

After more than an hour of digging, she finally slumped back against the soft wall of the cultivation chamber, head and body both. There simply wasn't a single method that truly clicked.

Am I asking for that much? I just need something Earth Dao grade and Law grade or higher.

The grade of a cultivation method was broadly divided by form and by quality. Just as spirit roots, constitutions, and talismans had ranks, methods were classified into five clear tiers.

By form, they were ordered Seal, Art, Law, Canon, and Scripture. By quality, they ran Basic, True Dao, Earth Dao, Heaven Gate, and Immortal.

It's not like I'm asking for Heaven Gate grade…

In the first place, Baekgan Sacred World did not sell Heaven Gate grade methods—or anything at Canon grade or above. Techniques of that stature were clutched tightly in the fists of the great sects and megacorporations. So yes: Nain was asking for a lot.

She touched the filter window again. This time she wiped everything away from the start, leaving only Earth Dao and Law grade methods on the board. And then methods whose very names already pleased her began to appear.

"I should have done this from the beginning."

"Huh?"

Nain blinked. For a moment she wondered if her vision had gone wrong. She scrubbed her eyes hard with the back of her hand and looked at the screen again…

"One million, two million three hundred thousand, eight hundred thousand credits…?"

The units were different. Unlike the mere tens of thousands of credits she was used to, these numbers had two extra zeroes dangling off the end.

"Ehhh???"

Nain despaired. Her grand dream had crumbled before it even began, and it was so sad that tears came to her eyes.

Nain's talent had always been less than nonexistent—it had been catastrophic. So for years, whenever she logged into Baekgan Sacred World, she never even glanced at anything above Basic grade or Seal grade. Dreams you could never hold only broke your heart.

Because of that, she had absolutely no sense of how expensive the upper-tier methods actually were. Every method on the open market was a degraded lower form spun off from the secret arts of corporations and sects. And did corporations and sects look like fools who would hand over their methods for cheap?

Nain blankly flicked a finger. And then ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠she found a method whose name and contents both settled perfectly into her heart. It was a five-elements method that fit her Five Spirit Roots exactly, and it wove qi-refining and spirit-tempering together as one.

"But two million seven hundred thousand credits…. This one's way too expensive too."

Her gaze drifted back to My Bookmarked Methods.

Clear Cloud Seal. Dragon Form Seal. Solar Enlightenment Seal. Names so familiar they were practically intimate—so short and plump they almost felt cute.

Maybe I should just learn these first, then switch over to a higher method later?

She stared blankly, turning it over for a moment.

"No. Absolutely not."

Nain shook her head hard and cast off the thin temptation of compromise.

There was no way the process of half-learning a Basic grade method and then swapping into an Earth Dao one later would go smoothly. More than that, she had something solid to lean on.

When it came to the Dao of talismans, she possessed a heaven-sent talent—no, a talent Pou had forged for her—that was nothing short of overwhelming.

"W-why was I even worrying about money? I can just draw a mountain of talismans and sell them!"

The flash of realization put life back into her eyes. How long had it taken her to earn eighty thousand credits? She'd done it in a single day! Hundreds of thousands, millions of credits? Keep stamping out talismans and they weren't some unreachable mirage. They were sitting somewhere very easy to reach.

Nain dismissed the hologram floating in the air. In its place, she fixed the detail window for the Five Elements Spirit Ascension Enlightenment Method dead center in her field of view.

Immortal cultivation.

From the beginning, it was a path of defying the heavens—of going against the principles of the sky. A cultivator was someone who, even before an ideal they could never touch, even before a treasure they could never hold, sometimes had to throw their life away to seize it.

The moment resolve broke and one settled for reality, the path of cultivation—which had to keep stretching forward—was sealed shut at once.

There was no compromise.

"Th-the goal is three million credits!"

Nain immediately poured every last credit she had into materials for drawing talismans.

Eighty thousand credits gone—and she didn't regret a single one. They would all come back as credits again.

Sparks lit in Nain's eyes.

"A-all right. Let's do this."

Ding! Ding! Ding!

Ryu Yeonhwa opened her eyes to the endless cascade of alerts from her terminal. Confusion clouded her blue irises.

"Who is it? There's no one who'd be sending me anything at this hour."

She tapped the terminal and checked her messages. In the inbox she managed under a starred label as VIP Client, a mountain of messages had piled up.

Ding! Ding!

Messages were still arriving even now. Ryu Yeonhwa hurried into the chat window.

"What is all this?"

Her eyes raced from the top of the list straight to the bottom. The talismans sent totaled two thousand sheets—1,740 low-grade Might Talismans and 260 mid-grade Might Talismans.

"What in the…"

The talismans delivered by spatial courier were already waiting only to be materialized into reality. Ryu Yeonhwa hurriedly hit accept and headed for the spatial transfer room in her office.

Hwaaah—!

And there, in a single long row, stood crates packed with talismans blazing fiercely in green and blue light.

For a moment she simply stared at the scene, then thought:

The credits I sent last week were roughly eighty thousand.

Two thousand talismans delivered. After a quick search through the network for material costs, Ryu Yeonhwa let out a hollow laugh.

"Insane…. A failure rate of zero percent?"

If you assumed she had spent the entire eighty thousand credits on materials, that was the only number that came out.

Failure rate was the label that clung to every talisman-maker. Drawing a talisman was not some one-click success button. Every single sheet demanded blood and soul and the full measure of one's mental force just to barely succeed—and if luck failed to follow, the talisman would go bang and explode, leaving you without even the cost of materials.

The average failure rate among talisman-makers was twenty percent. A maker with a zero percent failure rate? Ryu Yeonhwa had never even heard of talent that insane.

"And on top of that, she drew two thousand sheets in a single week."

It was absurd. How many times was she going to think those words?

From low-grade upward, material prices spiked hard—materials alone easily exceeded ten thousand credits. A typical talisman-maker drawing low-grade talismans earned a net profit of about fifteen thousand credits per hundred sheets. Even so, most makers couldn't produce a hundred talismans in a day.

There was a reason those who reached that level were honored with the title One-Hand Hundred Realm—a hundred sheets a day with a single hand.

"But if she can take lowest-grade materials and turn them into low-grade and mid-grade talismans like this…"

Ryu Yeonhwa trembled at the profit Eun Nain was about to rake in. She could already see that girl—still only at the early stage of Qi Refinement—sweeping up tens and hundreds of thousands of credits. Even the commission that would fall to Ryu Yeonhwa herself was a figure that put every other client to shame.

"She's out of her mind…"

Shaking her head, Ryu Yeonhwa moved Eun Nain's name from VIP Client into the folder labeled VIP VIP Client. She had created that slot long ago purely in anticipation of the day she would need it… She had expected it to sit empty for at least another decade or two.

"I never thought I'd use it this soon."

Ryu Yeonhwa transferred the credits to Eun Nain.

December 16th.

Nain grinned at the credits that had landed in her account. Dark circles were carved deep beneath her eyes, and her face had gone gaunt and pale. Even so, her gaze alone burned vivid and bright.

Two thousand sheets alone hadn't been enough to hit three million credits, so she had run the whole process through one more time in the middle. Work she had expected to finish in a week had ended up taking two.

On Baekgan Sacred World, Nain purchased the Five Elements Spirit Ascension Enlightenment Method.

"Ahaha, this is completely ridiculous!"

In the dark cultivation chamber, she stroked the Golden Slip that held the Five Elements Spirit Ascension Enlightenment Method. A square piece of metal gleaming with golden light. Inside it lay the contents of the method. Nain hugged the Golden Slip to her chest and smiled with pure happiness.