As soon as Loki heard the cupboard close, he pulled it out from his side and got the package from it. Then he broke it open and read its contents immediately.
He was anxious to know what was written in the package because he wanted to make sure that they wouldn’t cheat him. He didn’t want to leave and had to come back because the information they sold to him turned out to be a dud.
He also didn’t want it to be exposed to the outside world that he bought information on how to advance to rank 4 when he should be the full reincarnation of a rank 5 cultivator and should know something like that. So he quickly read the information and destroyed the package to eliminate every trace of it.
What he read was enlightening and didn’t seem to be a dud. Plus, it aligned with some of the things he had heard about rank 4 cultivators, so he was very satisfied with this information.
This made him ask the attendant for more, saying, "What about the information about how to advance to rank 5? How much is it?"
Before the voice could reply, he said, "Please tell me it is not 1,000,000 energy stones."
The voice said, "I will have to disappoint the honored customer. Unfortunately, we don’t have that information."
He had already braced himself for disappointment when he heard the first sentence. He expected the information to cost 1,000,000 or even 10,000,000 and had made up his mind to buy in his next life, together with more talent-raising materials.
The worst thing that he expected was for the information to be raised by 100 times and cost 10 million energy stones. But what the attendant said was much worse than his worst expectations.
After all, no matter how expensive something was, he could still find a way to buy it. But now that he couldn’t buy it, he didn’t know what to do.
This made me ask anxiously, "Why not? Don’t you guys like free money? How will you be able to cheat rank 4 cultivators if you don’t sell how to advance to rank 5?"
The person on the other side of the screen chuckled and said, "We do like free money. However, we like our lives even more."
This made him frown and say, "What do you mean? Why is selling that information dangerous?"
The voice said, "We have been banned from selling that information by the divine beings of the sect. Anyone who sells how to advance to rank 5 to others will be killed by them."
"So that information is forbidden knowledge. The only way to get it is for a rank 5 cultivator to tell you. But I doubt a rank 5 cultivator will tell you how to become one of them. After all, they don’t want more competitors."
At this point, the attendant was laughing. Their laughter was loud and mocking, but Loki was able to sense a note of bitterness in the laughter.
He didn’t know why this person was bitter, but he could relate because he had become angry himself after hearing the embargo on information.
But aside from anger, he was also feeling confused. As he thought about it, he asked the person on the other side, "But why will divine beings ban that information? Why would they want to restrict the creation of more rank 5 beings when they don’t need the information and when they are so much stronger?
His question made the attendant stop laughing and become serious as they said, "That information will cost you ten million energy stones."
To which he said, "Fuck you."
Then he stood up and left.
As he left, the voice said calmly, "Nice to have you, honored customer. I hope you will come back soon."
It was clear that the attendant hadn’t taken offense at his outburst. As for why they were so tolerant, his guess was that they were very experienced in dealing with outbursts like that, and he wouldn’t be the first person to curse them after he was fleeced.
He marched out of the shop and returned to pick up the things he bought earlier. Then he made his way back to the sect grounds.
His destination was the sect grounds, not an apartment in the city, because that’s where he will be living until tomorrow, when someone will come to take him to the battlefield. That’s one of the privileges of becoming a soldier for the sect.
On the way there, he thought about what he needed to do to advance to rank 4. This is something he has to deal with now, and as soon as possible if he can.
In the past, he learned that rank 4 cultivators have something called a Mind Palace. This Mind Palace liberates the mind from the soul of the cultivator, which makes it possible for the mind to grow stronger than the soul.
He also knew that the Mind Palace is why rank 4 cultivators can fly. Apparently, rank 4 will be able to exert the power of their mind onto the world around and use it to fly.
Most of these pieces of information are common knowledge. However, no one seems to know how to create or acquire the Mind Palace. Or if they know, no one talks about it, which is why he had to buy the information about how to advance to rank 4.
Now that he has acquired that information, he knows that what he needs to advance to rank 4 are peak rank 3 cultivation or energy density of level 12, rank 4 Dao Heart, 300% energy manipulation skill, rank 4 Core Metac, and an energy nexus in his brain.
So there are five requirements that need to be met before he can advance to rank 4. If a single one is missing, the advancement will fail, and he could die depending on which requirement is missing during the attempt.