He counted on his fingers as he said, "But, on the other side, are every rank 4 cultivator who will come after me once they know my identity as a ’full reincarnation of a rank 5 cultivator". If my identity is ever exposed, every rank 4 cultivator everywhere, not just Skarg, will come seek me out."
The third finger went up before he said, "Then there are the rank 5 cultivators above us. Those elusive and powerful beings can just swoop in at any time to get me. Any random one can just swoop in at any time to eat me for my Life Ability."
"That makes three types of enemies and a total of an infinite number of enemies. That seems to be all."
After counting his enemies, he slumped on his chair and said, "I am officially screwed. I have to get stronger as fast as possible."
But then, he saw the second parcel and remembered that there was another piece of information. So he became encouraged again and quickly broke the second parcel open to get to the information it contained.
As he did so, he said to himself, "I’m sure it is bad. In fact, I can bet that there is no good news in this, but I hope that I am wrong."
Then he opened the piece of paper and read its contents. It said, "When a cultivator advances to rank 5, their path becomes cut off. They can go no further without a Divine Metac. But Divine Metacs are rare to find. This is because they are unique and there can only be one copy of a Divine Metac in existence."
"So, rank 5 cultivators can either stumble onto a Divine Metac through luck or create their own. Most rank 5 cultivators choose to create a new Divine Metac because most, if not all, of the Divine Metacs in existence are already in the possession of divine beings."
"After years of study, the method of creating Divine Metacs has been mastered to a science. It has been discovered that Life Abilities can be converted into Divine Metacs, but only mutated Life Abilities have the potential to become Divine Metacs."
"This is because mutated Life Abilities represent something new, and something new is the requirement for a unique Divine Metac to be created. Every Life Abilities is actually a copy of a Divine Metac, so they can never become a Divine Metac."
"However, even though it is common sense that only a mutated Life Ability can become a Divine Metac, there has not been any reliable method to create mutated Life Abilities. Many methods have been tried to create mutated Metacs reliably, but they have failed or have been kept secret from the world."
"The only publicly known methods to acquire mutated Life Abilities at this point are to be lucky and special enough to acquire one during the advancement to rank 3 or to take a mutated Life Ability from a junior after advancing to rank 5."
This made Loki curse out loud for a while. But he continued to read despite the anger that was so much that it was causing his body to shake with the need to destroy something.
"The first option is a game of chance and unreliable. But the second option is no better either, because you can only take the mutated Life Ability of someone in the same pathway with the same initial Life Ability as yours."
"So if you didn’t acquire a mutated Life Ability when you advanced to tank 3 and there is no one with a mutated Life Ability of your Life Ability, you will be stuck at the first step of creating a Divine Metac. This shows just how unreliable both options are."
"The only good news is that divine beings won’t compete with rank 5 cultivators for mutated Life Abilities. After all, a mutated Life Ability only represents a chance to create a Divine Metac. One can still fail to create a Divine Metac with a mutated Life Ability, so it is not worth fighting over yet."
The writing on the piece of paper ended there. Even though the piece of paper didn’t say what would happen after the Divine Metac is created, he could guess based on everything that has happened until now.
As he thought of what could happen once it is discovered that he is in possession of not just one, but two Divine Metacs, his mind couldn’t help but conjure the image of that large hand that tore the sky as it reached down for him.
This image was playing in his head again and again as he said, "Is the owner of that hand a divine being? Either way, I will be screwed immensely if anyone finds out about my situation."
He looked at the two pieces of information again, wondering what he should do with them now that he didn’t need them anymore. After making his decision, he tore the two pieces of paper apart and shredded them into dust.
He threw the shredded paper back into the parcel and tucked the parcel into his robes. Then he slumped back on his chair and thought some more about his situation.
Once he began thinking of all his problems, he asked himself, "I have the Rewind Metac, so I can still find a way to survive. But how do normal people survive in this kind of world? No wonder the sect said that I won’t live past rank 3."
After getting his thoughts together, he decided that it was time to leave. So he stood up to leave.
The attendant on the other side of the screen sensed his movements and said, "I hope you found our services satisfactory, honored customer."
In response, Loki nodded and said, "It wasn’t bad. But I’m not sure it was worth so much money."
The information he got was great, and he understood why it was so expensive. After all, both of them were related to rank 5 cultivators and the creation of Divine Metacs.