But understanding is one thing. Admitting what he understood is another thing. It is a more difficult thing that he is not willing to do for free.
So he complained, saying, "You guys are just looking for any reason to cheat people. Shame on you."
The attendant didn’t get upset because of his complaints. They only smiled and said with their androgynous voice, "Is there anything else I can do for you?"
The question made Loki snort and say, "More like, is there any other way that we can fleece you of your hard-earned money?"
Loki just grumbled about their services, but he still answered the question, saying, "How much will it cost to know why the divine beings of the sect chose to ban information about how to advance to rank 5?"
He already asked this question in the last timeline, but he was hoping to get a better price this time around. He also wanted to know if they cheat people by quoting different prices to different customers.
Unfortunately, he was disappointed on both quests when the attendant said, "It seems you’re a highly knowledgeable customer who loves to expand their wealth of knowledge and knows that knowledge is power. Then you will be happy to know that we have that information, and it will only cost 10 million energy stones."
Their words made him frown and say, "Why would such an expensive price make me happy?"
The attendant replied, saying, "I thought that you would be glad to know that you could buy that information since you already know that some things can’t be bought no matter how rich one is."
These words made him silent for a while. Then he said, "Another time then."
After saying that, he turned to leave. Behind him, the attendant’s androgynous voice came saying, "Have a good day, honored customer."
He didn’t say anything in reply. He just grunted as he continued walking away.
He had ten million left out of the initial twelve million, but he wasn’t willing to spend all of it just yet. His plan is to acquire the Metacs and materials that he needs. Then he will use the remaining money to make some bets in the betting platform of the sect with the goal of increasing the amount of money in his possession.
When the amount of money in his possession balloons, he will come back to buy the information about why the divine beings don’t want more people to become rank 5. In the meantime, he plans to keep a tight hold of his "hard-earned" money.
After he left the shop of the information broker, he went to the shops nearby to acquire Metacs and raw materials. He was absent-minded while he was doing this because he had a lot on his mind.
When he thought of the information embargo, he chuckled absentmindedly and said to himself, "I know for sure that rank 5 cultivators won’t place an embargo on the creation of more rank 3 cultivators. Not in a thousand years."
When he thought about mutated Life Abilities, which made him say to himself, "So Core Metacs produce Life Abilities and Life Abilities produce Divine Metacs. Does that mean that there is a Life Ability of the Rewind Metac somewhere out there?"
Then he shrugged and said to himself, "Who knows? The Time Pathway is gone, and every Time Cultivator has disappeared from history."
"Speaking of which, why is it that every Divine Metac I got from Slav is from a pathway that has disappeared? Is it that it is because they have disappeared that Slav can awaken them, while the Divine Metacs of the pathways that are still present have all been acquired by divine beings?"
As he thought of this, he asked himself another question, saying, "Why did the pathways disappear anyway? Who destroyed them and why? Maybe I should ask for this information in the next timeline."
All of these things were going through his head. What the people around him saw was that his eyes were unfocused and he was distracted by something. Then they saw him chuckling and shrugging for no reason.
But they only thought that he was being weird or that he was crazy. It wasn’t a crime to be weird or crazy, so no one bothered him for it. He was able to pay for his stuff and leave in peace.
After he was done in the market, he went back to the sect grounds to use them. He was still absent-minded throughout all of these. But what he was thinking about this time was how to avoid being killed by Greg in this timeline.
Over the course of the night, he came up with a few solutions. Some of them were viable while others were too dangerous or impossible to pull off. He dropped most of the plans that he thought of and only focused on three of them.
He was thinking about these three plans till the next day when the logistics airship came to pick him up. From there, they took to the air and shot forward at a terrifying speed of 1,100 kilometers per hour towards the north.
This time, he didn’t stay on the deck to marvel at the airship and see the world flash by below them. He had seen all that was to be seen in the last timeline, so he was no longer curious.
What he did was to hole himself up in his small cabin to cultivate. He let the rank 1 Copper Body Metac refine his body while his mind focused on fusing the energy threads in his brain.
In order to fuse an energy thread with the brain stem, he must pump that particular energy thread full of energy until the energy thread is swollen. This swollen state makes the energy thread easier to grasp with his mind and move to the desired location. This is because what he can control is his internal energy, not his energy threads.