When he thought of how he didn’t have to die for his sect, he smiled and said, "Maybe the sect isn’t so bad. They allow you to do anything as long as you have money. What is that if it isn’t freedom?"
There was that time when the Rein Family broke into the initiation program, and Simon tried to make him sign his life away and be enslaved. He had complained then about the injustice of the world, the unfairness of the sect, and the unreasonable behavior of the Rein Family.
There was also that time that Greg was willing to kill his subordinate soldiers because the worst punishment was some fines. He didn’t like that even being a soldier for the sect wasn’t enough for the sect to protect him and kill whoever murdered him.
But for some reason, he doesn’t think like this anymore. He suddenly doesn’t mind the way the sect does things anymore.
For those mysterious reasons, he no longer feels that the sect supports unfairness and is responsible for a world where the rich and powerful can trample on the masses.
It is as if he has been enlightened. His eyes shone with anticipation for the future.
After he set up his Life Ability to continue digesting metals, he busied himself with fusing his energy threads and focused all of his energy on doing it.
The only time he ever came out of his room was to receive the things that he ordered. That meant that he only left his room three times.
The first time was to receive the package of 10 kilograms of Living Metal. His Life Ability gobbled all 10 kilograms in less than a minute. This was opposed to the days and weeks that it is taking his Life Ability to eat an equivalent mass of other metals.
This round of feeding caused the Shifting Armor to advance to rank 4. Since he had confirmed that the vendor was reliable, wanted his Life Ability to grow even stronger, and had a lot of money on hand, he decided to order more.
He bought another set of 10 kilograms of Living Metal for 8 million energy stones. This reduced the amount of money on hand from 14.9 million to 6.9 million.
This amount is more than enough for him to pass the yearly evaluation of the sect, and the money was spent to increase his strength permanently, so he didn’t dwell on the lost money for too long.
Instead of dwelling on the heartache of losing so much money at once, he said to himself with a smile, "Even if I were a rank 4 cultivator, 6.9 million energy stones would be enough for me to pass the yearly evaluation. After all, this amount of money is enough to make me richer than 10% of rank 4 cultivators."
After reveling in his wealth for a while, he returned his attention to fusing energy threads. He didn’t stop doing this until the second time that he left his room.
The second time he left his room was to receive the package containing the rank 5 Crystal Worm Metac. The trip was brief, and so was the period of time he spent on it.
The rank 5 Crystal Worm was easy to use and didn’t take time to take effect. After it took effect, the size of his energy chambers reached the limit of what humans are capable of.
He didn’t feel any increase in his strength or anything special after this happened. So he shrugged and moved on.
However, the fact that a material that adds 6 units of capacity to one’s energy well couldn’t raise his energy well that was already 86 points, beyond 90 points, made him think of Slav and his 95 points of capacity.
As he thought of Slav, he sensed him somewhere far away. Then he said to himself, "When next I meet him, I should ask him how he got his talent to be so high."
This thought made him shake his head and say with mirth, "I doubt he will tell me. Maybe I’m better off buying the information."
"Hmm. I should do that in my next timeline. Together with the information on why divine beings are restricting the creation of new rank 5 cultivators, that makes two things I want to know."
After making up his mind about what to ask the information broker in the next timeline, he continued to fuse his energy threads wholeheartedly.
However, he had to pause his cultivation for the third time when his second package of Living Metal arrived. This pause wasn’t brief because he went to celebrate with food and drinks after his Life Ability advanced to rank 5.
His Life Ability stopped growing after it reached rank 5. Apparently, it wouldn’t be able to continue growing until he becomes a divine being. This situation gave his determination to grow stronger a boost, so he was quick to return to cultivating after indulging himself for a while.
From then on, he didn’t show his face in the city. Not only did he not have a personal reason to go out, but even the sect and Greg didn’t have any reason to call him out. This was because the city wasn’t attacked for months.
The Martial Body Sect usually runs a shock campaign once every few years in which they attack everyone with the goal of wiping them out. It is said that when this happens, the small world officially becomes a battlefield, and death and destruction can be seen everywhere.
When this shock campaign starts, every member of the Martial Body Sect in the small world will attack together, and they will start from the front lines before moving inwards. This is what makes this campaign so dangerous for the cities on the front lines.
But other than this, there are the more frequent attacks by individual groups on the side of the Martial Body Sect. The ambush of Greg in the air is an example of something like this.