Loki hummed in understanding as he read the next part that said, "In order to curb the creation of more competitors, many divine beings got together to ban the sale of information about how to advance to rank 5. No rank 5 cultivator disagreed with this embargo because they too don’t want more competition for the divine post."
After reading, he said, "I don’t even blame them. If I were them, I would try to put a stop to the creation of more rank 5 cultivators, too."
Then he chuckled and said, "So, just like rank 5 cultivators hunt us, rank 3 and rank 4 cultivators, rank 6 and above cultivators also hunt rank 5 cultivators. I don’t know if I should be happy or sad about this."
"But I am sure that this world is a dog-eat-dog world. The people above eat us to grow stronger, or they kill us just to stop us from competing with them. How do people even manage to become divine beings?"
As he asked this question, he remembered how Slav had laughed at Craig when Craig claimed that he could become a divine being. Now that he has learned so much about that lofty position, Craig’s claim has also become laughable to him.
He snorted and said, "I will be impressed if he can reach rank 3. As for becoming a divine being, he can forget about it."
Craig is not in the Sword Way Sect, so he won’t have to compete with his fellow sect members for resources, and he won’t have to look behind him every day for someone who might appear and kill him.
But that’s the limit of the good thing about his situation, and it isn’t enough to turn his situation around. The negatives of his situation are just too much of an obstacle.
For example, the fact that he is not a part of the Sword Way Sect means that it will be very difficult for him to acquire the secret recipe for refining his Core Metac and advancing.
He will also lack the special resources to advance his Core Metac because they don’t produce them here in the Central Domain. So even if there is no competition, he still won’t be able to advance easily.
But the fact that no one is competing with him for special resources to advance or Life Ability doesn’t mean that no one won’t compete with him for energy stones or that no one will covet his body. This means that there will still be many people who want to kill him. They just don’t want to kill him because of his pathway.
As he thought of this, he said to himself, "If Craig awakened the Sword Heart Metac because he used to use it in his previous lifetime, then it is highly likely that he used to be in the South Domain, but his soul was stolen through some earthly battlefield."
Then he shrugged and said, "Anyway, this lifetime of his is screwed. Maybe he will do better in his next lifetime."
After ruminating over the information he received, he stood up and bid farewell to the attendant. Then he left the information broker shop.
From there, he went to buy Metacs. These Metacs included the body refining Metacs for making his body stronger, but he didn’t buy the materials needed to use them.
He didn’t buy the metals that he will with the body refining Metacs because they are too heavy to carry around, and he will be on the move soon.
He didn’t want to carry something that would slow him down, make noise, or draw attention to himself. So he only bought the body refining Metacs now. As for the materials, he plans to get them later.
This is the second thing that he is doing differently in this timeline. Just like the first thing that he did differently, this too is part of the passive defense plan.
The third thing that he did differently was to ask the shopkeeper for a Metac that can be used to block curses. The shopkeeper recommended many Metacs from the Death Pathway.
He couldn’t use the majority of the recommendations because he wasn’t on the Death Pathway. The only one he could use was a Curse Mirror Metac, a consumable Metac like the Cloudy Date Metac, which would block curse attacks if hung onto the body.
The Curse Mirror is a flat, black oval Metac. To use it, he must put in his energy well.
Once it has been placed in the energy well, it will block curses. It is not all-powerful and can’t block every curse. But it will at least notify the owner of the curse attack so that they can make better preparations to deal with the curse, and it might grant them time to prepare.
There were various ranks and grades of this Curse Mirror. Loki bought the top-grade rank 5 one for 3 million energy stones. He bought three of them for a total of 9 million energy stones.
This was good and all, but he still wasn’t satisfied with his defense for the curse, so he went around looking for more solutions. He came upon more solutions belonging to the Enslavement Pathway, which is the Scapegoat Metac, which makes someone else bear the Curse for him.
He was satisfied with the Scapegoat Metac as it can be used actively to transfer damage to another person. But since he wasn’t a slave master, he had to keep looking for a more compatible solution. He had to do it because it was part of his active defense plan.
Fortunately, he found something for the Sword Pathway. It was a Metac called the Pristine Sword Metac, which protects the body of the host from dust, grime, blood, and curses. It works by making it difficult for these blemishes to adhere to the body of the host.
The Pristine Sword Metac was good for his needs, but it was only available up to rank 3. There was nothing he could do but take it and hope for the best.