Apparently, there was nothing available to raise the power of the mind from rank 1 to rank 2 or from rank 3 to rank 3. So there was nothing to raise the power of a mind from 1 unit to 1.1 up to 2 units, or something to raise a mind from 2 units to 2.1 up to 3 units.
He learned that this was because the mind was too fragile to mess with at this stage, that even increasing its power could cause it to break. He was told that this would remain the case until he reached rank 4.
The same was the case for the soul. But the soul would remain fragile until rank 5.
Since the Broad Mind Metac was going to be of limited help, he decided not to buy it. He decided to buy something to improve his soul directly. Then he bought the Double Mind Metac of the Mind Hunter Pathway.
What he bought to improve the power of his soul was the Spirit Pill Metac. This Spirit Pill Metac is a consumable like the Cloudy Date Metac. It will be lost after use and doesn’t have any restrictions on the pathway to use it.
Just like the Cloudy Date Metac, the Spirit Pill Metac was made from raw materials sourced from another human. In this case, it was made from the souls of rank 2 beings.
Each Spirit Pill Metac is a rank 2 Metac that costs 4,000 energy stones each. He bought two, so he had to pay 8,000 energy stones for them.
The two Spirit Pills raised the power of his soul from 1.6 to 2.0. Since the power of his mind is currently dependent on the power of his soul, the power of his mind also increased to 2.0 units.
This increase to the power of his mind raised the power of his mental attacks from 1(Cultivation) × (1.6(Mind) + 1(Telepathy Metac)) × 5(Mind Stab), which is 13 units, to 1(Cultivation) × (2(Mind) + 1(Telepathy Metac)) × 5(Mind Stab), which is 15 units.
Aside from the increase to his raw mental offensive power, the increase to his mind also led to the increase to the limit of how many Metacs he can control from (1.6 × 5) to (2.0 × 5). So he can control 10 Metacs at the same time now.
He also paid 2,500 energy stones for the rank 2 Double Mind Metac. He bought this metac to create an extra copy of his mind. This extra copy will allow him to use the Telekinesis Metac and the Telepathy Metac at the same time. This way, he will be able to use his mind to enhance the power of the Mind Hunter Pathway and the Forging Pathway at the same time.
Of course, the Double Mind Metac is a rank 2 Metac and will cost a lot of energy to use. So he won’t use it until he has to. This will make the Double Mind Metac a trump card of sorts.
Finally, he bought the rank 2 Iron Body Metac for future use. It is the rank 2 version of the Copper Body Metac, so it is a body refining Metac.
He decided to buy the Iron Body Metac since the body wasn’t as fragile as the mind and soul, and could be raised way higher than one’s base level. If not for the fact that the limit of Metac in the market was rank 2, he would have also bought the rank 3 version.
The rank 2 Iron Body Metac costs 3,000 energy stones. So it costs twice as much as the rank 1 version.
The materials needed to use it also cost 1,000 energy stones. This makes it a total of 4,000 energy stones to acquire a strong rank 2 body.
Together with everything he bought earlier, he was spending 2,000, 8,000, 2,500, and 4,000 energy stones. This made a total of 16,500 energy stones.
But he also bought some random Metacs from other pathways that he isn’t using in order to confuse anyone who is keeping track of what he is spending money on. By anyone, he means the Rein Family.
Ever since Slav’s elder brother Simon came to enslave him, he had confirmed that they were keeping tabs on him. So it has become a habit to confuse them about what he is really doing.
The pathway he is supposed to be on is the Forging Pathway. So he shouldn’t be able to use Metacs like the Double Mind Metac. This makes it a prudent decision that he doesn’t drop hints here and there that he has more than one pathway.
All in all, he spent a total of 25,000 energy stones. A discount of 10% reduced it to 22,500 energy stones. So it can be said that he was paying a lot for power.
After he got everything he needed, he went back to his lodgings. Then he closed himself off from the world and focused on cultivating.
He didn’t go to classes. But he still had to attend the weekly tests, though.
This was just like the last timeline. However, Muni didn’t complain about him this time around because Muni saw the visible fruits of his labor on his body.
His body went from fair and white to reddish-orange of copper and finally to the grey of iron, so Muni saw that he was willing to spend money on Metac to make his body stronger, and couldn’t say that Loki was being lazy.
While the strength of the body doesn’t matter for survival in the initiation program, the fact that he was willing to go so far for power encouraged his peers to take their studies and training seriously.
There was also the fact that those who spend time and money on developing their bodies will cause their cultivation to lag behind and make them more likely to fail their tests. Muni liked this very much, so he didn’t complain about Loki all the time.