His thoughts wandered in his head as he said to himself, ’Could the sect be in dire need of divine beings and can’t afford their absence? If the sect is in a rush, it would explain why the deadline for the recall and selection of new divine beings is only one day. In that case, the sect might be in trouble.’
For a few moments after he came to the conclusion that the sect might be in trouble, he became worried for the sect. After all, if the boat is capsized, a rat like him would surely drown in the ocean.
He felt that he should be worried if the sect was in a bad situation. But then he remembered that the sect had just fleeced him of years of work.
So he snorted as he thought to himself, ’Forget the fate of the sect. What I should be concerned with right now is how to get those 13 Divine Metacs in one day. If not, my fate will be worse than anything the sect could go through.’
Then he sighed in relief and said, "Fortunately, the Divine Metacs already exists. What I need to do is summon them. That should cost less."
After accepting his fate, he took out his sect token to buy the refinement recipes of the 13 Divine Metacs. Each one cost him 5,000 divine merit points. So he had to spend 65,000 divine merit points to purchase the refinement recipes.
He knew that the sect had made recipes expensive on purpose because they were shortcuts to gaining understanding of a pathway. After all, the creation of a new Divine Metac required an Adept level of mastery.
When many sources of Adept-level mastery are acquired and combined, a talented person would be able to use the information to gain a higher level of understanding of the pathway. So the sect placed an embargo on the recipes of Divine Metacs by making them expensive to purchase and increasingly expensive the more that are bought.
Normally, the first recipe would cost 5,000 divine merit points. Then the second one would cost 10,000 divine merit points. The third would cost 20,000, and so on and so forth, with each extra one doubling in cost.
But the sect didn’t make things too difficult for him this time around. He didn’t think it was because the sect was being kind, though.
He was sure that the sect didn’t make things difficult for him because he had already reached the theoretical limit of understanding of a pathway. Since his understanding had reached the limit, there was no need to worry about him using the recipes as shortcuts to gain understanding.
This was only the start, though. He still had to buy the materials needed to refine the 13 Divine Metacs. That twoo would cost tens of thousands of divine merit points.
The only silver lining in all of these is that he is only summoning the Divine Metacs, not refining them. Since he is summoning them, not recreating them, he can use his superior mastery of the pathway to reduce the materials needed for the summoning, improvise the steps, and still manage to complete the summoning in one try.
This will reduce the amount of money and effort he will have to spend on this mission. But it still left a bad taste in his mouth.
For thousands of years, he has been fleeced by the sect and worked to the bone, so he should be used to something like this. But as things were, it didn’t seem like he was used to it at all.
Whenever he thought about what he was being forced to do, he would feel bitterness. And when he was doing what he was asked to do, he would feel agitated.
Every step of the process was agonizing to him. From the point he went to a sect grounds, got the recipes, bought the materials, and began summoning the Metacs, he always had something to complain or grumble about.
His negative feelings seemed to flare up whenever he had to pay for something. It felt as if every divine merit point that he lost and every world essence he gave up was a part of his existence being cut away and eaten by the sect.
During the entire process, he had it in his mind that the sect was aware of his displeasure but was sneering at him in disdain and taking pleasure in his displeasure because there was nothing he could do about it.
Eventually, his anger got the better of him when he finished the summoning process but failed to summon the Divine Metac in question.
This failure made him roar in anger, "Fuck this. Fuck the sect. Fuck this world. And Fuck everyone."
As soon as the words came out of his lips, he fell into a dream. In that dream, he was flogged with whips of molten hot metal by a giant eagle for a thousand years.
Each time the whips slashed him, they cut deep into his flesh and filled the wound with hot molten metal. He cried out in pain each time while the eagle behind him cackled in pleasure.
In reality, only an instant had passed. But to him, he felt as if he had endured unimaginable suffering for a thousand years.
The feeling wasn’t an illusion either. There truly were the marks of suffering on his body. The marks were deep wounds covered with metal.
Some of the wounds were old with solidified metal. The metal on them had bound with the flesh to keep the wound still painful. But most of the wounds were fresh with the melted metal still burning the flesh.
In an instant, he healed his injuries. It only cost him a little over one thousand years of lifespan to heal. But the price he paid for this was far more than his lifespan.
A weaker mind would have broken after enduring a thousand years of suffering. But he had a very strong Will, so his mind was only close to breaking after so long.