In response to his question Miss Amanda looked at Bai Xiang curiously, in truth she found him very interesting, he knew so many interesting stories at a young age in this small world and for an unknown reason had a cracked core upon formation. That was very strange but then on top of that he also seemed to have a cultivation technique much more advanced than this world and accepted what she told him very easily.
"Why do you want to get stronger so quickly? With your cultivation technique, you will get to the edges of the immortal realm just by sleeping, you have it as easy as it gets but you want to cultivate even faster."
Bai Xiang knew that she had some curiosity about where he learned the stories he told her, where his cultivation technique came from, and also what he was trying to do.
There was a pause while Bai Xiang thought about what to say.
'It should not be a problem to say I'm a reincarnation, right? As long as I keep the system and that dream a secret it should be fine, reincarnation can't be that uncommon, right?'
Exactly as he started opening his mouth to answer she interrupted him.
"It's fine, everyone has their own secrets and motivations, you should not tell people secrets easily or you will be held on a leash by your secrets. To answer your question, the best way to get stronger is to join a sect or a large family."
Bai Xiang was secretly annoyed, of course, he knew that he could gain assistance from those groups but he would have to pay them back with loyalty and service. It would be very annoying to deal with sect politics when all he wanted was to get stronger.
"Sects and families sound like a massive headache to me, is there any way I could have your assistance?"
Miss Amanda started laughing heartily when she heard him.
"Brat you really think we are so intimate after a few stories around the campfire? First of all that is against the rules of Aquae Vitae, I am not risking getting forced into retirement to help your greedy self. Secondly, this world is the perfect place to get experience in dealing with the cultivation world, even if you cause problems you can just run away and sleep for a few months and you will be stronger than them."
Bai Xiang thought about her words carefully and realized that it was pretty selfish to ask her to pretty much give him pills for free and steal from her beloved store. Although he did not want to get involved in the affairs of groups he would probably leave soon even if he would admit that some useful lessons could be learned.
While he was thinking Miss Amanda interrupted his thoughts again.
"I know you catch on pretty quickly so let me make it simple for you, the spirit gathering arrays in most sects in this world would help you cultivate at least 10% faster if you sleep within the sect's court. That does not even include stuff like spiritual pools, treasures, or any alchemy pills they give you the funds to buy or the spiritual foods they serve. Assuming you become an inner court disciple your cultivation speed will likely double from what it is right now, becoming a personal disciple would increase even more."
Bai Xiang gulped audibly, that level of increased cultivation speed is very appealing, and instantly he was very comfortable with joining a sect, paying back some favor to them even sounded like a wonderful idea.
"Please can you tell me the name of a peaceful and righteous sect that does not have many political problems?"
Miss Amanda looked at him with an expressionless face and answered.
"You are really much more shameless of a person than I expected, I will answer you since you have no friends though. The sect fitting your parameters would be the Flower Maiden Sect but you cannot get in there since you are neither a beautiful flower nor a maiden. Some others that should be fine are the Divine Sword Sect, Flaming Fist Sect, Medical Pavilion Sect, lastly, there is the Astral Enlightenment Sect."
Instantly he was drawn to the last name, the others sounded like sects from every cultivation book he had ever read while sects similar to the Astral Enlightenment Sect did appear but it was much rarer.
"What does the Astral Enlightenment Sect do?"
"Well, they study stars and other worlds mostly, they have some uncommon techniques that honestly are pretty impractical but they also have the strongest array masters in this world."
Bai Xiang was happy with that, it sounded like a good place to try to enter, but he only had one concern.
"Does that mean I have to study formations to enter the higher ranks of the sect?"
Like she had been Miss Amanda calmly answered his questions without any hesitation.
"Not really, sure if you did know array formations it would be a boon but once they see your growth you can become an inner core disciple pretty much anywhere. People who practice array formations are a very small number to the point where even the sect that is known for it has under 10% of its disciples able to do the simplest of arrays."
With his worries dispelled he asked the next most pressing question.
"It sounds wonderful, where is this sect? Are there any places I could go to get accepted as a disciple?"
Bai Xiang could see that Miss Amanda was starting to get annoyed with serving as his personal helper but still answered him.
"Currently we are in the Crystalline Peak Town in the Primordial Harmony Republic and the nearest place where they will have people to accept new disciples is in the capital, Eternal Lotus City, from here that would take a week or so for you."
Bai Xiang signed in relief, thankfully it was not on the other side of the continent or anything, a week is not so bad.
"Thank you for your help Miss Amanda I will definitely pay back my debt to you ten-fold when I can!"
He turned to leave but quickly heard an annoyed voice.
"Oi, since when did you go stupid, you don't even know when the Astral Enlightenment Sect will accept new disciples but you wanna charge over to the capital like that? I thought you were at least marginally more intelligent than that."
"Ah, your right! Miss Amanda when will they be accepting new disciples and what will I need for my journey?"
Hearing him talk so shamelessly her face turned ugly as she quickly pulled a piece of paper out from under the counter and wrote a few words on it.
"This is a list of what you should bring, also don't act how you do here in any other branches of Aquae Vitae or you might be slapped with a lifetime ban! Once you reach higher realms pills are necessary and if you are banned it is essentially a death sentence."
Hearing her Bai Xiang shivered, he did not know Aquae Vitae was so scared, maybe they would kick him out of that store or beat him up if he was rude, but a lifetime ban from all stores was really too scary!
With that in his mind, he ran home to let his parents know he would be leaving.