Mom's Question got straight to the heart of the matter and was also something that I was waiting for. The Sect master also seemed to be waiting for this question as he gave a small diplomatic smile and answered, " I came today to bring the resources needed to upgrade the goddess's shrine."
His words immediately made me jump up from my chair and rush over to him with my tail waving around crazily behind me. This seemed to shock him, but Mom and Yuki, on the other hand, only smiled slightly and shook their heads at me.
I did not care about this, though, and instead clasped my hands together in front of me while impatiently asking, "Where are they?"
It took about a minute for the Sect Master to respond, but he soon reached out his hand, showing a small bag placed in it, saying, "I have them right here; however-"
I did not let him finish as I quickly grabbed the bag from his hand and ran out of the room.
On the way to the front door, I placed the bag into my inventory as I heard some shouts erupt from behind me. This did not bother me, though, as I opened the front door and rushed out.
I then ran in a straight line to the garden's entrance, only for a flash of color to pass my eyes and have Mom and the Sect Master appear in front of the door.
I did not want to slow down and kept running while searching for a way to go around them.
This did not go noticed, though, and soon, a few walls made of gray light appeared in the air around the door.
Since I did not see a formation or anything appear around Mom or the Sect Master I assumed this was a spell and instantly started to think of a way around this.
From what I learned about spells, it mostly involved intent and giving the external Qi a path to move on. If even one path of Qi in the spell's area of effect were not perfect, then the spell would have holes in it that could be passed through.
It was then that I got an idea. If all it took to go through a spell was to have an incorrect Qi pathway, then why not move the pathways myself?
Quickly choosing the path that I wanted to take, I jumped up from the ground onto a branch of a tree, and then I leaped forward towards one of the walls.
As I neared it, I sent out of my own Qi from my third core through a mix of different meridian pathways. This was mainly how most lower-level spells got their effects.
It was like using your meridian pathways as an automated construction machine to build what you wanted using only mathematical outputs.
This was also why it was difficult for most people to create new spells or techniques. You need to have knowledge of both high-level theoretical math and engineering to create them. That is then made more difficult by the fact that you only have a select number of Merdian pathways that you can do this with and that each pathway can only hold so much Qi.
This is slightly alleviated by cultivation as the higher you go, the more things your meridians can do at the same time. So higher-level people can use more powerful spells and techniques.
It was also why Mom said that only immortals can use spells because everything below that is nearly an imitation.
However, I have over ten times the amount of meridians as a normal person on top of being a master of every different scientific subject from Earth, including theoretical mathematics and engineering.
Making a simple anti-spell was easy. As these thoughts crossed my mind, the Qi traveling through my meridians finished forming and left my body through my finger that was pointed at the wall in front of me.
This small piece of Qi looked like the front half of an ethereal aerofoil, like what you would see on a plane's wing as it inserted itself into the wall in front of me.
As the anti-spell made contact with the wall, it froze for a second and started to fade before continuing further into the wall. When it dug into the wall, a grove started to appear behind it.
Soon, the anti-spell made it completely through the wall, causing a hole to be opened.
It was at this point that the Qi flowing through the wall became more violent, and the anti-spell started to dim again.
I did not care about that very much as I was already flying through the hole that was opened. When I did, the wall disappeared, and I fell to the ground outside the courtyard
Mom and the Sect Master then walked through the courtyard's doorway, looking directly at me. Seeing this, I started running again, this time toward the shrine in the center.
For some reason, they did not flash in front of me like last time and simply followed behind me.
I soon made it to the shrine and stepped into its effect radius while opening its system screen.
[Statue of the goddess Elinaria]
{Level: 1}
{Description: A shrine to the goddess Elinaria made by her first-ever Champion in a new world.}
{Ablity: Serves as a link to the goddess through which she becomes anchored to the world and can give her blessing while her influence is still weak.}
{Modifier: Well-made shrine (Natural Qi gathering formation), Open dragon vein (Qi gathering efficiency increased by 300%), Made by the first (Gives Aura of Tempering), Aura of Tempering (Removes the requirement of needing any tempering supplies for the body tempering stage)}
[Upgrade Requires: 500 Silver bars, 50 Gold bars, 30 Bags of Concrete, 70 Qi-infused wood]
[Upgrade? Y/N]
Nothing had changed from the last time, so I quickly confirmed the upgrade.
[Statue of the goddess Elinaria]
{Level: 2}
{Description: A shrine to the goddess Elinaria made by her first-ever Champion in a new world. There is also an open spot where another deities statue can be placed so that they may be worshiped here.}
{Ablity: Serves as a link to the goddess through which she becomes anchored to the world and can give her blessing while her influence is still weak. In a small radius around the shrine, she is able to exert her authorities.}
{Modifier: Well-made shrine (Natural Qi gathering formation, Gives Aura of Enlightenment), Open dragon vein (Qi gathering efficiency increased by 500%), Made by the first (Gives Aura of Tempering (Enhanced)), Aura of Tempering (Enhanced) (Removes the requirement of needing any tempering supplies for both the body tempering stage and early body cultivation stages), Aura of Enlightenment (Increases comprehension and learning speed by 5%}
[Upgrade Requires: 500 Steel bars, 300 Bags of Concrete, 10 Boxs of Gears]
{Requirements not met}
Upon confirming the upgrade, the description changed immediately, showing the new effects of the shrine.
A few of the changes were very exciting, like the ability to add another diety to the shrine and the new effects that were brought with the upgrade, but this was not what I found important.
The new upgrade requirements were what caught my eye the most, as I had been making both steel and concert every day to prepare for the expansion of my mountain compound. However, it was now coming in handy with the shrine's upgrade requirements.
It was then that a new window appeared in front of me.
[Convert Copper into Boxes of Gears at a ratio of 10:1] {Y/N}
Seeing this I quickly nodded my head while giving a confirmation in my head. It was then a new window appeared showing a hammer sticking an anvil as dots made their way across the bottom of the screen.
.
.
.
{Conversion complete 11 Boxes of Gears made.}
With that notification I quickly opened the window for the shrine again and saw that the option to upgrade appeared once more. Confirming the upgrade, the information on the screen changed once more.
[Statue of the goddess Elinaria]
{Level: 3}
{Description: A shrine to the goddess Elinaria made by her first-ever Champion in a new world. There are two open spots where another deities statue can be placed so that they may be worshiped here.}
{Ablity: Serves as a link to the goddess through which she becomes anchored to the world and can give her blessing while her influence is still weak. In a small radius around the shrine, she is able to exert her authorities.}
{Modifier: Well-made shrine (Natural Qi gathering formation, Gives Aura of Enlightenment (Enhanced)), Merged Dragon Vein (Qi gathering efficiency increased by 1000% (At center of shrine), Gives Aura of Refinement), Made by the first (Gives Aura of Tempering (Enhanced 2)), Aura of Tempering (Enhanced 2) (Removes the requirement of needing any tempering supplies for both the body tempering stage and early to middle body cultivation stages), Aura of Enlightenment (Enhanced) (Increases comprehension and learning speed by 10%, a minuscule chance of obtaining Enlightenment), Aura of Refinement (Purrifies the Qi in a cultivators body by 2.5% (Dubled for those below the foundation establishment stage)(Only Activates Once))}
[Max Level: Build a Small Temple nearby to increase the Small Temple's level to three]
I was very excited to look over the new information but was immediately interrupted by an explosion followed by a loud roar.