Fang Yuan frowned.
This was out of expectations. He had finished a mission only to be given another one?
Already, he could feel the Hope Gu coalescing, forming his aperture. Within the area that they entered his body, a space ford, which simultaneously extrely small yet infinitely big inside.
This space was filled to 44% of its capacity with a green liquid- prival essence! The lifeblood of Gu Masters!
Talent was important for Gu Masters because the higher one's talent, the greater the amount of prival essence in their aperture.
A C-grade talent would have between 40-59%. B-grade between 60-79%. A-grade 80-90%.
Fang Yuan was squarely at the bottom rungs of C-grade with only 44% prival essence, or aptitude.
His brother, Fang Zheng, an A-grade talent, would soon be discovered to have 80% aptitude!
Did that an that Fang Zheng was twice as talented compared to Fang Yuan when it ca to cultivation?
Absolutely not!
The difference was much, much, greater than that!
The reason being was that the way that Gu Masters advanced was by sending their prival essence against their aperture walls, hoping to break them.
The issue was that the aperture walls would recover on their own, so one could not chip away at them slowly over ti.
What would happen eventually is that the rate of recovery of the aperture walls would surpass the amount of prival essence that one could drive at them to damage them. These 'break points' would greatly limit how far one could go.
Gu Masters recovered their prival essence after six hours without outside help, aning soone with higher aptitude also gained proportionately greater prival essence back.
So it was not just with cultivation, but battle strength that would also be affected by talent.
Advancing was like trying to kick a ball out of a ditch. Even if you could kick it ninety percent up the way out, it would just roll back down and you'd have to do so again. If you couldn't kick it out in one go, you were stuck.
In other words, once one reached that limit, chipping away at their aperture walls would accomplish nothing aside from frustrating them.
As an example, to get to Rank 2, a person needed 50% prival essence, aning that Fang Yuan would struggle greatly to get past that point, and would need to expend a large amount of resources to make up for the deficit.
In his past life, it had taken him ten years to reach Rank 2. On the other hand, Fang Zheng could reach Rank 2 with his A-grade aptitude in little under a year, aning his potential was not double, but ten tis Fang Yuan's at this level!
It got worse the higher one rose in rank. It had taken Fang Yuan nearly a century to reach Rank 3 in his previous life, though Fang Zheng would reach it in about three or four years. As for Rank 4, Fang Yuan had no hope of getting there unless he chanced upon a talent-raising gu worm like he had in his past life.
Actually, he knew the locations of several such places where one could find such rare gu, he just couldn't get to them right now.
As it was, once he reached Rank 3, which he could do far more easily with the knowledge gained from his previous life, he could go to those areas. But not now.
However, Fang Zheng could likely reach Rank 4 in a matter of a decade or so.
It was not without good reason that the clan invested so heavily in those with high-grade talents.
"Fang Yuan, can't you go any further?" the elder asked.
Right, they were expecting him to have at least B-grade if not A-grade talent.
And all of this thinking distracted from the fact that the system wanted him to cheat, and had given him the ans to do so. Activating this Cultivation Blessing- although he had never heard of such a thing, was as easy as using a gu worm.
But was Fang Yuan going to follow through with it and complete this other mission the system had given him?
Hell no!
It wasn't because he was against cheating. After all, he had been a demonic overlord in his previous life, causing suffering to millions of innocents. If asked to, he would gladly slit his own twin brother's throat if it would increase his aptitude by even 1% if he could get away with it.
But still, there had to be a reason to cheat.
If he recalled correctly, during his first year, his aperture would be evaluated at regular intervals by the academy elder. It would be difficult to keep up this façade.
And while he might be able to squeeze out so extra benefits if he was B-grade, in the end, it would also co with increased scrutiny. Fang Yuan's thods tended to be chaotic and demonic, aning that it was best for people to underestimate him and overlook him.
Not to ntion he found it highly suspicious that this 'system' had essentially thrust this secondary mission upon him just now instead of earlier.
If caught, he did not have the backing of an elder like Chi Chen and would be more severely punished if found out.
Fang Yuan had little faith in this 'system' or what it wanted to accomplish,
"What!? Fang Yuan is only a C-grade talent?"
"Unbelievable, only a C-grade for a genius like him!?"
The exclamations ca, though Fang Yuan was indifferent to all of them. He had already been through it all.
"Fang Yuan, can you really not move any more?" the elder asked.
Fang Yuan was about to shake his head when another notification popped up.
I'm A B-Grade Genius!
Requirent: Deceive people into thinking you have B-grade talent using this Cultivation Blessing!
Reward: 2% permanent increase to your aptitude.
Fang Yuan's eyes flashed.
The system seed to detect his reluctance to follow through, and to entice him, it had revealed what the reward was.
A 2% increase in aptitude, that too permanent?
Now the risk-and-reward equation had been greatly altered!
A 2% permanent increase in aptitude was worth more to him than 200 prival stones.
One could even argue that it was worth more than even 2,000 prival stone in the long run, though given the fact that he wanted to rush to Rank 3 and bounce from Gu Yue village as quickly as possible, he would take the 2,000 stones right now.
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