Chapter 90

  Art of Survival (I)

  Spending 1,000 points on just a face-masking tech is a hard sell, honestly, even for me. I understand the importance and that it's likely necessary so we don't constantly get into fights in the outside world, but art that is just about changing an appearance? And it costing 1,000?

  Then again, there's the fact that it's somehow 'mythological'. That nobody in whatever-millions (supposedly) of years has managed to create it. Which means that the world wouldn't expect it, and that nobody would suspect we were 'changing faces'.

  All the same... I still feel it's lacking.

  I returned to my room in silence and pulled up the creation window. I had just one shot to create something that I normally won't be able to do for at least a few years. Just one chance to meaningfully impact the most immediate future for everyone involved.

  ... Hey, isn't this a lot of freakin' pressure?! Ah, great, here comes the anxiety. Nope, go back down, you vile little thing. I'm not fifteen anymore, this isn't the last 3 seconds of the championship game, and I'm not being guarded by Jamal, a six-foot-eight 'high schooler'. To this day I'm certain they fudged his birth certificate. That dude had a mortgage to pay and six kids to feed, at least.

  Maybe... I can bundle it, as it were, alongside something else? Like, all-purpose 'utility' art that's not just about changing faces and growing bones, but also about everything else... utility-wise.

  Yeah. Isn't that actually kind of brilliant? Ho ho, maybe my genius didn't evaporate at the tender age of 12 like my mother said, which just so happened to coincide with me finally standing up for myself once or twice.

  Alright, distant trauma aside, I still have to decide what utilities I want and how to actually order them. Sort of wrap them into separate forms, which would effectively mean having a few separate arts rolled up into one, so I'd be able to give individual pieces when need be, or just bulk it all together into one thick tome and hope for the best.

  So, face changing and body mending are both necessary. Maybe even voice altering as well.

  Passive 'calming' art that would slowly erode whatever demons they may develop in their hearts.

  Oh! Also a nice little bump to cultivation speed and art comprehension.

  Maybe also a utility to see through the illusions? Whether illusions made by arrays and formations or even those cast quickly through special arts and methods.

  Ability to walk on water or maybe even breathe underneath it?

  Something like 'treasure alert' when in proximity to artifacts? No, no, I don't need that--I already have Long Tao.

  A mini cloaking utility that just slightly strengthens the cultivators' own ability to hold breath and hide.

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  Maybe an 'alarm' of sorts that would trigger when asleep if somebody attacks?

  Also an ability to detect whether an item is a treasure or not? So, like an analyzer?

  Could I also add the ability to spot Demonic Qi? No, wouldn't that expose Light?

  ... does she even have Demonic Qi anymore? I honestly haven't checked since I took her to the Antechamber, but if I wanted to check now, I'd have to get up and go out and find her, as she's, technically, not my disciple, so I can't access her window any time I'd like, and I'm feeling just a tad bit too lazy for that at the moment. It can wait. Besides, Long Tao and Hua can probably already do it, and creating overlapping abilities is kind of a waste of points.

  I also caught myself a bit--there's that saying that goes something like 'He who is everywhere is nowhere'. While it would be rather amazing to have this one-in-all art that covers every deficiency under the sky, I have this sneaking suspicion that the system won't be nearly as accommodating to my desires.

  It could be my pessimism speaking, though it's probably the experiences up to this point that have proven that while the system is a cheat, no doubt, it's also a cheap cheat, if that makes sense.

  Anyway, I should probably hone in on a few things and polish them in bulk rather than trying to cast my net across the entire freakin' Atlantic. That begged the question, though: which things to focus on?

  I perused the fine sections of the massive window, tinkering; I wasn't as overwhelmed as I used to be, but it's still a rather mountainous thing to open it up and see tens of thousands of choices waiting to be arranged in just the right way.

  There's also another thing I noticed while previously tinkering--there are 'bonuses' that occur when perfect options are aligned. They're not the obvious ones either, such as picking everything with a 'Sword' in its name and seeing what happens, but more so options that starkly reconfigure other aspects of the method.

  For instance, while trying to figure out a cultivation method that I'll eventually create for myself and the more 'steady' stream of disciples, I discovered that if I choose the 'Profound' internal logic cohesion, add a trace infusion of 'Fate', 'Bolstering' breakthrough assistance, and resistance to inner demons, and finish it off with a major Insight Boost, it creates a sort of 'tertiary' effect where there's a small but not insignificant chance that, upon breakthrough, I'd skip immediately to the peak of the realm I'm breaking into while also mastering a random one of my arts to the appropriate comprehension levels.

  Now, granted, those things alone added up to around 2,000 Creation Points, but it gave me the idea for the distant future.

  Okay, okay, enough with the distant future--the present is here, it's now, and it's demanding I figure something out, and I figure it out fast. Fifteen days. In just half a month, we'll probably have to skip.

  Thanks to a few breakthroughs in understanding of the arts I've made, I sat on 920 Creation Points. While I could wait for the extra 80, I don't think it'll actually make that much of a difference. But... we'll see.

  So, I sat back up on my bed and took a deep breath, resetting the choices and going back to square one.

  The first thing I added, besides choosing the Special Art, was Growth--if I was going to empty my coffers on this, I would damn well future-proof it... except I was immediately reminded that it cost 500 points.

  So. Yeah.

  Get that thing off there.

  I can't spend half of the points on a 'potential' when I need the effects immediately.

  Specifically, I settled on face-changing and all that, seeing through illusions and becoming more resilient to those 'entrapment'-type arts, a slight enhancement to the natural ability to hide, and if there are any leftover points, the ability to not need oxygen for a slightly longer while.

  Will I have enough for everything? Honestly, I doubt it. If the art of face-changing is as 'mythological' as Long Tao implied, it'd be a miracle if I could even create just that with 'just' 1,000 points.

  But... I have to try, at least. So, let's get down. Down to the business of defeating--wow. I didn't use to be so easily distracted by the most random thought in the world... maybe I need to add a passive 'concentration' somewhere in there.

  Yeah.

  Like that'd help.