"I have something to deal with. I’ll contact you later," Yaoguang said hurriedly and quickly left.

Seeing that he truly seemed to have matters to attend to, Zhao He did not stop him. The current Yaoguang, especially after demonstrating his formidable command and coordination abilities, already carried more weight than Zhao He, the hall master of the Warfare Hall.

The higher-ups had already met several times over how to arrange his future. Some believed he should continue along the path of artifact refinement and become an artifact-refinement grandmaster as soon as possible. Others felt that, given his talents, sending him to the front lines to coordinate overall combat operations would be far better than confining him to the role of an artifact-refinement grandmaster.

The two sides remained locked in a stalemate. Yet no matter which arrangement was ultimately chosen, the treatment Yaoguang would receive would undoubtedly place him on the same level as important figures like Zhao Siliang and Xu Qiexing.

***

As soon as Yaoguang got into the vehicle, he said to Lei Yun, who had taken over the driving duty, "Head back. Drive steadily. I’ll close my eyes and nurture my psyche for a bit."

"Alright," Lei Yun replied.

The vehicle soon started up and, under the protection of two other cars carrying Qin Yi and the others, drove away from the Fallen Heroes Hall.

"It’s neither Qi Refiner nor Alchemist..." Yaoguang’s expression turned somewhat complicated.

All the hours spent studying techniques and books on alchemy and qi refinement had seemingly been wasted. However, he could still understand the reason behind the new branch. After all, during this recent period, his true efforts and focus had been on things other than alchemy and qi refinement.

Array Caster, huh? Yaoguang silently repeated the words in his heart.

The sixth branch was pointing unmistakably toward the path of Array Caster. Since it had come, he might as well accept it.

"Although it isn’t the Alchemist branch I wanted most, nor the Qi Refiner branch I was eager to unlock, if used well, its effects wouldn’t be inferior," Yaoguang said to himself.

He recalled Zi Qiangwei’s evaluation of the spirit artifacts he had refined. The reason his spirit artifacts had not fully reached the level of fourth-generation spirit artifacts was, on one hand, due to his cultivation being insufficient at the time, and on the other, because his understanding of array arts had been far too shallow. Now, if he raised his array art proficiency, he might be able to refine fourth-generation spirit artifacts, or even fifth-generation spirit artifacts that had yet to appear in the modern world.

There goes my plan to max out the Refiner and Psyche Dao branches to unlock more 'talents'. Yaoguang felt a tinge of regret.

The sudden strike from the Infinite Star Palace’s Sky Patrol Warship had completely disrupted his calculations. If he had been able to complete the Golden Temple’s order of 3600 flying swords, he would not only have pushed the Refiner branch beyond the grandmaster tier, but also pushed the Psyche Dao branch to the Dharma Form tier.

Yet, the Infinite Star Palace’s reaction had caused the already unstable Golden Temple elders to fear being dragged down as collateral damage, prompting them to prioritize self-preservation.

As a result, his Refiner branch had only reached 81% progress of the grandmaster tier. The remaining Psyche Dao branch had merely been pushed to 52% of the Primordial Psyche Realm. After all, he had only completed half of the Golden Temple’s orders.

As for the Golden Temple’s breach of contract, he had little grounds to complain. It was like running a shop and suddenly getting into a fight with another group. Customers would naturally flee in a hurry to avoid trouble.

In this world, even if one wanted to conduct business honestly, without sufficient strength to safeguard the profits gained, others would inevitably come to seize them by force.

Array Caster... Yaoguang glanced at the other branches on the ancient tree.

The Refiner, Psyche Dao, and Martial Dao branches all needed improvement. Now, with the Array Caster branch added on top of that... The gap had suddenly become enormous.

Especially as his cultivation rose and his status within the Nine Cauldrons Sect continued to climb, the manpower cost of gaining experience through the Merchant branch had steadily increased. With things as they were, trying to max out a single profession consumed several times more spirit stones than before.

Though... If I consider the current predicament of the Nine Cauldrons Sect, an array caster might be the most suitable profession. Yaoguang thought.

Advancing from star lord to star god required an ocean of resources. Unless he was willing to remain at that level for one or more decades to build his foundation, it would be impossible to rapidly advance without sufficient resources.

As for the Dharma Form... It was an auxiliary profession. Not only would it thrust him directly into the sight of the top-tier circles, but it also offered no real means of self-protection. Relying solely on a single Golden Core cultivator from the Nine Cauldrons Sect might not be enough to keep him safe.

By contrast, array casters were, aside from alchemists, the secondary profession most capable of enhancing a sect’s foundation. Defensive arrays, offensive arrays, and amplification arrays aside, there was also one type of array that was absolutely crucial: the spirit-gathering array.

How were spirit stones produced in the modern world? They were condensed through spirit-gathering arrays. Spiritual power was like dark energy, omnipresent, filling every corner of the world. Especially at spiritual power nodes, spiritual qi was far more concentrated.

With array casters developing spirit-gathering arrays, they could draw spiritual qi from the void and from spiritual power nodes, condensing it into spirit stones for cultivation and everyday consumption.

The Energy Department, which every major sect possessed, recruited cultivators who had trained their spiritual consciousness. These cultivators used their spiritual consciousness to control the arrays and condense spirit stones.

A sect’s efficiency in producing spirit stones depended on many factors. For example, the number of spiritual power nodes, the stability of those nodes, the number of cultivators who had trained spiritual consciousness, the level of the array casters, and so on.

Yet all of these issues could ultimately be reduced to a single core factor: the arrays laid down by array casters. If an array caster optimized the array’s extraction efficiency, they could draw spiritual qi directly from the void and free themselves from dependence on spiritual power nodes altogether.

Likewise, if an array caster could make the array easier to operate, the work of one hundred cultivators could rival that of a thousand. Furthermore, no matter how violent or unstable a spiritual power node was, as long as the array art was sufficiently refined, enough spiritual qi could still be extracted from it and condensed into spirit stones.

From this alone, the importance of array casters was evident. The Nine Cauldrons Sect was not proficient in array art and lacked any array caster of note, so it could only compensate by throwing manpower at the problem.

Yet even with nearly a hundred million workers in its Energy Hall, the Nine Cauldrons Sect’s annual spirit stone output was still only around fifty million, which was less than one spirit stone for every citizen.

Those 50 million spirit stones were also used to sustain the Golden Core cultivator, who alone consumed more than ten million. The daily consumption and cultivation of numerous great cultivators added another enormous expense, not to mention infrastructure construction.

As a result, even the most important department, the Warfare Hall, only received around 10 million spirit stones per year. The severe shortage of spirit stones forced the Nine Cauldrons Sect to set its sights on the spiritual power nodes of the East Sea and the Shiwan Mountains.

The East Sea's islands contained fourteen spiritual power nodes, while the Shiwan Mountains had as many as twenty-two. By reclaiming these two regions, the Nine Cauldrons Sect would significantly expand its sources of income, and its spirit stone output could likely rise to 80 million.

"Array art..." Yaoguang pondered.

In the modern world, the faction that owned the most spiritual power nodes was the Golden Temple. They possessed 311, yet even with that many, their spirit stone output was only around two hundred million.

By contrast, the Lunar Sect had only 71 spiritual power nodes, yet its spirit stone output was not much lower than that of the Golden Temple. Of course, when it came to spirit stone production, the highest was naturally the Infinite Star Palace.

The Infinite Star Palace alone controlled 246 spiritual power nodes, with a spirit stone output that reached an astonishing eight hundred million, accounting for 27.11% of Cangwu’s total spirit stone supply.

It was precisely because of this terrifying production capacity, combined with their business operations spread across the world and their continual profits, as well as resources plundered from other sects, that the Infinite Star Palace could sustain a double-digit Sky Patrol fleet and establish its unassailable reputation as the number one sect of the age.

"The array arts of this world are extremely advanced. Through array arts, not only can the climate be regulated to allow cities to develop smoothly and without suffering disasters, but the cultivation environment of an entire region can also be improved. Some arrays even provide significant assistance to cultivation itself. They may not compare to pills, but the range of effects of array arts is enormous..." Yaoguang said.

High-tier arrays were often regarded as national strategic assets.

"This can work." Yaoguang pondered. "I want to know whether the spirit stones condensed by spirit-gathering arrays count as profits. Or rather, if I help the Nine Cauldrons Sect set up spirit-gathering arrays everywhere and ensure that I occupy part of the returns, can that increase my Merchant experience?"

If it could, then his speed of earning spirit stones would effectively leap from doing business to printing money, rising to an entirely new tier. By then, even without flying sword orders to generate spirit stones, he would still be able to max out the Refiner, Psyche Dao, and Martial Dao branches extremely quickly.

With that thought, his gaze once again fell on the Refiner profession. At 81% progress, he could not only refine high-grade treasured-artifact-level flying swords, but even treasure-level flying swords with almost fourth-generation capabilities, which could be considered 3.5-generation. That was to say, when wielded by cultivators at the Primordial Psyche Realm, they could exert the power of fourth-generation flying swords.

"Sky Patrol Warships are powerful, but they are also massive targets. Once they invade another sect’s territory, even Golden Core cultivators will intervene. By contrast, clashes between small teams of cultivators leave Golden Core cultivators with no way to act... because it isn’t worth it."

For a Golden Core cultivator to wipe out a team of great cultivators required activating their Golden Core, consuming millions of spirit stones. When everything was calculated together, it would likely take profits in the tens of millions of spirit stones just to barely make it worthwhile. Not to mention that frequent action would affect a Golden Core cultivator’s condition.

Because of this, in the past century, there had been no reports of Golden Core cultivators personally dealing with small teams of great cultivators.

Therefore, if the Nine Cauldrons Sect’s sword cultivator teams could also be equipped with 3.5-generation flying swords and operate in team-based formations across various regions, the sect’s deterrence would unquestionably rise by several tiers.

"I’ll first use treasured artifacts to secure a certain level of returns from the Nine Cauldrons Sect, raise my array art proficiency, and once I can create and optimize better spirit-gathering arrays, I’ll comprehensively upgrade the spirit-gathering arrays at the sect’s 43 spiritual power nodes..." Yaoguang made his decision.

Information obtained through high-dimensional cognition had always been exceptionally comprehensive. If everything went smoothly, once all of the Nine Cauldrons Sect’s spirit-gathering arrays were optimized, even if spirit stone output did not directly reach the level of the Six Great Immortal Sects, at the very least, matching the array efficiency of the Lunar Sect and doubling the output of each spiritual power node would be well within reach.

With his plan set, the vehicle arrived at the Purple Firmament Institute. However, the moment Yaoguang stepped out of the car, Qin Yi had already approached him, his expression visibly surprised but also somewhat complex. "The Infinite Star Palace’s Sky Patrol Warship... is probably withdrawing from the East Sea."

"Hmm?" Yaoguang frowned. "What happened?"

"Just now, at the outer perimeter of the Infinite Star Palace, the Sun-Moon Peak spiritual power node, which was equipped with a level 7 spirit-gathering array and produced up to 10 million spirit stones annually, suffered a devastating strike from a great spell cultivator of the Quicksand Sect when its array art was shut down..." Qin Yi replied.

Qin Yi took a deep breath. "Sun-Moon Peak collapsed. The ultra-large energy facilities built on the mountain were destroyed, and more than a hundred thousand cultivators who had trained spiritual consciousness were killed."