Rachel frowned and knocked on the barrier. Even though she was the sect leader, she couldn’t violate the privacy of a disciple. She couldn’t break any rule unless she had the consent of over half the ancestors in the sect. Of course, there was an easy loophole that she thought about employing a few times—killing off all the ancestors except for one—but then she would think about how weak the sect would be after that, so she never did it. “Vremya, the competition is starting soon.”

“I’m not going.”

Rachel’s brow furrowed. “You aren’t going? Why?”

“Cultivating is more important.”

Rachel’s expression darkened. Was this child a moron despite being a cultivating genius? “The monthly allotment for a newcomer is ten spirit stones a month. The allotment for an outer disciple is twenty spirit stones a month. If you become an outer disciple, you’ll cultivate two times faster.”

“A newcomer’s chores take an hour at most a day. Outer disciples are treated like slaves by the elders to help them with alchemy, forging, formation creation, and mining. Their hours extend from nine in the morning to five in the afternoon. If I become an outer disciple, I’ll lose thirty-five hours of cultivation time a week. That totals to one hundred forty hours. For me, ten spirit stones are equivalent to five hours of cultivation; with the additional ten spirit stones a month, I’ll gain five hours, but I still lose a total of one hundred thirty-five hours of cultivation a month. There are seven hundred twenty hours in a month. In conclusion, if I become an outer disciple, I’ll cultivate close to twenty percent slower than I am now.”

After being bombarded by Kid Vremya’s explanation, Rachel felt like the moron instead. However, there was something clearly wrong in the child’s explanation! “What do you mean ten spirit stones is equivalent to five hours of cultivation for you?” For a qi-condensation cultivator, consuming a spirit stone to cultivate was equivalent to cultivating for a whole day! “Are you sure you’re not eating the spirit stones instead of absorbing them?”

“I don’t even eat food; do you really think I’d eat a rock? Isn’t it clear what I’m saying? Half an hour of cultivation for me is equivalent to one day of cultivating for anyone else.”

Rachel’s eye twitched. If that really were the case, then it did make a lot more sense for Kid Vremya to stay as a newcomer instead of advancing. If he became an inner disciple, receiving a hundred spirit stones a month, he’d still cultivate at a slower rate than now because of the increased responsibilities. “So, what? You’re going to let yourself be kicked out of the sect after you turn ten?”

“The vassal sects’ environments aren’t as good as this one. Even if it slows my cultivation down, I’ll become an outer disciple.”

Rachel placed a hand on her head. Newcomers were supposed to strive towards becoming an outer disciple. A scenario like this had never happened before. Even if there were times when talented people could cultivate faster like Kid Vremya, those people were always taken in to be personal disciples of elders, but this brat refused to be taught by anyone! After thinking about it, Rachel decided the best course of action was to do nothing. If the system worked for every disciple but one, why should she change it?

[That’s not thinking inclusively at all! Just because a problem only affects a small minority doesn’t mean it isn’t a problem.]

Rachels’ expression darkened. Then was it fair to change the system for everyone else for the sake of one person? Perhaps that person just didn’t belong within this system in the first place! That’s right. There wasn’t anything wrong with how she currently ran the sect. It had been working fine ever since the founders of the system had created it. It was Kid Vremya that was the problem. If she removed him, then the system would once again be fair and just.

[Forget I said anything.]

“How about this,” Rachel said. “When you reach the foundation-establishment stage, I’ll assign you an easy job at a desk where you can cultivate around the clock.”

“That sounds great. In ninety-five years, I’ll accept it.”

“That’s good. See you in … ninety-five years!?” Rachel slammed her fist on the translucent barrier blocking the entrance to Kid Vremya’s cave. “You’re an existence beyond genius! What do you mean it’s going to take you ninety-five years to establish your foundation!?” Rachel seriously considered calling for a vote to break the sect rules. Was this brat messing with her? If it took him a whole mortal lifetime to become a foundation-establishment expert, then everyone else in the world should give up on cultivation.

“What do you mean what do you mean?”

Rachel ground her teeth. “At the rate you’re going, you should breakthrough by the age of ten! By the time you’re twenty, you should develop a golden core. When you’re forty, you’ll be the youngest nascent-soul expert in existence!”

“Why would I do that?”

“Why? I’ll show you why!” Rachel drew her sword and slashed it against the barrier. Thankfully for Kid Vremya, the barrier held. “Children shouldn’t ask so many questions! They should just obediently listen to their elders!”

“I think there’s something wrong with your understanding of cultivation.”

Rachel’s eye twitched, and she took in a deep breath.

“It isn’t a race. Why rush?”

Why rush? Rachel opened her mouth but stopped herself from speaking. Yes, why rush? The sect was peaceful, and she basically guaranteed his safety by making sure there wasn’t any oppression going on. Before she could formulate a proper response, Kid Vremya’s voice came through the cave entrance again.

“Imagine you’re a scholar taking an important exam. If you fail, you die. You’re given ten hours to complete the exam. Would you turn in your exam after an hour instead of checking your work, making sure it’s as perfect as possible? You wouldn’t, so I don’t understand why you would do the same in cultivation. You’re given a hundred years to establish a foundation. It’s stupid to not make use of all of your time.”

Rachel’s brow furrowed. “You, are you really a child?” Talking to Kid Vremya made her feel like she was being lectured by one of the ancestors.

“Yes. I’m just an ordinary child, doing ordinary child things like cultivating. Don’t you have a competition to watch? You should probably go.”

***

Roger sat back in his chair with his feet extended onto his dashboard. He blew a pink bubble with the gum in his mouth. It popped, spreading to his cheeks, and he rolled his tongue around his mouth, slurping back all the gum. Flying a spaceship was boring, extremely, extremely boring. He didn’t have to do anything but be on constant alert. The autopilot did everything for him, but when it encountered the rare one-in-ten-thousand event that wasn’t recorded in its code, he had to take over and manually maneuver the ship. He couldn’t even cultivate properly, not within the depths of space. There was no spiritual energy there, and if he used up the spirit stones within the ship, what would power it through the empty void?

[Ahoy!]

Roger flinched and fell out of his seat. In the depths of space, he couldn’t contact anyone—which was a bummer—so how did someone manage to text him? He squinted and frowned upon realizing the line of text wasn’t coming from his augmented-reality contact lenses. The letters were actually freely floating in his vision. Was it a virus? He climbed back onto his seat and frowned.

[Have you ever heard of potato chips?]

Heard of potato chips? “Obviously.” Who hadn’t heard of potato chips? Wait, no, why was he answer the random vision? Perhaps he was hallucinating after spending so long out in space. Schizophrenia? That was a disease that randomly cropped up later in life. Could he have developed it? But that was impossible. Cultivators never got sick.

[New Mission: Spread the Love]

[Can you believe that there are some unexplored regions in the universe where the natives have never heard of potato chips? They’re still living in ancient times, unaware of the vast empires spreading through space. Go, teach them the joy of potato chips! Relative to you, their coordinates are x:3649767215, y:577263137, z:58364512877538926.]

[Reward: Karta’s Special Chips]

Roger furrowed his brow. He sat upright and punched the coordinates into his dashboard. At his current speed, it would take him five hundred years to reach the location given to him by … whatever it was that was communicating with him. As an explorer for an intergalactic civilization, it was his job to randomly float around space and see if he could encounter anything interesting. These coordinates, surely, they fell under his job description, no? Well, it’d take five hundred years to get there.