After a long, steadying breath, Anthony collected himself — and opened his Soul Ability Tree.
Just as the chat group had indicated, a great many nodes along the 'Spirituality Path' branch were now lit up and available for unlocking.
Only... the moment he tapped one of those glowing orbs and checked the upgrade requirements, Anthony's face twisted into a mask of pure suffering.
Good news: unlocking the Spirituality Path didn't cost any Points.
Bad news: that was somehow worse than if it had.
After a quick scan of the available options, Anthony noticed that every single Spirituality Path upgrade followed more or less the same structure. First, there was a set of prerequisite 'Spirituality Application' abilities that had to be unlocked — every three such prerequisites corresponded to one distinct Spirituality Path. The variety of paths on offer could only be described as spectacularly bizarre.
Lich. Soul Warrior. Possessor. The aesthetic range was absolutely all over the place — you name it, it was probably in there. Three Spirituality Applications unlocked, and you'd have yourself a unique, fully realized path with its own flavor.
That part was actually manageable. For Anthony, the prerequisite abilities would cost him three thousand Points at most — painful, but doable.
No, the real killer was the other requirement.
Materials.
Anthony had never, in his wildest nightmares, imagined that materials would be the thing to stop him cold.
Every Spirituality Path upgrade demanded that he acquire a specific material corresponding to that path. 'Material' made it sound simple enough — until you actually looked at the rarity tiers of the things being asked for, at which point Anthony's scalp began to crawl.
The Lich path wanted a Soul Vessel. The Soul Warrior path demanded a Soul Weapon. The Possessor path required a flask of Possession Potion...
Where in the hell am I supposed to source any of this?
Sure enough — just like he'd suspected from the start. There was absolutely no way the chat group was going to hand him a Main Storyline Mission with zero difficulty. That had never been on the table.
After stewing over it for a good long while, Anthony finally shook himself out of it and forced his brain back into gear. Time to actually think through his options.
As aggravating as unlocking a Spirituality Path looked on the surface, it wasn't a completely hopeless situation. He was, after all, currently parked on the Primordial River with [The Angler] in his hands. If he was willing to grind himself half to death, he could probably scrounge up most of those materials eventually. That was just the reality of his toolkit.
Where there's a will, there's a way. It's just prison. I'll do the time.
Steeling himself, Anthony started scrolling through his Soul Ability Tree in earnest, searching carefully for a Spirituality Path that actually suited him.
He had a rough framework in his head already. Stats weren't the priority — what he needed was something that paid.
Because as long as he had Points, stats would never be a problem. He could always dump everything into Soul Solidification's Spirituality Applications later and max them all out. Worrying about his soul's numerical values felt almost quaint compared to the real issue.
The real issue was Points. Specifically, the catastrophic lack of them.
Once this Main Storyline Mission wrapped up, the next one would almost certainly involve resurrecting a second group member. And even for Yoriichi Tsugikuni — the cheapest resurrection currently on the table — they still needed fifty thousand Points.
Their entire group, from its founding to this very moment, had never cleared fifty thousand Points in total revenue. Not even close.
He couldn't seriously be expected to sit here and reel in five more Arrows just to scrape together Yoriichi's resurrection fee. That was insane.
Anthony had absolutely no interest in burning through his lifespan at that rate. Which meant — from every angle he looked at this — using a Spirituality Path to accelerate his income was not optional. It was necessary.
At minimum, he needed to be able to pull together fifty thousand Points before the next major mission hit. That was the baseline.
Beyond the money question, there was a second thing Anthony was watching for: synergy with [The Angler].
The fact that this unlock had demanded materials at all felt like a preview of things to come. Upgrades requiring rare physical components — that pattern was only going to appear more often going forward. Maybe even in the resurrection conditions themselves.
And when it came to sourcing rare materials, nothing in his arsenal came close to [The Angler]. Its complete disregard for timelines and uniqueness was simply too authoritative — as long as something had existed somewhere in a bonded world, he could theoretically fish it out of the Primordial River. Anthony genuinely could not imagine a faster acquisition method for rare items.
Two goals, then: income generation on one side, material acquisition support on the other.
Armed with those two criteria, Anthony searched for a good long while — and actually found something that matched his expectations.
[Spirituality Path · The Artificer]
[Overview: One who uses their soul as a furnace to forge all things, possessing the intent to craft and evolve matter in all its forms. Specializes in using their own soul to construct large-scale structures with wondrous effects, and equally excels at forging implements that augment soul-based abilities.]
[Effect: Unlocks the Spirituality Path · The Artificer ability tree, and grants the ability: Soul Forging.]
[Upgrade Requirements: Unlock Spirituality Applications: Soul Splitting, Soul Attachment, and Soul Flame — and offer up one implement bearing an Authority related to forging or derivation.]
The moment Anthony read the overview and effects, his eyes lit up instinctively.
There it is.
The exact Spirituality Path I was hoping for.
One glance was all it took: this was a craftsman-type path. And craftsmen, as a universal rule across every fictional universe Anthony had ever encountered, were the ones who printed money. Without exception.
And then that line at the end — forging implements that augment soul-based abilities — that was practically a neon sign flashing '[The Angler] synergy available here.' It might as well have been printed in bold.
But when he scrolled down to the upgrade requirements, Anthony's expression darkened.
As it turned out, making money sometimes required startup capital. Building something from nothing was apparently out of the question.
The first part of the requirements was fine — he already had Soul Splitting and Soul Attachment, which meant two of the three prerequisites were already checked off. But that second condition...
An implement bearing an Authority related to forging or derivation?
No minimum on the Authority's magnitude, sure — but it was still an Authority. A concept tied to the laws of reality. A rule-system-class artifact. At a single glance, this thing was absolutely, categorically not designed for someone starting from scratch with empty pockets.
Anthony inhaled deeply.
Then — almost immediately — something clicked.
Wait.
The Artificer might not look like a path for the penniless — but that's fine.
Because I'm a cheat character.
With that single mental pivot, the answer snapped into place with almost embarrassing speed. He had a pretty clear idea of where he could source both of those remaining requirements. And as for how to get them?
There happened to be a perfectly ready-made method available right now. And when it was done, it would sort out his development problem at the same time.
A complete one-stop-shop solution.
It's you. Decision made.
Without a moment's hesitation, Anthony pulled up the chat group and fired off a message.
[Lord of the White Holy Throne: @Wordsmith of the Great Yan — do you have a moment?]
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