Calculating My Way To Immortality

"So, what position do you want then? This is a cultivation sect, if you don't have a position..." Xueling began.

"I won't be part of the sect," Yu Tian said.

"You won't?" she asked. She then had a saddened expression. "Could it be... you want to leave?" she asked.

Her face fell. She thought it was understandable - she didn't have anything to give anymore. She had divided the resources, and he was already almost as strong as her. It was true that he didn't need her anymore.

"Leave? Not yet," Yu Tian thought. He still needed to rake in the profits from the sect to grow stronger. He was also eyeing the riches of the emperor now.

"I'm not leaving," he said with a sigh.

"Really?" She instantly brightened.

"Yeah, instead of being under the sect, I'll be your direct subordinate. At least in name," Yu Tian said.

She was deep in thought. "What's the point in that though?" she asked.

"When you gain enough influence to have your princess status reinstated, do you think the royal family will let you bring cultivators into the battle for the throne?"

Her eyes widened. That's right, cultivators were disliked by the royal family.

Well, not cultivators in general but those not under the banner of the empire. If Yu Tian had a position in the sect, even if the sect was her force, he would still be considered an outsider.

Since she needed his help to be able to fight for her position, she would have to take him in as her subordinate and not a member of her sect.

"You've thought quite far ahead. As expected of you," she said, getting up.

"You're leaving?" he asked.

"Yes, I'll handle the issue with the gangs," she said.

"Do you need my help?" he asked.

"No need," she said, placing her hand on her sword that hung on her hip.

She then wore a wicked smile. "They're just a bunch of brutes. I'm sure we can get to an understanding if I demonstrate enough sincerity," she said before flying away.

"Sincerity you say..." Yu Tian thought as he placed down his cup.

He rose from his position and stretched his body.

A book then appeared in his hand as he began walking. It was one of the books that he had gotten from the cultivation library. He thought to himself that he had pretty much understood everything he could at the moment.

As for the rest, he needed a really long time, or a higher mind realm to understand.

At the moment, he understood both runes and formations to the seventh grade.

The grades of secondary professions were hard to capture correctly as some had strange effects, but it generally went like this: ninth grade was the lowest and it corresponded to Foundation Establishment realm, eighth grade followed and corresponded to the Core Formation realm, after that was seventh grade which corresponded to the Golden Core realm.

This meant that with a seventh grade defensive formation, he should be able to hold off a Golden Core expert. There was also the issue with energy and all that, but he wasn't thinking about it at the moment.

He put the book away and walked to his room where he settled in a meditative posture.

He thought that at the moment, his biggest problem was money.

Although they had the treasures they had received, he needed to think about the future.

Although the sect was an investment, the money it devoured was too much and sometimes the profits would just return to running the sect. This made sense - the sect wasn't a business after all.

For a sect, profit was capable disciples.

…

He sighed, wondering if there was another way to make money on the side.

At first he thought of selling talismans, runes, or formations but he decided against it.

At times when there wasn't a war going on, these things would be hard to sell.

Well, they could sell, just not on the sort of large scale he wanted.

For talismans, it might be possible to sell so he put it on the side.

Although he was learning runesmithing, he was able to make talismans as it was just a simplified form of runesmithing.

As he was thinking of another product apart from talismans, he came across something he thought might work.

It was pills.

He could already refine pills even to the seventh grade thanks to the pill refining method he had gotten in the black forest. Although the number of recipes he had were few, it didn't matter as he could make the most used pills - healing pills.

There was no such thing as too many healing pills so they would definitely sell even when it wasn't times of war.

Also, if the news that there was a seventh grade alchemist in the sect spread, it could bring even more business to him as well as create some good connections for Xueling and the Snow Heaven Sect.

If used correctly, this could help Xueling regain her position much quicker.

He smiled. When sects eventually came to him for pill refining, they would hand him the recipes of the pills they wanted, contributing to his learning.

And with his calculation ability, he should be able to avoid needing multiple sets of ingredients.

People coming for pill refining generally carried three to five sets of ingredients in case of failure as alchemy had quite low success rates. But for him, he could avoid this. Generally, all non-used ingredients belonged to the alchemist so this could be another source of income.

Yu Tian nodded. Pill refining was indeed the way to go.

He would talk to Xueling about this later and they would spread information to other sects about this.

He wondered if he should make some sets of pills to send to the other sects as a form of paying respects as a newly formed sect.

He nodded. Yes, that was a good plan. It could both create friends and also show off their products. The friends would eventually evolve into customers.

Since Xueling was away, he decided to get started with this...