As Atticus uncurled from his sleeping position, his body became larger and his scales elongated even further. The vibrant purple color became luminescent, a faint purple glow emitting from the snake's body as its eyes opened.
Atticus continued to grow in length until he was around three meters long, much too large to remain wrapped around William's shoulder anymore. The luminescent glow faded, but the vibrant purple scales remained.
-Your Companion Beast's Bloodline has greatly improved: +250 PP
-Atticus now has a pure Bloodline that can no longer be improved.
William wanted to test Atticus' new combat power, but there wasn't an opportunity since the Mythical Rat Snake seemed exhausted even though it had slept for four days straight. He decided to give it a bit more rest.
Speaking of rest, I should probably take a break from this Wind Dial project. I might turn into my Master if I keep staring at those Arrays...
William shuddered at the thought of becoming a white-haired midget that was obsessed with his experiments. Although, setting hundreds of traps sounded kinda fun...
Oh no, I'm already becoming like him! William did his best to take his mind off things by randomly scrolling through the System Panel.
"Hmm?" William's eyes blinked at a line of text near the bottom of his Status.
POTENTIAL POINTS: 22999
That number is going to bother me... William quickly created a ball of wood using Plant Element Mana, since he knew he hadn't used this before.
-Developed a new Magic Spell: +1 PP
-New Spell: Wood Ball
He gave the Spell a generic name since William didn't plan to use it further and was only pushing for the round number of 23000 Potential Points.
First thing's first, Atticus is overdue for an upgrade. System, do it.
--Upgrading Atticus--
Learned 5 new abilities.
Speed and Stealth massively improved.
Defensive abilities improved.
Intelligence greatly improved.
Illusion Domain unlocked.
Next rank up: 25000PP
Atticus' size increased again, stretching to ten meters in mere moments and nearly filling the entire room. His size would have crushed William to death if not for his quick reaction speed.
He was thankful that Flame Dragon Uri wasn't here, otherwise William truly would have died of suffocation! William didn't know where Uri was, but he assumed the dragon was also somewhere in this residence, considering he had also belonged to Riyald at one point in time.
He checked on Atticus' improvements, noticing that the snake's Cultivation had increased directly to the peak of the Golden Core Realm. Despite Atticus' Cultivation, William felt that it was even stronger than that, especially considering the aftereffects of the Tier 10 Blood Refinement Pill.
With his pure Bloodline, William guessed that Atticus was no weaker than a Nascent Soul Beast in the early stages and might even compare to the middle stages in some aspects.
There was still no Tribulation for Atticus, so William assumed the Mythical Rat Snake was immune, or the Illusion Element was providing assistance. If it was the latter, perhaps William wouldn't have to undergo a Heavenly Tribulation either when he attempted to break through. Thɪs chapter is updated by novel⸺fire.net
Illusion Domain? Now that's interesting... William wondered what kind of Domain a Legendary Element would have.
His own Illusion Affinity was a mere E Rank, so William didn't have a great understanding of the Element's abilities.
18 thousand Points left...not enough to upgrade Atticus again.
System, upgrade my Cultivation Talent.
Cultivation: (S --> SS)
Effects: Cultivation Speed +1200% >> +2200%
SS-Rank Bonus Effect: Can see through others' concealment techniques, revealing their Cultivation without fail.
Next rank up: 25000PP
-DETECTED SYSTEM UPGRADE--
--UPGRADING. PLEASE WAIT--
--UPGRADE SUCCESSFUL--
SYSTEM RANK: (D --> D+)
-8028 Extra Potential Points added to progression towards the next System Rankup.
Next rank up: 192972PP
*New features available
-Appraise Function: Host can now appraise the stats of items at no charge.
-System has reached version 1.9
-Epic Talents are more likely to appear.
I got a second bonus effect instead of replacing the first one, nice!
William looked at the System upgrade messages after evaluating the new effects of the Cultivation Talent.
Normally William didn't care too much about the System upgrades since they are only occasionally helpful, but those thoughts changed when he saw the new Appraise Function, which was essentially a free version of what he had already been doing.
If he had unlocked this during the trial tower, William would have saved a few thousand Potential Points!
He was at least thankful that he hadn't appraised the Abyssal Weapon Shifter yet, which previously would have cost him one thousand Potential Points to reveal its stats.
Almost fifty thousand Potential Points for the next System upgrade. Does that mean it will take a hundred thousand to reach C-Rank?
The System's requirements were quickly becoming immense, despite the fact that William had only been present in this world for around three months now.
There was still a long way to go before he reached the peak of the world, so he needed to find a more efficient way to earn Potential Points before his growth stagnated.
But how can I do that?
William put a lot of effort into this, but he didn't have a perfect solution.
The most reliable option would be to send his Companion Beasts out to farm Potential Points, but he currently only had Atticus. Flame Dragon Uri's kills wouldn't earn him any Potential Points, since he technically wasn't one of William's Companion Beasts.
William wouldn't be able to contract Flame Dragon Uri until his strength surpassed the dragon. Since Uri was in the Soul Refinement Realm, William still needed time to reach that level.
He could purchase Companion Eggs from the shop after the previous System Rankup, but that was limited to the Magical Beasts that had been added to his Bestiary.
If William wanted to gain more powerful Companions, he would need to explore the world first, not to mention that upgrading the Companion Beasts would be quite expensive.
There were too many downsides to using Companion Beasts to farm for Potential Points. According to the System, his Companion Beasts would not return once they died, so he would have to be incredibly careful when sending them out.
I'm too far away from this. The Potential Farms are probably my best method of earning points for now...
With this in mind, William spent a few hours learning new and useless Spells to earn another two thousand Potential Points.
In the process, William unlocked an upgrade to his Spell Master Title, sending it to Epic.
When he was done, ten thousand Potential Points went into upgrading one of his Potential Farms to D-Rank, which increased its passive earnings to 150 Points per day. The cost to rank-up to C-Rank also increased by ten times, now one hundred thousand Potential Points to upgrade.
Combined with the second Farm at E-Rank, William should be earning 165 Potential Points a day!
William wouldn't have committed to an upgrade if not for the fact that he was in a safe environment. Since he was now protected by a powerful Master, William could rest easy and passively earn Potential Points.
I may be safe now, but there's no telling when I'll get another chance . William thought seriously.
He couldn't remain under Riyald's protection forever, and even his Master said that there were plenty of enemies stronger than him. All it would take was time and a few angry Cultivators at the peak of the world to tear into the Gravitas Ruins.