Soul Formation

A few days have passed since Jacob refused the offer of Greg. Greg's team were the leading fish that he scared into the net. The truth was, that 3 star exo beast was not chasing Greg's team, but was running from Jacob. He forced them to run towards the secure base he made.

Yes, the base was something Jacob made after much deliberation. His original idea was to just make a base for himself so that he could store a ton of materials he collected. But then he realized that idea was stupid because he could always just carry everything by himself. Then he came up with a brilliant idea, to make other people willingly labor for him.

Now, he couldn't just capture a bunch of people and force them to hunt for him, so he developed the 'Secure Base A' idea. After a few weeks of problem solving, he worked out a couple base plans that he could build on the spot, all he needed to find were proper locations on Daliomon.

He spent a couple hours after drop scouting places, eventually setting on the plateau. He then modified one of his premade designs to fit the location, then spent around 20 hours building the base. The standard day cycle of Daliomon is 60 hours, with night and day being around 30 hours each.

Right as the sun was starting to set, he beat up a 3 star beast and made it escape from him towards another group of people, greg's group, that forced them to run towards the rope ladders, after they scrambled up, he killed the 3 star beast and took its core and stored its body. He then climbed up the ladder to follow the group.

There were some things that Jacob was not happy with in the base, as he did not have enough time, but he will slowly prefect the base over time using bounty hall missions that show up anonymously offering handsome rewards of points for people to build things around and outside the base, making it a more attractive place to come for people.

One thing that he was happy about were massive lights that he installed in the base, that made it a huge beacon of light during the night. Every morning there would be more and more groups coming to the base. Initially, groups were hesitant to exchange beast cores, only buying dormitories and some toiletries, so Jacob went and exchanged all the beast cores he had on him for points.

Many mocked him at first, but he 'Bought' many items that 'Helped' him defeat exo beasts. For 3 days, he would exchange more and more beast cores, giving the illusion that his strength grew from the stuff he bought. Eventually, more and more people exchanged beast cores for points, to get more and more convenience.

All Jacob had to do was sit back and wait as more and more beast cores were exchanged. All the beast cores go to him. He sat in a dormitory room, this room was different from the others, encompassing 6 rooms worth of space. It's furniture was magnitudes better than even the best room at the hotel Daliomon.

A couple large tvs sat on the walls, displaying the various livestream broadcasts, as well as countless people cursing him in Secure Base A. The camera drones had spotted him half-way through the base construction, so it was common knowledge to the viewers that he was scamming everyone.

The straw that broke the cameras back was the blatant advertising of his family's products. Every clothing item sold was from his father's company. Some busybody had pointed that out, much to Jacob's annoyance. They also cursed him whenever he acted to further people in exchanging the beast cores.

He ignored the comments, watching the streams. He sent out a couple bounty quests for items he saw from his drones and found useful. One thing he noticed was that if he set a bounty quest to find a certain herb, and there was a beast protecting the herb, the person or team would usually collect the herb and beast core, then turn in the beast core, seeing it as a bonus they found.

Slowly but surely, he was changing their mindset from 'Beast cores are needed to win the challenge' to 'Beast cores can be exchanged for points letting me spend them to get stronger' This led to more and more people using beast cores to exchange points to make bounty quest or to buy items in the shop or warehouse.

There were a handful of people who tried to steal stuff, but the defense mechanisms in the base can handle anything below star level 4. When Jacob was purchasing stuff for his base plans, he noticed a common trend. Any item that has a power level below star level four is rather cheap in cost, but items at star level 4 and above, their prices start increasing exponentially.

This has to do with the cultivation of humanity. Star level four is known as the first big bottleneck. The first three levels can easily be cultivated with enough time and resources. But star level four 'Kujah' or 'Soul Formation' requires talent and comprehension, not just resources. This star level stops the vast majority of people from progressing.

There are myriads of people who have made it star level four, but statistics show that the amount of people who can complete star level four, and breakthrough to star level 5 is less than 25%. Jacob's parents are a perfect example of this.

They had enough money to get to Soul Formation stage 1, opening the mind expanse, but they could not breakthrough the second stage, forming a soul image. Anything that does not have the power of a star level four is considered low level technology, and is considered cheap.

Otherwise Jacob would not have been able to buy the vast amount of items he did. Jacob hasn't been slacking off these days though, besides for going out to hunt and practice his techniques, he has been furthering his dantian refinement, breaking through to stage thirteen.

He noticed that the time he has to spend stabilizing his cultivation has increased more and more the higher he breaks through in dantian refinement. His pond has now turned into a small lake as the size increases. Besides for the increase in lake size, he hasn't found any noticeable changes in his dimension.

He closes the internet, then decides to take a nap, deciding to aim for some of the more unique spirit herbs tomorrow.