Family, territory, and land were the main sources of Mall points.
The points one could earn each day were meager. Every Level 7 Warrior provided Carl with 1 point per day, while those below Level 7 provided far fewer.
A Level 3 Warrior could provide 0.01 points a day. There were roughly twenty thousand Level 3 Warriors in Spark Town, and they formed the backbone of its various groups. The Security Team, for instance, required its members to be at least Level 3 Warriors. Most were veterans from the battlefield, while a few were talented young men and women.
The Security Team also had other departments, such as those responsible for patrols, handling residents' daily affairs, and armed groups that cleared out scattered magical beasts around town.
These people were the foundation of the town and the key to Carl earning points. Above Level 3, Level 4 Warriors generally served as captains or other minor leaders. Each could provide 0.03 points a day, and there were only a little over a thousand of them in Spark Town.
Level 5 and Level 6 Warriors were even rarer.
After all, once people in Carl's town reached Level 3, they received more than generous benefits. Naturally, far fewer would still be willing to devote themselves to hard cultivation under such conditions.
Level 6 was the limit for mortals. Anyone who reached that level was one in ten thousand. It was precisely their scarcity that made Level 7 Warriors so valuable.
A Level 7 Warrior could earn a noble title even in the kingdom, and was more than qualified to become a minor noble.
The captain of Spark Town's Security Team, for example, was a Level 7 Warrior.
The title might sound like nothing more than captain of the Security Team, but within all of Spark Town, his status ranked among the top five. This was a large town with a population of several hundred thousand; by the bureaucratic standards of Carl's previous life, the man would likely rank no lower than third or fourth in a county.
Even in Spark Town, only a few Level 7 Warriors from the Taros Family ranked above the captain—and that was because of their lordly bloodline. In terms of actual responsibilities, his position was probably second only to Lin Taros.
Carl had set Level 3 as the requirement for enjoying the town's generous benefits in order to maximize the points he earned.
After all, a six-year-old who trained hard for twenty years could generally become a Level 3 Warrior. Reaching the next level might take another thirty or forty years, yet it would provide only twice as many points as a Level 3 Warrior. Setting the threshold too high simply wasn't worth it for Carl.
He could earn around three hundred points a day, which was a mere drop in the bucket compared to the million-plus points needed for Elemental Power. Still, he could make up the difference over time.
But although he earned few points each day, he also had daily expenses.
For instance, he had paused his daily AFK training after reaching the limit of the 2% cultivation boost he received each day. Aside from that, boosting the cultivation of family members also cost points. The same went for providing cultivation boosts to the residents of his territory.
Carl was quite selective about who received them. He chose either those who already had good talent—after all, Level 6 was the mortal limit, but that didn't mean everyone could reach it—
or residents with promising potential, whom Carl readily granted temporary cultivation boosts. In addition, he provided comprehensive cultivation boosts to every Level 6 Warrior in his territory, hoping to help at least one of them break through to Level 7.
A Level 7 Warrior earned 1 point per day, and could live for two or three hundred years. For Carl, the investment would eventually pay for itself.
Besides cultivation boosts, points were also needed to reduce illness in his territory, ensure good weather, and increase yields.
In truth, Carl could save very little. On average, he had barely over a hundred points left each day.
At that rate, it would take him more than twenty years to afford the Elemental Power that cost over a million points.
Without a good living environment, Spark Town's population couldn't grow to nearly a million. Without enough people, the number of Level 3 Warriors would drop sharply, and Carl would end up earning fewer points.
"It won't be much longer."
Looking at his points as they crept toward a million, Carl had already begun considering what to pursue in his future cultivation.
He knew his talent was poor. Without his Golden Finger, he had no chance of ever breaking through to Level 7 in his lifetime. So he had given up on cultivating for himself more than a century ago.
His usual cultivation relied mainly on the AFK System to improve his Battle Qi, while he practiced Battle Techniques on his own. But after reaching the Saint Realm, one had to cultivate the Laws as well as accumulate Battle Qi.
With his knowledge of the Coiling Dragon Universe, Carl knew that the complete Laws belonged to the realm of Paragons. Only High-level Gods could use even a fraction of them.
Those few rudimentary applications were given the grand name of Mysteries. In truth, they were simply fragments of the complete power, divided up so that people who hadn't reached a high enough level could understand them.
Cultivation in the Saint Realm meant comprehending the Elemental Power of the world and using it to form Mysteries.
"Cultivation's going to get even harder from here on out."
Carl understood his place in the world. He was just an ordinary human with immense power: he could use it, but lacked the ability to study it in depth. That was why having a territory was indispensable.
"But there are seven Elemental Laws and four Rule Powers. Which path should I choose?"
If he had even a little talent, Carl would certainly try to comprehend multiple kinds of Elemental Power and eventually become a God-level powerhouse with mastery over several elements. But in reality, he was an idiot. Without his Golden Finger, he was nothing.
What's more, in the Coiling Dragon Universe, the elements were completely distinct. Wind was wind, and water was water. Unless one underwent Soul Mutation, different elements couldn't be fused.
This was a kind of fairness for those lacking talent. After all, becoming a god with an additional element only gave one any real advantage in the form of another life.
Yet even for an eternal God-level powerhouse, resources were limited. Even with multiple Divine Clones, one could only afford to cultivate a single strongest Divine Clone.
Once that strongest Divine Clone was lost, one's status would plummet, leaving no chance even to take revenge.
"So what I really need is a single, powerful Elemental Power."
Fortunately, after becoming a Level 9 Warrior, Carl's memory had improved dramatically. Events from more than two hundred years ago felt like yesterday.
Of the eleven kinds of Laws, some were strong and some weak. Some were well-rounded but had no single area in which they excelled, while others had one Elemental Power that reached its peak but were lacking in certain other respects.
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