Omni-Mastery

"What do I have to do?"

"To put it out simply, you just have to climb up fast, and since you don't have to go through the exasperating process of rising up from an outer member status to a personal apprentice candidate status, skipping the admission to a normal division first and all the achievements you have to pile up to get noticed, it probably won't take long to get the actual personal apprentice status considering your talent."

For some reason, Wind seemed to be stressing too much on the point of me receiving the status of a personal apprentice candidate…

"...and how are personal apprentices usually chosen from those that reside in the central division?"

"It's actually quite simple, you just have to pile on achievements!"

'Eh…?'

Judging from the way Wind explained things just a second before, it was pretty obvious that getting enough achievements to become a candidate was already too much trouble, or at least it seemed to be a time consuming chore, so it wasn't hard to tell that getting enough achievement to ascend to the position of the personal apprentice itself was bound to be too much work…

"But there is a way to get these achievements much faster with the help of the token…?"

He did hint that the main point was using the token, so it was more probable that all he was explaining now was just to prove that point.

"Indeed! You catch up fast, the fastest way you can be approached by the sect master without any trouble is by challenging the 'Tower of Trial' and obtaining as many Tower Points as possible, only then would it make sense you could really receive the sect master's advice and become the favored candidate, or even ascend to the position itself directly."

'He sure likes to go around and around…'

Even though he already acknowledged my guess, Wind still didn't mention how the token could be of help, despite mentioning the fastest path to getting the chance to be guided by the sect master.

'This shouldn't be the same as the 'Trial Tower', right?'

Though the names seemed to be quite similar, this 'Tower of Trial' was likely to be a different thing, as the 'Trial Tower' was a place that could only be accessed once, so a place where you farm points didn't seem to match the same concept.

"Don't worry, I will be getting to the point now..." 

Even though I didn't even show impatience, Wind still tried to transition his explanation as if he knew his way of explaining wasn't ideal.

"Now, just like I said, to get these achievement points, you have to challenge the 'Tower of Trial', but to challenge it, you need to obtain a technique tome first, as the tower works to test your comprehension towards the tome… The point is, the amount of achievement points you could get from achieving mastery in one tome is limited even if you reach the highest level of mastery in it, and this is exactly where the token's role shines!"

"You mean that I should use my token to get more technique tomes in order to get as many achievement points as possible?"

If I were also only given the chance to pick one technique tome, then it made sense for me to be able to use my token to grab two more technique tomes, considering the rank of my token, which would generate more points for me according to Wind. This strategy did sound reasonable, but it wasn't like techniques were like cabbages that could be picked up and learned that easily, I may be a special case that could do that, but Wind shouldn't be aware of that.

In fact, advising a talented apprentice to practice several techniques at the same time was supposed to be considered as mis-guiding so that even made less sense.

'Is there an underlying meaning behind this or…?'

"Not exactly, basically since you count as a resident of the central division you get the perk of having free access to two technique tomes from any division, unlike the natural division apprentices who only get access to one tome from their exact division, getting two techniques would naturally give you more point collecting opportunities but that would be counter-intuitive instead, so like I said, if you use the token, learning these two techniques would prove beneficial instead!"

'I get two technique tomes just with my current status?'

I thought that ascending directly to my current status was the point of the perk as I wouldn't receive the benefits that came along with the position, but it seemed like I was wrong about it.

'Well, that's better for me anyway…'

At this point, I was already starting to consider my choices for which technique tomes would I retrieve using these two slots and even considering what I could get using the token, but I was still interested in what Wind had to say…

"If you use your token, then you could easily apply for 10 guiding sessions from any division head, not just simple guidance, but mental guidance sessions! If you were to split these chances on two techniques, it wouldn't be impossible for you to master them within two weeks of time or even less, then you would definitely qualify to become the favored candidate and achieve your target of meeting the sect master and receiving his guidance without much trouble!"

Wind's eyes looked at me with anticipation, it pretty much seemed like he was helping me as much as he could. There was a chance that he had hidden ulterior motives, or he could just be following certain orders, as for being simply nice, there was simply no chance for that to be his drive behind helping me contend against other potential personal apprentices.

"Of course, the choice is all yours, my suggestion to you is only a sign of my goodwill, just go to your assigned accommodation in the central division for now and get some rest to clear your mind before deciding on how to proceed…"