He’ll spend like a hundred thousand years of system time mastering his techniques and be at the middle level of the first realm of qi condensation despite the only known one who reached a decent level of the technique being late foundation establishment. That person didn’t even have it mastered nearly to the level the MC did. Also around ch 70-80 he decides to cultivate and master a technique that requires him to stay a virg*n but makes him extra h**ny.

MC keeps finding out about groups of wandering cultivators going to a secret realm. The MC loads up on hidden cards fearing betrayal, and of course it happens... and he kills them all in self defense. Well really he usually just kills who ever is left after they turn on each other after using each other to get to whatever treasure. Not that I mind as he really is cautious (for a cultivation story at least). It just feels a little silly that EVERYONE is a s*um bag.

The Sect leader seems to have been spying on him with some mirror/artifact so she knows some of his secrets. Which explains why she begins to favor him subtlety over time. Though she probably doesn't understand the how of his powers, she's become a backer allowing him to do what he wants.

There almost certainly will be no romance in this story though. One shopkeeper has hit on him multiple times and he deflects it. One of his sisters from the sect literally asked to be his dao companion and he talked her into agreeing that romance was just a huge landmine in cultivation. Which was actually kinda funny how far he took it. Worrying about how his great-grand children might offend some bigshot, etc. Oh, and the grandma of the girl he is raising greenlit him taking her as a wife but he refused that. His best bro got betrayed by his companion... so yeah. The author has given plenty of examples of why our MC isn't going to fall in love.

But then originally the MC never wanted to go outside the sect too. Not until he really started to get some strength and realized he'd need resources that his little sect could never offer him. So it's not impossible this is all a bunch of red herring on the romance. Maybe the twist will be that he finds his soulmate that is just as cautious as him? Then they'll work together to rob.. I mean defend themselves from rogue cultivators.