Now that he was copying Grand Daos and making two copies each, the dynamics of profit and loss had changed. Not only had the input reduced, but the cost of output had also changed, requiring him to make a few changes to their arrangement.
A Grand Dao needed 9.9 million years of lifespan to make, not 13.1 million years. It needed at least 5 million for the incomplete Supreme Metac and 4.9 million to solidify it. So when he devoured a Grand Dao, he always extracted 9.9 million years of lifespan from it.
But if he were to make two copies, which would cost 5 million years of his lifespan each, it would cost a total of 10 million years to produce them. Clearly, he was spending more than he gained from devouring the Supreme Metac, so he deserved compensation of some kind.
