There is no point in not joining a Sect lol, you don't even get a sidegrade or anything to help, you just straight up lose out on upgrades, you miss out on 8192x attribute gain, 4x qi gain, -3 days for qi gathering, and 90% qi reduction, you would need to grind 320x longer just for the amount of qi you would earn in a second with sect upgrades, and that's taking too long. Also please make it progress while you're not tabbed in, thx.