I decided to just get all the relics, you inadvertently get a pretty large lump of imprints and techniques by relic farming but yeah once per life for 55 diff wilderness zones seems like a lot of short stopping of lives. Especially if the wilderness count expands as we go into Act II
For Core 3: I feel as though having 10-15 bands of cultivation is fine as an idea but the jump from core 2 to 3 to have that as a requirement does require the grind at the cave for a chunk of reincarnations. Should be a better way of earning initial affinity jumps so you only need to get like 4-5 bands worth of cultivation loops in.